[Harry J Allstars]

Dear Paul,

 

Ebbsfleet United have received an offer from a League club to purchase striker John Akinde.

 

 

 

This request to buy John Akinde follows a number of offers, from several different clubs over the last few months. Thus far, none of the previous offers - in the view Liam Daish, the CEO and Chairman - were in the best interests of the football club.

 

The latest bid made on Wednesday 27 August is in excess of

[doheochai]

So the deal is finally happening -

 

wonder which club he's going to

 

1/1 Peterborough

2/1 Millwall

6/1 Charlton

10/1 other

[doheochai]

Of course it does make a bit of an improvement in the finances.

 

Losses for this year down to

[Harry J Allstars]

....West Ham

[billy nick]

ha ha only 16,000 renewals needed. you will be lucky to get 1,600.

[mnickels]

Considering we have over 3000 already

[Slartibartfast]

Originally Posted By: doheochai

So the deal is finally happening -

wonder which club he's going to

1/1 Peterborough
2/1 Millwall
6/1 Charlton
10/1 other

Lets put

[Stu M]

Originally Posted By: billy nick

ha ha only 16,000 renewals needed. you will be lucky to get 1,600.

Now, now, you concentrate on beating Hendon and Hastings before wasting time worrying about us.

[KShep]

Do we accept or not?

 

Accept

- As a young talent, regardless of what industry he's involved in, John will want to further himself. He'll want to try himself in more testing circumstances and understandably earn more money for it. I don't think anyone would begrudge him his wish for League football. It could, and probably does, follow that it's in Akinde's interests we accept the bid, let him play at a higher level and earn more money for doing so. If we keep him, will he still put his all into the club? If not, then I wouldn't want him here. It's perfectly feasible that if he stays, he could have a mediocre season and then leave on a free at the end of it, in which case we would have passed up

[doheochai]

Originally Posted By: KShep

The financial picture still seems blurry at the moment, but I don't think we need to sell players to stay afloat. Therefore, if we don't need to

[Richard C]

sell sell sell sell sell sell sell

 

did i mention i think we should sell!!

 

we will lose money on him if we wait too long.. sell while we can ang get a decent cheap replacement..

 

good luck to the boy - lots of my mates know him and say hes a top lad - love to see him on tv playing for Charlton or the like!!

[bsmith]

Sell him, take the money. Live to fight another day. It's what I would do, at this moment we shouldn't be concerned about pushing for promotion when we can't even support the current standard of football. We're running at a massive deficit, and until this is recitified we need to minimise our debt. Going for glory is all well and good, as long as it's achievable glory. If we get promoted in our current situation it'll be the end of the club.

[doheochai]

Originally Posted By: bsmith

Sell him, take the money. Live to fight another day. It's what I would do, at this moment we shouldn't be concerned about pushing for promotion when we can't even support the current standard of football. We're running at a massive deficit, and until this is recitified we need to minimise our debt. Going for glory is all well and good, as long as it's achievable glory. If we get promoted in our current situation it'll be the end of the club.

Getting the priorities right - fully agree

[Albie78]

Totally agree with that take the money and run.

[JimGNFC]

Akinde's performance against Torquay on Setanta and against Stevenage have been pretty fantastic IMO. His size and power scares defenders and its no surprise an offer is on the table.

 

Looking at the facts:

1) His not going to renew his contract.

2) He came through the PASE team and cost the Club nothing.

3) His RAW talent can probably be better developed at a League Club. Especially a Championship side such as Charlton.

 

We are dealing with a "human being" here. I've enjoyed watching him play and nothing would give me greater pleasure then to see him make something of himself at the top level like Jimmy Bullard. His young and deserves his chance.

 

From a Club perspective, balancing the books of the Club is all well and good but if the Club wants to convince the locals of its ambition you don't sell your prize asset without re-investing some of the money in promising non-league talent such as Josh Simpson. I see D&R have sold yet another player to Peterborogh today. The Club could do a lot worse then follow their model of developing young non-league players and moving them onto League Clubs when the time is right. The finances would then take care of themselves.

 

Another target man is probably also needed although IBE looks a pretty good striker but obviously not a target man. Let the Chief Executive worry about balancing the books thats what he gets paid for - although its an impossible job if your losing the kind of money the Club is a month. But thats for a discussion elsewhere.

[bsmith]

Originally Posted By: JimGNFC

The finances would then take care of themselves

I would have thought the current situation would rather disagree.

[Jeff]

For his own good and for the good of the Fleet, John should be sold. I wish him all the best.

[Chopper TN]

This is what I wrote on the MyFC threads about this subject. I hope that I was reasonable in my thought process. I know that I ended up saying more than just a couple of reasons, but I just reposted it as I wrote it.

 

"There are a couple of things to think about here:

 

1) Does John want to go? John has already indicated that he was not going to resign with Ebbsfleet when his current contract expires. So the question is, is this a club that John wants to go to? He has said that he wants to play league football and this looks like as good a chance to do that as any?

 

2) What to do with the proceeds from the sale? Given the state of finances, I believe that most of it should go to taking care of that, but keep some of it available to be able for Liam to strengthen the squad if need be. With performance bonuses and sell-on clauses included to add even more revenue from the sale, this would be a help. But we need butts in the seats to help finances more than anything.

 

3) What message does this send to our players, our fans, and ourselves? IMO, this sends the message that if you are good enough and someone puts in a legit offer, we will listen to all sides involved and will act in both the best interest of the player and the club. The ability to be reasonable will help attract quality players to Stonebridge Road and the fact that we are developing high quality players here will also be a drawing card also.

 

4) Do we trust the management team that we have in place? If all three of them think it is a good offer, if they didn't and this doesn't go through, does mean that we have the wrong people in place?

 

I did vote YES on the offer, especially after following the Berbatov-Spurs drama, the last thing we need is an unhappy player causing problems in the locker room, not saying that John would do that, but there is always a chance of that happening. "

 

[JimGNFC]

Originally Posted By: bsmith

Originally Posted By: JimGNFC

The finances would then take care of themselves

I would have thought the current situation would rather disagree.

I fully agree, I got a little carried away while typing my post. My last paragraph hints at the fact its near-on-impossible to make the books balance in the current situation.

However, there is probably some scope for using some of the Akinde money to bring in other young talent for 20K a go and then potentially selling them on in a year's time for a 100K plus. D&R have done this very successfully. The Club also gets there services for a year or so.

Of course its a gamble but so is losing 55K a month if this figure is to be believed. This situation cannot go on indefinately but this thread is really about Akinde so I'll shut up now

[Riverview Supporter]

Sell