Stefan Rupp

Well yes that's an interesting point of course you still want your current owner to own the stadium rather than the old one but it won't stop Mansfield's next owner having to also buy the stadium or find themselves in our position

I'm not totally sure I would want Stefan Rupp to buy our stadium as I don't think he is here for the long term at all despite all the soundbytes I just think he accepts he will be here for a while as he's not going to get his money back otherwise

 

wonder if the club are paying him rent for the ground

 

They haven’t but they are a smaller club, as I say if the club owned its own facilities and saved on rent it’d go somewhere to helping the player budget. We should be outmuscling most at this level, not arrogance just have to look at the teams. No Pompey, Bolton or even a Plymouth or Rotherham.

 

Unless you already own it I don’t understand the owning your own ground saves rent argument. If you live in a rented house, then unless someone gifts it to you, or you have the purchase price in your bank account, then if you buy if you need to pay a mortgage or a loan. Unless someone donates £5m or whatever to Bradford City, they’re going to have to pay back the debt instead of rent. And unless Stefan is either very generous or very daft, he’s not giving away £5m unless he’s damn sure he’s getting it back when he sells up.

 

For an outlay of £5 million it would have to be in Rupps interests financially to buy it. And that would mean calculations based on a long term return. Rupp isn't going to be here long term. Thats the whole reason Gibb bought it in the first place, it was gilt edged long term investment guaranteed to be in profit after so many years as long as Bradford remained a football league club, which barring a miracle they will. In any sense, with Bradford being a permanent tenant potentially for decades, why on earth would Gibb want to sell what was a brilliant piece of business all those years ago?

 

This is true but him not buying it when he can afford it highlights he isn’t interested in the club long term.

Commercial income would increase as would the value of the club. The reason we lack serious bidders for the club is because we own no assets.

Training at a bloody shite school and not owning the stadium is really damaging for us as a club off the pitch. Massive lack of ambition and failure.

 

Anyone could afford to buy the ground but it has to be financially viable. Even a potential new owner would have to have a finance expert come up with a report as to what the ground is worth and how the loan repayment would be paid back and over what time scale whilst factoring in depreciation of the asset. Because don't forget, whoever wants to buy it, whether that be Rupp or a new investor, does not pay with his/her own money, merely borrowing against said asset. Wealthy business people do not use their own cash reserves.

 

Has anyone got the figures of season ticket sales from the last season of Rhodes and Lawn and through Rupps ownership? I'm wondering if there's a direct comparison to make in terms of supporters slowly adopting the disinterest of our owner.

In my mind there's been a season on season decline, rather like my feelings about the club but I can't find exact figures for the 19/20 season except for "over 13,500" or the figures of previous campaigns.

 

Both Adams and Sparks don't really care either.
Both are trying to better themselves in their careers and move up to bigger and better jobs.
Sparks knows that funds aren't flowing from Rupps pockets so is doing a daily delboy on social media to drum up income.
If a bigger sports club were wanting to employ a new young CEO who had proven that during his tenure he had overseen an increase in income of 25% then they will be looking at Ryan and he would be off.

 

Of course its relevant. The expectation of many is that the owner should fund the club, you're firmly in that camp. Rupp is the owner therefore its 100% relevant.

Football, at our level, should be self sustaining without owners having to provide extra funds. In business if a company needs extra money they issue more shares. Does Virgin ask Branson for cash every time they want to expand ? No, they have a rights issue or increase the prices, and we shouldn't be asking Rupp for more cash when we want to increase the player budget or paint the stands.

 

In what way is he dreadful ? Is the club heavily in debt ? Are we on the permanent verge of administration ? is he taking money out of the club ? Is the stadium falling to bits ? Have we employed a no mark manager ? Is the budget the lowest in the league ? Were we one of the clubs that potentially could have closed due to Covid ? Are we running up unsustainable debt every month ? Does he come out in the press every month and threaten taking the seats away and moving to the second biggest rubbish tip in West Yorkshire ? Has he thrown millions in to fund promotion and is now throwing his teddies out of the pram to get it back like Hoyle ? Has he lent the club money at 9% and taken that back as soon as we have a good cup run ? Has money from selling young players to PL league teams disappeared to cover a "shortfall" ?

Answer to all is no, your idea of a dreadful owner is one who doesn't employ Pep and spend millions on players, one who doesn't deliver instant gratification. This is fourth division football. Rahic was dreadful, Rhodes was inept, Lawn a chancer who got lucky with a good manager. Compare those to Stafford Higginbotham who built the club up organically from being liquidated and over a period achieved success we could only dream of.

Good owners are ones that employ a CEO that can run the club without their daily involvement or interference and do so without the club getting into debt. Owners being the involved on a day to day basis can cause more trouble that it's worth because they know every decision they make is playing with their own money. Hence the reason Lawn buggered off almost as soon as he could find a buyer and get his 9% loan back.

What Rupp has done wrong is allow Rahic to be CEO and allow him to get on with it, a mistake I'm sure he regrets and won't repeat with Sparks, a mistake he is currently rectifying over a period of time that allows us to grow without going into debt. Living in Germany and not speaking in the press does not make him a bad owner. Setting a playing budget in line with the clubs income doesn't either.

This club has been either in administration or liquidated three times and before that was on the verge of liquidation in 1965 before Stafford arrived the first time. No other club in British football has survived that and still remain.

 

If the club had bought it for £5 million and got a 15-20 year mortgage we’d be half way to owning it out right and probably be paying less in payments than on rent, it’s a long term project but no one at the club ever seems interested in long term. Every club who has got a new stadium over the last 20-30 years or so haven’t paid it all off up front, it takes years but benefits them long term. But if people are happy to just pay rent forever then fair enough. Personally I think it holds us back.

 

Neither are a fan of the club so I wouldn’t expect anything else than them to be here to benefit their careers, same as if one of us got a job at another football league club. That doesn’t stop them caring however, in fact it probably makes them care more as they’re effecting their careers with every decision they make good or bad. Where as a fan would be happy to just be employed by the club for life and probably have less ambition to make it to the top. Do you think Parkinson was in it for his passion for the club?

 

Do you own the land your car washes are built on ? If so what allowances do you make in your balance sheet etc for that or what rent do you charge the business.

There is absolutely no commercial sense in paying £6million for a piece of land that without the football club as tenant is probably worth less than a million. Rhodes & Lawn bought the office block then immediately sold them at profit using another company. Why didn't they keep them in BCFC and rent them out to offset the ground rent.

Not owning our own training ground means very little in the grand scheme of things. If we owned it we would have a mortgage on it - commercial mortgages are 5% plus rates, often higher, so the mortgage would cost as much if not more than the rent. If we had paid cash for it that money would have come off player budget or put us in debt. The facilities are excellent and installed/ paid for by someone else. We have very little restriction on use.

It being at a school is not relevant to anything apart from your silly notion that we have to own everything we use.

Sometimes, renting things makes more commercial sense than buying. For instance, is your car on a lease ? Do you lease the equipment your business uses ?

 

Just to mention that we do not rent the ground we have a lease, They are legally very different,

 

Natural progression and the reason I said at the time it was a win win situation for Sparks. The club was that badly run when he came in anything would be viewed as a success and to be fair he understood what needed to be done short term to get the fans back on board. I've no doubt he will go on to a bigger concern whether that be in sport or business, fact is money wide we are no different to the majority of clubs in the division budget wise and without a enthusiastic owner there is only so much you can do with a limited budget.

 

A good summary of why we don't buy the ground back.

 

I don’t like all the talk of the ground. It is a complete red herring. It isn’t holding us back on the pitch at all. It might offput certain investors but if we performed on the pitch - with budgets that should be adequate for success at this level (compare with Morecambe and Cambridge last season) then investors would be more willing to take us on anyway.

The reason we are in the position we are in is due to bad decision making throughout past regimes at the club - Edin the chief culprit. But recruitment has been bad, the wrong managerial choices have been made, and that’s why we’re stuck in a rut.

 

Whilst I think ownership of the ground would be good for the club your right there should be enough budget to exit this league with. I certainly don’t think having our own training complex should be even considered until we have had a sustained period of success

 

No I'm in the camp that Rupp is not the right fit for Bradford City and like (you say) all businesses, Bradford City should aim to be self sufficient, irrespective of where the monies are created.

Rupp has overseen a vast decline and regression. For that alone, makes his tenure should end.

But a buyer needs to be found. So we can on regardless.