The Dundee United Thread 22/23

[PartyFears2]

Courts / Daly tomorrow then...?

 

for a while last summer we were in the courts daily too. (sorry) 

[arab_joe]

On 10/05/2021 at 14:49, arab_joe said:

The thought of our club's owners/Tony Asghar trying to recruit yet another manager gives me the fear - a truly terrifying prospect. 

The way I see it, we have a good manager at present - one that has a very decent record in the transfer market (few would argue that Edwards and Fuchs have been two of our best performers all season) and who is getting far more out of this group than Neilson could ever have done (staying up was always our goal, and supporters have only recently lost sight of that fact due to the fact that we almost made it to the top six then we almost made it to the Scottish Cup final).

My words three weeks ago - and, if the rumours are to be believed, I think this is going even worse than I expected.  I'll back whichever manager that we hire, obviously, but if we are looking at candidates that have no experience of full-time teams, no experience of this league and no UEFA pro-licence, then I would suggest that we are taking a big, big (and unnecessary) gamble. 

All the more so because Micky Mellon leaves big shoes to fill, having been a genuine success this past year both on the pitch and in the transfer market, a fact that seems to have been lost in the uproar I've seen this last couple of weeks...

23 hours ago, Pull My Strings said:

The funding for those losses, as I understand it, has come from Ogren.  It's his company and any debt from that funding is essentially him lending money to himself. As far as I am aware there is no external debt. 

From the accounts:

Interest charges of GBP 246,440 relate entirely to a notional interest charge on Mark Ogren's loan account, which has been discounted in line with accounting guidelines to reflect the loan not being interest bearing.

Although better than an external debt, it does not completely protect us - as far as I am aware, "debt to himself" was also the style of Rowan Alexander at Gretna and Vladimir Romanov at Hearts (amongst others, I'm sure) and neither of those ended well.

22 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

The most recent lodged accounts are to June 2019 (which suggests there are accounts overdue, but that is a different matter) and show the company being over £2.2m in the red.  I think it’s unlikely that we have made a profit in that time so are likely to be further in the red.  Even if all the club’s debt is due to Ogren, and even if he’s the majority shareholder, that should still be a cause for concern, more so if there’s no obvious pathway to profitability.

https://www.dundeeunitedfc.co.uk/uploads/tinymce/Accounts/DUFC 30 June 2020 Signed Accounts.pdf

These are the accounts up to June 2020.

[ArabianKnight]

Mellon confirmed as Tranmere boss again. 

Have we paid compo to them for this guy, split on amicable terms and then they've snapped him up for free? 

I feel like we may have been done a bit here. 

[Pull My Strings]

1 hour ago, arab_joe said:

From the accounts:

Interest charges of GBP 246,440 relate entirely to a notional interest charge on Mark Ogren's loan account, which has been discounted in line with accounting guidelines to reflect the loan not being interest bearing.

Although better than an external debt, it does not completely protect us - as far as I am aware, "debt to himself" was also the style of Rowan Alexander at Gretna and Vladimir Romanov at Hearts (amongst others, I'm sure) and neither of those ended well.

No, Hearts owed money to other companies, primarily Ukio Bankas,  which went into liquidation triggering the calling in of debts owed by Hearts.. Different situation entirely.  Those were commercial bank debts. Entirely external (and organised by a crook). The excerpt which you have posted explicitly confirms that the director's loans by Ogren are not interest bearing.

I presume you mean Brooks Mileson rather than Rowwn Alexander. Not convinced there are any parallels to be drawn there either. Gretna were never a sustainable business. The point which I was making earlier is that the loans from Ogren should not prevent United from operating on a self-sustaining basis in the near future because there's not the same pressure from an external lender and - as your excerpt confirms - no interest accruing.

[Pull My Strings]

7 minutes ago, ArabianKnight said:

Mellon confirmed as Tranmere boss again. 

Have we paid compo to them for this guy, split on amicable terms and then they've snapped him up for free? 

I feel like we may have been done a bit here. 

I wouldn't have thought so. It's standard practice to require parties to a settlement agreement to mitigate their losses. Even if we'd simply sacked Mellon (and it doesn't sound like that happened) liability for lost earnings would be offset against actual earnings. In reality I suspect the Tranmere gig was probably already lined up so any compensation would be nominal.  Unless we pay a lot more in wages than they do, which strikes me as unlikely. 

[Robin.Hood]

12 minutes ago, ArabianKnight said:

Mellon confirmed as Tranmere boss again. 

Have we paid compo to them for this guy, split on amicable terms and then they've snapped him up for free? 

I feel like we may have been done a bit here. 

Majority of the fans certainly seem delighted he is back. Good for him anyway. Keeps his good record going and a good chance of challenging/ getting promotion from league 2.

[arab_joe]

15 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

No, Hearts owed money to other companies, primarily Ukio Bankas,  which went into liquidation triggering the calling in of debts owed by Hearts.. Different situation entirely.  Those were commercial bank debts. Entirely external (and organised by a crook). The excerpt which you have posted explicitly confirms that the director's loans by Ogren are not interest bearing.

I presume you mean Brooks Mileson rather than Rowwn Alexander. Not convinced there are any parallels to be drawn there either. Gretna were never a sustainable business. The point which I was making earlier is that the loans from Ogren should not prevent United from operating on a self-sustaining basis in the near future because there's not the same pressure from an external lender and - as your excerpt confirms - no interest accruing.

I always thought that Ukio Bankas and Vladimir Romanov were one and the same, but you're right - having done 5 minutes of reading on it (which I should have done before my previous post...) it would appear that Romanov: (i) transferred the commercial debt from other banks to Ukio Bankas (a branch of which he opened in the west end of Edinburgh - presumably with just Hearts as a customer...); (ii) hugely increased the debt when it was due to Ukio Bankas; then (iii) left Hearts and the debt was called in when Ukio Bankas went into finanical troubles of their own.  Slightly off topic, I know, but that is an absolutely insane conflict of interest and you're right that it does not seem to match our current situation.

And yes, I meant Brooks Mileson (Rowan Alexander was the manager).  I disagree that there are no similarities - we are both running at completely unsustainable levels, both with ridiculous wage bills (i.e. ongoing obligations that could go beyond the ownership of any Chairman), both propped up by one man etc.  If the rug was pulled by Ogren then we would certainly be in a far better position than Gretna, as we have a bigger fan base etc. but I would suggest that we are in a similar situation. 

Obviously we are lucky that, for the time being at least, the Ogrens are happy to lend significant sums to the club free of charge.  My concern is that Ogren said, when he was buying the club, that he was looking to make money from the investment - and I honestly see no way that he does that...

[smc4761]

Mellon leaves a Premiership club to manage at bottom level of English football. What does that say about the state of Scottish football

[invergowrie arab]

25 minutes ago, smc4761 said:

Mellon leaves a Premiership club to manage at bottom level of English football. What does that say about the state of Scottish football

Nothing?

[tree house tam]

35 minutes ago, smc4761 said:

Mellon leaves a Premiership club to manage at bottom level of English football. What does that say about the state of Scottish football

Mellons a  bit of a fruit?

[K.T]

[kingjoey]

1 hour ago, smc4761 said:

Mellon leaves a Premiership club to manage at bottom level of English football. What does that say about the state of Scottish football

It says nothing about Scottish football in general, but it does say that Tranmere Rovers > Dundee United.

[Dundee Hibernian]

1 hour ago, kingjoey said:

It says nothing about Scottish football in general, but it does say that Tranmere Rovers > Dundee United.

Aye, applying that logic the National League > Aberdeen (2018, Adam Rooney).

[kingjoey]

19 minutes ago, Dundee Hibernian said:

Aye, applying that logic the National League > Aberdeen (2018, Adam Rooney).

Have I touched a nerve?

[Melanius Mullarkey]

2 hours ago, smc4761 said:

Mellon leaves a Premiership club to manage at bottom level of English football. What does that say about the state of Scottish football

He's probably just happy that Hamilton finally got relegated tbh.

[Junior_Arab]

5 hours ago, arab_joe said:

Obviously we are lucky that, for the time being at least, the Ogrens are happy to lend significant sums to the club free of charge.  My concern is that Ogren said, when he was buying the club, that he was looking to make money from the investment - and I honestly see no way that he does that...

I worry that Ogren has been led down the garden path by Asghar. He’s invested heavily in the academy which is great for the club, but the expectation seems to be that we see the results of that investment almost straight away, hence the rush to put kids in the team. It’ll be several years till we can expect to see the benefits of that investment and even then I think we’re far more likely to produce a handful of players capable of holding down a place in our first team squad than a string of guys we can sell on for millions for Ogren to see an actual return. Youth development is far from an exact science. 

[tree house tam]

Did you not look a better footballing side when the youngsters got their chance late on in the season?

 

I don't actually know because you were in the relegation half but the orange gazelle wearers at my work seemed to think so.

[Sarto Mutiny]

Did you not look a better footballing side when the youngsters got their chance late on in the season?
 
I don't actually know because you were in the relegation half but the orange gazelle wearers at my work seemed to think so.

It was only two games, so not the largest sample size from which to draw any real conclusions

[tree house tam]

7 minutes ago, Sarto Mutiny said:

41 minutes ago, tree house tam said:

Did you not look a better footballing side when the youngsters got their chance late on in the season?
 
I don't actually know because you were in the relegation half but the orange gazelle wearers at my work seemed to think so.

It was only two games, so not the largest sample size from which to draw any real conclusions

Did you look better though?

[Granny Danger]

58 minutes ago, Junior_Arab said:

I worry that Ogren has been led down the garden path by Asghar. He’s invested heavily in the academy which is great for the club, but the expectation seems to be that we see the results of that investment almost straight away, hence the rush to put kids in the team. It’ll be several years till we can expect to see the benefits of that investment and even then I think we’re far more likely to produce a handful of players capable of holding down a place in our first team squad than a string of guys we can sell on for millions for Ogren to see an actual return. Youth development is far from an exact science. 

Yip.  We had a unique situation a couple of seasons back when we sold a small number of players for a lot of money.  I don’t see us repeating that an time soon.

 

 

I might be wrong but did Hibs not do a similar thing a couple of seasons before we did?