And as soon as SW19 calls for something from the club, Charlie K puts his slightly worth more than $0.02 in. Check this out:
“We would like to have resolved a lot earlier than we did, I think in fairness to Richard Dunne he did want to become a Wimbledon player, but there were a few factors involved in the final deal after it had dragged on which made us look twice at the situation and decide it wasn’t right for us.”
Now, CK is absolving Dunne of any blame, but I’m intrigued by these “few factors”. Although it’s been reported that things were agreed prior to Dunne taking the medical, the usually ultra-reliable Bloomberg service reported tonight that the deal had been scuppered due to “personal terms” at the last minute. I can only presume then that somebody has tried to ask for some more money despite the vast majority of things being agreed, or to put it another way, pulling a fast one. And given the way this whole transfer has been dragged out, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find out that one of Dunne’s representatives is trying to sting us. Back to CK:
“Relegation from the Premiership has cost us a lot of money in not only terms of television money and attendances but also things like corporate hospitality. We could quite easily go out and spend millions of pounds and not guarantee promotion. What would happen if we brought in five or six Premiership players on Premiership wages and failed to go up? This club could face financial ruin and where would we be then? Our role off the pitch is just as important as the players as we have a responsibility to safeguard the future of Wimbledon Football Club. “
This should now confirm the club’s current direction : there is quite simply no point in us trying to spend mega backs on trying to get back up because it’s quite frankly too risky. Need I show what happened to Palace? CK continues:
“Terry will have money available but it will not happen overnight but over time. We have the financial structure of a Premiership club in the First Division so that is a greater burden for us. The parachute money helps but it is substantially less than what we would have accrued in the Premiership. Clubs like Watford are in a position to go out and spend £4 million pounds on two players because they are are a First Division club who spent a year in the Premiership with a First Division set-up. That one season has allowed them to gain funds to buy two top flight players, but we have a whole squad of Premiership players already but we are simply not in a position to replace injured players like Kenny Cuningham or Michael Hughes, who will be back in action soon, with players who would cost £2 or £3 million to take their positions in the short term.”
“Like everyone involved with the club we want to win promotion this season. If we can do it this year then it would be fantastic. However, it is vitally important that we get the stability of the club and the infrastructure right first so when we do return to the Premiership we can compete with the best. If that means we need this season to do so and it leaves us in a better position next year to compete in the transfer market and rebuild the club then I think every supporter will agree with us.”
Remember what I said about WFC’s plan to get up into the Premiership being 3 years? You can read the rest of the article yourself from the Official Site, where it mentions PGPF amongst others, but it’s now quite obvious that an announcement had to be made and was made pretty eloquently. There was a nasty little rumour in a nasty little tabloid that TB was considering quitting : however, there was no quotes attributed and bearing in mind that the owners hasn’t actually undermined TB as such (they are still very keen on Darren Holloway, another one of TB’s desirables, and if they were trying to undermine TB then why was DB not at Wigan last night?), I just can’t see this happening.
Meanwhile, some places are repeating CK’s comments last week about moving away from SP. Nothing new there, except with an extra twist : Simon Jordan sees us vacating SE25 as vital to getting the SP freehold, and may well give us two years and two years only. So, if we announce something before this time next year, we could practically find ourselves having to play somewhere else in the meantime (a la Charlton). Who fancies Craven Cottage? Or even Ponti Stamfordi?