Foley is slowly earning a reputation for his bold predictions coming true. Shortly after completing Black Knight’s takeover of Cherries, he “guaranteed” Cherries would avoid relegation, a claim that came true far sooner than his more audacious statement that his Vegas Golden Knights side would win ice hockey’s biggest prize in their first six years of existence. He was almost proven right one year in, when the Golden Knights reached the final, but Vegas did keep to his six-year schedule, defeating the Florida Panthers to lift the Stanley Cup last week.
Bill Foley shared: “I did do the prediction that we were not going to be relegated, that kind of made the rounds. I got sick and tired of ‘well, you’re going to be relegated. How do you possibly stay up? You’re picked number 20,’ and I finally said, ‘we’re not going to be relegated back in late December, I guarantee it.’ And of course, that came back to haunt me for a while, but worked out we didn’t get relegated.”
At the time of his survival prediction, Foley also stressed how he wanted European football at the Vitality – but the Cherries chairman would not put an exact timeline on reaching continental competition.
Bill Foley said: “We have perhaps more modest expectations. Football is the greatest sport in the world, and the Premier League is the best football league in the world, and the competition is unbelievable. So we ended up 15th. We’ll be doing some serious adds to our squad this summer and we have modest goals. Let’s see if we can’t work our way to 13th, 12th, then maybe the next year 11th, 10th, then ninth, eighth and then maybe somehow we sneak in like a Brighton, and we do play European football. It’s a few years off so it’s not going to happen just yet and we’ll see how this team that we’re putting together this summer supplements what we already have.”
Foley then went on to explain how Cherries have already lined up potential targets. The Daily Echo understands personal terms have been agreed with last season’s loanee Matias Vina, whilst the club remain in negotiations with Roma over a fee for the left-back and winger Justin Kluivert.
Bill Foley said: “We’re talking to agents and talking to players and you can’t make commitments just yet. It’s supposed to be July 1, but we have a lot of people lined up that we’re very interested in. So my prospects for Bournemouth are very good and our prospects for our multi-club strategy is on track. We have now one Ligue 1 club and we’re working in Belgium. We have some ideas about Spain and we don’t need a bunch, need about three that we can send players to, they get their experience, they’re playing all the time then they come back up to Bournemouth. So we have a plan but it’s going to be evolving.”
