simon dale

🚨💣 BREAKING: Carlos Baleba to Manchester United, here we go! Verbal agreement in place between clubs. Improved bid sent today after £65m package rejected and player set to join the only club he wanted. Baleba, new #MUFC player soon. 🇨🇲

Contractor came by this morning, shook my hand but not my wife’s. Brother, I cannot emphasize enough how badly you have misidentified the decision maker in this transaction.

🚨 Chelsea's ownership accounts are far worse than the headlines suggested. 📉 22 Holdco posted a £700.8m pre-tax loss for the year to 30 June 2025, against roughly £445m the year before. The largest ever recorded by an English football ownership group. 💷 Turnover £536.5m, up just 2.6%. Operating costs £1,166.8m, up 19.5%. Operating loss £628.7m. 🧾 The club itself lost £262.4m. The remaining £440m is debt servicing and acquisition-accounting amortisation parked above the club, plus the £200m intra-group profit booked on moving Chelsea Women to a sister company. 🏦 £1.39bn of external borrowings, every pound of it falling due after five years. ⏳ £794.2m of senior term loans sit at BlueCo 22 at SONIA +3.25%, roughly 7.5% to 8%. Hard-stop maturity 13 July 2027. That refinancing wall is around 15 months away. 🔥 £595.9m PIK loan from Ares at 22 Holdco, priced at SONIA +7.50%. It was £410.2m in September 2023. Nothing is paid in cash. It simply compounds. Projected to exceed £850m by 2033 and potentially £1bn. ⚠️ Interest already swallows 29% of revenue. Blended cost of debt is close to 10%. 🔑 The collateral is the club. A floating charge gives the senior lenders direct recourse to the equity of Chelsea Football Club Limited and Strasbourg. 💰 Clearlake's Behdad Eghbali and José Feliciano are the persons with significant control. Boehly is a director and holder, Mark Walter and Hansjörg Wyss are minority partners. Clearlake's 61.85% stake was itself funded by borrowing from its own credit fund, COP III, secured on a pledge of those 179.4m A Ordinary shares. 📊 They put £450m of fresh equity in last year. The hole still got deeper. Great Forensic work as ever from @theesk 👏 #Clearlake #Chelsea #CFC

Neo-Nazi Ryan Ferguson not so much the big man when he comes up against some good old fashioned policing. Watch him whimper as he's unceremoniously moved away from his attempt to intimidate two women and a small child. 😂

🚨 NEW: Reform UK say they will force those who are out of work for more than a year to do 20 hours a week of community work

🚨 NEW: Reform UK has pledged to scrap PIP and the health element of Universal Credit for working-age adults Only people with severe disabilities would receive cash payments to save £50bn a year on benefits

Oh please fuck off Houses don’t go on fire in 35 degree heat That would mean all of Spain would have no houses It’s an arsehole with a BBQ, every time

Farage faced 'credible threat' at by-election count, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice insists lbc.co.uk/article/farage-fac…

Mother who killed three-month-old daughter with heat from hairdryer jailed for six years lbc.co.uk/article/mother-kil…

Parliamentary watchdog reopens probe into Nigel Farage hours after by-election win lbc.co.uk/article/parliament…

No 10 says it is 'not possible' to exempt Pc Andrew Harper's killers from early release scheme as it presses ahead with plans lbc.co.uk/article/prisoner-e…