Most liked posts in thread: BOYCOTT STARTS TOMORROW

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?

 

You are on a totally different planet to me. This forum is about as Toxic as it gets, hence the reason I haven't posted for a week (or even looked at it much).

What John has said, and what DA said on Saturday were right, keep sacking managers, keep abusing players and we become a destination of last resort for both. I've got caught up in some of the arguments recently and regret expressing some ill thought out views in agreeing with some, though in my defence I've had my head up my own arse for the last three months or so and not been a brilliant place mentally.

In hindsight, boycotts and constantly shouting for the owner to go (when his only crime is living in Germany or to some just being German) and demanding DA be sacked after 3/4 of a season are wrong. We have no right to instant success and have to work hard to find it again, even if that takes a few years.

Back in the glory years, the years of Bantam Progressivism, we had fantastic supporters, now an increasing number are just jumping on the worldwide trend of "virtue signalling" and demand instant gratification at every point and are ready to blame when any little thing goes wrong.

Bottom line is it's not DA or RS or SR who are to blame, it's society and Maggie Thatcher for the greed and total lack of compassion she instilled in the UK and made it a horrible place to live.

Unless a miracle happens, this season is over, If it does, then great we can all enjoy a day out at Wembley. If it doesn't then roll on August and the chance to go again. My football is more about friends and enjoying their company than it is about getting depressed over the result.

I'll see you all on the other side,

 

Thanks for that detailed account. I may be one you define as 'negative, keyboard warriors or hysterical' but as with ALL City fans, we want our club to go forward and progress.

"Our" voices are important irrespective of our viewpoint.

 

If the club was as open and engaging about issues, not necessarily issues such as this, but if they were more open and honest, instead of spinning some right rubbish from time to time, then maybe just maybe they might get an easier ride.

 

Or pay £10 and get no ads .

 

We never learn. Never. We don't work to a plan or strategy, we have no consistent and identifiable way of playing and as a consequence, our recruitment is all over the shop.

When Adams leaves, which looks inevitable and imminent, presumably the scouts he brought in will follow him out. And the squad has no design or balance to it. Its a full rebuild job every time we change manager because no one is actually running the club to a proper footballing strategy.

 

There has been a lot of noise alleging that £300k is being paid annually from BCAFC to Stefan Rupp via his Germany company. I have recently been asked about this elsewhere but repeat what I posted previously on this forum that there is no substance to the allegation.

The suggestion that he is paid an annual management charge whether once a year or every month doesn't make sense. For a start BCAFC could not afford to pay £0.3m pa to SR on top of existing commitments. And given that SR has underwritten the solvency of the club he would have had to reinject the same amount anyway to make good any shortfall. Furthermore he has no incentive or financial need for such an arrangement.

I have rechecked my papers and confirm that when I looked at the accounts 18 months ago that there was no evidence of this. There were claims about him taking money out of the club before I published my findings and I know that some people were not prepared to accept otherwise. Arguably the conspiracy theory suited their agenda and they didn't want facts to get in their way.

As I highlighted previously there was a bridging loan of £0.2m that was repaid in July, 2020. The circumstances of this were that the club had a cash shortfall to pay the wages at the end of June, 2020 arising from late receipt of the McBurnie monies. SR advanced £0.2m to pay the wages and he was repaid four weeks later. By its nature this was a temporary, one-off arrangement and did not constitute an annual or regular fee payment. (The only reason it has been given attention is that it occurred either side of the financial year end for reporting purposes.)

If anyone has evidence to the contrary I would suggest that they present it to substantiate the claim about the £300k pa payments. I am intrigued to understand what I have missed and/or what I stand to gain from making a misleading statement. For the record my findings from Oct-20: https://widthofapost.com/2020/10/14/assessing-the-finances-of-bradford-city/

 

Fair play but don't agree that there's any keyboard warriors here everyone just seems to want the club to do better and when we're 15th in League Two I think that's fair enough we absolutely should be doing better and it's a bit of a disgrace we are where we are

 

Could you imagine the carnage if you hit one or two of our superstars they would be out injured for months

 

Thing is, I definitely I don't have anything against Park. He's a City fan. He frustrates me but I'm sure, some of the things I say, frustrate him.

But inaction is not the answer.

I've outlined already my take on things. Was due to go to Stevenage and Forest Green but now, no. Weirdly, I'm taking in my first ever BPA fame on Wednesday vs York (bargain at fiver a ticket). I've walked away from City before... I'm close again.

 

Great post JD, Rupp and Sparks have done a good job and everyone hoped that hiring Adams would work out, Unfortunately it looks like he will be the wrong person appointed in good faith, The toxicity that is generated towards the club and SR/RS is because of the toxicity from Adams that seems to have spread and like a cancer needs to be cut out for the club to rebuild

 

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.

 

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.

 

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 wont be boycotting, unfortunately I'm old enough to remember City playing a lot worse than this and being bottom of the old 4th division and having to be re-elected, the system they used in the day.

 

I was fully planning on boycotting ifollow but im an addict - literally nothing better to do

 

Informative piece thank you, much better than that hysterical nonsense you were putting out last night to fans who have paid much money throughout the years and endured much crap and just want better for the club. M
Try remember it’s an opinion forum like when you gave the opinion that Bolton may get relegated last season, or not even finish due to financial issues before going on to getting promoted and will likely be fighting for a place in the championship next season, a club in supposedly more trouble than us leaving us behind. Not the first or last. Or when you gave the opinion we’d be back to where we were pre Rahic in 5 years, something which will be impossible if we don’t get promoted this season, you aren’t mocked you’re called out on it as you claim to be a font of knowledge on things behind the scenes.

Nobody has questioned Rupp out money in at some point, I’m sure though he’s gradually got it back over the last few years with the McBurnie sale and other bits. Nobody has also questioned that he’s probably a decent guy, but I know plenty of decent people I wouldn’t want them running our football club. He’s clearly overestimated the value of the club and clearly has no interest in being here long term and investing to take the club forward. That and the fact we’ve had 3 CEOs and 10 permanent and temporary managers it shouldn’t be so difficult to see why people want him out. I can’t speak for other social media but nobody gets personal or abusive towards him we simply want him gone.

If that makes paying customers on here keyboard warriors then I’m afraid you’re out of touch with football fans. You stopped contributing because you don’t like your pals at the club being criticised and jumped straight back on with a tantrum of a message at least own it.

 

After one win on the back of 3 demoralising results is not the time for one or two on here to start trying to claim some sort of moral high ground - I find that as disrespectful as some of the more negative outbursts that appear on here.
Lets just agree that we all want City to do well and ideally to do it in a way that upholds the values that I for one hold very special about our club.
We all have a part to play and perhaps we have all failed a bit if we are being totally honest- from owners, management, players and fans.
We all know we really need to go again v Exeter this weekend and perhaps, just perhaps, the past couple of weeks and last nights result might be the galvanising on-switch we needed. As a long standing City fan I really hope so

 

Sometimes I think some of our fan base is actually less ambitious than the club, which is an achievement in itself. Bournemouth and Brentford were in league 2 with us only around 12/13 years ago and are two clubs historically who have spent large amounts of time on the bottom 2 leagues. I wonder how their fan bases would feel if they just got relegated until they came back down here? Maybe they’d just accept it, doubt it mind…

A business that doesn’t strive and demand better will stand still and start to regress.

50 years ago we were getting 2/3000 through the door, now even in league 2 we can get 14/15000 and if we were going well at the top of the league up to 20000, our stadium is as capable as many of hosting premier league let alone championship football, but apparently we should compare ourselves to when we had a wooden run down dump with a couple of thousand attending. May as well be a different club, we shouldn’t compare 50 years ago to now it’s just ridiculous.