DO NOT RESUSCITATE
Sunderland’s season is dead and buried and they have NO PLANS to get out of their £140M debt, a mountain of trouble.. and League One
THERE is currently no plan to revive basketcase club Sunderland from the lowest point in their history. A £140million mountain of debt, accrued over a decade of mismanagement, managerial churn and buying bad players on big contracts, hangs over a club relegated to League One for next season. We know American billionaire, Florida-dwelling Ellis Short, who decided a couple of years ago he had wasted enough cash, wants out. We know Chris Coleman wants in, despite it all. Short has let Sunderland rot for the last 12 months. “He’s thrown us the keys and said get on with it,” said one senior employee.
Now it is time he stepped up to provide some clarity.
Do a deal and sell – with how to get rid of the debt a huge obstacle. Or get his backside to Wearside to sort out the mess personally.
In the past five months Short has not even spoken to manager Chris Coleman.
“To have no conversation with him at all is bizarre, that is strange,” Coleman said as he digested relegation. “I’ve not known that in 15 years of management.
“At the minute, he does not want a lot to do with us. The club needs help. Whether it is me or someone else who walks through the door, we need someone above us to say we can or we cannot do this or that.”
There will be a clear-out of players, who collectively earn £35m, starting this week – loanees sent back and six players
out of contract. Anyone who can be sold, will be, to take chunks out of the debt repayments.
Sunderland will get year two of their Premier League parachute payment in League One, around £33m. But, ouch, those debt interest payments this summer.
Coleman or whoever will have to build a squad from scratch with no money, the tired old, overpaid, under-performing, lingering smell of the last two seasons, being ditched.
They need a new broom through a club that went stale amid back-slapping empire building at the Stadium of Light.
Remember Adam Johnson being played, despite the club knowing the child-grooming evidence against him, on ousted MD Margaret Byrne’s watch?
Mention the £25m-a-year losses being built up just to survive in the Premier League and the club would shoot the messenger, saying it was not a problem. Well, it is now.
Instead, they sanctioned
puff pieces on how great the latest manager/director of football/Byrne, was. They were not.
Sunderland need a fresh start. Perhaps Niall Quinn, who is being urged to get involved with consortia, can return.
It summed up the shambles at the Stadium of Light that no one knew they had officially gone down well after the final whistle.
Coleman, despite his own poor record on Wearside, remains a rare positive and someone to rally around.
He said: “Could I have done better here? I am not going to blame Ellis. I knew what I was walking into and I thought I could have affected it more and I haven’t, not like I wanted to.
“But I don’t want to be the one who misses out on this thing turning round.
“There is only one objective now for Sunderland and that’s promotion, we can’t do it now, but we can in the next league. “There’s no stabilising, it’s about bouncing straight back, bang. I think there is enough young talent to do this... and this is Sunderland Football Club.
“No disrespect to League One, I think we can still attract good enough players to make a difference and to get us heading in the right direction.
“Even if it is League One, Blackburn have just done it, Wigan... it can be done.
“The problem is we don’t know who the owner of the club is going to be and that puts doubt into everyone’s mind.
“Until we know for certain who it is going to be, am I the manager, there’s the owner... until we know the plan, only then can we start judging what we can do.”