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Jakemoore

Milan Mandaric interview -

By Jakemoore, in Leicester City Forum

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Jakemoore

Jakemoore

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Leicester City are in great shape to return to the Premier League, believes former owner Milan Mandaric.

The Serbian businessman sold City to current owners, the Raksriaksorn family, in August, 2010, three years after he took over when the club was on its financial knees.

On his arrival in early 2007, Mandaric said that, when he left, City would be in a far better shape than when he found them.

With the Raksriaksorn family now financing a concerted bid for promotion to the Premier League, Mandaric, who is now owner of City's opponents today, Sheffield Wednesday, said he had been true to his word.

"If I did anything right for Leicester it was to bring in these owners because they are top people," he said.

"They are the best people I have seen in football in terms of dedication and loyalty. They are great people and I am very happy for the club.

"The club owed a lot of money when I arrived and would have faced extreme difficulties if I had not taken over. I stabilised it and, although we did go down to League One, we came back and became a stronger club, and we made good progress.

"Then we brought in the new people to take the club forward. I always said that when I left Leicester I would leave it in better shape, and in the hands of people who can take it further, where it needs to go. That has been the case.

"The club is in a great position to go into the Premier League now, absolutely. They have great owners, who are also my friends, and they are supporting the club in every way.

"They also have a very good team on and off the pitch, in every department.

"I have seen them play a few times and I think they are heading to the Premier League.

"Not only do I want them to do that because it is my desire, my wish, but I genuinely think they are very strong contenders."

Mandaric says the job he has taken on at Sheffield Wednesday is even tougher than the one he faced in resurrecting City in 2007, and he admits he has found the going tough.

"Sheffield Wednesday is a lovely club with great people and supporters," he said.

"It is a massive club, but it has been in difficulties for the last 15 years and I inherited a lot of problems, more than I faced at Leicester in fact, which I needed to sort out.

"We are back in the Championship and we are going to consolidate and then build a base for going forward.

"Right now we are struggling a bit for results but we have a better team than our results suggest.

"We will be fine but there is still a lot of work to be done.

"We got out of League One and that has re-fuelled my energy. But I am committed to the club and won't leave unless I can do what I did at Leicester and leave them in better shape, and put it back into the hands of good people.

"Today, I am really looking forward to seeing my friends from Leicester, such as the owners and people such as Jon Rudkin. They are my friends.

"It will be strange for 90 minutes but that is what football is all about." ---

Not one mention of our Nigel! I know Milan forced him out but clearly there's a lot of bad feeling there.

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Basildon Fox

Basildon Fox

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**** him now. The only good thing he did for us was to sell up to the current owners. Numerous bad managerial decisions and had a poor me attitude everytime something went wrong. Also he keeps mentioning how bad we were financially before he took over yet there is little evidence to support this.

If we are stuffing them today I hope there is a hearty chorus of "Milan whats the score? Milan, Milan whats the score?".

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MGLCFC

MGLCFC

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**** him now. The only good thing he did for us was to sell up to the current owners. Numerous bad managerial decisions and had a poor me attitude everytime something went wrong. Also he keeps mentioning how bad we were financially before he took over yet there is little evidence to support this.

If we are stuffing them today I hope there is a hearty chorus of "Milan whats the score? Milan, Milan whats the score?".

I hope people chant 'Milan, he's a Leicester fan' because for all his faults, he came in when we were in financial ruin and left us in a better state than we were before he arrived. Yes he made mistakes, but I genuinely believe he wanted us to do well.
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Basildon Fox

Basildon Fox

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I hope people chant 'Milan, he's a Leicester fan' because for all his faults, he came in when we were in financial ruin and left us in a better state than we were before he arrived. Yes he made mistakes, but I genuinely believe he wanted us to do well.

Prove we were in financial ruin. We only have that on his say so...

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Guest ttfn

Guest ttfn

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I'm not saying MM said this, I am. It was pretty obvious when people like Lineker and Heskey had to have a whip round to save the club.

That was 5 years earlier, when we were in administration. It is not the same thing at all.

We weren't in any immediate financial danger when Mandaric bought the club, that much I can tell you.

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Freeman's Wharfer

Freeman's Wharfer

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Here lies the difference: those who believe all of the PR bull crap that came from Mandaric and those that... just don't

I fall into the latter.

It was very clear that Mandaric (having messed about sacking managers) thought long and hard about whether or not financially he wanted to take the risk of staying for the League One season. Had he decided that he didn't want to take that financial risk and just cut his losses we'd of been up the creek - for 'a fan' there would have been no deliberation - he's a businessman. It's the same with Wednesday when he clearly had a look at how viable/lucrative acquiring Rangers would have been earlier this year. Had he been able to make more money he'd have dumped Wednesday and been 'the saviour' at Ibrox.

He, thanks to Hoos, struck VERY lucky with Pearson. With Pearson having got us back to a very healthy state he then oversaw the exit of the best manager we'd had since O'Neill (having had Sousa as a guest at the play-off home match). Again, all very much in his personal interest rather than the club's.

As others have said, there is no hard evidence that we were screwed without him coming in (although I think we were in a bad way - when Shaun Newton and Darren Kenton are your stellar signings then things aren't too good are they?!) but he played on this saviour tag. That he had done that at Portsmouth and also Wednesday and that people still can't see it's just part of the Mandaric PR is astounding.

And finally, most importantly for me, he was claiming that the training ground was not fit for purpose and that we'd be better selling it and using Loughborough University. I wonder where the money from that sale might have gone seeing as it was one of our biggest assets and he was already looking for an exit strategy at that stage. Thankfully the Thais were found before it got to that but I hate to think what would have happened had they not. With some minor refurb (and seemingly not especially neccessary) they have kept the training ground despite haveing the money to by whatever facility they want to - doesn't seem so unfit for purpose now.

Overall I think Mandaric was good for Leicester but the devious nature of a lot of things just made me glad to be rid of him when we were. I don't buy into the saviour stuff no matter how much he spouts it and I think that we were extremely fortunate that the people that he did sell to came along when they did. I think it might have got a bit messy had he been in control much longer. Things may still go very wrong with the Thais but there's nothing we can do about that. We're certainly in a better state than we were on the pitch but that's not the work of Mandaric, or the Thais, it's thanks to Nigel Pearson.

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Basingstoke Fox

Basingstoke Fox

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I can't forgive the stupidity of the man for allowing Nigel Pearson to leave us after the semi final defeat against Cardiff. It must surely have been one of the worst decisions made in the clubs history. We went from being a decent, solid championship team to the team which got thrashed 6-1 by Pompey.

Anyone else remember the article saying that if Leicester had a real chance of promotion in January, the money would be there to strengthen the squad? Well we were in the reckoning, did Pearson have any money at his disposal? Did he ****.

I wouldn't boo him because I do believe that he saved us from an even worse financial situation and I don't know where the club would be now if he didn't come in. But he did take us to our lowest point in history and I certainly wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him.

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Aus Fox

Aus Fox

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I think what ever your opinions of the man himself, you can not argue we were in a better shape on and off the field when he left compared to when he arrived.

Anyone who boos him or chants Milan what's the score is pathetic, he made the wrong call letting Nige join Hull but he certainly didn't hurt the club in any way.

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Deucalion

Deucalion

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I personally think Mandaric did save the club from a worse fate than in fact befell us.

Since administration, the club was dying a slow and painful death. We could not afford any decent investment in the team due to the stadium debt and this resulted in a slope from mid-table mediocrity to eventual relegation fodder. As we all know, we were relegated anyway. This would probably have happened with or without Mandaric.

What Mandaric got right was subsidising a Championship standard team in League One which meant we were promoted at the first time of asking. Looking at other similar clubs relegated to League One, this is no mean feat. When we were promoted to the Championship, he made more money available than any time since the Premier League. We purchased Richie Wellens and Paul Gallagher, both for over £1 million.

Mandaric did get things wrong in regards to managers though. He gave a pot of money to the inexperienced and frankly bonkers Martin Allen and then sacked him after four games. I don't know how much he can be blamed for Megson, as even though unpopular, he is a decent manager with a good track record. Ian Holloway looked like a decent choice as manager but just failed to deliver for us. He has delivered elsewhere. Then of course, there was a decision to allow Pearson to talk to other clubs.

All in all, I was not sorry to see the back of Mandaric. I think it would be harsh to boo him because I believe he did save the club from a lingering demise. Although I don't miss his bullpoop and his propensity to making ridiculous decisions at times.

A little off topic but our training ground is prime real estate for housing development. The fact that the Raksriaksorns have developed this land rather than selling it on and building on a new site speaks volumes about their true motivations, and it is clearly not financial gain in the short-term.

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LJS

LJS

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I think you can argue that we aren't in a better state off the pitch. Mandaric began the trend of loading debt to the club in order to keep it going. It will hurt us soewhere down the line unless we are promoted and the owners decide to manage the new money sensibly, or we begin cutting costs now and starting over; much as Derby have been doing over the past three or four years.

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ithuriel

ithuriel

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My brother works down the club as a steward and as done for a long time, he told me back then financially we were a mess and MM was a nice bloke and would stop to have a chat with any staff.

Also told me Pearson is the same, really nice and amiable but the big mistake MM made was appointing M, Allen, my brother said he was an arrogant unlikeable person and of course he blew a wad on shite before getting the bullet.

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BunkMoreland

BunkMoreland

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In the murky world of football club ownership I think he is one of the good guys. He's in it for money of course but in all his years as an owner at Pompy, us and the Owls he has never asset stripped a club and to my eyes has always improved their prospects. He made some poor managerial decisions but that's football. You show me an owner who makes good managerial decisions and I'll show you someone who got lucky. Regards Pearson's departure, people forget that he walked away from the club. He was not sacked, he left because nobody begged him to stay. Mandaric must take some blame for that, but so should Pearson's ego. Ultimately, if the Thais sold us, i'd be fairly pleased if Mandaric bought us back.

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