What are Rupp's Plans for City?

Rupp bought into the idea of being a football club owner as it would give him prestige and also would bring him a profit by following the Rahic plan. Unfortunately he was so gullible to believe this without taking proper advice and by letting Rahic have a free hand in running the club. Now it would appear that he is willing to sell the club providing he receives what his initial outlay was, and maybe a little more if he can get it. In the meantime he is only prepared to put in what Fordy describes as enough "to keep it ticking over". So that's it in a nutshell. As I see it, the only way forward is to have people in place running the various aspects of the club (commercial/hospitality/income streams etc) who are super efficient at their job and bring in revenue to the club. This revenue can then be used to take the club forward. Until this happens we just stand treading water.

 

It’s a tricky one as we’ve no doubt gone backwards under Rupp so I can’t praise him, however last season we did have our biggest budget in years without player sales and cup runs. So for me money isn’t the issue under Rupp it’s who he trusted with the company credit card, and unfortunately it was a mad man who’s set us back years.

I don’t buy into that we’d still be top end League 1 if Lawn and Rhodes were still here though. That 15/16 season we were overstretched with loans and I think Parkinson would have left to Bolton regardless with their big budget and he’d realised that was his best opportunity at Championship football. If Lawn and Rhodes has been here for 16/17 we’d still have needed a new manger imo and it wouldn’t have been McCall if Lawn were still there. But I bet a party line of “we need to cut our cloth accordingly” would have come out as we’d not had a cup run in over a year and no player sales. We had to sell Wells only a year after getting to a cup final, so who knows what our budget would have been.

If there’s a stupidly rich person out there, who’ll chuck money at us and let footballing people call the shots, come this way please.

 

While we're worrying about covering the cost of more of the best striker in the divisions wages our owner wants £10 million for the club.

that's insane. if he wants £10 million then put some more funds in and lets get back to a level where 10 million MIGHT be achievable.

 

He doesn't want 10m for the club. That was @wetherbywhaler's estimate of what would be needed to buy the club and invest in taking it forward. Unfortunately I can't see that on the horizon at the moment

 

That isn't what I said but you make a good point. He is keeping us ticking over, but that said he has given us a decent budget for this season, so maybe slightly more than ticking over. However, like you I don't think he has any long term plan other than protecting his investment and hopefully getting most of it back. He is neither a football man nor a Bradford man so there is no other long term interest, but there are far worse owners out there at the moment.

 

Meanwhile, we have @Fordy117 coming over as a spoilt brat with his "I WANT" attitude.

Sorry Fordy ..... But if there WAS any serious investment heading our way, I'm sure we'd all have heard about it by now. So "I WANT" will get us nowhere. As things stand, there are NO takers ......... So we're left with what we have. We need and have to work with the resources available to us. To progress (albeit slowly), the fixed/set cheap ST's need to stop. An annual increase of at least 10% should be employed, for starters. Even in 10 years time that would still make BCAFC good 'value for money' from a Spectators point of view.
We need to exploit ALL possible means of commercialism, and use our stadium. I know current BCUDC (The Council) are impeding this - but let's grow a real big pair and Challenge these fools who purport to be pushing the City of Bradford in a forward and positive direction.
We ALL WANT - Yet there is SO much more we CAN do, with a bigger pair of balls, and a will to actually do something rather than just moot a bloody notion.
Herr Rupp may not have City in his heart .......But the very Senior members of his key staff do. Here's hoping some can come up with a few viable plans to keep us more than just treading water. If SR was duped by a charleton like Rahic, then surely his 'trusted' staff can influence him, positively ?

 

Bottom line is that we were 1 or 2 games away from promotion to the championship a few years ago. If we go up this year, and keep momentum, we could challenge for promotion to the championship again in the near future. There wouldn’t need to be a significant change in the spending/budget to do that.

The championship is a different beast though and that is when we would be seriously needing investment. However, if we could survive a season up there then the revenue would start to come in and we would then look like a much more tempting club for someone to buy. A few million investment and a lucky season (eg Huddersfield, Blackpool, Cardiff) and we could hit the jackpot of the premier league. All pie in the sky at the moment but for me, until we are in the championship, we aren’t getting sold to anyone with any money.

 

Nothing to disagree about. I agree with you. Even enhances my statement even more about him asking too much. People coming in expecting to lose money, don't want to pay over the odds.

 

Maybe you need to start supporting "a big go ahead" club like Manchester City because you ain't going to get a sugar daddy taking Bradford City over in the near future, and you can kid yourself as much as you like about Stefan Rupp he will not invest more than he has to, and until someone comes in with the money he wants we go with what we have.

You'd have been away to Elland Road or Leeds Road if you'd been watching Bradford City as long as some of the "Golden Oldies" you talk about who are still around supporting the club, if you think things are bad now I despair how you'd have coped under the likes of Stafford Heginbotham, Dave Simpson, Bob Martin past chairmen who nearly got us thrown out of the old 4th division, the Golden Oldies are a little more realist than you, hopeful for the future but reailse we have no knight in shining armour taking over our club.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to support a progressive club though is there? Those previous chairmen you've mentioned should make us all want better. I think the general consensus is, that we're a decent club that definitely could be springboarded with the correct owner in charge. Unfortunately, we've seem to have a mixed bag. BFG - heart and wallet in the right place, mind and realistic expectations , sadly not. Lawn - heart in the right place, wallet sadly not big enough for some. Current owners - one complete muppet (departed), one we don't know about.
Definitely not expecting anything (happy to have a club to support and all that), but definitely would like something to happen which propels us in the right direction.

 

Fordy - there are lots of words on taking the club forward / lack of it but as i see it no one is coming forward to make it happen. As you feel so strongly/passionately about this subject - please take this issue on, raise the money with others and purchase city. I and lots of others would love to see City become a Championship / Premiership team.
So can we look forward to you picking up the batton and then putting your ideas and plans in to action? Good luck you have my support

 

Rupp feels the pain of his misplaced trust and has stated that the fans deserved much better.That said, better means progression and the true test..should we achieve promotion, will be how he backs us then imo.

 

Nothing at all wrong with wanting a progressive club, unfortunately unless Stefan is prepared to invest more or sell the club I see little alternatives.
We have to be realistic we are little Bradford City who have 14/15,000 home gates because we have cheap season tickets that's not a bad thing or it would have been stopped years ago.
As you say we had previous owners in Julian & Mark who always said there was a limit to their funding and they would sell when the right offer came along.
We all thought with the big talk (mainly from Rahic) that they would be capable of investing in the club yet after that first great season under McCall Rahic thought he knew better and told Stuart we needed to reduce the budget, allowing Meredith to walk (when the talk was offering contracts at Christmas) and it's been a disaster ever since.
This season is looking very good at the moment but there are things that will need sorting be that strengthening in certain areas, the Doyle situation needs sorting, so there might be a clue come January of how serious Stefan is with regards getting promotion this season.
So in conclusion nothing wrong in wanting progress/better but very little point IMO going on about it when Stefan has done what he promised and funded so far, a manager, backroom staff and team that should be capable of getting us back into league one.

 

I was a bit peeved when the only english footie on the telly this last weekend was Tranmere v Wycombe, galls me to see these 2 mediocre teams in a league above us, we must get out straight away this season whatever the cost...

 

Yes most said at the start of this season we need to be challenging for promotion, I'd say where we presently are in the league with whats gone on injury wise etc promotion has got to be the goal.

 

Most definitely the goal, Dave. I reckon player movement/s in January will deliver a greater insight as to whether that goal can be reached, or missed.
Add to that our injury list - Will they come back 'long term', or break down, again ?

 

Bowyer will not rush them back so that excuse can't be used overall we have not performed badly at all with the injury situation, we can only be stronger when they come back.

 

Or sell up with potentially more value in the club? Assuming there is somebody willing to invest.

 

And kissing the badge at Fleetwood after the playoff win.
It’s time he dug deeper than he currently is and get us to the championship where we can then attract bigger fish as far as investors are concerned.