Exclusive: Allam certain Hull will start to pay its way

The 71-year-old businessman saved the Tigers from possible bankruptcy last December with a £40m takeover.

Since then, he has had to plough additional cash in to keep the Championship club afloat as they continue to deal with the legacy of two years in the Premier League.

A major overhaul behind the scenes this summer has helped to cut the losses but Allam still expects Hull to post a significant deficit for 2011-12.

After that, however, the Egyptian-born businessman believes Hull will be in a position to stand on their own feet by the start of the following financial year.

Speaking exclusively to the Yorkshire Post, Allam said: “When I bought the club, it needed £40m to keep it going. Of that, £30m was cash with another £10m in bank guarantees.

“Now, several months later, cash (that needed injecting) has increased from £30m to £41m. But the bank guarantees have come down from £10m to £3m.

“So, it is already £44m. We are also expecting losses for this season of £7m but then after that I am hoping the club will be able to look after itself.

“It has to be sustainable as a club. You cannot keep asking for a miracle.

“We need the club to be here for another 107 years and that means it has to be run properly.

“The first six months saw major losses and a lot of money needed to be put in. For the second season, after all the corrections, that will be £7m.

“Then after that, the club will look after itself. I am confident that will happen.”

Allam, along with son Ehab, rescued Hull last year with the club teetering on the brink amid ruinous debts, caused by a wage bill that, at one stage, almost topped £40m per year.

Administration – and, more than likely, an even worse fate to follow – was a real possibility for the Tigers before the Allams’s eleventh hour bid to buy the club from Russell Bartlett.

Director of football operations Adam Pearson, who had been brought back to the KC Stadium 12 months earlier to try to attract new investment by then owner Bartlett, admitted at the time that the deal made “no business sense”.

Instead, Pearson added, the Allams saw the purchase of the Tigers as, “A gift to Hull”.

Now, eight months on from that takeover, Assem Allam is, despite the huge outlay, pleased with the progress that has been made.

He said: “There have been a lot of surprises but the numbers have come down drastically. We came in for a reason, to save the club for the community. We achieved that and I believe we have done a good job so far.

“The club is where we thought it would be at this time. I feel we have done very well so far because when we took over it was in a very bad state.

“We were also fighting relegation. On the pitch, we improved to finish in the top half of the table in 11th place.

“That was a big achievement, bearing in mind where we had been.

“We did want better but that is what you should always strive for. But it was still fantastic and I put that down to the staff. They all did a good job.”

Off the field, Hull have undergone an extensive restructuring process during the summer that has seen the business side of the club streamlined.

Allam added: “Off the field, we have now done a lot of correction and restructuring of the organisation, basically the admin, marketing and the finance departments.

“(Chief executive) Mark Maguire has done a good job on that and there is still some more to do.

“There was a lot to do but I didn’t want to start doing anything until the end of the season.

“I didn’t want to distract attention so we carried on living under the old set-up.

“We coped with that and the unnecessary financial burden it caused through inefficiency.

“But once the season ended, we were able to start making changes.”

Hull manager Nigel Pearson has been busy in the transfer window this summer, bringing in seven new faces in an attempt to build on last season’s mid-table finish.

Allam, for his part, is excited about Hull’s prospects ahead of the campaign kicking off with a televised encounter against Blackpool at the KC Stadium a week tomorrow.

He said: “I am looking forward to the new season. We have done our best to be ready.

“We have a good squad with young promising players together with a few older ones.

“It is a good mix. We have gone for potential in signings, players we can develop who are hungry to do well.”

ALLAM TAKEOVER FACTS & FIGURES

£30m – 75 per cent of the takeover sum was a cash injection.

£10m – the remaining 25 per cent was in bank guarantees.

£41m – total amount of cash injected six months on, an increase of £11m.

£3m – total amount of bank guarantees, £7m lower than initially anticipated.

£44m – total spend by the Allam family, £4m more than budgeted seven months ago.

£7m – anticipated loss for the forthcoming 2011-12 season.

Break even – Hull City expect to break even from 2012 and beyond.