i Article: Why ‘Sleeping Giants’ Bradford City Aren’t Your Typical EFL Basket Case

Behind a paywall, so can’t read it.

 

The final few lines of the bit I can see make interesting reading; Rupp allegedly wants £10m but despite the price tag a few interestingly are still sniffing around.

 

Reading Debt
“One important number is the net liabilities of £62.9m, down from £71.9m. This means the club owes more than it owns. Over the years the club has now accumulated losses of £191.5m which is over £140m more than when the Dais bought the club in 2017.”

West Brom
West Brom 'looking to recall £5m loan' from owner Guochuan Lai's company amid growing financial problems, with the club reportedly needing to 'sell players in order to stay operational'29 Sept 2023


Bradford City
Minor loans to owner

Now we know why their sale price is below ours……They are effectively selling debt?

 

I just refreshed the page and it then allowed me to read the full article

 

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/bradford-city-sleeping-giants-efl-basket-case-2815810

Does this work .. ?

 

£10 million to buy a name is a lot of money.

I remember hearing Zuffa bought the UFC for $2 million back in the day, and they kinda accepted they were only really buying it for the letters 'UFC' which they believed had huge potential from a name recognition/brand aspect.

Dana White has spoken quite a few times about how they really weren't buying a whole lot else, and even then that brand wasn't established and would need a huge amount of work put into it.

Obviously that big gamble has paid off in spades (they sold for $4 billion).

But that was an effort to establish the number one MMA brand in the world.

£10 million for a fourth tier club with no bricks and mortar, no nothing?

Yeah... that's a tough sell.

And did anyone hear we train at a school?

 

You don’t have to pay just create an account. You can always unsubsribe if you get inundated with emails.

 

$2m still sounds a lot for Undercliffe Fried Chicken

 

They wouldn't even chuck in the fryers!

 

Someone did mention in once I think.

 

I just opened the link and no paywall Offy?

 

Such a depressing article, we are stuck with Rupp until he cuts his loses. What a damming picture of our future.

promotion or we are stuck for the foreseeable with an incompetent owner at the wheel.

 

Hats off to Mark for his article but there is zero in there that none of us didn’t already know.
I fail to see the point of it other than an article for followers of other EFL teams as opposed to followers of BCAFC.

Don’t take it as a “stick” to hit somebody with imho.

 

I remember Dana White being on the Hawksbee and Jacobs show on talksport in the very early days of the UFC basically trying to sell the dream of eventually becoming the organisation it is today. Genius move from White, always a good listen whenever he's on.

 

Agree. Nothing new to see and I would n't be surprised if he got the content for the piece from trawling City Talk, and then reflecting the middle ground of sentiment on here!

 

I agree with @Kevin1954 on this issue. We went round the houses and over the hills and repeated the process approximately 5 times on this discussion thread on this subject, and ended up in the same place. We have a reluctant owner, who doesn't want to invest, and a ground that we do not own. Both of these contributing factors are holding us back. Rupp is not an assess stripper although I cannot afford Rahic the same assessment as we were kept in the dark on that subject. Rupp has a choice hopefully in the very near future ie when and if we are promoted.

 

Ditto

 

Be careful what you wish for. We're currently in the honeymoon period of US investors buying EFL clubs. I do wonder how much due diligence is done against the ambitions or business goals of these investors.
The only way to really cash in on your investment is to make it to the PL. That's where (as we all know) all the $$ are.
The trouble is that to get there you need to spend big or have a long term strategy akin to Brighton and Brentford. If it doesn't come off then some of the recently acquired clubs will be in deep do-dar
A few years ago, clubs were being hoovered up by Chinese businessmen acting on behalf of the Chinese government. Once the President realised that more money was flowing out than in from these clubs he told the owners to get out. WBA and Reading are a couple still left in Chinese ownership and are in real financial trouble.