Football supporters love nothing more than a good conspiracy theory. Or even a bad one. Our sport is fertile ground for rumour and conjecture.
At Norwich City, we’re no different. We can do conspiracy theories along with the best of them.
Remember the mother of them all? The one where Dean Ashton mysteriously picked up an injury in training that precluded him from playing in a 2005 FA Cup tie against West Ham?
That Deano went on, a few days later, to sign for West Ham was, according to Nigel Worthington, merely a coincidence. So insistent was Worthy that nothing untoward had gone on, he offered to release publicly the scans that would prove once and for all that Ashton had picked up a legit injury.
Alas, Nigel was about as convincing as Boris Johnson at the Privileges Committee. And, to my knowledge, the scans never made it into the public domain.
There have been others since – admittedly none as thrilling as Scan-gate – but most tend to thrive when there is a lack of official information and/or communication.
The void naturally gets filled with guesswork and speculation. Human nature takes over. Sometimes that void is unavoidable and borne of necessity – when a legal process is ongoing, for example – but your average football fan gives not two hoots about the vagaries of the sub judice rule or the complexities of company law.
They care more about their football club and whether it is in good shape (or not) and whether or not it’s aiming to be the best it can possibly be. On that particular subject, they are always more than happy to offer their two penneth to fill the void.
So it’s unsurprising that over the last week, MFW has had comments aplenty on the subject of the new share issue – the one approved by shareholders at an Emergency General Meeting on February 13 – and where this all could be heading.
If you needed reminding, the motion passed was for an additional 194,512 shares to be made available for purchase. This will take the total number of shares up to 811,425 – up from the existing 616,913 and an increase of 24 percent.
Most of us hoped and assumed that said new allocation would head in the direction of the Attanasios. If purchased by them, it would take their share in the Club up to at least 36 percent and within a whisker of Delia and Michael’s shareholding, which upon the new issue would be diluted to around 40 percent.
Worth noting too is that the Attanasios have hoovered up several other smaller shareholdings – quantity as yet unknown – and so would edge them ever closer, maybe even beyond, the number held by Delia and Michael.
Lots of ifs and wishful thinking there.
The crux of it all appeared to come in a throwaway final line in the original letter to shareholders.
Quote: “Further information will follow once the formal business of the meeting has concluded.”
Except it didn’t. There was no further information.
The meeting lasted nine minutes and the can was further kicked down the road with another final line, delivered on the Club’s website upon its conclusion:
Quote: “The board will now work through the legal and regulatory process with a view to issuing a further update in due course.”
‘In due course’ doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
As I write, nearly six weeks have elapsed since the EGM and there has been not the slightest hint of white smoke coming from Carrow Road’s Sistine Chapel.
That’s not to say that developments are not ongoing behind closed doors – they almost certainly are – but for most of us there is absolutely nothing to go on.
So we speculate.
Some fans – and I talk mainly here of the good folk of the Canaries Trust – have recently been privy to an interview with Tom Smith and so may be better informed than most, although I understand Tom was not at liberty to confirm whether Mark Attanasion was taking up the new share issue
But for those who have grown tired of and disillusioned with the Delia Smith regime, and who perceived the new share issue as a potential new start for the Club, the wait feels like a long one.
In a piece I wrote at the time when the original letters went out to shareholders, I dismissed the idea of Delia and Michael (and/or Tom) increasing their percentage share of the Club as fanciful. Surely not.
I still find the idea unlikely but can see why, given their intransigence over the years to all things external, some fans remain fearful that rather than dilute their shareholding, the Smith family may see this as an opportunity to fortify it.
Ultimately, this would be a massive step backward and would be the very antithesis of the boost we are looking for. Some may call it a kick in the teeth.
I’m not sure even the staunchest supporters of self-funding wholly believe in self-funding anymore, so for the Club to not only continue down that route but to double down on it would be quite something – the fallout from which I dare not even contemplate.
But, to those who fear the worst, I have only this:
I don’t have the faintest idea what the next few weeks and months will bring (the downside of being the least well-informed of all Norwich City writers) and am unable to offer you even the vaguest of assurances, but I just don’t believe the Attanasios would still be hanging around if there was no deal to be done.
They made very clear their intention of taking on a bigger role in our Club and they’re not the type of businesspeople who would be content to play a diminishing bit-part role and remain in the background for the medium term.
Flawed logic maybe, but for now I’m sticking to it.
Hi Gary
An interesting take on the share issue.
Mark A did a little interview for the AGM when first voted on to the board then the usual visit to the nest and all things Norwich City, was quoted saying he believes in the local Media and welcomes a good working relationship with said media.
Being a cynical 72 year old I just can’t for the life of me seeing why he hasn’t jumped on Webber’s lack of trying to mend this media relationship as it’s only damaging the club.
In house YouTube with prearranged questions and answers are a poor excuse and are really covering over not cracks but big crevasses in the lack of openess.
Has the Cook or the Capitalist purchased the shares or someone completely out of the picture, Mark A might have been slowly putting a consortium together to take control.
Slowly the death bells toll ring out towards the end of Smith&Jones tenure and its 26years to late, the failure to build on any success no matter how small is or should be a beacon on how not to run a football business.
Who do you believe Delia’s mantra they are the only game in town or the Financial Director saying good offers come in and it’s left to the owners to decided ! Turkey’s and Thanksgiving comes to mind, I just wonder if any dudilgence was ever done on said offers ?????
I think one of the big questions that the board are wrestling with is the price of the shares, who will pay what? They obviously want those shares to go to the ˋright‘ person but how much will that person pay? They want to significantly bolster funds so £20M, £100 per share? Anything less would be desperation, anything more wishful thinking? Certainly worth arguing about.
Hi Gary
From the very beginning I thought there was something a bit fishy about this whole process.
Everything seems to be a movable feast, meaning if you will that one hissy fit on either side and a deal that was never laid out in tablets of stone could be off before it was on!
You claim to be the least well-informed of all Norwich City writers – that’s an unofficial title I’d fight you over as it could be rightfully mine – but there’ll be a three-line whip on this one so my respectful suggestion would be that nobody knows bugger all because that’s how Delia likes it.
Paddy and his crew are stymied even if they were to push for information, which latterly has hardly been the way it has worked at the Pink Un anyway. He and his team are hardly a pack of Rottweilers and do not deserve the treatment they have been given by the club.
We are not sexy enough for the nationals to take even a passing interest in this issue so what we are left with is speculation galore.
While there is no evidence Delia is looking to acquire more shares of her own it is highly regrettable that the idea cannot be kicked into touch either.
Because if she does come on strong one last time we are surely finished,
Can I just remind folks that one of the primary motives for Michael Foulger selling his shares in the first place (which is the primary reason why we are where we are) was to get new investors into the club.
To be best of my knowledge that remains the case and the notion being peddled by some that the recent developments are aimed towards D&M increasing their shareholdings like misguided speculation.
The Club made itself a hostage to fortune by suggesting that the allotment of shares would happen within two weeks. That was always going to be a challenge, and so it’s proved.
*seems like misguided speculation!
Gary, I’ve never read, in any statement the club has made about this share issue where they’ve indicated the process of allotment would happen within two weeks, that time framework if I remember correctly came from you, based upon some corporate requirement to do so, a statement hotly disputed at the time by a couple of MFW informants, all the club has said is that it’s now going through the regulatory process, so maybe misguided speculation was kick started by misguided information, and on that point why is it taking authorities so long? if the intended buyer was Attanasio ( and surely it could have only been him ) then the amount of shares and the price of such would already have been agreed upon and how he funded it would have quickly been attended to as well, no Gary, unless there are regulatory problems, and I know nothing about such matters, then something stinks.
DaveC, I think you are conflating two points here. Firstly, the second resolution, as drafted by the Club, not me, was explicit. It mentioned the two week period. The second issue was raised by two people relating to whether the 30% rule applies. Unlike some, I never claimed to be a corporate lawyer, those who know better than me, suggest that it would.
The club made itself a hostage when they stopped being transparent.
They have offered little information to the paying supporter beyond what was legally necessary.
Pro rata anyone.
Convince them all as they own more shares , their share is now worth more.
I agree that if delia Smith did entrench her position at thw club that it would be the end of it as a serious football entity. However, if she wished to purchase more shares would she not have simply bought foulgers holding when it became apparent that he wanted out?
Both in their 80s my feeling is both Delia and Michael want to pass quietly into the night, not increase their stress levels. I think the Attansio take over will probably happen but nowt will be seen in public until a done deal. The idea that nephew Tom has enough personal wealth to play any part in any new world of ownership is risible. The only worry in my mind is that the Webber clan might get embedded in this new world but I would hope that Attanasio is too smart a cookie to let that happen.
Meanwhile thank God we won’t get promoted this year. At least we won’t be stuck with the wounded Hayden (though it’s not really his fault if ‘our’ lads were stitched up by the Toon lawyers!)
As mere mortals (fans), it is all we can do to gaze on in awe as the Gods rearrange themselves.