Rupp & Sparks Out?

I do think a lot of the advertising finance being brought in recently was with regards the appointment of Mark Hughes he was a big influence, lets just hope Graham Alexander and the teams performance during the second half of the season persuades them it reinvest in the name of Bradford City Football Club.

 

Give or take it was £4million. Im not fussed either way if you believe me or not.

 

Hard hat time Andy that wont go down well with some, sadly once again mate Julian knew what was on offer and on the table when he signed it on the clubs behalf.

 

Sometimes you have to pay for your mistakes. That 4m (alleged) I hope taught him a lesson or two. Sadly, it now looks that he's going to sit on his disinterested role until he recoups whatever money he's put in, and that means it's the club and the fans who are going to end up paying for his mistake. I can't believe the fella, being a savvy businessman, doesn't know when to cut his losses and run. Right off that money, or at least a percentage of it, reduce the asking price, sell up and move on.

 

It is always the fans that pick up the tab one way or another. It feels mad to say we are still suffering from the Richmond gamble. Repercussions of literally having to sell the stadium as no one would lend us any money at that point. I know we are supposed to feel grateful that Gibb stepped in, but unlike any of the bankers he knew it was a very good investment for his pension fund. If we folded tomorrow he is owed nothing. I would like him to accept 2.5 million for buying it back, so that we as a club can move on. He won’t of course, but it is crippling us.

 

I'm not saying I don't believe you, but figures like £4 million shouldn't be banned about willy-nilly without some substance don't you agree ?.

 

I keep doing the euromillions . One day!

 

So how much did he pay? If we don’t know we have the right to speculate. I thought it was £6 million?

 

Me too, and VP is near top of the list. I would hire the best lawyers available and get it back.

 

I have broad shoulders mate and will not wilt in the face of a few stern words.
I loved the premiership days, it just a shame it has cost us the fans, so much heartache over the following years.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

 

Every club in league 2 is a selling club bar the wealthy Wrexham. Don't let out season ticket sales fool you, we live from hand to mouth and as such will always need player sales to fund on and off the field activities.

 

I look forward to the day S&R are no longer debated on here for their inabilities to take our club forward.
It will be some other poor sods who will try to achieve were so many have failed from the top down it's a hell of a job open to very few in society.

 

I agree and its not a figure I have just pulled from thin air. £4million is around the amount of cash that Rupp had to put into the club to make up for what Rahic spent. It could be £3.8 mill or £4.2 mill.

Rupp has kept us afloat but is owed a hell of a lot of money. When you consider this and the fact we have zero assets apart from the Bradford City name then what would a new owner be getting for his money?

 

I've always thought with regards Gordon Gibb purchasing the stadium it was a very astute move, the rent side with no buy back clause was even cleverer, but take it a stage further at thee banks wouldn't lend money as they knew from our previous situation it could happen again and they would be in exactly the same situation as they had been during the first admin creditors.
Now if the situation arose again which I can't see under Rupp no matter what we think about the guy financially he's no mug, (not too sure he's was that clever with regards choosing a co-owner/partner to share the unknown of running a football club), but if it did happen maybe we have someone on the side lines ready to buy us on the cheap bearing in mind we have no assets, in steps our Knight in White Armour Gordon Gibb.

 

Those figures are a nonsense.

Our trading income for the FY2019 was £6.7m. In FY22 it was £7.3m. So its gone up by 10%, at a time when inflation was near that amount and the amount of money coming into the game generally is increasing. Its barely a noteworthy increase in relative terms, let alone impressive.

We don't know whether there are buyers or not - I've heard of at least two interested parties who were put off by the asking price (which I'm told was nearer to £10m than the £6m Rupp paid for the club). And willing buyers of football clubs don't just cold call you; you have to proactively seek them out. I have zero sympathy for any money Rupp has put in to compensate for the complete negligence he exposed himself and the club to, in partnering with Rahic.

At a reasonable asking price, we're hugely attractive, because whilst we don't own the ground or training faciltiies, they're both of very good standard and available at reasonable rental costs and most importantly, we have a large fanbase - a genuinely commercial leader of a football club would know how to monetise that fanbase by growing the club.

 

Its also not a massive improvement. It looks great if you do a simple compare of FY22 (£7.3m revenue) with FY20 (£5m), but when you then consider that FY20 was the year of Covid lockdown which massively eroded income for every club, and look at the fact that revenue in FY was £6.7m, its not worth writing home about.

 

Rupp has put around £4million of his own money into the club. Happy for people to call it nonsense etc but that's the figure quoted from the very top of the club. If its over inflated or exaggerated then fine but I’m relaying what I have been told. It’s not second hand or Chinese whispers. It was categorically 4 million pounds.

 

I agree I believe he over spent with regards the money Rupp had agreed to take the the club forward, Sparks get pelters for running the club in a similar way Rupp wants it running, sustainability with little or no financial commitment from Rupp.
But my understanding was for all the stick Rahic got (and I gave him plenty) he did spend it on the playing side paying silly money and giving contract to players who unfortunately didn't perform, was his plan to make us a success with regards the quality of players he brought in and hood wink Rupp pointing out our league position etc hoping with better times around the corner if successful he could hide what he had done, well never know because the player's brought in during that tie James Vaughan, Eoin Doyle, Zeli Ismail, Shay McCartan, Kelvin Mellor Sean Scannell weren't committed to Bradford City

 

This is rubbish and the large fanbase nonsense has to stop.

Would you hand over £5million (half of what Rupp wants) for no stadium or training ground? You wouldn’t. It makes no business sense. This is why we have the owners we do because anyone with a slight ounce of business sense knows we are not an attractive prospect. Again - not conjecture. Potential owners are put off with the fact we have no assets. Fact!