Something Is Rotten In The State Of Bradford City

@Dennis , Would it be feasonable to cover the debt by the club issuing more shares and Stefan Rupp buying them, Thus wiping out the debt plus the increase in shares would make Edins percentage shareholding much less unless he to took up his option which would be unlikely?

 

The club has been almost out of business three times since I have been watching them whilst acknowledging our plight at the moment I don’t think we are there yet

 

100% spot on.

Funny how it came out about it in January as well.

 

Edin didn’t listen to them. I think it was @Glenn Ackroyd that wrote a letter to a Edin that was allegedly ignored. You’ll have to ask @wetherbywhaler what his input was, but if what I heard was true, he’s done enough to help.

i think that as associate director is someone who pays £10k or something for their season book and gets some fringe benefits, might be being a bit harsh on them there but you get the drift.

As for putting their own money in, if that’s what you’re alluding to, why would they? It’s pissing good money after bad and you only need to look at Notts County where owning the club may have dragged the owner’s previously successful business under. The football finance model is broken and in my opinion it’s a mug who spends their kids’ inheritance on a football club.

 

The club has been rotten for 90% of the time since my dad first took me 50 years ago, god knows why he did that, he supported Leeds as did all my family.

I don't care now, a season out has given me thought clarity. Another poster said "This great club", that made me chuckle, there is probably no less a great club in the entire history of football, we've messed up, fooked up and underachieved for nearly our entire existence and 50 years after l first attended, are still going backwards, brilliantl!

Wake me up when we have a team of Bradford City players in a Bradford City kit and l might get interested.

 

There is a bigger picture in all this. Economically Bradford has been dying for a long time and the consequences of that are there for all to see. The middle classes have more or less deserted the city and this has a big impact on its sporting life, and much else besides. Not only are City and the Bulls struggling but also every other sporting club in the city. Take a look at the fortunes of our rugby teams in the district and you see a similar picture. Bradford is not alone in this, but the phenomenon is particularly strong here. There are no more silk hats on Bradford millionaires. Across the country there is a broader pattern of sporting success gravitating to the south, the south Lancashire area excepted. There are individual exceptions, of course, and the Lancashire sporting endeavours continue to buck this trend, but overall the picture is plain to see. The only hope for places like Bradford is for some foreign multi-millonaire to come in (eg Blackburn) or some local lad made good to pump his millions into the club (eg Wigan or Blackburn again). Neither are on the horizon. I have an acquaintance who is a Bradford businessman and a City supporter. He is worth many, many millions of pounds. As far as I am aware he has never considered putting any money into City. I'll see him again shortly and I'll put it to him.

When the Germans came in I wondered if they would be our white knights, but I soon had my doubts and they were far worse than I had ever imagined. So, without any external investment we are doomed, as we've always been, apart from the crazy madness of Richmond, to mucking about in the lower two divisions. I don't think we'll go out of business next year, but I can't see, at the moment, how we'll be competitive, unless something unforeseen happens.

But then again, it's been like that for almost all the time I've supported City. And so I still do.

 

Disagree its anywhere near 90%. I have been going since 1979 and I mostly have good memories of following city.
1982 promotion 1985 promotion 1988 nearly promotion 1996 promotion 1998 promotion 2013 promotion
4 wembley visits
1 major cup final
Sure there were some dodgy years with relegation and administrations but to say its been rotten for 90% of the time is way off the mark for me, well certainly in my time following the club anyway.

 

Typical of our luck, Crawley Town in L2 and a former non-league club wanted by a Singapore consortium for £7 million and yet the owners dont want to sell.
£7 mill for a club like Crawley, tell them to come here for round 2 of foreign investment, after all City are a massive L1 club, twice been to Wembley recently.

 

Probably because Crawley is much closer to London than Bradford. And I’m guessing they own their own ground.

 

Gordon Gibb will save us

 

I can’t agree more, you look at other cities who have lost their main industry and are living next to a glamorous neighbours and they are dying. To be fair outside of Leeds and Manchester, and the areas
where the money earners from those cities live, the North is on its arse, the Midlands too.

The thing is through, why would your acquaintance or any other moderately wealthy individuals spend money on a club like City? By that I mean someone with £10-20m in assets, wealthy but not Richard Branson rich.

Let’s say Stefan gave you it for a quid in the Summer. You need to pay off the players we have, buy new ones, get lucky with a manager who takes us up, you’re possibly £3m down by now. You’re not doing what Accrington do and create a social focus or a community asset for the town, the fans tents and so on, the demographics of Bradford mean that won’t work.

So we’re back in the third tier and you need a couple of million more per season, or some cup runs and player sales, and some good luck to get promoted. At some point you’re going to have to buy the ground or get it refurbished, it’s starting to show it’s age. To get this club in to the Championship from here is millions of pounds, and that’s before you factor in the shit you would get as chairman. The grief on Twitter or here for not getting promoted, sacking the manager, not sacking the manager, the wrong brand of pies, the shit beer.

Get it wrong and your £20m fortune is halved, get it right and you’re in the Championship with a club that will probably cost you and will be hard to sell.

If I won the euromillions at £140m, the most I would do for City is try to buy VP and give it to the club. Getting involved is a sure fire way to lose the money. Ask Alan Hardy at Notts County, Simon Jordan at Palace. It can be done, Burton and before Edin City largely broke even.

Villa are perhaps an extreme case but they are losing tens of millions per year, have accumulated debts of £265 million, and their players’ salaries are paid through the parent company, presumably to squeeze in under FFP. You need to be seriously wealthy to play with the big teams in that Division.

But the over riding point is, no way would I want the shit and abuse that would come with investing in Bradford City or any other football club.

 

We really aren't a massive league 1 club, we're a club that sold a load of cheap season tickets on the back of a successful period. Anyone who wants to invest anything in this city needs their head examining.

 

In terms of the money I think you're spot on and, although it's way beyond the means of most of us, it's not really that much in terms of current football finance. So why would you risk any of it? It's a bit like you or me. We would all have an amount that we would be prepared to blow if we thought it would make a difference and get us up the leagues again but we all know if we put it all together it would make no difference at all so we wouldn't do it. Only big money talks nowadays and even £20 million doesn't talk that much. That's why the few people who have that locally aren't interested. And there's no one who has more than that to invest on a wing and a prayer.

 

So in a nutshell, every single club outside of the PL and most of the Champ, are the only teams that can function given the finance involved. The rest of us might as well pack in?

Maybe the teams of the North of England and the Midlands, say to the EFL, unless the financing is changed we give you notice we are packing it in?

 

It certainly looks like that.

 

I'm pretty sure that the EFL couldn't care less @Onside .

Money is all that matters to them and leagues 1 and 2 don't earn them anything I guess. If actions speak louder than words, they wouldn't bat an eyelid.

 

Correct and that's why breaking up a team that got to a play off final was a massive mistake. We needed to gamble to be in the Championship

Look, Edin messed us up badly but we have to get over it and move on.

 

Associate Directors was a former title. It was changed by Edin to 'Ambassadors'.

It costs £3,395 + Vat for the privilege of match day hospitality and parking spot. You can double that if you want to go away as well. That's a hefty commitment if you bring your partners as a number of people do.

It was a great idea introduced by Mark Lawn who quite rightly didn't want any freeloading 'hangers on'. People had to pay for an association with the club. The collective amount generated is equivalent to a sizeable stand sponsorship and generates much-needed revenue.

It's not a closed shop. Anybody is welcome to apply. In fact, we will be inviting two people to join for next season shortly.

Most Ambassadors run their businesses full time but also help out where they can with the club. Roger and I spend more time because we've sold or retired from our businesses. I'll be there for four days this week. The day I'm away will also be related to City.

 

Glenn thanks for the response and putting some detail to it. Then your exactly the sort to "get into the heads" of the regime that we the fans the one and only true constant in all this ineptitude deserve better than this !. Personally I don't give a monkeys about Rupp ! Rahic ! Rhodes ! The Manager (and the next one ??! ) The Coaching staff ! The Players ! they can all go for me ! But I do give a monkeys about the Tea Lady ! The Groundsman !, All the Administrative staff Uncle Tom Cobbly & All ! Charlie Murgatroyd! You ! and every single Bradford City Supporter being led into the Abyss by all this and if you get chance (probably not ? for your not inconsiderable benevolence) tell em that from US ! Thanks again and salute to you for stumping up your hard earned spoils for what little say or return you appear to get ?