When it was announced Marcus Evans had purchased the club I was one of the few dissenting voices.

It concerned me that a club owned by its fans was suddenly the possession of one man. Marcus Evans had no previous connection to Ipswich Town and was out to profit from the takeover. I was also concerned he was putting very little equity into the club. Fans reacted as though we had won the lottery but the financial details painted a very different picture. The crippling £32 million debt to Norwich Union and Barclays Bank had not been extinguished – it had simply been transferred to Marcus Evans.

Much was made of a so-called £12 million war chest. However, £8.1 million of this was preference shares to Marcus Evans with dividend rights of 7%. In effect, Ipswich Town had borrowed £8.1 million from him and agreed to pay interest at the market rate.

In a desperate bid to win promotion, first under Jim Magilton and now under Roy Keane, Ipswich has spent big money by Championship standards. The 'war chest' has now gone with precious little to show for it. But the big spending has continued. In the two years since Marcus Evans took control, the club has posted losses of £5.8 million and £12.2 million. How have these shortfalls been covered? The answer is Marcus Evans has pumped more money into the club – as loans. The information that came out with the release of the latest financial results is that Ipswich Town is indebted to him for £40.2 million or £48.3 million if you include the preference shares.

The strategy is clear: spend big in order to reach the promised land of the Premiership. Spend big on players, spend big on a high profile manager, spend big on a star chief executive with no football background. If the gamble pays off and Ipswich reach the Premiership, Marcus Evans will milk it for all it’s worth. Then he’ll look to flog the club to some other businessman for a nice profit. It’s called pass the parcel.

But what happens if we don’t reach the Premiership in the next few seasons? How much will the debt be by then? Sixty million? Eighty million? One hundred million? By then Marcus Evans might have had enough. Will he just shrug his shoulders and walk away? No, he’ll want a return on his 'investment'. He will want interest on every little bit he has lent to the club.

We should remember the club went into administration in 2003 because it couldn’t field a competitive football team, pay its day to day trade creditors and service interest bearing debts of £31 million all at the same time. Well, the debt to Marcus Evans currently stands at £48.3 million pounds and is rising fast. If Ipswich was forced to pay a commercial rate of interest on this debt the consequences would be unthinkable.

I can’t understand the desire of football fans in the United Kingdom for their clubs to be taken over by so-called rich businessmen. They usually turn out to be opportunists at best or conmen at worst. Can anyone say with any certainty that Marcus Evans is a successful and wealthy businessman with the long-term interests of Ipswich Town at heart? His companies are registered in tax havens and there are no audited financial statements available on his group that shed any light on his true financial position.

There are a number of questions one could put to Marcus Evans but, of course, he wishes to preserve his anonymity. It’s fair enough that he wishes privacy but could it also be that he doesn’t want to answer the tough questions that would be asked?

When Ipswich Town came out of administration it had realistic prospects of promotion to the Premiership. It finished fifth in 2003/04 and third in 2004/05. It fell away subsequently but it still showed more potential than the current team. Yes, Ipswich was struggling with high borrowings but it was well-known that Norwich Union which was owed £27 million was prepared to settle for something less than 50%.

The board could have struck a deal eventually with Norwich Union leaving the club with a manageable debt level. A return to the Premiership in the not too distant future would not have been unrealistic under those circumstances. Instead, the board was so impatient for promotion, it fell for the cult of the rich businessman whose millions would ensure the club’s future.

Well, it hasn’t happened. Ipswich Town has turned out to be a speculative machine for Marcus Evans. Get into the Premiership, milk it and flip the club over. Fail to get into the Premiership and still earn a tidy sum by extracting interest payments on the “investment” made. If it all goes wrong it will be the fans that pick up the tab.

It could be argued the fans are paying for it already. Ticket prices have gone up substantially since the takeover. Portman Road is one of the most expensive grounds, if not the most expensive, for watching Championship football.

After the financial crisis, the banks were criticised for structuring employment packages that created incentives for executives to speculate. Invest in risky derivatives and if it looks like it was a good deal, walk away with millions. If it doesn’t turn out to be a good deal, there is still the consolation of a generous base salary. They call it heads I win, tails I break even. This reminds me of the sort of deal our club has given Marcus Evans.

UEFA81 added 18:37 - Nov 16 Money destroyed the game years ago - it's no longer a sport just big business. Bloody tragic when you think about it. Evans out - I've no time for greedy, jumped-up business men. Take Cleggy and Keane with you. For the love of money is the root of all evil. (Timothy 6:10)
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PutYaBootsOnKeano added 19:34 - Nov 16 'let's get half the facts and run another destructive debate' - always the same. Disagree with most of the article, myopic to be honest, considering the position we were in at the time. Futhermore, I utterly agree - this is biting the hand. You'd rather be indebted to banks than a business man? Mental. Same thing. Businessman more like to sympathise, as does ME. And Lighteningboy. Dude. You're just crazy. How you can turn around and say rah, we'd have been better off not spending and consolidating is just crazy. With what team? Where would we be? Are we not consolidating and playing a slow game now? some (minority) of our own fans beg for the hastening of destabilisation that management change would bring! And did Roy go out and buy 15 players? No! not close, he bought 5 serious signings, so we're a third of the way to getting a team we need for promotion. Cant you remember us under Jim? we were soo bad. He bought in half our squad, and spent real cash. we're on the up, but the inquisition just doesnt stop, and it does no favours in any direction.

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MyBlueHeaven added 20:18 - Nov 16 the bottom line is that football, at the top levels, is fcuked. murdoch and sky started seeing to that in 1992 when the premier league was formed. it's been a slippery slope ever since, and faceless organisations and individuals owning clubs is just another example of the football authorities putting money before everything else. desperately sad to see ITFC go this way.

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sotd78 added 21:18 - Nov 16 What some people seem to be misunderstanding is that if ME loses interest in us he will put the club up for sale. That might be with or without the debt which might be £40 million. A new buyer would probably consider his shares as worthless and like ME did also only make an offer to take the debt at a reduced level. And so the merry-go-round would continue. The worst case scenario is for someone to not invest sufficiently to keep us competitive. In that case we would slowly decline. But again that ain't likely as it is hard to unload costs quick enough to compensate for diminishing results. So for ME it is still a case of "just enough investment" to make us competitive with the golden goose just around the corner. Roll on Premiership!

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jas0999 added 21:43 - Nov 16 A very poor article. So easy to NOW say that you were against the takeover. So many decent posts point out that we had no choice.
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stickymockwell added 21:53 - Nov 16 A Very bad article! Where did you research your facts/points? I think you've written something that you believe MIGHT be the case! Load of old bollocks
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EatonBlue added 22:47 - Nov 16 Any blog that provokes debate is worthwhile. Whilst I do not really like to see the Club being owned by just one person, we were in very serious financial trouble before ME stepped in. The other alternative would be to find 5,000 itfc supporters each willing to pay £8,000 or so . . I will stop there 'cos it aint going to happen is it? The fact that ME does not have a public profile is a bit odd and I would contrast it with the time when the John Cobbold spoke to me enthusiastically about the game after a cup tie in Manchester many years ago. We might all feel a bit better about things if ME had a public image but that would not really change things financially.

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VILJOEN67 added 23:46 - Nov 16 yes arthur it didnt happen, the two share issues raised bugger all and the board at the time provided loan notes because nobody had any serious cash, loss after loss year after year, at least sheepshanks realised that a serious investor was the only realistic solution. We would be in administration again by now, 10 points deducted, Marcus Evans whatever his motivation has at least given us a chance

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nodge_blue added 07:50 - Nov 17 Simple answer to this is that in essence he cant walk away as he owns the club. And if he wants his money back he has to make the club a successful venture in the first place. There is little logic in your argument and it mainly feeds unneccessary worry in others.
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SupportUrTeam added 09:15 - Nov 17 It is unfortunate that people who clearly don't understand companies and finance continue to write this sort of stuff in an authoritative tone, thereby misleading normal fans.
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Facefacts added 11:06 - Nov 17 What we're seeing here is a genuine attempt to get the known facts out there for discussion. I happened to be out on Saturday with some spare time, and bought the Financial Times to read whilst waiting for a car MOT. The weekend edition has about half the number of pages it used to (two years ago), and costs about twice as much. Quality newspapers like the Financial Times are going under; most readers prefer football or celebrity. It costs about £1.50 a week to subscribe to FT.com, and if you spend a bit of time on it, there is another world out there - finance, mortgages, pensions, companies, you will very soon get a feel for what is happening. I recommend the pensions gym as well, especially as many companies are now trying to escape pension promises made in more prosperous times. It's a good start to overcoming the financial illiteracy that plagues this country.

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Bluroo added 12:34 - Nov 17 Your just an anti-capitalist with an agenda: "Can anyone say with any certainty that Marcus Evans is a successful and wealthy businessman with the long-term interests of Ipswich Town at heart?" Yes, I can. Your paranoia and prediction has been wrong on every count so far. The only way you will be proven right is if Ipswich get relegated and MEG symultaneously goes bust whilst TV pulls the plug on showing football. ME seems to be the best of both worlds. Rich but VERY sensible and astute.

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TractorRoyNo1 added 12:38 - Nov 17 It's funny that we are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the iron curtain coming down, and there are still people who think that communism was some kind of utopia. I was playing junior football in north suffolk 35 years ago and was paid appearance money, sorry old chum you can't put the genie back in the bottle. We live in a free world, capalism is the only system that works, so make the most of it and thank you lucky stars - if you are a town fan - that Marcus Evans (liberal with big house) has replaced Cobbold (tory with big house) otherwise we would be playing Luton first team rather than reserves today. naa added 13:46 - Nov 16 If no clubs were run by rich businessmen then there wouldn't be the kind of crazy money in the sport that there is. Therefore clubs could be run as sensible going concerns that pay for themselves.

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Pendejo added 13:43 - Nov 17 1. Modern football is RUBBISH, no competition, even big clubs can't compete with the likes of Arspoomansea who as long as they keep the money rolling in and are either able to make a profit or have an owner rich enough to write off the debt will never relinquish a top 4 place to the likes of; well us, Forest, Derby, Southampton, Watford, QPR etc. (we fcked up in 2001 as we were bang on for 4 and let it slip) 2. The debt is now much more like £50m (original debt £32m + trading losses £18M). This could be his pension fund as a capital + interest repayment to him even if he sold the club would bring in a decent enough income over many years (on top of other investments might just keep him in golf clubs) 3. As the stadium is owned by Ipswich Borough Council (and long may it stay that way!) ME is the proud owner of the ITFC brand name. A commodity to him (maybe) and a long lasting bitter sweet love affair for us. 4. Beware the Maxwell! If it all goes wrong Maxwell style we're fckd. One of the first comments used the term disaster... will anyone die? If the club has to start again AFC Wimbledon style surely it has to be more interesting and exciting to be part of the re-birth and growth than the end of days experienced by the majority of the 92 clubs in the Premier & Football Leagues at the moment. Personally I hope ME proves to be the most successful ITFC owner EVER!

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EatonBlue added 23:16 - Nov 17 Final comment. Can someone who knows Marcus Evans well please reassure me that he is a genuine Town fan and cares as much about our success as we all do?
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bjc added 04:36 - Nov 20 ipswich one of the most expensive too watch championship football! if only!!our current position shows us we aint playing ch/ship footballthere still time to rescue the club sack keano and hire my 9 year old son he could do a better job
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