How does this club move forward?

As I said he's an owner with a clear vision. I'd been singing Pilleys praises for a long time, the training facilities showing what can be done with investment, something our fans seems scared to death of.

 

Those cities ot towns you mention have had varying levels of success in football. We've had it once, under the vision of Geoffrey Richmond. But the mere mention of BfG has folk wetting themselves in fear yet that is what we need to take this club forward, someone who has a vision about the potential of this club. It looks highly likely there will be the biggest gap possible between us and our neighbours 10 miles down the road. Yet 10 miles down the road is where the real potential is, let's not kid ourselves, our potential is just like any other league 1/2 club.

 

Why would you want to spend £1m on something that will never be yours....?

 

Why shouldn't we have that potential as a large city? Jealously looking over our shoulder at our much more successful neighbour city doesn't help. It should inspire us.

 

Burnley is the only one I’d draw a comparison to Bradford. Sheffield has had money poured into it for years, the tram system for example and it’s a City if not booming, then certainly not on its arse. Wolves, Sheffield and Leicester have got mega rich owners but they also has a recent history of relative PL success.
If you were a consultant advising a mega rich Chinese businessman buying a club, you’d look at Bradford City and say, dying City with a council and population who are both largely disinterested, no assets, no infrastructure and needs £100m or more spending to get to the PL. And then you’d point to Brentford, Hull, Forest, Reading etc and say spend your £100m there.

 

Well as @Fordy117 would rightly say, that is not true we have a very rich owner for a league two club, but unlike your comment with regards United he doesn't seem interest in spending our way out of our present predicament..

 

This is spot on. I've argued before that the affluent middle class has largely deserted Bradford. I have an association with a fabulously rich person, a City supporter all his life, Bradford born and bred, who would be an ideal candidate to be part of a consortium to take over the club. I discovered to my horror a couple of weeks ago that he now has a season ticket at Leeds United. All Bradford's sporting clubs are in long term decline and I can't see where the incentive would be to invest in our club which is rapidly becoming a basket case after years of flawed decision making.

 

"...you’d look at Bradford City and say, dying City with a council and population who are both largely disinterested, no assets..." Absolutely spot on.

We should also stop using the word 'investment' when we talk about Rupp. An investment suggests there will be an ROI. But being frank any money Rupp puts in he knows there is no ROI. At best it stops the club falling further at best he MAY get his original investment back.

If I was in his position I wouldn't be putting much money in. I would think I had already wasted enough and as long as someone offered to pay me out what I put in I would be out in a flash. In fact I may even accept a small loss as all I see is a money pit.

Even if I was to try to look at it as a long term project I would have to consider the following.

Bradford has never shown itself to be a hotbed of football, it's history is Div 3, Div 4, relatively small crowds (the 14/15k numbers are relatively recent) and as Mike Hunt points out the city is on a downward trend, the population is generally disinterested, the ground, which is not owned by the club and is not worth buying, is in a part of the city that would be described as 'undesirable' etc etc etc

To be frank....would you put your money in?

 

Bradford Council and Bradford City both act the same.

1) don't spend money to improve
2) not ambitious
3) Not positive, always make out they're poor
4) lazy
5) No long term plan
6)!Happy to watch as others other take them.
7) Staff that lack ideas! Just happy to be in a job
8) Clueless
9) Never look at risk v reward. Safe and boring
10) Has a weak audience that let them get away with things and they take advantage of that. The people running them just laugh in their audience face and think what a set of mugs!

 

I wonder if Julian has produced a 3/5 year plan going forward and calculated the cost and our owner has basically said thanks but no thanks.
That sort of information would be between the two of them and unless Rup was happy to finance such a deal we fans would never find out.

 

Under Lawn and Rhodes they were taking calculated risks spending more than they could afford to give the manager the best chance of succeeding and clawing some back if we didn’t they found the right manager who used the money wisely and we had a very good period with lots to shout out about.
Despite your constant prodding Rupp and therefore Rhodes isn’t going to put anymore money in so it’s up to the manager to over achieve or at least play to expectations.

 

Mate we know Rhodes operates short term.

Season ticket sales and hope for a cup run!

He is a yesterday's man!

 

Rhodes and Lawn admitted they couldn't afford the club.

Rupp can so:

A) you come up with a plan to convince him
to spend more
B) you suggest he just sells up and get out ASAP.

Why do you keep saying he won't put anymore money in? Do you know him?

How we operate now isn't working! Only a loser will think it is.

 

Putting yourself in Rupps position would you put more money in bearing in mind he has little interest in football and no hope of getting any back.
I agree he should sell up but that’s up to him and if he does sell experience tells us the club would be run on very similar lines unless someone came along with big resources and willing to put money in with no hope of getting it back there is zero chance of getting money back from owning BCFC.
The best we could do is hope that consortium of business people could be put together with the connections and experience to do a good job fronted by somebody like Dave Baldwin

 

Here's a few questions to add to the mix.

Do we have a poor budget in comparison to other teams in this league?
Was the pitch so much better when we were one game away from the championship?
Did we have a director of football? How many teams that are near the top of this league, league 1 and the championship have a DoF?
As a city was Bradford so much richer and affluent when we were being so successful with Parkinson?

Seems to me that a lot of things are being blamed when in reality all it should take is decent player recruitment, a decent manager and that manager to be given time.

 

He brought the club knowing it was a football club.

Even a 5 year old knows that they is no money in owning a football club. Is he stupid? I don't think he is! Most owners own them to increase their business portfolio and increase their credibility.

For Rupp to get anything near his money back he needs to get us into div 1 and invest more.

I agree with your other points though mate.

I too think he should just sell the club now and just take the hit. He needs to leave.