(Worthy) is an athlete. We just have to find a place for him on the field. |
[Buck reveals the club was sinking in a quagmire of debt.] I personally was surprised, ... They had a £75m Eurobond outstanding and it was perfectly clear to the markets that they might have trouble making the July payment. [The then chief executive] Trevor Birch had been in discussions for some time about restructuring that bond. The financial community as opposed to the football community knew there were some real issues. |
[Chelsea had borrowed heavily from financial institutions, principally to fund stadium development. Ruth Giste, the widow of the late club director Matthew Harding, had also demanded repayment of a significant sum loaned to the club.] Fans did not know that in January the club had mortgaged, if you will, the TV revenues, ... It borrowed against the TV revenues that were to be handed out in August. I didn't know as a fan the club owed money to the Harding family and they wanted it back. As a fan I was naive. I knew the club had financial problems, but didn't know the specifics. |
[During July 2003, Abramovich paid a 15p-per-share premium on the trading price of a fortnight previously. Even the £17m this netted Ken Bates was initially insufficient for the then chairman.] I'm told he said he wanted more money, ... and Trevor said, 'Don't be ridiculous, this is more than you could have imagined'. |
Even though I was a Chelsea fan, I didn't appreciate in 2003 that Chelsea was in particular financial difficulty. So it was an eye-opener for me when we were doing due diligence to see what the financial situation was. |
Fans did not know that in January the club had mortgaged, if you will, the TV revenues. It borrowed against the TV revenues that were to be handed out in August. I didn't know as a fan the club owed money to the Harding family and they wanted it back. As a fan I was naive. I knew the club had financial problems, but didn't know the specifics. |
For the next five days, lawyers worked day and night; they gave us a lot of financial information, so we understood there was an urgency. |
From an operating loss perspective - which was £13m last year - that will go down but the total loss will go up because there were a lot of exceptional charges this year. |
Having said that, Roman has a reasonably long-term view ? and the business plan that was put together was a five-year business plan. We are doing a lot of things to make the club more efficient and towards profit-making in five years' time. |
Having said that, we announced a significant loss last year and we are going to announce a significant loss today. |
He appreciates that this is a long-term strategy and he supports where we are and where we are going. |
I was sorry that Ken went off in a huff. I was just a fan in those days, with no aspirations other than for the team to win two or three in a row, and maybe knock off Liverpool or Arsenal in a cup game. |
I'm sure there'll be conversations about the tapping-up rule and let's see what develops. The rules could certainly be tweaked in this area. |
If Jose's not working, he wants to be with his family. Roman isn't very big on going to black tie dinners and things. He tends to hang around with people he's known since his twenties, and they tend to be his Russian friends. |
It makes things a little bit harder, but we'll be okay. |