Mashed Potatoes

I think the relevant point is that when Gestede was hawking him around no Championship club appeared to want to sign him and he had to take a move to Division One. Of course that doesn't mean that he won't get back to Championship level one day but it does seem from the interest shown in Cadamarteri by ourselves and Millwall that right now he is seen in the game as the better bet of the two. Time will tell.

The issue with Leonard was his dreadful injury record. I know very little about Cadamarteri but I see from Wikipedia that despite being over 18 months younger than Leonard he has managed to play significantly more first team games. Additionally from the above it seems that at least one other Championship team are interested in him whereas Leonard had to drop down a division to find a club.

Broughton signed Szmodics, Hyam, Brittain and Tronstad. How do you conclude that "he failed every single time" ? Even by your standards that is complete nonsense.

I didn't mean the PSR rules. I simply meant the cash available to the management at Ewood Park to spend on improving first team results.

Personally I don't have a problem with the club being owned by cold, hard business people. It is competence and good decision making that are primarily important, to me anyway ; I agreed with the decision to effectively withdraw from women's football because the increase in costs arising from the new rules were estimated to be in the region of £600k to £700k pa and I would rather see that money spent on improving the first team results.

I agree with you.

An interesting read but surely matches are called off by referees, albeit they may consult the two managers.

Thank you for the complement. To answer your questions : 1. I don't know; if I had to guess I would say they do not like to accept defeat. I don't think there is any evidence that there is anything untoward at the club to hide. 2. The most likely circumstances for a sale are likely to be some kind of pressure from within India. My guess is that the price they would be looking for if they are not forced sellers is way in excess of what purchasers would be looking to pay. 3. After 15 years of ownership the only area of the club that is not markedly worse than before is The Academy. Therefore you would have to conclude that their continued ownership is a hindrance. I believe they are in full control of the club and don't believe that they are puppets of any outside agencies. I believe they do want the club to succeed but lack the skills to achieve that ; I don't think there is any evidence that they have deliberately engineered relegations.

It only goes in the expenses column if the investment is written down. But 2 points : 1. That assumes the writedown is an allowable deduction for Indian tax purposes. I don't know. 2. Last time I looked at the VLL accounts there was a statement along the lines that the directors of that company believed the investment in the football club -equity and debt - was worth what VLL had put in. In that case I don't see how the Indian holding company could claim a writedown.

They count if an Indian resident is trading in the UK its own right, usually through a branch. But that is not happening with us.

I'm afraid you are misinterpreting this. Indian residents will be treated on "their" overseas income and losses as you state. But the losses of the football club are not losses of an Indian resident - they are losses of a UK resident,the football club. For Venkys in India a tax loss only crystallises if/when they dispose of the UK company through which they are injecting cash in to the football club - but that loss will be a capital loss which under Indian tax law can only be offset against capital profits, not trading profits.

It's the case, I'm afraid. If you were an Indian taxpayer how would you feel about effectively subsidising part of the wages of UK based footballers ?

Yes, I deliberately referred to operating losses as that excludes profits on transfer dealings. I think prospective new owners, either of us or Preston, would concentrate primarily on operating results simply because transfer profits and losses are volatile and cannot be forecast with accuracy.

You may well be right about how they account for the losses in India - but that will not be the same as the tax treatment. We seem to have our own Chief Financial Officer - Matt Wright - who I assume is responsible for most of the Finance duties rather than the board members.

Unless the Indian tax system is dramatically more generous regarding the utilisation of losses of overseas businesses than every other country in the world - which I doubt and on a brief scan of the easily available information regarding their tax code does not appear to be the case - then Venkys will not be able to offset the football club's losses against their taxable profits in India. If like the Hemmings group they had other UK businesses which were profitable they would be able to utilise the losses.