Edelsten never owned the Swans?

[adnar]

Saw a little article in the Telegraph today that was refering to a documentry on Foxtel tonight. The gist of it was basicly that Edelsten never actually bought the swans because he was broke when he made the offer and the AFL didn't want to look stupid after announcing it so he didn't front any money. Also that he was pretty much just a front for Westeq a (mining company?) from WA, who basicly wanted to be involved in footy for networking reasons.


Interesting bit of history.

[Doctor J.]

Re: Edelsten never owned the Swans?

Originally posted by adnar
Saw a little article in the Telegraph today that was refering to a documentry on Foxtel tonight. The gist of it was basicly that Edelsten never actually bought the swans because he was broke when he made the offer and the AFL didn't want to look stupid after announcing it so he didn't front any money. Also that he was pretty much just a front for Westeq a (mining company?) from WA, who basicly wanted to be involved in footy for networking reasons.


Interesting bit of history.

Absolute truth.

The whole sale of Sydney was done with no due diligence at all. The main purpose was to get money for the ailing Vic clubs and have the new owners take over the debts of the Swans (read AFL debt). All had to be done as quickly as possible.

[ugg]

http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,19314834%255E19773,00.html

[BigBadBarryNo1]

Sheesh, a lot of what you guys are on about is a load of codswallop.

Because of the overly lenient and exploitable corporate rules (and toothless corporate regulators) in the 80's guys like Edelston naturally exploited those loopholes and yes did legally purchase the Swans. The fact that someone else paid for his bills does not understate the fact that legally, the license was in his name, and he had operational control over the business which is therefore deemed to be "ownership control" (legally speaking).

As for Vic clubs bagging us out for the late 80's / early 90's.. well we had Capper then, and 3 wooden spoons in a row from memory, didn't we?

[SimonH]

A big-noting, flashy 1980s 'entrepreneur' who liked living like a billionaire, actually had no clear capital when it came time to show the money? Stop the presses! Who woulda thunk it?

The point is that if I have $100 million of notional 'assets' which are offset by $110 of debts, and then because my financial backers are foolish, optimistic or I've pulled the wool over their eyes, I get clearance to go and spend another $x million on buying another asset (like a footy club): my face might be in the paper, my name might be on the contract, my shingle might be on the wall etc, but I'm not the owner in any meaningful sense.

Of course if it all goes arse up (in a manner that brings into question the legality of what I was doing), then I may be the one doing porridge; but the same can be said of the CEO, chief financial officer etc-- and none of them own so much as a changeroom locker.

To be fair to Warwick (and I don't know why I would be), we didn't have the 3 wooden spoons when we had him.

[arht]

Originally posted by SimonH

To be fair to Warwick (and I don't know why I would be), we didn't have the 3 wooden spoons when we had him.

As Tommy Hafey said last night on the show " ... selling Capper for $450k was the stupidest thing the club ever did ... did they think guys who can kick goals grew on trees".

As much as we love to hate Capper, he could take a grab and he could kick goals (with that technique, I am still not sure how though - it makes Dunkley's style look clinical by comparison). He was the reason why I first went to Swans games ... the marketing worked on me ... the result was 20 years of solid support from me and now my kids.