Well I am not with you on that Woolly, the debt could be 600 mill upwards that is a big hangover for any new buyer to swallow, As for servicing that from what you say how are we going to get players in to push upwards?
I can't see any circumstances where a stadium will be built without it making financial sense mate. In other words, the cost of the interest and the repayments will be more than covered by the increased revenue from the stadium. That might not happen in year one after it's been opened, but it should happen sooner, much sooner, than later. In that respect, the size of the debt doesn't really matter.
The other thing to bear in mind is the timescales involved in this sort of project. If a stadium build costs us 500 million, then, in real terms, inflation will eat away at that debt. Even if "football inflation" was running at 4% ( and I'd guess it'll run a fair bit higher than that in the near future ) then, in terms of the football world you'd get something like :-
- In five years, 500 million would be something like 410
- In ten years it's be ~335 million
- In twenty years it'd be ~228 million
Basically it's a lot like buying a house and knowing ( or hoping if you're an eternal pessimist ) that your wage will go up and so the amount you're shelling out will be less and less of your disposable incomes as time goes by. So, in the early years, our interest and repayments would mean we might not see much benefit from a new stadium, but once you get five or ten years down the line, then it all starts to look a lot more attractive.
As footie fans, we don't tend to look more than a season ahead, but businessmen with the sort of money that Mosh has think much longer term.
