There I was on, sitting in sunny Pembrokeshire, reading the paper with a nice cup of coffee and awaiting the big football news of tomorrow, the fixtures. Only a day to go, and the papers with contain more important football stuff than how many millions month “top” players are demanding, my destinations for the coming season. Then the phone went “have you seen twitter?” I’d have a job, as I don’t tweet, but my caller was far more excited than a supposedly impartial journalist should be. “KLD 51%, Sartori 30%, Donald 19%. Man, it’s brilliant news.” While digesting this momentous announcement, more calls came in from mates in celebratory mood. Whoop whoop indeed.
Made my day? Too right it did. It was as if a weight had been lifted from the collective shoulders of us fans, and in hearing that news the future looked even brighter and sunnier than my picnic table. OK, it could have been even better had there been no Donald shareholding, but let’s be realistic. He might not have the financial clout of KLD or Sartori, but at least he’s got a slap whereas Methven had nowt but a misdirected swing. Perhaps the share movement was an agreed part of the initial KLD involvement, perhaps it was something that was agreed prior to the February revelation, which had many of us up in arms, that while KLD owned more shares than any other individual, he didn’t own the majority of the shares.
Now he does, and Sartori has upped his holding significantly. Was it KLD or Sartori who bought all of Methven’s shares, and which of them bought how many of Donald’s shares? To be honest, it doesn’t matter to me, and I don’t think it matters to the structure of the board shareholding-wise. Donald is now a (the?) minority shareholder, and even if, God forbid, he a Sartori decide to try something iffy (which I can’t see happening) then KLD is the man with the majority. I’m sure the accountants among you understand far more than I do about how power can be wielded according to the amount of shares held, and how potential coalitions might work, but the average fan – who’ll no longer be accused of not knowing anything about business – can now see that we have someone in overall control of the club.
You might well ask why Donald is still here in any capacity, perhaps it was agreed prior to that February revelation, perhaps even earlier. It almost certainly involves an element (larger rather than smaller) of the original reason he arrived, to make some money. As most of us have said over the years of his presence, if he makes his money on the back of the club being successful, we don’t care. If a mark of our success is our share value rising so that he can sell to another interested party, all well and good. We’ll take our chances on that interested party being interested for the right reasons.
Another benefit of today’s announcement is that it means the end of “interest” from Wild Bill Storey and his fantasy energy drink, and also the Bitcoin Brothers at The Fans Together. The last thing we needed was a repeat of a pair of chancers buying into our club with somebody else’s money, in their case, the fans’ money. That what was left of Madrox claimed to have held talks with them was plainly ridiculous, but it was never going to happen and can’t now happen now anyway.
Of course, the cry from the fans will now be “haway man, Kyril, get yer wallet out”, and understandably so. We’ve gone up a division, we’ve sold a ridiculous number of season tickets, the whole Sunderland behemoth is already on an upward trajectory – and has just had a great big boost with today’s announcement. All those who said they’d not be back until Madrox were gone might now return, despite the continued (but much reduced) presence of Donald. The days of regular smoke and mirrors “public relations” are seemingly behind us.
This is the news we’d been waiting for, so let’s take it from here. The future starts today.
