nPower Football League Thread 2012/13

[Thrilla]

Orient/Charlton in the cup, right? My mate is a Charlton fan so we'll probably have a big trip down for the Rovers game. I haven't been to a game in years as I used to work Saturdays and earn a lot less than I'm on now, so I'm really looking forward to this season. Plus, loads of my mates support teams in the Championship so it should be a good season for banter.

[Lineker]

Leeds United Supporters Trust (LUST) have confirmed that a proposed deal to buy the club has collapsed after more than two months of negotiations.

Talks between the consortium, believed to comprise of Middle East-based investors, and owner and chairman Ken Bates have broken down.

The last club communication on the bid came in June, with the news the group were completing due dilligence.

LUST have said a further, more detailed statement will follow.

In the meantime the club has confirmed Robbie Rogers and Danny Pugh have been put on the transfer list as manager Neil Warnock attempts to generate cash to bring in a new striker.

Winger Rogers and utility player Pugh join Billy Paynter, Paul Rachubka, Paul Connolly and Ramon Nunez in being available for transfer.

Warnock told the club website : "You have to look at what you can do. We're looking at forward players and it might be that we have to move one or two on."

More to follow.

Oh Matt....

[Thrilla]

[Thrilla]

Its fun to laugh at another team's problems with their owners >_>

[Matt]

I've been suspecting this for a while now, LUST's contact said that everything was in place a number of weeks ago and it was down to Bates. I'm now curious as to what LUST's plan B is.

Edit: The news coming out seems to be that Bates was an unwilling seller, the deal was agreed in June and Bates has since been moving the goalposts.

[Thrilla]

Anyone done this before?

http://www.championshipfantasyleague.co.uk/

[Lineker]

The Football League has revealed a rise of £5m in fees paid to agents by its member clubs, taking the total for the 2011-12 season to £21.7m.

The report breakdown shows £18.7m of that figure was spent by Championship clubs, with £1.8m and £900,000 outlaid by Leagues One and Two respectively.

Five clubs - Hartlepool, Accrington Stanley, AFC Wimbledon, Barnet and Crewe Alexandra - paid no fees.

A further 22 clubs spent less than £25,000 throughout the three divisions.

At the other end of the scale West Ham United, who were eventually promoted to the Premier League spent £4,314,270, and Leicester City, who made 15 signings from June 2011 to May 2012, spent a total of £1,812,371.

"While £21m is a lot of money leaving the game, it should also be noted that a considerable amount of this total has been spent by a small number of clubs," said Football League chairman Greg Clarke.

"In fact, almost a fifth of the overall figure was spent by one club alone.

"Where such spending forms part of a sustainable business plan it shouldn't be of great concern and supporters should be encouraged to see our clubs committing themselves to the new Financial Fair Play regulations that will take effect across all three divisions in the new season.

"In time, these rules will require clubs to be more circumspect with regard to their spending and may help reduce the costs incurred in this area."

[Matt]

CEO Shaun Harvey is apparently flying to Monaco, trying to still keep the deal alive. The issue seems to be Ken wants to stay on as a director for some sort of tax reason.

Even if it's true that Harvey's trying to keep the takeover on the cards, I have little faith in the incompetent fool to achieve anything.

[EddieG]

What's a supporter's trust doing in Monaco?

[Matt]

The supporters trust aren't in Monaco... the Leeds United CEO has flown out to meet Ken Bates, who lives there.

[EddieG]

The supporters trust aren't in Monaco... the Leeds United CEO has flown out to meet Ken Bates, who lives there.

Ah, ok, makes sense.

[Lineker]

Midfielder Liam Lawrence has left Portsmouth after reaching a compromise deal to terminate his contract.

Lawrence, 30, was the last senior player left at the club and is thought to be a target for Cardiff City .

His exit means administrators PKF can start talks with Balram Chainrai's Portpin to complete the sale of the club which they hope will be next week.

The administrators had set a 10 August deadline for all the club's senior players to leave.

Portsmouth begin their League One campaign against Bournemouth on Saturday, 18 August.

"We have negotiated a compromise agreement with Liam Lawrence who will leave the club when the paperwork is finalised later," PKF's Trevor Birch said in a statement.

"I'd like to thank Liam for his support and all of the other players for putting the club's interests ahead of their own. They have all had to make very difficult decisions and been placed in an impossible position which wasn't of their making.

"This means that we have now successfully completed agreements with all of the first team squad and met the major condition of the offer from Portpin, which formed the basis for the CVA proposal.

"We will now aim to finalise our discussions with Portpin with a view to completing the sale of the club as soon as possible. The intention is to push this through early next week in order to ensure that player recruitment can begin as quickly as possible for the start of the new season."

Manager Michael Appleton has been playing triallists and youth team players in pre-season and some of these will be offered full time contracts at the club.

Birch did not discount the possibility of the Pompey Supporters' Trust (PST) taking over the club, but said any such deal was likely to take place between the PST and Chainrai.

"The offer from the Pompey Supporters' Trust remains a fall-back position and we are pleased to note that the Council has agreed to provide a loan facility to support the Trust bid," he said.

Pompey will start the new season in League One on minus 10 points and have been in administration since February.

[Thrilla]

Anyone done this before?

http://www.championshipfantasyleague.co.uk/

Just realised that it is £6 to sign up! Fuck that noise.

Just got a decent team sorted as well!

[Lineker]

Leeds United Supporters' Trust believe the deal to buy the club, which seemed to have collapsed on Thursday, is now back on.

The club issued a statement to say the potential buyers' period of exclusivity was over and they were open to new bids, but LUST chairman Gary Cooper believes there has been a turnaround.

"We understand there has been a change of position," he told BBC Sport.

"The deal is being discussed and they are looking to sort certain terms."

Cooper added: "This was a done deal some time ago and the issue is with the club, so at present it is delicately poised.

"We don't know what that sticking point is but we can only assume there was something that Ken Bates (Leeds United chairman) was not happy with.

"The buyers remain very keen and they are acting in the manner of a group wanting to get a deal done rather than wanting to pull out because of the time it is taking to sort."

Bates was officially confirmed as the club's owner last year following a buy-out from former owners FSF Limited.

It was initially revealed at the end of May that talks had opened between the Elland Road club and potential investors, believed to be from the Middle East, before the group was then allowed to start carrying out due diligence on 26 June.

Leeds United finished 14th in the Championship last season and start their new campaign at home to Shrewsbury Town in the Capital One Cup on Saturday.

[Lineker]

Blackburn's global adviser Shebby Singh says manager Steve Kean will be sacked if Rovers lose their first three games of the season.

Singh was asked at a supporters' forum if Kean will leave if they lose three times in a row, and said: "Yes."

He had earlier been asked about the possibility of Kean being sacked, replying: "If we lose three games, definitely. Definitely."

But Singh added he will not rush to make a judgement about Kean.

"For me it's all about results," said Singh, a former Malaysian international player who was brought to Ewood Park by the club's owners Venky's in June.

"If, after three games, we have dropped nine points then we'll only have a 50 per cent chance of getting promoted."

Kean has faced criticism from some Blackburn supporters, who have staged regular protests against him and the club's owners.

Rovers were relegated from the Premier League at the end of last season but Kean kept his job.

He has since signed seven players, including Leon Best for £3m and Danny Murphy on a free transfer.

In May, Singh wrote a column for the New Paper in Singapore in which he wrote that Kean should be sacked, but said he will not judge the manager's performance on what has happened in the past.

"I was possibly one of the worst critics [of Kean] last season," he said. "I'm sure the manager didn't like me much last season but I say it as it is.

"For me, the manager's record starts on the 18th [of August, the first day of the new season] because his appointment was made before my appointment.

"I am working with the infrastructure that is already there and people need to prove to me that they can do their jobs."

Asked if he has the power to sack Kean, Singh said: "Yes indeed. If the results are not forthcoming, I put the pressure on the manager and on the players."

So, Blackburn fans to cheer on for defeats?

[9 to 5]

I would never, ever cheer for a defeat. I hope Kean (somehow) becomes our best manager ever. That said, even if he is sacked what chump will they install next? Myles Anderson probably.

[Crybaby Bunting]

Can they legally sack a guy who, with his agent owns a large part of the club?

[Guest mr. potato head]

Can they legally sack a guy who, with his agent owns a large part of the club?

I can't see why not, unless his contract is structured as something other than an employee/employer relationship.

[King Ellis]

Just caught a snippet of the Blackburn stuff on SSN. Great. Seemed to be slagging off Morten Gamst Pedersen and saying C.Ronaldo would be shit when he lost his pace.

[Lineker]

Portsmouth boss Michael Appleton has called the potential new owners of the club "unprofessional" after being told his transfer budget has been slashed.

Appleton was believed to have been promised a budget of £4m for new player acquisitions in May, but that figure has now changed to around £1.5m.

"It's slightly unprofessional," Appleton told BBC Radio Solent.

"I'm not pleased about it but what can I do about it? I can't do anything about it but get on with it."

Portsmouth are currently in administration with Balram Chainrai in the process of taking control of the League One club.

On Friday, Liam Lawrence became the last senior player to leave the club and Appleton has been waiting patiently to start bringing new faces in.

He says he already has several new faces lined up having played triallists in pre-season, but believes those plans will now to be scrapped having had his budget cut by around 60%.

"It's not an ideal situation," Appleton continued. "I thought I would have 20 players going on the pre-season tour to Spain so I could get the team organised.

"But here we are with a day to go and I haven't got anyone.

"I have been recruiting all summer, working on the basis that the budget was a certain amount. What you do is get the best 20 players you feel can fit that budget.

"If the budget is what is being reported at the minute then it makes the job very, very difficult. Those players I've recruited, a lot of them I won't be able to sign because we won't be able to afford them.

"The problem you've then got is trying to find players to fit the new budget. All the best players will be gone and all you're left with are players who aren't good enough for that level."

Appleton has urged Chainrai to meet with him and revealed he has not been involved in the decision over the player budget.

"The most important thing in any business is dialogue between the people that count and I'd like to think at some point the manager of a football club will have a say on what happens," he said.

"It's difficult and has made my life 10 times harder. It's not as if I needed it to be any harder."

Pompey travel to Plymouth in the League Cup for their first competitive game of the season on Tuesday and Appleton is set to field a youth team.

Administrator Trevor Birch says everything is being done to ensure they can field a team at Home Park.

"I realise that many supporters are concerned about the size of the squad ahead of the start of the new season," Birch said in a statement.

"I've been working with Michael Appleton and the coaches to ensure that we have enough players to start the campaign, regardless of what happens off the pitch over the next few days.

"If a new owner is not in place shortly, then we will use a combination of players from the development squad and players signed on non-contracts [effectively short-term deals].

"We're also talking to the Football League to see if there's any additional support that they can give us until the ownership situation is resolved."