I’m a very rich man – without the money
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CRYSTAL PALACE went into administration at 3.02pm on January 26, 2010.
Having grown up as a boy metres from Selhurst Park, before watching his dad play for Crystal Palace, Simon Jordan lived the dream for 10 years as the
club’s chairman.
And then everything turned into a nightmare.
A court order via email on that fateful Tuesday afternoon was confirmation the club was no longer in Jordan’s ownership and it was a hobby which had cost nearly £40m.
Since Jordan’s departure, English football has become considerably quieter.
With his long, bleached-blonde hair and perma-tan, the boardroom version of Robbie Savage was not to everyone’s liking, but you could never fault him for having strong opinions and most of the time, he spoke great sense.
Yet Jordan is still picking up the pieces from a disastrous nine months which saw his entire business empire crumble.
He sold his mobile company for £75million to become a multi-millionaire at 32 before losing pretty much everything.
This man was happy to confront managers, players, fans, other chairmen and those who ran the game.
But since leaving Palace, he has not attended a single game and has no immediate plans to return.
Marbella-based Jordan, now 44, in typically-blunt fashion, said: “If you lose a widget factory in Darlington, who the f**k cares? If you lose a football club everyone knows and other people get nervous, including banks.
“It has been an arduous process although I do not have many people hanging round me now trying to get their hands in my pockets.
“I am a very rich man without any money and I have spent the last two years dealing with banks and sorting out my other investments.
“Basically, I have had the s**t kicked out of me. I have not moaned about it although I have lost a vast amount of money.
“I made mistakes and it is silly and foolish to suggest I didn’t. I don’t think I failed at Crystal Palace.
“After 10 years of owning and funding a football club is a tall order, I was a very wealthy man but in comparison I was a waiter compared to Sheikh Mansour or Roman Abramovich.
“I have to be honest and say ‘this is where I came up short’. I went through a period of time thinking I failed but I didn’t. I made bad decisions and Christ, did I pay for it.
“When Palace went into administration, I had £23m or £24m at the club in loans. There were £2m of loans I did not include on books of Palace.
"There was another £1.5m in bits and bobs plus £11m I paid for the club. So all told, just under £40m in cash. Had I invested it, I could have ended up with £65m over 10 years.
“A lot of other things went on with my life. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
“The Spanish property market collapsed. The American real estate market collapsed and I was losing millions overnight. I had millions stuck in films and other deals.
“I did a deal with a big Spanish developer and he went into administration for £1.5bn and owed me several million.
"The Lehman Brothers failed. I had a portfolio worth £4m turn into one which was minus £2m.
“I have spent all my time talking to the banks and trying to keep pace. I have not enjoyed the last two years. There's no fond memories for me.
“It is not a badge of honour to be recounting to people how much money I have lost.
“The last time I went to Palace was Wolves away in the Cup. I have not been there since I left.
“Once it has gone, you suddenly find yourself not having anything to do on Saturdays.
"Once leaving, you are forgotten. I don’t dwell on Palace’s results. At 4.45pm I am not looking to see how they get on.
“I am not bitter. It is just not part of my life anymore. Everything I had at Palace has gone and I have nothing left to give.
"I don’t see any point to pay more interest in what is going on at Crystal Palace than I would compared to a theatre show I liked.
“The one thing I do miss is not having a voice in football.”
Jordan, perhaps understandably, remains annoyed that he was forced out of Palace which went into administration with debts of £30m, despite most of that sum being owed to him.
He clearly has little time for current chairman Steve Parish.
He added: “I wish Crystal Palace fans and the club itself every success. I cannot say it extends to other people involved.”
Jordan has spent some of his time over the last year writing his autobiography
Be Careful What You Wish For. It is a good read and at times, highly amusing.
It may not be as vitriolic as some would expect but it is nevertheless a lively offering with former managers — with the exception of Neil Warnock — getting a good pasting.
There was also the moment when he made the rash decision to go into the dressing room early into his time as chairman after a defeat to Grimsby. One of the players, Andy Morison, responded by passing wind at Jordan.
In the Liverpool boardroom, Jordan was furious at being given a momento of Anfield from an official as Palace were a ‘small club’.
Before venting his anger about this patronising act, he handed over his coat to someone he thought was a cloakroom attendant. Only after looking around did he realise that he had handed over his jacket to singer Chris De Burgh.
Jordan also speaks about his battles with players and most notably, Neil Ruddock, who had a weight clause in his contract and was fined eight times for eating too much.
There is also great detail about the court case with Iain Dowie who was successfully sued for fraudulent misrepresentation after he asked to leave Palace to move north — only to join Charlton.
Jordan said: “We won the case. Dowie submitted his wife’s mobile phone records bills for us to pay the expensive bills. We found all the numbers he was ringing. Shows you how clever the rocket man was.
“The book was not going to be a bitter diatribe, though. Some people may have expected this mortar shell of a book which was telling the world what a bunch of c***s everyone was and how wonderful I was. I didn’t want to do that.
“I wanted to write it in a way which was honest and showed people what really goes on.
“I was not prepared to accept what football dishes out as standard stock and fare.
"I did not want people in the boardroom in flip-flops but I wanted them to enjoy themselves. All this tie and blazer b******s is from the fifties.
“Overall, I suppose I was the club chairman who was not prepared to conform.”