As the CVA was approved on Friday, virtually exiting the club from administration, and as George Burley was appointed manager a new dawn shone fully on Crystal Palace football club. However, the night which eventually led to this new day arising was somewhat of a dark, tumultuous nightmare that spanned the best part of twenty five years.
In 1981 Ron Noades bought Crystal Palace from Ray Bloye. Noades is an astute businessman who was successful in bringing trophies to Selhurst Park, but he ultimately failed in his quest to be popular with the fans. The appointment of Steve Coppell as manager in 1984 and the purchase of Palace’s “player of the century” in Ian Wright was, according to Noades at least, the hallmark of his tenure as chairman as Palace reached the 1990 FA Cup Final and also enjoyed a sustained spell in the top division whilst Noades was in charge. However, in 1986, Ron Noades separated the club from its ground by selling Selhurst Park to another one of his companies, Altonwood-and this is where all the problems began.
Noades was chairman up until 1997 when he sold up to Palace fan Mark Goldberg who, like so many, promised to bring the good times back to Selhurst Park. However, instead of dynamically retrieving the glory days of his childhood Goldberg turned out to be more like a kid let loose in a chocolate factory as he contrived to blow his £40 million fortune in a little less than three years. Goldberg spent £22 million on simply buying the club without its only real asset, Selhurst Park, which Noades had separated from the club eleven years previously. Goldberg soon made Terry Venables manager and gave him plenty of money to spend whilst somehow forgetting to balance the books. Venables brought in players from Australia to Israel, without any revenue coming in from the stadium, and before you knew it the rules of naked economics took over and Palace were in dire financial straits. Inevitably enough, in late 1998, the club was put into administration and in 2000 Goldberg was declared bankrupt.
The season following the club being put into administration was one of strength and guile intertwined with an incredible display of leadership from the best manager in the clubs history. Ask any Palace fan what their most memorable seasons are and they will say that the 1999-2000 campaign is amongst them as Steve Coppell came back and kept them up in the old first division with a virtual youth team. Things got so bad during that season that the club couldn’t even afford to put the players up in a hotel the night before an away game- forcing the team to travel up in the morning leading up to it. However, Coppell was somehow able to get a group of boys to play like men, with Palace eventually staying up after second half goals from Clinton Morrison and Ashley Cole (who was on loan from Arsenal at the time) gave them a 2-1 home win against Blackburn in the penultimate game of the season.
As Palace’s first division status was confirmed lifelong fan and self made multi millionaire Simon Jordan moved in to buy the club once again, as fatefully as it turns out, without Selhurst Park. Jordan’s first decision was to remove the inspirational Steve Coppell and to bring in another former Palace boss, Alan Smith. Smith had success at Palace before and was the first in a long line of managers to take charge under Jordan who was given money to spend. However, he was not the last to blow it on over rated players earning over inflated wages. The likes of Neil Ruddock, Ade Akinbiyi, Shefki Kuqi and Dele Adebola (amongst others) were all bought with Jordan’s money during his ten years as chairman and all contributed to Palace’s downfall by being paid very high salaries for perpetually low performances. However, if failing to consistently sign free scoring strikers was a big error then failing to buy Selhurst Park through a complex business deal was a calamitous one.
On October 6th 2006 with the club steadily losing money through its unsustainable business model and with the future looking shaky all of a sudden there was a light at the end of the tunnel. With Palace enjoying a far from successful season under Peter Taylor Jordan delivered the best news possible by announcing that he had finally bought the stadium off Ron Noades. Jordan’s master plan was to agree a deal where property developer Paul Kemsley would purchase the stadium off Noades, for Jordan to then buy the Selhurst Park off Kemsley twelve months later. However, Jordan had his money invested in the Spanish property market at the time which duly crashed amidst the credit crunch, leaving him with no money to buy Selhurst Park. What made this so painful for Jordan is that because he defaulted on the payment the monthly rent on the stadium virtually quadrupled from £320k to £1.2 million. The club was now losing more money faster than it was before and administration was a virtual certainty. Jordan openly wanted to sell but nobody would buy. However, Palace’s recently unveiled new owners did offer him a deal where they would take the club off his hands for nothing in return for equity should Palace reach the Premiership again- how Jordan must now wish he took them up on their offer.
With a gaping hole appearing in the clubs finances Jordan was left with no option but to do a deal with a hedge fund called Agilo. Jordan borrowed £5 million and when he didn’t pay it back Agilo, who were on course to being paid according to the Palace chairman, put the club into administration on January 30th 2010. Jordan did some great things for Palace and his heart was fully in the job, but they were now back where they started.
What followed was quite possibly the most complex takeover deal in the history of English football.
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Administrator Brendan Guilfoyle was charged with the arduous task of finding a buyer, and what a task it was. What made the deal so complicated was that not only were the club in administration but the company who owned the stadium were in administration too. Guilfoyle allegedly got up to thirty enquiries about the Palace but, due to the enormity of trying to acquire two separate entities from two separate administrators, only a consortium of wealthy fans under the name of CPFC 2010, headed by Steve Parish (owner of Tag Advertising), were willing to go any further. The consortium made it clear very early on that they were unwilling to buy the club without the stadium, and so their journey began.
However, before any takeover could happen what was so critical for Palace to stay in existence was the team maintaining its Championship status. The football league finance distribution is structured so that the clubs in the Championship receive 80% of total revenue generated through TV and sponsorship whilst League 1 clubs receive just 12%. This drop in income would have been too much for CPFC 2010 to manage and if Palace had got relegated they would have definitely gone under. However, thanks to the work of caretaker manager Paul Hart, Palace stayed up with a heroic final day performance at Sheffield Wednesday. The first hurdle was cleared but there was a much higher one looming just around the corner.
After weeks of negotiations the consortium and Brendan Guilfoyle worked out a way to pay back Agilo in full whilst also putting together and offer to all the other unsecured creditors, including Jordan. A deal to buy the club was in place however issues with the purchase of the stadium arose. Lloyds Bank, who were now in control of the stadium since it went into administration, offered it to Parish at a price he could afford but attached an anti-embarrassment clause to the deal which made it impossible for CPFC 2010 to make any money from the stadium in the future- making it a pointless business deal for them and for the club. On top of this Agilo very hastily gave Palace a 24 hour deadline to complete the entire purchase and to deliver them their money back- otherwise they would call in the liquidators.
Cue outrage from the Palace faithful. The consortium posted an open letter on the fans chat site explaining the severity of the situation, and then let the passion of the club’s supporters do the work. Palace fans held two protests within the space of 24 hours, one outside Selhurst Park and one outside Lloyds HQ in London. Under severe public pressure Lloyds offered CPFC 2010 a fairer deal and the future of Crystal Palace Football Club was secured. New owner Steve Parish has openly stated that it was the protests that finally made the difference- one must think that the banking industry’s reputation had taken such a battering over the past two years that surely it couldn’t afford to do the unthinkable and put a football club out of business.
As of the creditors meeting on Friday the full takeover is now complete, the nightmare is over and Palace can surely look forward to a brighter future. The question now turns to wanting to know how this time around will be any different under CPFC 2010. Well, where do you want to start?
The biggest difference that simply cannot be overlooked is that Palace now own Selhurst Park. At Championship level the stadium is the club’s only capital asset, bringing in around 80% of the revenue, and without being in control of it Palace were always were destined to end up in administration. On top of this the club now has a group of highly rational thinkers in charge. The simple fact that CPFC 2010 wouldn’t buy the club without Selhurst Park, unlike the two chairmen before him, speaks volumes.
However, if you truly want to know where a man’s mind is then you must listen intently to his words under pressure. Despite all that has happened before there is one quote from Steve Parish in his news conference to unveil George Burley as manager that should give the fans the most hope of all. When asked about the choice of his first managerial appointment Parish stated: “We lack experience. Martin (new co chairman Martin Long of Churchill insurance) and I have never been in and around football to this extent so we very much wanted to choose someone with a track record.” The reason Palace fans should be so delirious to hear this is that it demonstrates that Steve Parish and CPFC 2010 realise, unlike many other club owners, that football is a business that must be learned and managed progressively. The football chairman graveyard is full of dreamers who wanted to reach the Premiership within two seasons without bringing any business logic to the operation- but what this statement shows is that the new owners of Crystal Palace will never take risks that could lead to them to being buried in the same spot.
As Palace fans look to the future excitement should consume them for they now have a club with a proven manager, a productive youth academy and, most importantly of all, a decent sized stadium that they actually own. This is a proven and straightforward equation for success that Palace haven’t had in years. However, under the guidance of Steve Parish, Steven Browett, Jeremy Hosking, Martin Long and everyone else involved with the CPFC 2010 consortium, this historic club now truly does have a platform to exploit their undoubted strengths for all they are worth.
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Written By Kieran Lovelock
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