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Pannu Speaks
In a honest and frank interview with the Birmingham Mail, Peter Pannu has outlined what he needs to do with regards to keeping the club afloat and what is happening with respect to the takeover.
It’s not pleasant reading for Blues fans. As with his email to me, Pannu has confirmed that players will have to go in the January window to ensure that the club is kept afloat as he looks to sell the club. Whilst it might not be the fire sale some have envisaged it will make the second half of the season increasingly difficult as I understand that there will be no players coming in to replace them.
However, what is more intriguing is what the Acting Chairman has said about the takeover. Mr Pannu affirms that the Paladini offer wasn’t the £30million down that seems to have been banded around social media but a figure of £17mil as a down-payment – and even that was to be paid in installments rather than as one lump sum. Mr Pannu has a duty to the shareholders of BIH to get the best deal that he can for them and if what he says about the Hong Kong bidders being more likely to put up a larger cash deal up front then one can understand why he hasn’t really entertained the Paladini bid.
Furthermore, as opined on these pages, we don’t know who is backing Paladini. Mr Pannu seems to have the same reservations as he himself has stated in the second part of the interview that he doesn’t know who is behind Paladini – to use his words from the interview
“What’s the point of doing a deal with me and locking me at a price and eventually telling me the group consists of these six people and out of them two, for various reasons, I don’t like or perhaps I feel are not the suitable persons to take the club forward?
it would seem that Mr Pannu is taking his obligations to the fans seriously. Whilst I can appreciate that some fans just want the club sold now, regardless it’s also worth pointing to the large numbers of fans who criticise the previous board for selling to Carson Yeung without checking him out at all – especially after saying that they would only sell the club to someone who “would take it forwards”. With Mr Pannu flying back to HK this weekend it would appear that negotiations with the Italian consortium may well be dead now and it wouldn’t especially surprise me if they pulled completely out of the running in the near future.
What it comes down to is that the sale of the club isn’t anywhere near closer than it has been for a while and is now pretty much impossible to finalise before the end of the next transfer window. It’s worth noting that Mr Pannu has also spoken to the HKSE here and basically has reaffirmed that the sale isn’t close. People may feel he hasn’t answered any questions but I think on this occasion we have to take him at face value – until someone really does pull out the cheque book and gets down to business, the sale of the club isn’t going to any further forwards – and Blues will remain in limbo until it’s done.
Tags: Gianni Paladini, Peter Pannu, Takeover
108 Responses to “Pannu Speaks”
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Whatever else he’s said it’s unbelievably dumb to go on record saying you’ll be selling your best players. It’s a sure fire way to depress prices. Smacks more of a desperate move to push the sale through, or to shift the blame for the sale of players. Sad times.
It sounds very much like wants the club to be sold to ANYONE from Hong Komg and does not want to do a deal with Paladini at any price. As for selling players to stave off administration,that is really clutching at straws. If it fails ,we go in to admin.,get deducted 10 points,which would mean almost certain relegation. The value of the club would dive even further,he would be lucky to get £10 miillion for it. He needs to get some advice from someone, on how to run a football club. He has got us into this position,it’s no use him blaming others !
Interesting to read that PP is flying back before the next home game.
He’s set the scene nicely then convieniently disappears.
What a brave man he is!
I think it confirms what most of us suspected. Butland will be sold and they will try and off-load Ziggy if possible. PP reckons that if they get a £6m up-front fee that should keep us going for the remainder of the season, and if he can get Ziggy transfered as well, we should be ok.
The 4-5 players still earing ‘big’ bucks are more than likely Davies, Carr, Murphy and Fahey – all still from the ‘good’ old days.
If PP only ‘understands’ that Butland talks may be under-way, it more than likely shows he is not negotiating any transfers himself directly and will only make the decisions.
Again we should be very wary of GP’s bid and who is backing him, I just hope that this particular bid is withdrawn very soon.
Maybe CY is not the only one at BIH who is gonna make the call as to who Blues are sold to and behind the scenes one or two of the other stakeholders are flexing their clout.
All in all it is now obvious that CY and PP want out and we are gonna be in for a testing time until the end of the season and/or being sold.
Honest and frank?
hmmm….didn’t mention that the sale will also depend on his “brokers fee” did he?
Its what he doesn’t say that is more interesting….however he has now removed all hope and with that a huge amount of supporters will also be lost.
Time to give up…waste of everyone’s time. Without hope the futility of being a football fan is more apparent than ever.
No Batman sign either
The bald bastard!
Not very often I see eye to eye with Mr Thongs, but in spite of the sage and worthy commentary from others on this particular subject, I am inclined in this case to agree with his succinctly-put summary as stated above in respect to this matter.
you mention in your article about taking “P.P” at his face value regarding the clubs sale,,,,,,,could I enquire as to which face your refering,,,,,Blues fans have only seen two,,,,,,,do you know of more ?
Almajir, where does the sale money from all these players go ? Is it directly back into the club / Can that be proved ? I am thinking of e-mailing the proper authorities to ask them to take a look at this
Thong
It could go the other way and galvanize the missing thousands into considering that sooner or later we will see the back of CY and PP and that the team – whoever remains – need our support and backing, and that in adversity we may actually try and achieve something special.
Won’t see the HK boys at St Andrews no-more.
LOL
Yeah he fails to mention that actually, if BCFC go into administration, then Yeung et al won’t see a penny and Pannu won’t get a nice little brokers fee. Nothing to do with wanting to do the best for the club for the future.
If anyone honestly believes that PP was going to go around and start mentioning his fee/cut, then obviously they have never done any business before or do not understand its protocols. Also, if he were that simple and naive, CY would never have had him there in the first place.
Grow-up and get real for goodness’ sake.
Administration is now becoming the more favorable option as the days tick by, by the end of Jan with everything of any real value gone to keep the club a going concern(tongue in cheek) the administration car park will be looming large on the horizon
as we are not privy to all that is happening we can only guess (probably wrongly) at the moves being made. perhaps the paladini group could enlighten us about their issues. although the process is slow moving i am happy for it to be completed with no loose ends and for this reason i believe PP is right to demand more detail of the people with whom he is dealing.
pot, kettle etc
Talk is cheap as we ave found out.
Ultimately if Paladini or any other consortium offered 40m up front they would sell in an instant without trying to identify who is amongst the consortium whilst I appreciate pp finally talking to us I can help but feel he’d have been better to shut his mouth as tbh I don’t believe a word that comes out of it
PP has definitely reduced the price of Butland by a few million. Any man worth their salt never says they are desperate to sell anything…. idiotic.
As for the takeover he is right about his duty to get the best price, but only for him and Carson etc. All this bolloni about the fans or caring about the club. ha ha. Lets get it right, Administration would mean they would get nothing for the club and not get CY debts fully repaid.
He is only interested in who the Italians are so he can make sure he gets all his money from the future installments…. I think having a installment based structure to the fee is reasonable. Any price of a company is based projection of future profits. At present surely they can only predict future losses so the club is worth very little, if not NOTHING?
If they get promoted, profits increase and therefore it is reasonable for any consortium to pay PP more monies.
Getting BIH accounts published and open for everyone to see would help with any talkover (unless they raised more questions to answer). PP and the board can help themselves here.
Surely the best option is to hope that we can get a ten point cushion and then go into administration before the end of this season.By doing this we would stay in the championship and be able to dump any players that we can’t afford.The worst case scenario is that this happens and someone without the means to take us forward picks us up for a song.I am no expert on the Football league laws so if Im talking carp please correct me and accept my apologies!
PP wont let us go into Administration as he wants his money.
Administration will mean little money for the PP/CY etc.
Lets also get this right. The only people to blame for the mess we are in , PP/CY.
He signed Zigic, Davies etc on massive contracts with no relegation wage reduction.
There was no contingency plan in case we went down. Just massive mismanagement.
Gold/Sullivan always built relegation wage reductions into contracts.
Add to that fact that BIH was sucking money out of the club…… you get to where we are now.
As a matter of fact, Gold and Sullivan didn’t always negotiate relegation clauses into their contracts. Aside from Gold admitting he couldn’t enforce this as far back as 2006 as Blues prepared for relegation under Bruce, check the wage bill for the 2008-9 Championship season against the previous year – it actually went up, with players bought in on expensive Premier League wages to offset those sold. You might even argue that Gold and Sullivan’s gamble on getting us promoted straight away was down to their desire to offload the club at the first available opportunity – and the loss of that season (some £20m) was left with the club when it was sold.
This just highlights what a superb job Gold and Sully did at Birmingham City. Forget who they sold us to and the all too often friction with the fans but bloody hell did they run a tight ship.
Proper businessmen and I’d have them both and our Karen back in a heartbeat. God, we never knew how good we had it.
i maybe the only one to agree with you ! but yes they did do a good job financially and when carson
couldnt raise the cash at the first time of asking that rang the alarm bells with me.
Good job? After 17 years of ownership what was their legacy? To cut and run earning milions of pounds of profit? To leave the club with at best a very mediocre infrastructure? Even the new stands they built are already looking tired after less than 20 years. Please don’t tell me about a good job. They never ran the club for the benefit of the fans or to really see the club move forward. As soon as we got into the prem in 2002 the upped the prices by 50% at a time when they should have been putting in place a long term strategy to keep us up. So I suppose that was their strategy, i.e. short term greed!!!
Having just read Simon Jordon’s book about his time as Crystal Palace owner it makes interesting reading as a Blues fan, especially the final months when he finally went belly up and was fighting like mad to keep the club afloat and the wolves from the door. Nobody was interested in helping him out or trying to save the club but miraculously once they went into administration all of a sudden out of the woodwork came perspective purchasers willing to pay 10p in the £ to take the club off the administrator. Whether we like it or not we all have to face the reality that our destiny is no different to any other club and in all likelyhood we will go into administration the same as Crystal Palace, Leeds, Pompy and a whole raft of other clubs who also chased the dream. We will be docked points and may even dip into the third tier of football but at least we can start again without the baggage we are lugging around at present. We only need to look at Crystal Palace and how they are performing and how they have turned it around in such a short time to not be all gloom and doom! It may well be a tortuous path we are about to tred but when has being a Blues fan ever been easy?
Ps. The title of Jordan’s book is ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ I highly recommend it to all football fans. KRO
Please forward your book ….
FAO Messers Pannu & Yeung
St. Andrew’s Stadium
Birmingham
B9 4RL
Whilst I don’t want to see Butland sold, what PP has done here is very clever and should ensure we get the maximum possible fee for Butland.
In telling the world that he will be sold in January, what PP has done is to force every club with a serious interest in the player to step forward with a bid. We may now have Liverpool, Everton, Man City, Arsenal, Southampton at least expressing a willingness to do a deal. If he had kept quiet, we may have only got one club negotiating in secret, and been forced to take what they offer.
The possible scenario now is that four or five clubs compete and we get much closer to the figure we need to keep us going until the summer.
One positive as well is that in not mentioning anyone other than Butland and Zigic it’s quite possible that Butland will be the only squad member to leave in the window.
Small comfort, but comfort all the same.
I agree. I see no harm in it and I don’t believe it will devaule him. What PP has done is told the market place that a very valued and courted asset is up for auction. It’s now over to them to start the bidding and hopefully, as there will be so much demand, the price will increase in a bidding war which ultimately means more money for Blues.
If and when Butland is sold we are left with very little cover for Doyle in goal.
Apart from David Lucas and Nick Townsend, nah, no-one.
He did say 4 -5 other top earners he would hope be on less money, and lets hope he gets a bid for butland in first week of window, i can see other teams playing hardball over butland now pannu has revealed his hand, cus if third week of the window and no1 bidded for him then whats his plan to rely on sum1 pickin him up for peanuts on jan31st. Jan transfer window is known for not that many transfers and of all the team mentioned apart from southampton arnt really desperate for a keeper. So either i think Pannu is trying to play media mind games with the takeover groups, or he has jus basically sold butland for a basement price, he should of kept his mouth shut he has for this long why speak now, and if sum1 says for the fans u realkly are deluded.
well said swissjonny,now thats a plan
Not sure you’re right regarding the directors duties on a sale – the directors responsibilities defined by Corporations Law are undefined regarding a takeover.
If they were really serious they would have retained an investment bank to secure the ‘best’ option and go with that. I doubt Panu and his friends are qualified to run the sale of our club unassisted.
They are without doubt hot favorites for the title of the most incompetent , amateurish businessmen ever to grace HK.
Pay double the price , run it into the ground , then not to be even endowed with the slightest amount of business acumen to dispose of the asset while it still commands a nominal market value…..!!
If anybody WAS interested they are not now…….administration is a certainty…
Absolute disgrace
Has anyone considered that if Butland is sold for say £6m, then the club could use part of the proceeds to pay off Zigic on his current contract to get him off the wage bill. With 50k per week thus saved, the club could then consider engaging some more younger hungry players during the January transfer window.
No chance mate
he’s our only decent forward option at the moment… why would we want rid?? We need toscore goals to stay away from relegation dont we??
I accept that you would have to pay him off for less than what he would receive if he stays. You never know, Zigic might even then agree to staying on, on a new short term contract until the end of the season, if he likes the Club that much.
Paying up Zigic’s contract only works if you pay less than what he’ll receive if he stays. Otherwise you’re just letting him have his money early and then losing his contribution on the field too.
The plane is empty of fuel and there are no parachutes Oh and the undercarriage wont work.
Standby for a bumpy ride.
As I’ve said before, the difficulties the club are in is to a large extent down to the disparity in finances between the Premier League and Championship. The gulf is vast — a chasm. And if you get relegated you need to get your house in order. This is the big problem for all clubs like us in England at the moment.
What happens, say, if Stoke City get relegated in a couple of years. Don’t tell me it would be all plain sailing for them either. Luckily on both previous occasoins when we have got relegated from the Premiership we have bounced straight back. Now that we haven’t,it is just a case of trying whatever you can do to stay afloat financially. PP might not be perfect, but it’s the financial system that is laregely to blame. It’s easy to come on here and moan about him, but the fact is there is not an awful lot he can do.
What about Wolves… ? Financially it is all plain sailing there , sold there best players for inflated fees & used the parachute money to allow for a very soft financial landing..
In sharp contrast to the utter panic of the firesale witnessed at St Andrews , when relegated….
Sullivan & Gold also managed to pull off the trick twice……LUCKY…..?
No , just good sound business management of the situation….something sadly lacking at any time during the Yeung /Pannu era..
Almajir – you mentioned in your article that it might not be the “fire sale we envisaged”, but from reading the BM article it’s completely the opposite. PP has said that there are 4-5 players that are being paid too much and he’ll be looking at that situation. Meaning he’ll probably flog these 4-5 players. That is a fire sale.
PP has also said that depending on who we sell that Lee Clark will be allowed to bring in loans.
And I’m sorry, but I don’t believe PP when he says he wants to sell to the “right people”. He isn’t in a position to be that picky. He’s going to be selling Butland and others, does he honestly think he’ll get a good deal for the club now!?
You booin at Bolton this weekend Thongo?
No mate, 40 years on I’ve finally had enough. No more.booing, no more matches, season tickets in the bin. Wasted too much time, money and effort on our tinpot shambles of a club.
One final thought for this sites owner….have you tried contacting SMEG for their take on events?
Yup.
If I hear anything…
Try Scum Park mate you sound just like one of them
Where have our fans gone? Fill the ground every week and we wouldn’t have to sell players. Or can’t we face up to that truth.
Can’t wait for Bolton tomorrow. Any OPers going up?
I think the financial problems the club has won’t be solved by a few thousand extra ticket sales.
You are being very, very naive if you think that is the case.
Plus some of us do not have the money to hand over to the club to pay the inflated wages of players appallingly led and managed by the worst manager in the Championship.
You may also have noticed that the economy is going through a tiny little downturn at the moment that is affecting the amount of disposable income people have for things like football.
p.s. Your constant hyper-optimism is getting very irritating.
Worst Manager in the Championship?
Seen Wolves lately?
Blackburn Rovers?
Wolves are only 2 pts better off than us and they’re rolling in the cash from the sales of Fletcher etc etc.
Nottingham Forest ……
Yes and Blackburn sacked their useless manager. Maybe’s there’s a lesson there………
As for Solbakken, the guy won five league titles in Denmark so he can’t be a complete mug. I’d rather have him than Clark and Wolves are to be congratulated for showing a bit of vision by taking a chance on a foreign coach, something that contrasted starkly with Blues this summer.
Mambo… Yeah, you’re right, they sacked Berg. Have you seen his potential replacements? Shebby Singh, Kevin McDonald and some Bollywood actor.
As for Solbakken… you’re making excuses. A manager backed as heavily as he has been, who’s got the money he has and for what – a shockingly awful Wolves team barely above us with regards to points.
I forgot to mention Derek McInnes, in charge of the worst Bristol City side I’ve seen for a long time. I’m sure that there are others around us who’s manager are about the same level as Clark.
You don’t like LC. I get it. And you’re right, he’s not a great manager – I agree. However, and you have to see this for yourself, you’re biased against him because of your dislike and you’re blinded to it.
Paul – I’m a ST holder and go to all the home games. But I’ve said that I’m going to consider whether or not to review when we get to the summer. If we’re under the same regime, then my patience will be tested to the limit. But going on what I’ve read from PP, he seems to think/want that we’ll be sold by the time the summer is here. I take his comments as that because he said he wants to sell in Jan with a view to ‘buying time’ in order to sell the club. Selling players in January will only buy us time until the summer and then…well, I don’t want to think about if we’re not sold by then.
Paul would be happy watching his beloved Blues play garbage football in the conference league and expects everyone else to do likewise.
Art, as opposed to you, Paul is positive about the team, you whinge and moan, call Pannu all sorts on here and the Birmingham Mail. So you’ve emailed him a few times and he’s ignored you! Saying he’s financially raped the club is no way to induce a response is it! I prefer Pauls sort of support to yours!
Paul will be on the 10.31 from New St tomorrow taking his lifelong support and backing with him. Since I learned on this board today that a half empty ground has no effect on the clubs finances I feel I am fully empowered to make my way through all the Albion going up to Manc who will no doubt outnumber us 3-1.
I’ll never understand why anyone walks away, wants to walk away or talks about walking away. Whoever owns us is immaterial to me. This is my culture, my background, my passion. And guess what? We’ve had dodgy owners before. And guess what? We’ve been shite before. And guess what? We’ve always sold our best players. And guess what? The fans have disappeared before. All of us who carried on throughout all this helped to produce cup finals, european trips and the like.
Sometimes I think I’m on a filth site on here.
Yours irratatingly positively but supportively.
Paul
Easy Paul.
I can’t go tomorrow – I’d like to but family (and work) commitments mean that I can’t.
Give them a cheer for me.
Got to agree. I’m positive too. Even if we’re in the conference I’ll be down the Blues giving them my support. Perhaps is blind loyalty or even idiosy but it’s a way of life and a huge part of who I am. I wouldn’t be me without a partisan view of the Blues.
Sorry you feel this way-I did receive a reply to my Pannu email which mirrors yesterday’s press statement but unfortunately I still do not trust him to do what’s in the best interest of the club.
As for Paul -I genuinely applaud his loyalty to the club and I wish I could also watch the games live in my home town.We do however differ with our views on the future of the club as I feel we deserve better than what we are getting at the moment and will speak out accordingly.
Anyway a Very Happy New Year to You and Your Family and let’s hope the club has a better year.
If you remember Yeung and Pannu made an offer for the club and then disappeared for a year without a word – causing great instability. They then returned to get ripped off by Sullivan and co who sold it to them at a grossly inflated price – exposing their naivety.Pannu and Yeng then went crying to Sullivan to get their money back…..some chance. Pannu is not interested in selecting a buyer for the benefit of the club – his boss’ CV isn’t too sparkling is it, and he’s more than happy to be on his payroll.
DoctorD I’m afraid you are deluded if you think this mess is just due to relegation. Have you forgotten that our Chairman is sitting in a Chinese jail and that his assets have been frozen? Would you expect this of Stoke if they were relegated?
Carson isn’t sitting in a Chinese jail though is he?
Very upset about PP comments, he doesn’t care who he upsets, this is a point to the fans which we have all known for a long time.
Butland will be sold on the cheap because PP has publicly played his hand in owning up to being desperate for the cash or were in trouble, the only way we’ll get 4 or 6 mill for him is if a bidding war is started. At least we have Doyle to come in, Lucas as number 2 and The young lad Townsend as a possible back up. Some fans don’t rate Doyle but give the guy a chance and he’ll do we’ll. it will be interesting to see if Butland will play the next few games considering his cards are marked.
I just wonder if King is actually injured at the moment or is he another who will be sold off and is being left out so he doesn’t really get injured before a sale.
Whatever happens we will still be blue and will support the team, don’t forget Boo boys, even though none of us are happy with Clark at the moment most of the team are kids so back them even if things aren’t going well, they need the encouragement from the fans to have the confidence to play without fear.
Hopefully a win tomorrow, lets keep our fingers crossed and hope for a clean sheet to boost the back lines confidence.
Stephen – With regards to King he saw a Specialist and he was going to have an operation, but they decided to rest his knee and then assess whether he still needs an operation or not. I do think he’s genuinely injured. But most downbeat Blues fan will say any player that’s injured is automatically going to be sold. To me, that’s unfair. Plus, you’d not even get 500K for King, it’s hardly worth the sale.
I think we would get 500,000+ for King (if fit), remember we got around 750,000 for Barry Ferguson at a similar age, and in-form goalscorers are always in demand.
‘Not the suitable persons to take the club forward’?!! Perish the thought Blues might end up in the hands of anyone incompetent or financially corrupt. Apart from selling us to property developers to build houses on St Andrews how can it get any worse for us?
I am frankly astounded that Pannu has the neck to comment on anyone being fit and proper considering his boss is up on money laundering charges, at this point i thinkit would almost be preferable for the club to go bust just to get rid of Pannu and Co, instead we will see the club being asset stripped untill Pannu finds his Chinese buyers, thats assuming there is a club left, negative, definatly, sick of Pannu, you bet, its heart breaking to watch a muppet like Pannu and co gradually wreck our club becuase they were stupid enough to get ripped of when buying it
So if im a club whos interested in butland im going to wait till january 31st sometime in the evening and put in an offer that is a decent chunk below the asking price. As i now know that blues are desperate for the money. pannu might make 2 or3 or 4 million from the sale but what happens if that runs out in say march?? no more players can be sold we have one less goalie and end up back at square 1. Do BIH own any other businesses in the U.K does anyone know
Far to many people assume Yeung and Pannu were born with the blue blood us supporters have. Fact is, they haven’t, they are businessmen trying to protect there asset. These posts expecting Pannu to graft his arse off to then receive jack in payment are quite frankly insulting everyones intelligence. Football seems to turn heads a little bit funny. We have one bloke on here expecting someone like myself (wife,3 young kids) to think balls to the gas and electic, I’m going down St Andrews by myself to pay and watch players with obscene wages that couldn’t care less about the badge. Its OK, I’m a blues fan so I’m expected to get rimmed and enjoy it, then get home and get rimmed by my wife because I’ve spent all my wages. Then we’ve got others saying our owners should work for nothing. I take it all these people work for nothing also at there own places of work, otherwise I think the word hypocritical would become emdemic. Grow Up!
Getting rimmed by the wife, lucky you!
I am still at a total loss to understand how the club is struggling financially after bringing in £35m in transfer fees and the reduction in running costs that resulted with the disposal of virtually a squad of premier league earners. Beggars belief and probably explains why the accounts were not signed off by an internationally renowned auditor and are still being supressed. If released will they show what’s happened to the £35m?
Yes we have a very high earner in Zigic, and a handfull of senior players in high (ish) wages, but looking round some other Championship clubs, I’d wager that there are several with higher overheads (is player salaries) and running costs, so it is interesting that they do not have to sell to stay afloat but we do.
PP may have explained a few things, but he has yet to explian why the club is operating hand to mouth. We need answers to this, and a good start wiuld be releasing the audited accounts, which surely is the first step in attracting CREDIBLE buyers. Without these accounts, all we’ll attract are changers and/or buyers with mysterious backers. Surely PP should realize this.
Other Championship don’t have their main revenue stream frozen by a HK Court, that’s the major difference. If other owners in Championship had their owners assets frozen, then they’d be in a similar situation to us.
I beg to differ.BIH assets may be frozen, but income generated from gate receipts, TV money, merchadising, more recent player sales, not to mention parachute payments (something most other championship clubs do not have), are not frozen because they come (ir should come) directly to BCFC Ltd. I repeat, why are the BIH accounts being withheld. The only explanation I can think of is that there is something to hide.
According to Mr Pannu (and as published by me in his email response), he’s trying to get the overdue accounts issued by March.
This is the comment that makes me sit up and think from the interviewL
======
“I have rejected £6 million from Southampton [in the summer] but I rejected it when our finances were OK. As the time is ticking, I might not be able to reject it if I get something similar.”
======
So what, precisely, has changed since the summer that might suggest our finances are “not OK”? Gates are down a bit, sure, but the other only big drain on resources must be the wage bill. Hardly surprising that we need to be shot of the big earners. So to me PP is right to be thinking of getting rid of Zigic, but others on here are spot on: why on Earth did he put no relegation clause in his contract? Clearly PP gambled on us never going down with Zig on board.
I’m just absolutely astonished by PPs article on the sale of key players.
He’s actually told Zigic to showcase himself in order to get him off the payroll -this will put a few more thousand on the next home gate.
He’s a complete idiot.
You need to reign it in Art, you’re the one sounding a complete idiot! You slag off Pannu, you slag of Paul, and slag off anyone else that tries to stay positive in our days of adversity. I, for one, would rather have Pannu upsetting people like you by selling players than selling the club to the serial asset stripper and fantasist Paladini.
I don’t believe that PP came to the UK to have serious negotiations with Paladini, I reckon he was told by the board that he had to meet them and that is why he has come up with the nonsense that he has as to why he has stopped negotiations. For me the real reason he came was to negotiate the sale of JB and to tell Ziggy he HAS to go. Who else has the authority to sell players?
He came back for the office Christmas party and secret Santa!
“Like” Could do with light hearted comments like this now and then.
The most depressed i have ever been as a Blues fan since 1954. I do not want HK owners. They have demonstrated their different style of communication with fans, that is,none
unfortunately i cant get to the games on a saturday due to work. If butland is sold i ask all bluenoses to give colin doyle your total backing as he has been a very loyal servant to the club and saved a few memorable penalties in that time ie wolves,chelsea. Iam sure he will give his best. k.r.o.
I agree with you Eric!We just need to get as many points under our belt as possible and hope that we have a 10 point cushion at the end of the season.However sad that sounds it would be the best outcome we could hope for.I just hope that I’ll wake up one morning and a deal will have been done and the talking/discussion about PP/CY can finally end and OP can focus on the game on the pitch!!Tell me when it’s all over!!
Paul
I’m going tomorrow, really had enough of the behind the scenes saga, but there is nothing we can do, as we don’t own the club
.Staying away won’t solve anything if there is no one interested in buying us. Unless we all agree administration is the way forward. But I still love going, as long as we can compete and playing some good football and having a pint and some banter.
Hear hear mate.
And for any feckwit out there who thinks I’m aiming my comments at low income/unemployed/ex pats I’m not.
The many thousands who can afford to go but don’t and just constantly whinge on the net and in the pub shame on you. Bet you were at Wembley though.
Interestingly the moaners have left LC for a bit now results have picked up to start on Pannu. BOO! Cmon everybody. BOO!
hi Almajir, whilst yeung is not literally sitting in a Chinese jail YET, for this context he might as well be. His travel has been restricted by the courts and he has had his homes seized. I don’t think he is the FA epitomy of a “fit and proper” owner. It’s a bit strange therefore that this should be a major consideration for our friend Pannu who is the legal expert that Yeung hired as his right hand man – an interesting appointment given what we now know about Yeung and his “Hairdressing” empire.
The reality is that the club is worth what the market will pay. If that’s 17M then so be it. Personally i hope someone gets it cheaply allowing room to invest. In reality any incoming monies will only be used to mitigate yeung’s inevitable sentence – I won’t lose any sleep over that.
What a shame we ever heard of these people, terrible terrible owners
Where in his statement does Pannu say that he was going to sell Butland ? How many moaners on here have actually read the article properly ?
You are right. He does not categorically say he’s going to sell Butland, but he does imply that if a great offer is submitted he’ll be very likely sold. He mentioned a figure of £15m, which means he’ll probably settle for £10m with a down payment of £6m – a figure he also mentioned. my reading of it is that his priority is to offload Zigic.But can’t see this happening unless Ziggy agrees to take a pay cut, It would appear that Ziggy has been unwilling to do so in previous transfer windows, so will be interesting to see if he’s has a change of heart come January. Much as I like Ziggy, we really need to offload him to hopefully protect our young assets. Hopefully with Jervis back in the fold, losing Ziggy may not be such a blow.
Whatever Peter Pannu says and does as regards players like Butland, it is a big step backwards and Lee Clark should be applauded if he manages to keep Blues in the championship.
Much as I don’t want us to lose anyone i would much prefer it to be Butland as we have an adequate replacement in Doyle than Curtis Davies from whom we have no real replacement available. If we lose him we have back four of three players well into their 30s with no real pace, that is receipe for leaking even more goals and spells even more of a struggle to stay in the division.
On the finance side I agree with some previous posters in the view that regardless of the freeze on assets for our owner we should not be having to do this to keep our heads above water. We have received two sets of parachute payments , sold £35m of playing assets , had compensation for both McLeish and Hughton , had a European and FA cup run and cut most of the high wages bar about four players. Even with Zigic wages I can not see how with all of that lot we need to sell to survive at this stage. I never doubted the change of ownership would drag on beyond Jan as it was a chance with Butland and maybe Redmond/Davies for the owners to cream off yet more money before selling. I dont not buy the repeated claims that money is not flowing to Hong Kong from asset sales , if this is true then where is has all of the above money gone? , I have yet to see that explained by Pannu and place it on Zigic’s wages does not add up and is all very conveniant as an explanation.
What everyone forgets is that when we were relegated under gold & Sullivan twice they bankrolled promotion by paying prem wages for a season. All our problems are down to the owner having assets frozen I.e. cash flow. Any sale of but land will involve a large down payment up front as the owner can’t dip into his pockets
No chance getting rid of zigic wages. We will look to get the last parachute payment. Admin is not an option. May be another couple of years before we start to recover
It amazes me how people say they would rather see Butland sold than any other player. He is not an established 27 year old keeper he is a 19 year old coming up from the youth set up and the kid should be the future of this football club. Its criminal to sell him and i cannot believe how Blues can lose 3 great keepers in a row, Hart, Foster and now, it seems, Butland. Yes Hart was on loan, but still we lose this quality one after another!
Personally, I would be more worried if Marlon goes than Jack
I don’t know why anyone gives this pannu guy any credence whatsoever.
His interest is trying to recover as much of the wasted 54 million(81 mill – 27mill)that they overpaid for the club in the first place.
Pannu and the rest of his entourage are useless and out of their depth.
As from Tuesday our decline will be rapid.
They even have the nerve to use the word BIRMINGHAM in the reception area in their pokey little Head office tucked away in Wanchai Hong Kong.
A head office where English is a foreign language and staff have no allegiance to our great club.
I should know as I visited the place in july and I’m there again now in Hong kong for a week.
Pannu where are you I’d like a meeting….Carson has never explained the charges against him…he’s had plenty of time…….the fans always suffer.
Pannu has even laid his cards out to every club.
He’s admitting we are in a perilous state so he may have to take a 6mill bid for Butland as he is now under more pressure than what he was in pre-season.
He’s an amateur….should have kept his mouth shut……every club knows we are desparate and will offer as little as possible instead of the other way around
So right mate-he is out of his depth
Having made my comments in a previous contribution which was on the reply list only for to
disappear, i repeat my view i The club is declining, the value as the football club requires
larger capital to restore. A prospective buyer of a football club has a different attitude
than a buy out, where property, stock and reputation are assets The only purpose in buying a
football club is that with the injection of capital, players can be bought and success
achieved what ever the financial climate of the time.There is huge potential in a club
within a a conurbation like the west midlands where 2.5 million are in reasonable
travelling distance. But that is negatived by the financial and legal restrictions that have to be
overcome and capital is required to buy players The present owner is fooling nobody but
himself if he believes waiting is an option. The only realistic course is to cut his losses
and sell for what he can get. and we poor fools will cheer for the dawn that has never happened
None of what PP has said is surprising. The only thing he hasn’t said is that any of this mess is partly his fault too. LC is nothing short of ‘on his own’ and any top manager would walk from PP. All we need is to win games and give ourselves a 10 point cushion. Is that too much to ask? Yes it could be, given that most if our talent is about to be sold. Anyway, I support the short, not the ones who own the club.
*shirt (damn predictive text)
No wonder Big Eck packed his bags and ran away he could see how much of a mug CY is, mow he’s at forrest a club that will let him spend loads of money, I can’t believe zigic is still at the club if we don’t sell him in January then I rate terminating his contract
Interesting that PP had a meeting with the senior players- Zigic, King, Burke, Davies as well.
He also eluded to 4 or 5 other players on too much money.
Perhaps he has told them they can also go in January?
PP has made it crystal clear he wont let the club go into admin (else miss out on 8M parachute with likely releagation).
It seems logical that anyone on a high wage or monetary value can go now. Seems they are planning on just putting academy players in now as replacements.
Tom,McLeish will do the same as he did with us and Villa.Pay out huge sums and then not play the Player, shove eberyone back i defence and try to win a draw..Come the end of the season the Forest Fans will have the Bedsheets out..We were told this by the Rangers Fans, we told the Villa Fans and they have told the Forset fans..
Zigic is the big wage earner and selling him might be enough even though Butland is the obvious one to go. Best thing the club could do then would be to sell him and keep him on loan for the rest of the season? Don’t know how manageable that is considering we’ve already got quite a few loanees.
People who say look at the squad, there is no difference form last season need to look at who is actually playing in midfield. Last year there was no mullins, diop, elliot from the start. Instead we had Burke who weighed in with goals, Gomis and N’Daw who would compete for the ball and Redmond making cameos and exciting the fans. I think Redmond could be one to go because LC seems to think Rob Hall is better than him, even though he’s only a loanee and will go back to West Ham at the end of the season regardless.
Just listening to Lee Clark’s comments after the Bolton game about how our most experienced team he’s fielded in the last 3 games played the poorest and how he’d be prepared to play a team of 11 teenagers as at at least they’d be playing for the shirt. It seems LC knows that youth is the only way forward and come January he may be a few senior players less. Listening to the commentary yesterday at the difference in the ways Reilly and Elliott reacted to losing the ball, whereas Reilly chased to get the ball back, Elliott just stood there and watched. Would selling some of these under-performing prima donnas be such a bad thing if it gave the likes of Packwood, Deaman, Asante a chance? I for one was fearful of Paladini taking charge as he sounds like he has no money and would probably take us to even lower depths than the present regime. I think we will continue under the present regime until either CY is sentenced/acquitted or we go into administration. Come summer if we are still under the same regime don’t be surprised to see more player sales to keep us afloat.