Ex-Huddersfield Town Chairman, Dean Hoyle, gave an interview to the little-known Looks Good On Paper podcast on Thursday this week. During his time as Chairman at Town Hoyle was known for his frank and open approach to communication and in this interview he showed his skill at putting forward his point of view and revealing just enough information to win over Town fans.
Hoyle’s legacy has been somewhat tarnished by the events of recent seasons, with many of the millions of pounds Town have received through parachute payments and player sales being funneled into debt repayments to him while the quality of the playing squad has steadily deteriorated. However, in my eyes he’s still the person that can take the most credit for Town’s rise to the Premier League, even more so than David Wagner or Stuart Webber. There would have been no tilt at promotion had Hoyle not had the bravery to sack Powell and try something new. He also backed Wagner with the players that were identified to help us achieve our ambitions. We may not have even been in the Championship if he hadn’t thrown money at our League One escape.
Anyway, there are a wide spectrum of views on Dean Hoyle and I’ll make no secret of the fact that I lean towards the positive side of that range, albeit with some reservations about how things have been done in the more recent past, particularly around the sale of the club.
Intro waffle completed, here’s a quick summary of eight of the things I found most interesting from the podcast interview. I’d strongly recommend giving the whole interview a listen (there’s a video of it below) but if you’re the type that likes to get straight to the juicy bits, here’s what I found to be the most revealing parts:
The side bet with Reading on the playoff final
Without being prompted, Dean Hoyle revealed that there was a deal struck with Reading before the playoff final that the winner would play the loser £4m plus allow them to receive the proceeds from the gate receipts of the final. Hoyle was keen to point out that this was all cleared with the authorities and there was nothing dodgy about the arrangement but it seems a bit odd. I suppose the owners of both teams would have seen it as a nice consolation to soften the blow of defeat and the victor would hardly notice the money going out with all the new-found riches the Premier League has to offer.
It is a bit of a strange deal to agree though, almost like a bet against your own team and I don’t recall hearing of similar arrangements being made by other teams for this kind of situation. I don’t think Hoyle would have been allowed to stroll into a bookies and try to whack £4m on Reading to win the playoff final, so there’s something about the arrangement that doesn’t sit right, even if it’s hard to articulate exactly why I don’t like it.
The final 25% of Town = £1.4m
One piece of information I found very interesting was the details of how much Phil Hodgkinson has to pay Dean Hoyle to buy him out of his remaining quarter ownership of the club. It also seemed pretty clear that Hoyle’s part stake in the club isn’t because he’s in partnership with Hodgkinson and more there to “keep him honest” as David Threfall-Sykes would put it. Once the loan stock owed to Dean is fully repaid it’s likely we’ll see Hoyle’s involvement in the club come to a complete finish and Hodgkinson will become the full owner.
The number Dean quoted was £1.4m to buy this final quarter. He didn’t reveal whether that was the same valuation used for Hodgkinson to buy his initial 75% stake but if it was he will have bought three quarters of the club for £4.2 with the option to own the whole lot for a total of £5.6m or half an Alex Pritchard – I’ll let you decide which half.
I’m in the realm of pure speculation now (though upcoming accounts for Phil’s businesses promise to reveal specifics) but if the club was sold for this figure it suggests the real value of this deal to Hoyle was the arrangement to repay his loans. If all this is true then I’d be very curious to know what terms were agreed as part of the sale. For example, is there an arrangement in place that money raised from player sales has to go into debt repayment? Is there a cap on how much we can spend on new players? A wage cap? An agreement to sell key players every summer until we’re debt-free? I can’t help but feel there is more going on that is currently hidden behind a non-disclosure agreement but is potentially meaning the current board are operating with one arm tied behind their back.
Loan repayments now stretched over 6 or 7 years
One thing that I found to be a relief was the timeline for the repayment of Dean’s loans to the club has been extended to mean we’ve got 6 or 7 years to repay him. Previously I think we had to pay fairly hefty chunks ofl the debt at the end of the next couple of summer transfer windows or something similar. The impact of the pandemic on Town’s finances seems to have meant this timescale has been revised.
Once the Premier League parachute money dries up it becomes hard to see where we’ll be able to find the sums needed to repay the debts outstanding to Hoyle given even breaking even in the Championship makes you an outlier in a league full of basketcase teams that have thrown money at promotion year after year. Hopefully the bulk of the debt will have been repaid soonish and it will be a modest amount of the debt we’ve got to repay in the post-parachute money years. Another bit of speculation here, but I suspect the club are banking on making a hefty profit on player trading to repay this debt. Which is fine if it works but every club wants to pick up gems on the cheap and then sell them on for profit and I’m not exactly sure why we believe we’ve got an edge in this area over other teams. Maybe our scouting system and B Team setup is the key but you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince with this approach.
Canalside might be gifted back to the club
Hoyle was quite vague about the long-term plans for the training ground but he did suggest that he may give it to the club when the debts are all repaid and Phil buys his stake in the club. If this is true then retaining the ownership of canalside may have been another mechanism for Hoyle to keep Hodgkinson honest and to incentivise him to stick to the repayment schedule for the loans. It also makes sense of why the club have been happy to spend significant sums on a training complex that they don’t actually own.
We all saw the snazzy boiler room and security hut in the club video, it would be a bit strange to spend a load of money on the facilities when the club doesn’t own the land and could in theory see it sold out from under them. Thankfully Dean seemed relatively relaxed about the training ground and if he does give the training ground back to the club it would mean there’s a proper asset under the club’s ownership rather than just the registrations of some mostly ropey Championship players.
Foreign suitors wanted to saddle the club with crippling interest payments
Dean was mercifully loose lipped about the details of the foreign interest in buying the club during the Premier League years. There have been several references to interest in buying Town from abroad but few details about the terms until this interview. In short, the terms would have been awful and we dodged a bullet by Hoyle not agreeing to these deals.
All of the offers that Dean turned down, according to the interview, involved the new owners paying off the loans to Dean up front by taking out interest-bearing loans in its place that would still be in the club’s name. So the club would remain in debt but to a far less forgiving creditor and would be shelling out significant sums every year to just service the interest on the loans that were previously interest free. Manchester United have had this issue since the Glasers took over many years ago and recently Burnley were bought out using a similarly structured deal, which means money that could have been spent on making the team competitive instead leaks out of football and into the hands of greedy bankers.
Adama Traore to Town was nearly a done deal
The most heartbreaking part of the interview, for me, was hearing how close we got to signing Adama Traore. The deal was almost done but a freak injury in a friendly led to Town holding back, Wolves swept in, we got Mbenza instead and here we are.
It’s hard to know what kind of a difference that one signing could have made. Probably not enough to stop out relegation but who knows? Our inability to sign decent wingers that summer was a huge factor in our downfall and Traore would unquestionably have been better than the garbage we signed (though Mbenza has admittedly redeemed himself this season, even if it’s come two years too late).
Wagner could have carried on into the Championship if he wanted
Hoyle said that David Wagner could have continued after relegation had he wanted to but it was primarily Wagner’s choice to leave. This comment was another one that sent my mind spiralling into parallel universes where the German was still in charge. Maybe this last few years would have been just as bad with Wagner still at the helm but maybe our drop down to the Championship would have been less bumpy if we’d kept the inspirational manager and given him another go at taking Town up to the Premier League.
There’s little point dwelling too much on this point but both Wagner and Town have struggled since parting ways. There’s been a real theme of Town bringing people back for an encore lately but I doubt we’ll see a Wagner second coming for a long time. A large part of his success at Town came from having a chairman that gave him what he wanted wherever possible. That would be unlikely to happen if he came back and I doubt he’d fancy a return if it involved having to try and turn a squad of journeymen and kids into a winning team.
Hoyle may stop going to games when fans return
I know some fans feel a lot of animosity towards Dean Hoyle but I felt a bit sorry for him when he talked about walking away from the club in this interview. It seems that both Hoyle and Hodgkinson have been affected by the negativity felt towards them from fans and Dean is now not certain he’ll carry on going to games next season and beyond.
Social media was cited specifically as a reason some of the enjoyment has gone out of it for Dean, which I suppose makes sense but it’s a shame that a vocal minority can have such an influence. A lot of the abuse that gets thrown about online is seen as “banter” or the perpetrators maybe don’t consider the impact their words can have. But clearly Dean, despite claiming to be thick skinned, feels aggrieved about they stick he’s received.
Personally, I think both Phil Hodgkinson and Dean Hoyle have made mistakes when it comes to Town but as far as I can tell they’ve both tried to do their best. On this basis, some of the comments I’ve seen about them are a bit much. When you own a football clubs you should expect you’ll come in for some criticism but the levels of vitriol and nasty nature of some of the remarks are a step too far.
Watch the whole interview
Very interesting article.
I wish I’d stuck to your summary; it’s a lot more interesting than the podcast! A man with a ‘selective memory’ slugging water talking to a youth who isn’t even a Town supporter. It’s an hour of my life I won’t get back. Maybe Dean Hoyle was a charismatic leader as a younger man?
I wish he’d been quizzed on the signings at the point we went into the Premier League and then the signings at the end of that first season where, as Hoyle correctly remembers, we escaped relegation by the skin of our teeth so surely something needed to be done. What happened in the summer of 2018 effectively guaranteed relegation from the Premier League. It’s also tied the biggest noose round Town’s neck which we live with today – substandard players on high wages.
A general comment. I do get annoyed by the perception that there are all these chairman who appear to be amazingly generous by shovelling millions into a football club. It really isn’t what it seems. It’s someone with a big ego who has a lot of money who then loans money to the football club. I won’t deny there’s an element of risk; football clubs do collapse from time-to-time. But let’s be absolutely clear – this is not an act of benevolence. The money is loaned; it will appear on the football club’s accounts as a loan; the chairman expects to get his money back at some stage and, if he’s lucky, he might even show a financial profit.
The recruitment of David Wagner was a masterstroke; apart from that, maybe my memory has become ‘selective’ too, I just see a lot of decisions that I’d rate average-to-poor. I don’t blame Hoyle choosing to retire when he did; but Hoyle himself says in the podcast that he was leaving behind a heap of player problems for Hodgkinson to resolve, as well as having to find the money to repay Hoyle.
So we move on.
A lot of great points there Simon, although the money Hoyle out in was interest free as far as I read it. The money could have been invested elsewhere and he would have got a return on his loans and he would have also had a defined maturity date on realising his investments.
That’s certainly true, Ian. If you simply want a financial return, there are better places than a football club to put your money. But there are other unquantifiable benefits – higher personal profile, lots of media coverage, build the personal brand, massaging one’s ego, extra adrenalin rush on match days, free admission to matches, more dinner/speaking engagements if you want them, being able to play Championship Manager with real money!!
Anyone who decides to take on a professional football club must surely know the pressures (financial commitment and physical/mental stress to name just a few), that comes with the acquisition. In Dean Hoyles case he took over a club that was poorly financed, with little commercial acumen and as a business very poorly managed). Over the years Dean transformed the club from an average league one club to a club capable of holding its own in the championship. He did that using his own personal family wealth and instilling in the club his considerable commercial skills gained through his ownership of Card Factory.
Getting promoted to the premiership not only raised Huddersfield Towns and David Wagner’s profiles but his own too. So there were pluses for all camps. Unfortunately for everyone though Dean Hoyles illness had a greater impact than anyone could imagine. The club lost its key player, motivator, supporter and financier. For Dean Hoyle it was a serious wake up call in that he was reminded we are not immortal and that his time on the planet is no different than any other human being.
So clearly Hoyle came to the decision that his time at the helm of Huddersfield Town needed to come to an end. However, ‘disposing’ of his investment in the club and getting his money back is an entirely different challenge, as many business people who have tried to sell their own business will tell you.
At then end of the day Huddersfield Town is a commercial business, but a business that comes with huge emotion particularly to local people who have ‘supported’ the club for many years. So selling the club and trying to recover his investment must have been a huge challenge to Dean Hoyle. People may ask why was it essential he tried to recover his investment ? Well unless he had joined the Bill Gates philanthropic society I would question why should he. Clearly Dean Hoyle is wealthy but not so wealthy he can ‘afford’ to write off £60m – £70m, so he needed to find an exit. It’s then that up pops Phil Hodgkinson and with Deans lead a deal is structured for Phil to take control of the club and for Dean to get his money back.
This is where I raise criticism of the transaction because any sane businessman would not have agreed to the deal that Phil Hodgkinson has. I accept that covid has thrown a big spanner in the works but even with that issue, the club had the protection of the premiership parachute payments to see out the crisis, offload overpaid underperforming players and generally keep stability within the club, like many clubs relegated from the premiership have done (Swansea, West Brom, Burnley and Norwich to name but four), and with good management have another go at getting back into the premiership. But that would mean Dean Hoyle not having a route to getting his cash back.
So in many respects the blame of Huddersfield Towns problems lies solely on the door step of Phil Hodgkinson and not Dean Hoyle. Hodgkinson had many chances to walk away from this deal and be a supporter of the club like the rest of us. But ego, over confidence, lack of commercial acumen – call it what you will has got in the way. So for me the mess at the club has been created by Phil Hodgkinson and no one else. Had he walked away from the deal then it left Dean Hoyle with the problem of getting his money back. Would he sell to overseas investors (as Burnley have recently done), written off some or all of his investment (as previous owners of inumerable football clubs have had to do), or continue to finance the club whilst trying to find a buyer (like Mike Ashley at Newcastle).
The blame lies solely with Phil Hodgkinson, because he gave Dean Hoyle the exit, an exit that was only possible due to parachute money from the premiership and by selling highly paid (and often over valued) players, and trying to manage the clubs performance both on and off the field on a shoestring budget compared to two years earlier. Far easier said than done !!
The mess Huddersfield town now finds itself in is and was totally predictable and avoidable had Phil Hodgkinson not done the deal he did.
Some great points raised there Alan, but Hoyle had taken it as far as he could financially. If he had stayed as owner then who knows if it could have killed him? Not a single fan would have wanted that, and I certainly (despite the downward trajectory) prefer Hodgkinson over the thought of foreign investors and the way they intended to structure the debt.
Another great piece Terrier although Traore would not have made an ounce of difference. Wagner played with one striker against some of the world’s best defenders, and the had the choice of Mounie and Depoitre to do that. We needed strikers not wingers.
Still cant Get over What PH said about Covid costing us 5m this season we still had reduced Paracute Payments of over 20m sales from players and 11000 season cards so we pay Hoyle over 1 to 6 years his money back so there is still a lot of money undisclosed everytime we sign a player or sell one its undisclosed Hoyle started this and its Obvious to me that Bromby And PH are Recruiting Players Not CC thats why the Cowleys left didnt want to be Puppets to thease two Morons So thank you Dean Hoyle For Leaving us with PH