With Maddison, Barnes, Iheanacho, and Ndidi Leicester have been keeping signing players with the long term in mind.

this

[Link]

I think this is about right. The off-pitch bits we need to work on are reducing over time now that the stadium belongs to the club (more or less), we have a decent training ground, the academy is coming up to top level, and the youth set up seems successful. The biggest hurdle is of course the ground. If we build the main stand next year, we'll begin to catch up with the likes of Leicester and Southampton in that respect, but it'll hardly catch us up with the bigger clubs until we can redevelop the AW and the Whitehorse too.

Still, the board have achieved a massive amount so far, so perhaps anything is possible.

I was curious as to what draws you to the conclusion re the Americans? What is is no doubt is that they are extremely wealthy at a young age, have numerous investments in sports/football and money has been found to both invest in the transfer market and in the academy despite the challenges associated with Covid. I suspect none of that would have happened without their direct agreement and possible funding.

Its always challenging to know exactly how they see Palace and especially the main stand issue as they are very quiet, keep in the background and Parish handles all the media aspects. However, I suspect their presence - and indeed that of other US investors - may be more beneficial than is often portrayed.

Thing is, when the stake was sold to the Americans, Parish was clear that it was to accelerate the various projects that combined to form his long term plan for Palace (training ground, academy, stadium).

As you say, it isn't totally clear that the Americans paid for the academy (or what the overall cost even was), and all we know for sure are two key things:

1. Club owners can invest as much as they like in the physical infrastructure and not be stung by FFP. Planning permission notwithstanding, the Americans could fund the total redevelopment of Selhurst into a 45,000 stadium at a cost of hundreds of millions if they can afford it, and wanted to, and not run into any FFP trouble.

The issue seems to be whether there is a good business case to doing so - is it an investment that will return?

We tend to presume that the value of the club would increase if we redevelop Selhurst, but would it? Gate receipts are not the biggest income source anymore, and even if we could fill a 45,000 Selhurst every week (not guaranteed) the revenue surely would not be enough to make the team Champions League contenders, which is the next noticeable rung on the ladder income-wise, above and beyond being a stable premier league club.

It might simply be that massively redeveloping Selhurst in a short space of time isn't cost-effective for the business, and isn't a good investment at all. If that is true, it doesn't matter who owns the club or how rich they are - unless they are in it wholly for vanity then the stadium will have to be addressed stand by stand over a very, very long time, if anything ever happens at all once the new main stand goes up.

2. They have paid for players and covered losses. No doubt about it. It certainly was to protect the investment, but they did do it.

If that's all they are here to do though - why did CPFC2010 sell the shares to them?

Edited by TheBigToePunt (22 Jul 2021 1.13pm)

We have a new US investor , Robert. Franco, has put 20 mill into the academy, How bad is that?
Whether all this leads to us being a regular top ten is not forgone, but they are trying.