Well it's kind of obvious no?

I presume that Attanasio and his co-investors are basically happy to offer interest free loans in order to have the opportunity to invest in football. Otherwise they wouldnt have bothered to buy the club in the first place.

So they loan their own club some money from a related third party and have chosen not to charge interest on that loan. This is fine - in a sense charging annual interest on the loan would just be passing their money from something they own to something else they own. They might at some point see an advantage in doing that, but right now clearly not.

The benefit they get is that this allows them to invest in "football". So the club is able to buy players that otherwise wouldnt be affordable. Attanasio et al gain if the player is later sold for a big profit. They can choose to take a payment to repay the original loan, or they could leave the money in the club and buy more players. If it works well, the club benefits from access to better players and becomes more valuable as a result (e.g. if we ever do become established in the premier league), to their benefit.

The only question really is how much capital he wants to have at risk, and whether they have appointed people that can spot players available cheap now, that can be developed into more valuable players now. But none of the above requires annual interest payments to allow the investor to profit. Although it is also a helpful reminder that the club does now belong to them, and they are doing this primarily for their own ends. The good news being they only really win if we do well, so their interests are aligned with ours as fans.

Posted By: Under soil heating on July 15th 2024 at 17:37:01

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