{"id":8882,"date":"2016-04-05T10:14:41","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T09:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8882"},"modified":"2016-04-05T10:14:41","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T09:14:41","slug":"oxford-united-and-celtic-surely-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=8882","title":{"rendered":"Oxford United And Celtic: Surely not….?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rebus wonders about this Oxford- Celtic merger, and its maybe not as far fetched as you think…<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is Celtic going to Oxford, or is Oxford coming to Celtic? Or is it all a load of nonsense?<\/p>\n

Here are some thoughts on the recent rumour that Celtic may be looking at entry into the English leagues via a buyout of an existing club, namely Oxford United.
\nFirst of all, here are a few facts about the potential target. The estimated market value of the club is just under three million euros. This is made up mainly of playing staff since the club does not own its own ground\u2026\u2026..a point that we shall return to later. United have a first team squad of 27 with two players that stand out\u2026..a left midfielder, Calum O\u2019Dowda and a right winger, Kemar Roofe who scores goals. So Oxford has some desirable assets that could be sold or retained by our club.<\/p>\n

The club has had a variety of owners over the last twenty years which indicates how unstable it has been. However, it does show that a licence to play in the league has been transferred through a purchase. Last weekend OU made the final of the Johnstone Paint cup at Wembley, where they lost narrowly to Barnsley, a team one division higher than them. Currently, the team plays in League 2, occupying second position which if they hold that position, would see them promoted to League 1, two divisions below the Holy Grail of the EPL.<\/p>\n

The OU coach appears to share many of the ideas of our current coach, namely, the importance of developing players and controlling players\u2019 lifestyle to improve fitness. This would qualify him for youth coach at Celtic.<\/p>\n

In the last six months, there has been a bit of a boardroom shuffle at OU. The CEO has left for Bristol City and Daryll Eales has assumed both the Chairmanship and the job of CEO. Eales is also the majority shareholder in the club. His background is in private equity with skills in mergers. Eales may be attracted by a conversion of his shares in OU into investment in Celtic. It is certainly a world that would be familiar to him. Would Eales be interested in selling the club, knowing that it would be merged with Celtic, and moved out of Oxford? Who knows! Average gates run between 6-7000. So there will be quite a few disappointed supporters that will make a lot of noise over losing their club. Would that influence the OU board against the option of being part of a larger club that plays in Europe? On the other hand, there is certainly a financial argument for the OU board to welcome interest from Celtic. The latest financial data is due out later this month, but the three years prior to that all show significant losses with the last of these losses totally 1.4 million. The previous owner of the club, Firoz Kassam used the SEVCO manoeuvre when he purchased the club which was 9 million in debt at that time. He put the club into administration and offered a CVA that paid 10p in the pound. Acceptance of this CVA meant that he cleared himself of a 9 million debt at a cost of only 900,000. So it is not just Scottish businesses that get ripped off by this ploy!<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s return to who owns OU\u2019s stadium because it ain\u2019t OU. Firoz Kassam owns the stadium which he values at 15 million pounds, something that is hardly feasible for OU to pay, assuming that Kassam would be willing to sell. Mr Kassam has plans to develop the area around the stadium by putting in a hotel and 2-300 houses. This plan includes building houses right up to the stadium and will take away part of the car park. Are you beginning to get a picture of what might be in his mind? Of course any development such as the latter requires approval of the local council and I have no inkling of where it stands, but I suspect that Mr Kassam does.<\/p>\n

Right, time to sum up. All of this is just conjecture on my part, but OU seems to be a good target for Celtic for a number of reasons. Firstly, it would be inexpensive to buy because it does not own its ground. The last twice that it was sold, it went for a pound! The financial position of the club is precarious and, consequently the board may find Celtic\u2019s approach attractive. Thirdly, there is a precedent for English leagues to contain clubs playing in grounds outside of England. Fourthly, the major shareholder is a venture capitalist and may find Celtic\u2019s approach fits with his business philosophy.<\/p>\n

On the negative side, the local council may be concerned with the votes that it might lose from disgruntled fans and may attempt to block a move. In addition, there will be a variety of approvals needed from football associations, perhaps including UEFA. All of this will take time. Currently, OU leases their stadium from Kassam. It may be difficult to get out of this lease. Finally, Celtic would need to ensure that there would be no impediment to its progression all the way through to the EPL.<\/p>\n

Depending on how OU fair this season, it will take a number of years to gain access to the EPL by this route. Celtic may have to maintain a team in Oxford for a year or two since the implementation of a Celtic entry into an English league could only happen at the beginning of a season, and the licence will have to be kept alive. Also, the current team would not be a shoe-in to gain promotion from the Championship. Substantial investment would be required to get Celtic out of the Championship and to maintain its presence in the Premier League. Does our board have the stamina for that? A number of managerial and structural changes would be needed within the club, not least of which will be the recruitment process. Still nothing ventured, nothing gained.<\/p>\n

Rebus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebus wonders about this Oxford- Celtic merger, and its maybe not as far fetched as you think…   Is Celtic going to Oxford, or is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8883,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/stadium-wall-1600259-227125.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-2jg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8884,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8882\/revisions\/8884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}