if you did a leeds i would actually cry tears of joy. truly hilarious.
i'm going to be serious for a second. how bad is it actually. when i first saw the story i just thought it was scaremongering bullshit but it seems to be pretty serious.
Long post... sorry...
All depends on the refinancing terms. If RBS refuse to refinance, the two Yanks are screwed unless they can raise a lot of cash quickly (which they've been trying to do by trying to sell off other assets with little success). Which basically means RBS makes the call - do they refinance or take over the club or force a sale at a price which solely covers the debt to RBS? The first option is what the Yanks are counting on I think. Interest payments ought to go down as interest is much lower now than the 3.5% + LIBOR providing that RBS doesn't think that it's a bad risk, in which case interest will be much higher than what we're currently paying. An increased interest rate is more likely which will screw us financially over the short and medium term as well as draning the yanks of cash which they may or may not have. Solely to finance the interest repayments. And we'll be in the same situation as we are now whenever the loan is next due for repayment but it buys time for the Yanks to find another investor or to sell up.
RBS are unlikely to take over the club unless they view the yanks as being too much of a risk. This is a real danger unless the Yanks actually start putting in their own money (something they haven't done so far - all the money so far has come from them taking out loans against the club). In that case, we'll go to the wall and do a Leeds I think, although I doubt we'll go quite as far or quite as spectacularly. The problem is that we only know the figures up to August 2008. What is the situation as of now?
To balance that out, there's a lot of new contracts been signed (long-term ones too) which indicates that something might be brewing - certainly there's more moves about the new stadium being suggested (funds being drawn down for that again). That might imply a minority investor being on the cards. Which may or may not reassure RBS to refinance. That is the PR spin being put out by the Yanks and most of us take it with a pinch of salt.
RBS could alternatively force a sale. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any buyers out there who will pay 400 million quid for Liverpool and then want to invest another 300 million quid + on a new stadium. Effectively, Liverpool need 700 million quid to get them to where they should have been when the club was first sold to the Yanks.
Essentially, we're now in the position you'll be in when your debts come up for refinancing. Worth remembering that we've made a 40 million quid loss on a 10 million quid profit. You've somehow managed a 40 million quid loss on a 70 million quid profit. Both clubs are in deep, deep trouble financially - some will say that it will all be alright in the end, but to put it in basic terms, our owners have got a mortgage and are currently making up the shortfall between their income and the mortgage interest repayments with their credit cards; it's unsustainable in the long-term and it doesn't pay off the mortgage. Whether you lot reach this point will depend on what refinancing will be like when your debts are due for repayment in five years time and whether you can maintain large increases in revenue every season until then.