Hull City owners to take majority stake in Dundalk?

[placid casual]

Duffer appears, to the uninitiated, to be taking his football approach from jose mourinho whom he served under at chelsea. Scoffers may rightly point out that his way is out of date with modern football but mourinho did get a very workmanlike Roma team to 2 European finals in successive years (albeit the football on show was eye_bleedingly awful).
This turkish guys behaviour at LOI grounds over the past year make him sound like a bit of a snake oil salesman but maybe this will work out for shels. maybe.

[EalingGreen]

Anyone getting involved without an obvious connection to the club/town is clearly not doing so for the love of the team. Which is fair enough, since there may be other valid reasons for doing so.

But whatever those are, any new owner will want to see some sort of return on his investment. The most obvious way of doing so would be to build and develop the club (stadium, attendances, sponsors, corporate etc), so that a profit may accrue if/when the time comes to sell up again. However, even if you disregard the sheer difficulty of that, plus the time it takes to achieve, it would inevitably require an initial financial injection first, which many (most?) new owners are loathe to do.

The second way to grow your investment is to achieve regular European football, with occasional advancement. This, of course, is hardly guaranteed, even if the pool of competing clubs is rather shallow, as might be argued to be the case in the LOI.

A third, and more obvious, is to find/develop/farm out young players who can then be sold for a profit - the next Evan Ferguson, for example, could go a long way towards that.

While a fourth, and depressingly common one in these sorts of cases, is to asset-strip, usually because there is potential to sell-off land or other property which the club owns for development and make a profit that way. I have absolutley no idea whether that applies here, but I assume existing owners and stakeholders do and will be on the alert.

But whichever it is, I personally would be rather wary of a millionaire Turkish businessman who owns Hull City taking an interest in any LOI club, when there a million other clubs* around the world who might catch his eye.

* - Something caused eg Kidderminster Harriers FC to come to my attention the other day. In a town of 55k people (vs eg 40k in Dundalk?), this is a long-established club which had a few years in the EFL a while back, and also has a cracking stadium, which would put all but a couple in the LOI or IL to shame:
https://footballgroundguide.com/leag...h-stadium.html
The irony being that the above link (from September 2020) includes the caution:
"The Club have unveiled plans to leave Aggborough and move to a new purpose-built stadium on the south western outskirts of Kidderminster, just off the A451 Stourport Road. If the scheme were to reach fruition then Aggborough would be sold to be redeveloped for housing."

[Longfordian]

Interesting that he's coming in as chairman. He's also chairman of Hull. You'd wonder where he'll get the time, but I guess it depends on how hands on he is.

[sulywaterfordfc]

Investing in facilities is mentioned in the statement….. I’ll take this takeover as being serious when I see planning permission obtained and the commencement of upgrading Tolka started

Whatever about Shels as a club, but it’d be fantastic Shels and a boost for the league if Tolka was fully redeveloped.

[total hoofball]

I’d say the main concern for shels fans would be Damien walking if he gets any outside interference into his style and system. He’s been doing a terrific job there, be an awful pity .

I'm certain half of the LOI on the internet over 12 months ago were promising that Duff would have walked out of Shels by summer of 2022. He is still here the last time I checked an hour ago

If Liam Rosenior is going to be instructing Duff how to do his job, play long ball or 4-4-2 then Duff won't be hanging around for long, Duff is not doing the Shels job to pay his food bills. If Liam Rosenior has positive football ideals, philosophies and recommends genuinely talented upcoming Hull players for loan moves Duff is actually very pragmatic and that football 'synergy' between the clubs outlined in the statement could turn out to be a positive, we'll see, I'm aware if not done properly it could turn out to be a disaster

Like all outsider takeovers in football at all levels some work out really well and some work out terribly. Andrew Doyle's takeover worked out very well for us in 2018 despite even reading scepticism here, 5 years on with Doyle and co still involved going forward in a minority capacity and the Hull fans loving this Turkish guy with him being a genuinely successful media mogul I'm willing to give benefit of some doubts over it all, credentials and track record are important in football investment/ownership

[wonder88]

I think this is great news for Shels and for the League of Ireland in Dublin. Hopefully he will get the new stand(dressing rooms end) back open fairly soon and sort out the camera gantry, so its not blocking the view of the spectators on that side of the ground. Put in a few more crush barriers in the away end and you have a nice 5-6k capacity Tolka to start with. On the bus back to the city centre on monday night after the Drogheda game, I overheard a few Shels fans (jokingly) discuss the possibility of them being in the champions league if they got a millionaire owner. Well they seem to be on their way into european competition anyway, if not exactly the champions league. It will be interesting to see how Dermot Desmond responds.

[osarusan]

Whever about investing in facilities that directly impact on results on the pitch, I can't see this guy being too interested in building stands and the likes.

[EatYerGreens]

I think this is great news for Shels and for the League of Ireland in Dublin. Hopefully he will get the new stand(dressing rooms end) back open fairly soon and sort out the camera gantry, so its not blocking the view of the spectators on that side of the ground. Put in a few more crush barriers in the away end and you have a nice 5-6k capacity Tolka to start with. On the bus back to the city centre on monday night after the Drogheda game, I overheard a few Shels fans (jokingly) discuss the possibility of them being in the champions league if they got a millionaire owner. Well they seem to be on their way into european competition anyway, if not exactly the champions league. It will be interesting to see how Dermot Desmond responds.

Out of curiousity, can you name any instances in the LOI where a sugar daddy with zero connection to a club has come in, bought it and left it in a better state than it was beforehand - nevermind built stands and things like that which don't actually improve on-field performances (which is where the money really is, via the UEFA route) ?

[Philosophizer]

I think this is great news for Shels and for the League of Ireland in Dublin. Hopefully he will get the new stand(dressing rooms end) back open fairly soon and sort out the camera gantry, so it’s not blocking the view of the spectators on that side of the ground. Put in a few more crush barriers in the away end and you have a nice 5-6k capacity Tolka to start with. On the bus back to the city centre on monday night after the Drogheda game, I overheard a few Shels fans (jokingly) discuss the possibility of them being in the champions league if they got a millionaire owner. Well they seem to be on their way into european competition anyway, if not exactly the champions league. It will be interesting to see how Dermot Desmond responds.

Dressing room stand is closed due to structural faults in the foundations. Would fixing that be a priority, do they even have crowds to warrant it?
Half the away end is permanently closed off due to safety regs so there’s little chance of anything being done there either.

[Martinho II]

Dressing room stand is closed due to structural faults in the foundations. Would fixing that be a priority, do they even have crowds to warrant it?
Half the away end is permanently closed off due to safety regs so there’s little chance of anything being done there either.

that away end is that behind the goal Philosophizer?

[Philosophizer]

that away end is that behind the goal Philosophizer?

Correct!

[nr637]

Investors are never interested in the facilities, look at Dundalk FC recent past with Peak5 or something!

They painted the walls and did a general clean up and that was about it!

Cork City Mr. Usher is only prepared to upgrade the toilets due to the Munster FA's ownership policy.

Waterford FC new owners are considering their options at the RSC.

There is form with most Investors..........!

[Philosophizer]

Investors are never interested in the facilities, look at Dundalk FC recent past with Peak5 or something!

They painted the walls and did a general clean up and that was about it!

If the Turkish lad can get a new coat of paint on the roof of the main stand at Tolka it will all have been worth it imo.
That thing has been annoying me for years. Such an eyesore. Looks woeful on tv. Just that alone would make the ground look a lot better.

[brendy_éire]

Investors are never interested in the facilities, look at Dundalk FC recent past with Peak5 or something!

They sometimes are. Philip O'Doherty is spending millions of his own cash on the new terrace in the Brandywell, and Larne are benefiting the same way.
Granted, in both cases, they're not 'outside' investors. In general, investors tend to be interested in taking profits out of a club, so there's often no gain in them improving facilities.

[EatYerGreens]

They sometimes are. Philip O'Doherty is spending millions of his own cash on the new terrace in the Brandywell, and Larne are benefiting the same way.
Granted, in both cases, they're not 'outside' investors. In general, investors tend to be interested in taking profits out of a club, so there's often no gain in them improving facilities.

Philip O'Doherty doesn't own Derry City though. It's not his to sell to get a return on his 'investment'. So he's basically an out-and-out philanthropic donor.

Most people who 'invest' in football end up essentially become donors too due to reality. But they at least own their clubs and start out with the hope/belief/intention of it being an investment.

[JC_GUFC]

Waterford FC new owners are considering their options at the RSC.

There is form with most Investors..........!

To be fair to the Waterford owners they've complained about not being able to do something as simple as open a club shop at the RSC.

Similar to Cork City and Galway United there are some issues that come with a third party owning the ground. The Munster FA or Galway FA don't really need to improve Turner's Cross or Terryland/ED Park for their purposes but if Galway United get promoted next season there are things I'd love to see changed at the ground - the catering facilities for one.

But really it's probably up to the fans groups' to stress the importance of this to remaining supportive of the ownership. There may not be huge numbers attending games in the League of Ireland but if fans turn against owners it's very hard to see things working out for the investors in any meaningful way.

The multi-club model is coming and I don't know quite how good or bad it is for Irish clubs. I would say most Waterford fans would be fairly happy with how their link-up with Fleetwood has gone. Phoenix Patterson moved to Fleetwood but he was never going to be with Waterford this season even if they had been promoted last season.

Shels are a relatively small club in terms of their support base but they did achieve a lot with the Save Tolka Park campaign so hopefully their fans can be involved in directing future plans for the club. It's obviously not in the interest of any multi-club model to have any part of it failing.

[brendy_éire]

Philip O'Doherty doesn't own Derry City though. It's not his to sell to get a return on his 'investment'. So he's basically an out-and-out philanthropic donor.

He essentially owns it now, with 99% of shares, but yes, he is basically a donor.

[sbgawa]

If O Doherty owns 99% of the shares why do you call him a donor?
If Derry win the league qualify for Europe etc etc any gains will accrue to him.

I dont think it matters to him tbh as he has literally 100's of millions but just wondering why he is referred to as a donor?
In practise i dont think anyone investing in LOI expects to make money but that might bechanging with the conference league

[EatYerGreens]

If O Doherty owns 99% of the shares why do you call him a donor?
If Derry win the league qualify for Europe etc etc any gains will accrue to him.

I dont think it matters to him tbh as he has literally 100's of millions but just wondering why he is referred to as a donor?
In practise i dont think anyone investing in LOI expects to make money but that might bechanging with the conference league

There are different types of ownership and different types of shares/shareholdings.

We'd need to know whether his shares enabled a dividend or not. If not, then he wouldn't acrrue any gains until he sold the club. And even that would assume that a) The shares are able to be traded above a fixed price, and b) That someone else was willing to buy his shares and pay more for them in total than he'd spent on the club. Which would seem extremely unlikely.

So all-in-all, he isn't going to get his money back. Which is why he would essentially be a donor.

[Longfordian]

This seems a bit unlikely to me but some family connections from up Ballybofey way were telling me that O'Doherty has given Harps money too. These would be sensible lads normally but I'm assuming there's no truth in it?