Allen Would Sell To 'Anyone'

Owls ex-chairman Dave Allen took the opportunity to air his views on BBC Radio Sheffield tonight - some of which we'd heard before, some not.

Ignoring the peevish revisit of his previously aired 'some fans are cretins' and 'Wednesdayite have never done anything of any use to the club' comments, I'll concentrate for now on his less emotional, more informational statements.

Plenty of reference to the Geoff Sheard led bid for the club, which Mr. Allen was happy to 'go along with'. His problem has been that the money promised, up to this point, hasn't been able to be delivered into the UK banking system. However that doesn't mean the deal is dead, according to Mr. Allen.

'The Sheard bid doesn't cease with me until such time as he says it's all off and he hasn't done that.'

He continued: 'Anyone who comes in and takes those shares, I'm with him'.

That statement was qualified with 'the person who comes along has to have an interest' and 'there's a chance they're genuine', but..

Anyone? Come on, there are conditions attached.

Mr. Allen continually (though not exclusively) referred to Sheffield Wednesday as 'they'.. he's done and dusted and it's evident he really wants out. He doesn't know why 'they' went to the Stock Exchange with takeover information, he said that 'they' have to develop players and sell them on in order to find a way out of the financial hole, because in this climate, no one is stumping up the big money for clubs any more. He doesn't know why anyone would buy a club anyway, if the level of abuse directed at him was anything to go by, it must be off-putting to investors to have that potential sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. He had no comment to make on why Wednesdayite withdrew their offer of sale to Sheard (apart from an insult).

And he reinforced our perception of the financial standing of the club - his 10% tranche of shares is worth around a million at 20p a share, the club's debt is around 24 million plus interest, the relationship with the bank is good and administration won't happen as long as the club has assets (and it does).

So, lots of talking points, but are we all talked out over this? Did you hear the interview? It's still available on the BBC South Yorkshire web site. Check it out and give us your views, either here or in the forum.

I sounded a bit like Seth there, without the United bias of course. Only joking, Seth ;-)

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