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The FBI have got the Kirch!


Heisenberg

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Someone needs to tell them that we aren’t in the European Union anymore.  It is blocking member states from reading the article…

he deserves everything he will get, a compete chancer and charlatan…

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5 hours ago, ThePrisoner said:

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/entrepreneurs/2023/03/27/how-a-southlake-tech-ceos-high-flying-lifestyle-imploded/

"Of the $67 million the company collected from Goldman Sachs and other investors in 2020 and 2021, Kirchner stole $28 million to “fund his lavish lifestyle,” according to the SEC complaint. He spent $495,000 on a luxury suite at a North Texas sports stadium, about $22,000 on membership fees for a private golf club in Westlake, over $902,000 on personal credit card charges and about $274,000 for luxury concierge services for his private jet.

Kirchner needed permission from his chief of staff to transfer more than $100,000 out of the company’s main bank account, according to the complaint. Before purchasing his plane, he messaged the chief of staff that there was a “big week coming up” for the company so he could transfer $20 million without raising any alarms.

He sold the aircraft in August 2022 for $17 million to help pay off his debts."

Fit and proper, my ar$e

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It's astonishing how close he got to being our owner.

There is a fundamental issue with football club governance and finances about which the authorities seem completely oblivious/powerless/negligent*

A complete overhaul is required but no-one seems to have the cajones to do it.

Our situation and 'Kirchners' will keep happening unless someone properly gets to grips with things.

*Delete as appropriate

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17 minutes ago, RodleyRam said:

It's astonishing how close he got to being our owner.

There is a fundamental issue with football club governance and finances about which the authorities seem completely oblivious/powerless/negligent*

A complete overhaul is required but no-one seems to have the cajones to do it.

Our situation and 'Kirchners' will keep happening unless someone properly gets to grips with things.

*Delete as appropriate

Why would they need drawers to overhaul the system?

hide GIF

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52 minutes ago, RodleyRam said:

It's astonishing how close he got to being our owner.

There is a fundamental issue with football club governance and finances about which the authorities seem completely oblivious/powerless/negligent*

A complete overhaul is required but no-one seems to have the cajones to do it.

Our situation and 'Kirchners' will keep happening unless someone properly gets to grips with things.

*Delete as appropriate

I think the answer is powerless. The EFL saw proof of the money, what they didn't know - or have the legal right to investigate - is where it had come from. We now suspect it may have been "borrowed" from his employers (allegedly).

This is no different to Marinakis providing proof of funds at Forest. The money is there, and plentiful.

What the EFL are powerless to do is to investigate the sources of people's wealth, and then to make a value judgement on it. 

Once we start doing that, it's a tricky path. Where do we draw the line? Human rights, drugs, tax evasion, gambling, alcohol? 

People don't generally accumulate the types of funds needed to buy and run competitive football clubs by being 100% ethical.

It's a minefield.

Edited by angieram
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33 minutes ago, RodleyRam said:

It's astonishing how close he got to being our owner.

There is a fundamental issue with football club governance and finances about which the authorities seem completely oblivious/powerless/negligent*

A complete overhaul is required but no-one seems to have the cajones to do it.

Our situation and 'Kirchners' will keep happening unless someone properly gets to grips with things.

*Delete as appropriate

I don't find it astonishing and I'm not convinced that any new regulator will find it any easier to identify the charlatan owners in advance either.  My view is that they are essentially powerless in a free market economy or even, as football is nowadays, a more controlled market.  It's harder to do than getting a grip of things.

Take three examples:

Had the authorities, at the time he was taking over, stopped Mel Morris from buying us - a multi, multi millionaire with legitimately earned income, a person born/educated in Derby and allegedly a fan of the club - we would have (rightly) been up in arms.  What happened later was largely unforeseeable then though, no doubt, the EFL would give MM as a prime example of why they don't like the owner/funder model of club ownership (without clearly identifying what model of ownership they do like).

Or the Glazers.  Bought Man Utd essentially by putting the club into debt, using it to buy itself.  All perfectly legal whether intrinsically you like that way of funding a club or not. From the beginning there were people who didn't like the club suddenly having to service significant amounts of debt but the club/business can clearly afford the debt levels given its turnover.  No Man Utd fan can legitimately argue that their squad hasn't had money lavished upon it even if you can argue that what was bought was over priced rubbish.  You can't just ban Americans/foreign owners or even people wanting to fund takeovers in ways that limit their own personal liabilities.

Or Newcastle.  Owners that were originally turned down but later became acceptable because, apparently, their funding is not controlled by the State concerned.  Does anyone really believe that or that the state concerned doesn't have human rights issues?  You sense that a great deal of money was spent in between on expensive lawyers finding a fudge or three to satisfy the needs of regulators and the EPL; you sense that some of the opposition was football political - that the existing 'big' clubs didn't want a gatecrasher to disturb their financial monopoly on the top EPL places; and that there was an underlying threat of expensive legal action should the takeover not be eventually sanctioned

Kirchner was clearly a persuasive guy, certainly to a club desperate for new ownership and to authorities that wanted MM gone and for Derby to have new owners.  Whatever the EFL may say now they clearly allowed him past the ownership tests and they and the administrators clearly saw some proof of funds whatever that later proved to be. And Kirchner fooled international banks, plane owners, Rooney and his agent and the game of golf. Maybe, just maybe, we owe MM some thanks for not selling the ground either to Kirchner or to Ashley (and for splitting it from the football club) and for selling it to Clowes' company.

The amount of money sloshing around in football generally nowadays will always attract people at the edges whether they're individuals or countries with dodgy records.  Some might be easier to spot than others but no regulator is going to stop easily perfectly legal transactions from happening, whoever is involved.  Hindsight is a great skill given to no one.   

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  • 1 month later...
On 15/02/2023 at 09:33, RadioactiveWaste said:

Oh the EFL insists on you being proved to be skint and fraudulent before blocking you, and how can you be proved to be skint and fraudulent if you don't get approval to take over an EFL club.

The EFL are galaxy brains compared to us mere mortals.

The brutal truth is that there are relatively few people who are willing and able to invest (i.e.lose) tens of millions on a football club AND who haven't done questionable things to acquire that money.

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On 31/03/2023 at 15:02, angieram said:

I think the answer is powerless. The EFL saw proof of the money, what they didn't know - or have the legal right to investigate - is where it had come from. We now suspect it may have been "borrowed" from his employers (allegedly).

This is no different to Marinakis providing proof of funds at Forest. The money is there, and plentiful.

What the EFL are powerless to do is to investigate the sources of people's wealth, and then to make a value judgement on it. 

Once we start doing that, it's a tricky path. Where do we draw the line? Human rights, drugs, tax evasion, gambling, alcohol? 

People don't generally accumulate the types of funds needed to buy and run competitive football clubs by being 100% ethical.

It's a minefield.

They aren't, or shouldn't be, powerless - I cannot believe that neither the EFL nor the administrators had a robust process in place to validate the source of funds, it's a very normal practice and one that perhaps the banks did properly and hence the money never materialised. At best, the EFL and the administrators could be considered a little negligent.

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9 minutes ago, Mihangel said:

They aren't, or shouldn't be, powerless - I cannot believe that neither the EFL nor the administrators had a robust process in place to validate the source of funds, it's a very normal practice and one that perhaps the banks did properly and hence the money never materialised. At best, the EFL and the administrators could be considered a little negligent.

Preston saw through him immediatley.

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19 minutes ago, WystonRam said:

Preston saw through him immediatley.

Peter Risdale was (still is) a Director at Preston at the time their relationship with Kirchner ended, and was the one publicly disputed CK's claims in a statement. Peter Risdale was (still is) on the EFL board (club representative) at the time Kirchner passed the EFL's checks and approved his bid.

It's clearly not as simple as 'seeing through him'

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To be fair to him, the $25m he splashed on his lifestyle would have otherwise been in Silicon Valley Bank and would have evaporated in the collapse. If anything he helped stimulate the economy in this economic downturn, think of all the poor luxury jet pilots he's saved from redundancy, top man.

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