Rhodes speaks

As a season ticket holder of 30+ years and one who still renewed this year, I genuinely wish he had.

SR's ownership will ultimately only bring the club a slow death, something I'm not readily willing to invest in and accept and I also suspect I'm not the only long term supporter that feels like this.

 

I also struggle with the idea that a banner on a plane can create such an impact, to the extent that he'd have essentially sacrificed millions of pounds. Hes a successful businessman, surely he has thicker skin than that?

 

We know they're both responsible.

What does taking that responsibility look like, though?

Edin Rahic paid for it with his career in football, Stefan Rupp is paying for it by having to stay and clear up the mess he caused.

Sounds like the right outcome to me?

 

Completely agree Den, I cannot believe for one minute a very successful businessman worth well into the millions would buy a business with a 'partner' he hardly knew, effectively fund the whole thing yet not have a clue what was really going on behind the scenes. Naivety like that does not make you a wealthy business man. Or if has been alluded to on here that Stefan was happy to go with the Rahic narrative he was being told then he ie equally as culpable of the mess created. The fact he's stayed around to try and right some of that wrong is or isn't admirable depending on your own agenda. The salary cap has saved his bacon somewhat as the outgoings should be met in the long term by the clubs turnover.

 

How would he have benefitted by walking away? He effectively owns a business with no assets bar the sale of Olly McBurnie, something at the time no one had any idea what would happen. I'm not as clued up on football finance as some on here but surely if he had walked he would have stood to make what to me would be a very substantial loss?

 

Dennis, We don't know what financial information ER provided to SR but i suspect that it flattered the situation and within the mgt accounts of a football club there is plenty of scope to be subjective with the recognition of revenue between months. I don't disagree with the point about lack of governance but you also need to consider the practical situation in that he had invested in a project of which he understood little and was totally reliant upon ER to deliver. It says more about the naivety of his original investment decision in the first place. However it meant that once committed he was to all intents and purposes stuck.

You have to also remember that there was a lot of noise coming out from VP - ER's lies vs the comments on social media, much of it in a form that was difficult to take seriously - but above all, the position of the team was sufficient to put his mind at rest and also gave a degree of credibility to what ER told him. ER made a big point of claiming how resistant people were to his ways of operating and was able to explain the negative vibes as the defensiveness of those being forced to change their ways. Of course he was inevitably going to be found out but conmen are chancers and ER was so deluded after his first season in charge that he believed his own propaganda that he would be successful.

There is no excuse for the situation but it is not quite as black and white as it is portrayed. Ultimately, as someone else has said, SR did the responsible thing and injected money in November, 2018 because he knew he was responsible for the mess and accepted a moral responsibility to avoid the club becoming insolvent.

 

Think that sums it up , I'm not unhappy that he's still onboard as I do believe Rupp being the owner and his comment with regards Rahic will give us a better chance of surviving the present situation.
As you say with regards the whole situation if he learnt little I would hope he's learnt to do his homework on potential business partners, Rahic had no money or assets only his dream of owning a football club.

 

Partnerships are the worst ships
that ever sailed.
If you don't know who the captain
of the other ship is,but he wants
you to fund the enterprise,like as
not, he's a pirate!

 

Like many others in his position, SR invested pride in the venture and that probably has a big bearing on the fact that he gave ER benefit of the doubt because he wanted/needed to believe the original investment case would succeed. Ditto he put money into the club in November, 2018 to avoid the embarrassment of insolvency and I also genuinely believe that he felt he had a duty to do so. In my discussions with him I have found him an honourable, principled individual and a decent man.

Whatever misgivings that he had about ER, the fact that he was not being forced to put money into the club (because they inherited a war chest from JR/ML) probably gave him a degree of comfort. Why did SR ignore what was being said an social media? Probably because of how it was being said on social media that undermined the credibility of the message. As I have said, ER only needed to point to the summer of 2017 when City fans feted him as a Messiah in Germany.

I agree entirely the club needs a new owner and I was saying it ten years ago but sadly, reputable people willing to invest in the club appear to be a rare phenomenon now as in prior decades. We can wish it. We can demand it. But it doesn't mean to say that we will find someone who has the brass to buy BCAFC or indeed the resources to rectify the historic underinvestment at VP. There is equally a risk we get an owner who frankly we don't want.

The finances, balance sheet and accounts are what they are and we cannot change history. I am not condoning what has happened and I am not defending how the club has been run, I am being realistic.

 

Come on @baggers spit it out .

 

How much would it cost to buy the club and ground 20 million+ ? If anyone was willing to pay that sort of price could they really be deemed a fit and proper person? I just cant see any sane person wanting to buy our club, can you?

 

No

 

Until football moves from which owner has the deepest pockets to a meritocracy I just can’t see anybody without a deep seated passion for a club wanting to own one

 

It doesn't neccesarily take an owner with deep pockets. Not in the sense of continually funding budgets. It needs an owner and CEO with vision, commercial nous, strong risk management capability and ideally with great networking skills.

 

There were the odd abusive comment on social media but very much the theme through the comments should have had the alarm bells ringing no matter how much Rahic tried to put a 'they're all picking on us cos we're foreigners' spin on it. Heck, even on this very forum there was a funded campaign to pay for a fly over berating the ownership of the club. If as alleged Rupp was reading WOAP to get his information then I doubt their usual narrative would have the warning signs flashing. Anyway, it's all water under the bridge, if Rupp learns anything it's to not be as naive in business dealings in the future especially when it stands to cost you millions.

 

In your second paragraph Dennis you state that Rupp injected cash. I don’t want to start another argument but when I stated on here last year that both Ryan Sparks and James Mason told me that Rupp was donating significant cash to the club you treated my comment with contempt and went on about no mention in companies house. Do you now recognise having read Johns excellent article that Sparks and Mason were correct?