[Post edited 13 May 2018 6:51]

Wales Online "talkin' out their a$$" by Davillin 10 Apr 2016 16:31
There's an old U.S. expression, blunt and crude, "talkin' out their ass." Wales Online, in their analysis of the new takeover bid are clearly "talkin' out their ass."

First, they don't know enough to make such grandiose proclamations about how necessary this "deal" is, and how wonderful it is.

"The time for change has come." Nonsense. The club will get directly from the Premier League's new contracts about three times what the suggested sale price will bring, not to the club once again, but to the shareholders. In one year, with similar amounts likely to come into the future. And if the club is sold, the new owners will ultimately benefit from it, not the club.

The event which Wales Online blame for this new bid, is "change was inevitable and it seems, following the breakdown in talks with previous interested US investors, it has now become essential."

What? How is what happened last time causing this "deal"? The suggestion is infuriating.

And this one: "it should be obvious to anyone that nothing lasts forever." I know many posters on here dislike the American sports systems, but there are clubs in all U.S. sports that have lasted a very long time without significant changes. And in the U.K. as well.

And this proposed change will not be for the good of the club, but for the financial benefit of the new -- and I guarantee, brief -- owners.

How's this for a bold prediction? "An exit strategy without the club suffering was always going to be needed, and it seems that point has come." "without the club suffering"? Where'd they get that grand prognostication? The proposed new buyer has a long record of buying, raising re-sale value, selling for a personal profit, then moving on to the next fat cow. Again, we will have zero control over who he sells it to. Maybe Tony Petty again?

How's this one? "Of course, there has been much talk of the vastly improved broadcasting deal which has made surviving this season all the more important. Yet it should be remembered that every club receives those new payments, and will quite possibly only serve to increase wages and the going rates for players." The hidden truth behind this is that, first that money is coming anyway -- sale or no sale -- and that these new "investors," whose money is going to shareholders, with the hint that they will put in substantially more. If they do, you may rest assured that they will do so fully expecting to get it all back, and more, and quickly.

How f*****g' naive can they be and run a newspaper. Perhaps they're not naive after all.

This next one pistmeoff. "Could Swansea have realistically continued as they have done? Perhaps the struggles of this year have suggested not, or not for very long at least." Here, they use a half-season of near-disaster on the pitch to justify selling out. We all know that it was a short series of managing decisions that caused that slump, not the lack of a presumed sugar daddy. Well, we know that, but Wales Online thinks it was the lack of a sugar daddy. That doesn't even qualify as naivete, which is at its essence innocence. It's just false.

Wales Online also justifies the sell-out by arguing ". . . you doubt anyone on high horses regarding shareholders profiting would not struggle themselves to ignore the temptation of setting their families up for life." Well, I'm on my high horse, and all I'd want for my shares is my original investment back, with legal interest. . . . and all of them have had that, multiplied by an astronomical figure.

This next argument is astounding: "There does, however, seem to be not the same strong opposition to this deal compared to that on the table in November 2014." For goddess' sake, it took weeks for supporters to learn the truth about that last scam, and Wales Online publishes this scam-in-itself the very next day after it was announced!

More blindness presented as an argument: "Questions will be asked how loud a voice a 21% shareholder can have in a different boardroom, one where it is not local businessmen and Swans fans, is a valid one. There are suggestions that the new owners are keen for the Trust to remain very much part of things, their role as link between decision-making and the community one of the reasons why Swansea was attractive to them, which should be welcomed and measures put in place — if they are not already — to enshrine this."

21% is nothing to write home to mother about, but Wales Online in its grandiose blindness doesn't realize that! With less than 25%, the Trust can be marginalized by the new owners in an instant, and the Trust's real share made insignificant. Virtually every poster on PlanetSwans knows that, so why doesn't Wales Online? Besides, on that one, supporters must "eat the air, promise-crammed."

And what about the parties to whom these proposed new owners will sell the club when the profit is high enough ? Will they make the same vague promise?

I love this one: "The background of those set to come into the Liberty from the States seems impressive on initial glances, the plans in keeping with that of the club’s careful ways where they have not seen ambition and aversion to risk as mutually exclusive" [emphasis added]. Well, with such a momentous event as this, I would suggest that Wales Online make judgments on more than "initial glances." HeyZeus!

The same short-sightedness almost killed us the last time. The known "investors" have reputations. Wales Online might consider some routine investigative journalism and find out what they are. There were already two posts on PlanetSwans about their past behaviour. Perhaps WalesOnline could upgrade its journalsm by hiring the posters. Or at least read PlanetSwans for better information than "initial glances" or information fed to them by deeply interested parties. The latter practice is roundly criticised.

Most curiously of all, the article's sub-title says that the club are taking "a step into the unknown." A half-truth, because we know where this is going. Buy the club, put the club in debt to make it more valuable (buy stadium and increase seating) then sell it to god-knows-who for a large personal profit, leaving us in that "step into the unknown" [cue music from "The Twilight Zone"].

I don't know about you, but the Premier League isn't worth losing the club. I don't know why some supporters are prepared to be the harlot for slick self-promoting rich guys, who come to Swansea drooling and pawing.
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Article at:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/swansea-city-never-same-again-11162188

[Post edited 13 May 2018 17:01]

[Post edited 13 May 2018 17:31]