Most liked posts in thread: Seven Figure Loss

Fordy, I'm not in the habit of repeating myself but I said it last week and I will say it again, STOP this Stefan bashing. I will explain, again, the reason why.
SR (to save typing) is an investor, he was never, until the last week a Director of BCFC, just a Director of the German Holding Company which may have included other businesses. His interest in BCFC was no more or less than any shareholder in any Company, thus leaving the Company to be run by the Executive Director/s in this case Edin Rahic.
Shareholders/ Investors have no rights to inside information such as Monthly Management Accounts and the like but are free to comment or criticize the Executive when things go wrong and there was no indication to SR that anything was wrong off the field until last summer. At such a point investors/shareholders take a stand if they are sufficiently concerned and I know exactly how this works from personal experience, so trust me I know what I am saying here.
True to the circumstances when SR was alerted to growing issues he did take a hand as any diligent business person would. He asked for such as Management Accounts and failed to get any response other than a request for more investment which I believe he made to keep us afloat. After that he took a much closer tag on his investment which he had not expected to make, I'm sure and that has led to where we are now with more investment needed to meet obligations all as a result of the gross mismanagement which went before.
SR as a now Director has made it clear that he is here for the long haul, that he has bridges to build and that we, the fans, deserve much more. Together with Julian he is striving to deliver.
Like a lot of what you say your criticism of JR and ML selling to these guys is misplaced. They sold to people who they believed would take the Club forward to a new level, only history will prove right or wrong and there are many others in the League who with new owners can make the same comments as you, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
Your comments on poor sponsorship deals is misplaced. You can only deal with those who are in the market and if they are thin on the ground you have to get the best deal you can. Bradford is hardly the commercial centre of the universe with Global and National business queuing up to give us money. However when there was a good deal Edin managed to screw it by interfering. The classic is the loss of a seven figure deal plus indirect investment in the form of fit out works by the operator which was lost because Edin thought he "knows marketing" and wanted an extra £30k!! The firm concerned told him where to go and I doubt they will be back. Other long term sponsors were treated in the same manner and we face an uphill struggle to get them back when deals run out this summer, so if you're not happy now...
Believe me SR has not let this Club down in fact at the moment quite the reverse so it would be nice to see you get behind him for a change and achieve what is really the thing we should all be worried about which is finishing fifth bottom as a minimum, leaving the sweeping up after Edin, including this massive playing roster to SR.
Roger Owen.

 

Hi Roger, thank you for the excellent reply.

As, I say Bradford City can't afford to go down as you know and my sole aim is to support the club to help get them out of this mess over the second half of the season.

I'll back down from the SR bashing now and believe that him, JR and other management can take this club forward.

Thanks,

Fordy

 

I'm not sure I'm on board with blaming Rupp equally for this mess.
I was one of the most vocal critics of our owners, both of them, earlier in the season, but I think its become pretty clear that Stefan trusted Rahic to run the business - granted, that was a mistake, so he's not blameless, but he's hardly the only person in the world to be taken in by Edin's charm - half this forum still think he's a good guy, for example. but it isn't Rupp's fault that in Edin's own mind he knew exactly what he was doing, and his masterplan would mean the massive overspend would be balanced by success on the field and probably cup runs, and he'd never need to go cap in hand to Stefan to cover the deficit.

Rahic was a loose cannon, completely deluded, reckless with finance, and had a major ego - should be nowhere near the top of a massive company like BCAFC, or any other for that matter.

Rupp shoulders some blame for been taken in by him, and for allowing him to run the business unchecked, but I wager many other people in the same position would have made the same error of judgement.

at least Stefan is staying, covering the losses incurred because of this error, and trying to right the wrongs. that deserves credit in my book.

 

An absolute sh*t show.

If that sort of backing had been given to Parkinson or McCall we'd have been up by now.

To be that much in the mire and at the arse end of the league is a scandal. We must be paying out some ridiculous salaries.

 

I wonder if losing to Yeovil and missing out on the Man Utd game tipped Edin over the edge. That cup game would’ve covered all his tracks, instead it left him with a busted flush.

I hope those that decided to not renew, or boycott matches will return for the remaining home fixtures and renew their season tickets at the earliest opportunity. The club needs us all now and we need to pitch in to give Hopkin a decent fighting fund for next season.

 

I thought the only thing Edin would be good at doing is managing the finances, always thought his penny pinching approach would keep us breaking even every year and here we are.

Why would you give McCall a shit budget but give a non league player who had no experience in senior management a top 6 budget?

So glad he's gone.

 

not sure why people are so shocked by this article - we've all known for a number of years that unless the club has a good cup run or sells a promising player then we struggle to break even, and we haven't had either of those for a while now.

the same people that will moan about this are those that will complain about being outbid by other clubs for players. if you want the club to cut their cloth accordingly then be prepared to miss out on players we'd be expected to be in for. remember when people thought we were in for bradley dack and billy sharp .

 

Time to Jack up ST prices and ask fans to do their bit. We can't underprice tickets indefinitely

 

Exactly, you get what you pay for. Easy to expect Rupp to dig deep into his pockets but then expect dirt cheap season tickets/

 

You can only discount 2 game a season and we've done one already, the fans need to put up or shut up don't blame the club, they're having to pick up the pieces from Rahic not worry about giving tickets away!

 

In the days of Lawn, Rhodes and Baldwin we were always prepared for a 500/600k loss without a cup run or player sales. Remember the annual deficit that Lawn always came out with when people moaned about no big signings after a major cup run. We’ve had no decent cup run since 2015 so things will be a bit grim on the financial front.

 

You need to back off. You may well disagree, but taunting fellow posters because they refuse to get in the tit for tat replies you seem to enjoy. You queried why you should receive a ban from another poster the other day, well this is just the type of post that is antagonistic and aggressive.
Agree to disagree, that’s it.

 

Rupp is not blameless in all of this.

He let Rahic have free reign and run up such a deficit without any questions being asked or an eye closer to the figures then we have only ourselves to blame

 

Puts into context the constant cycling of accountants too. Not that there was ever anything shady about that, was there? No, no. Never any proof of that.

 

The way some bang on about it you’d think we hadn’t been running at a deficit for years. Its only been the past few years when Parky worked his magic, it was him alone that allowed the club to start with a clean accounts sheet each financial year. Fact is most football clubs run at a loss, its not that big a deal. What is a big deal is what that deficit money has actually been spent on. Completely wasted by Enid Radish. And yet some fans still wouldn’t listen when questions were raised early in his tenure.

 

Edin said is was £700k shortfall. The reality was under £300k.

This year Edin has overspent the playing budget massively and Rupp was completely unaware. Monthly management accounts were not provided (how many accountants came and went?). Edin's wife ended up doing the bookkeeping!

The truth was hidden from Rupp until he came over and unravelled the mess with Julian. By which time, Edin knew the game was up and he had left the club, leaving his wife and kids behind, taking off with the club car and credit card to Germany.

Rupp has had to provide additional funds (up to £1.5m) to fund us to the end of the season.

The autopsy can mull over respective blame, but the reality is that Stefan has got rid of Edin, taken control and put more money than he ever anticipated into the club. Sorting out the mess will take time, but thankfully Julian is at the helm providing a very safe pair of hands.

 

I rather liked the comment from George Carman QC who at the Ken Dodd trial said “ While accountants make good comedians, comedians don’t make good accountants”.

 

I'm not sure How. The reference to the losses refer to this season's spending which let's say go from July to November when Edin left.

Rupp isn't in all the time and would be getting the majority of his info through Edin. All the stuff about interfering and running the entire club by himself isn't really what would have bothered Rupp that much, it would have been the financials. Now, if we're talking about a window of July to November, which is 5 months, that's pretty decent and quick action. Rupp may have been getting monthly updates from August or September and by October he's asking sterner questions then he sees what's happening financially and then Edin is out - because of the finances I would say not the micro-managing.

That's not a long period of time at all. Stepping back - we shouldn't confuse Edin's interfering, which had been going on for months, with his incompetence on finances this season, which I would say led to him leaving - on the financial front I'd say Rupp took pretty decent, quick action to get rid of the problem and take more control.

 

if only more people had listened to me way back when, we might not be in this sorry state.

 

Good man, you know it makes sense and thanks for your support, big shout tomorrow.