BOYCOTT STARTS TOMORROW

I havent seen the accs for two years and the numbers i saw were for the YE 30-Jun-20. Refer: Assessing the finances of Bradford City AFC (widthofapost.com) There was a bridging loan advanced in Jun-20 for c£200k that was repaid in Jul-20 but i found no evidence of monies / cash being paid to SR. I have not seen the more recent accounts although Alan Biggin reviewed those of FY21 in detail on the club website. I am not aware of a management charge being made since Jun-20 but it is academic anyway if the club is not profitable in the first place. In other words if there was such a payment that increased the club's operating cash shortfall it would only have to be made good by SR re-injecting monies. I have no reason to doubt what RS has said and it's nonsense to suggest that SR needs income from BCAFC as if to fund his lifestyle. Besides, SR has every incentive to make the accounts as good as possible without burdening them with excess costs or interest charges.

 

You’re right about disenfranchised fans. Frankly something has to give, DA or SR or both have to go or the football has to get better. Sparks is in an invidious position to some extent, I don’t think he’s got everything right, but he’s got Stefan on one side with the purse strings and the fans moaning with good reason about dreadful football.
Something needs to happen, it’s bad for Bradford City to carry on like this.

 

It says it all that a supporter, which I assume John is, had to take the initiative to travel to Munich at his own expense, to let Rupp know what was going on.

Were senior employees and others associated with the club, happy to leave that responsibility to an outsider?

 

It's easy to miss just how bad the context to John's story is.

It does not indicate a well run club.

At all.

 

I agree with much of that Trevor and your final comments on Adams hit the spot (although never like cancer analogies). But here lies the problem for us as fans, JD says boycotts are futile but Adams now has a lot of power at the club so how do we go about getting our message across without making the atmosphere too toxic as that is of no help to the players?

 

It doesn't take an organised boycott for the club to recognise that people are upset and unlikely to renew STs and nor does it change SR's wish to sell the club. By all means protest but I'm not sure what it achieves and it certainly doesn't deliver a new owner. Ultimately SR has a vested interest to get the club promoted and hence his appointment of DA and the funds that he has provided to finance player signings in the past 3/4 years. Whatever happens he will not allow the club to go bust on his watch but if he doesn't keeping ploughing money into BCAFC it surely will. Let's hope the next owner will be as charitable.

All of this comes across as a massive tantrum directed at SR when in reality SR has inherited not only the debacle of Edin Rahic but also the chronic under-investment of prior decades. And instead of questioning the conduct of BFG he's now being sanctified. SR has not been pulling the strings of DA and can hardly be blamed for the man's tactics. He wanted DA to succeed like the rest of us.

Don't deceive yourself that the majority of City fans support organised boycotts or sympathise with you. The fact that there is plenty of noise on social media calling for such action does not equate to majority support but go ahead and be ridiculed.

 

I agree and I doubt that this situation will be left to carry on indefinitely because it can't. Difficult decisions have been made previously and will likely be made in the future but it is indeed an invidious position. Who on earth would want to be our next manager and you can bet that from a leverage point of view, candidates will recognise that they have the bargaining power vs BCAFC. As regards organised boycotts they are an unnecessary distraction and do not help the situation one iota.

 

Yes i am a supporter. You need to understand that staff members were in a difficult position with mortgages to pay but I liaised closely with James Mason in terms of background detail.

 

That would involve going to Germany and telling Rupp how bad a job their boss (Edin) was doing.

I'm not sure many people would do that and deal with the repercussions.

 

I have it on reasonable authority from someone who has been in a coaching position on the opposition bench at VP that the job isn’t a great prospect and the club are viewed as dysfunctional.

Organised boycott or not, I don’t fancy being in the job of shifting season tickets and sponsorship come May and June

 

Stefan Rupp did not 'inherit' the debacle Edin Rahic, he created it. Without Stefan, Edin would have had no involvement at Bradford City. There's no point rewriting that with a more romantic spin. It's his fault.

You, yourself, had to fly to Germany just to tell the man that his business was in a right state. YOU had to do tha, at YOUR expense. Credit to you, but what a farcical situation.

You can call Stefan honourable, and you're right to point out that his own money is what has propped this club up, but John, that's not your job. In fact, do you have a job at the club? If not, your actions were very much the actions of protest, which you're now claiming is pointless.

That doesn't add up, John.

Back to Stefan's negligence about his own business: his lack of awareness isn't a reason for me, or anyone else, to laud him for financing us in the aftermath of his own mistakes. It was either that (speculating to accumulate), or cut his losses. He made his choice. Good for him. I'm glad he did, it undoubtedly saved this club a lot of turbulence, but it's not an altruistic act. He did what was best for business; his business.

And now, I, and others, feel he's no longer doing what's best for Bradford City. Running sustainably, fine, yes, that's the right way to do things. But sustainability in League Two doesn't exist long term. Sustainability requires this club to get promoted, the faster the better.

Stefan Rupp made promises that he would continue to invest heavily in Bradford City until we were back to where we were before the Rahic era. He promised this, to us, the fans.

He appears to be reneging on that, as he doesn't have the same sense of urgency the fans do. He isn't investing right now, it feels like he's running everything on the cheap. We don't even recruit properly, we try to do everything locally, in-house, people who are already at the club. We haven't interviewed for any key positions, CEO, manager, coaches. It's fine that you think the issues lie with Derek Adams, a lot of them probably do. But did they lie with Trueman and Sellars, Stuart, and the rest of the double figures-worth of managers we've rattled through in the last six years? That's a lot of bad apples, John.

We must be really, really unlucky - is that your stance?

Fundamentally, I, for one, do not accept this narrative that nobody would buy us, nobody is interested, that we've got the best possible owner. I'd be interested in exploring the possibility of other owners, but that's not going to happen unless the club is publicly for sale and at a price that isn't distorted by the fact Stefan Rupp has lost a lot of his own money on his own investment thanks to his own very poor leadership.

 

That won't go down too well with those who thought they'd pull a fast one on Rupp every thing Rupp touches turns to gold .

 

If Fordy was prepared to travel to Munich to air his views to Herr Rupp I would personally fund his flight and accommodation and I should imagine quite a few others would chip in.

 

Is it a one-way or return flight?

 

For what it's worth...

SR: an absent, non-football owner isn't necessarily a (or the) problem, especially if there is a proper structure to the organisation beneath him. That, I think, is where we are failing.

RS: successful on the commercial side, with increased sponsorships etc., cognizant of the need to "spruce up" VP, enthusiastic about City. But, not as successful, at least so far, on the footballing side.

DA: a big disappointment so far. But his preferred style of play, and his personal characteristics, were not secrets. Still, one hoped for better. I get the need for stability; I get the utter frustration with his tactics, man-management, interviews. Neither sticking nor twisting will be easy or painless.

Like several others, I've mentioned that we should have a DOF position, whether you want to call it DOF, or General Manager, or even Vice-President Football Operations... Separate out the footballing part from all the rest of what is needed for the organisation. Install RS as the VP Commercial Operations and let him continue doing what he has been good at. Put an experienced football person in as DOF; let that person set up the scouting / analytics / medical etc. departments -- all of which are staffed by club employees, thus permanent -- as well as see to hiring/firing managers and coaches. SR can continue as he is now, providing the overall budget to be divided up between Commercial and Football operations. Then let each side get on with it.

RCB

 

I think we can agree to differ. SR is not the first, and nor will he be the last businessman, to make a mistake. As regards BCAFC being unlucky you overlook the fact that it is extremely difficult for any organisation to reverse a downward cycle of performance, in particular when it fails to stabilise itself. And as regards the attraction of BCAFC and Bradford, i don't think it's just the football club that struggles to attract outside investment. By all means go for your boycott but try offering a few solutions because they are not as easy to find as you might wish.

 

And would the rest of his midget army travel half price?

 

I want us to get stability at the club and I desperately wanted DA to succeed. I never particularly liked him as an individual but considered that was secondary to getting us promoted. I don't want us to have a repeat of sacking yet another manager but deep down I am not convinced that there is any alternative and that DA's time is limited. Whether that should be before the end of the season or in six months I don't know, possibly the former.

However in all of this I genuinely feel for SR and RS who recruited DA in good faith and in accordance with the wishes of the vast majority of supporters, myself included. A big decision needs to be made to either retain DA or sack him and my feeling is that whichever decision is made, the owner and the CEO should expect our collective support and backing. The scapegoating of SR/RS does not help them make that decision and does not help us as a club to rebuild. Ditto the distraction of organised boycotts when we should be showing unity.

In all of this it must be an absolute nightmare for the players and neither do they deserve a toxic environment. My fear is that we could get to the stage where talented players will not want to come to VP as it is considered the death knell for a career. I certainly wouldn't encourage a son of mine to play for BCAFC if indeed that was the case.

 

The lack of a 'Football' plan is killing us. ATM, the new Manager comes in and starts again............

If we haven't the biggest budget, then we need to be excellent in other areas. Recruitment/Youth/Medical etc.

 

I understand what you are saying but I wasn't suggesting it was paid direct to SR. The scenario appears to be that ER Sports pays that fee to the ultimate holding company, and that ER Sports only source of income is BCAFC. I think I have interpreted that correctly. Can you clarify @Dennis ?