Signatures - fans forum with Stefan Rupp

Surely the real issue is ownership of English football, where any lucky businessman/woman, mass murderer, whatever can take ownership of a local community asset just because they've acquired a large bank account. That's the real issue.

I have to say I much much prefer Rupp to Lawn. I prefer most people to Lawn tbh.

Say if this campaign did succeed in chasing out Rupp (and I doubt it will), there's no telling what sort of monster could come in to replace him.

I'll keep on clapping - but not if we lose 4-0.

 

Totes agree about poor recruitment of players. IMHO that's the biggest issue BCFC needs to address.

 

Decent budgets are given to numerous managers, so the blame for that can't be laid at his door. His total non interest is what's killing us. If he at least looked to get an experienced CEO in place or asked questions of the current one, I wouldn't be looking for him to leave. It's the total lack of wanting to climb the leagues or get involved that grinds my gears. Show a bit of interest and show some respect. If he's not interested, then sell to someone who is.

 

How do you know this?

 

Make your mind up on last page you were told of a potential buyer now your agreeing with someone posting there isn’t one .

 

That isn't good to not acknowledge receipt if he has received it, thanks for the reply.

 

We can read what we want into the situation is he aware if what's in the parcel as you say it would be a poor CEO who didn't tell his boss there's a parcel on its way and what's in it, but to not acknowledge it is a disgrace, unless there are things going on behind the scenes, as fans we need to keep our support for the team by attending until we are informed of things changing or we take the protest to the next level.

 

Nobody knew if Rupp and Rahic were the 'right guys' to progress the club. We had zero evidence that they were or weren't. They'd never owned a football club, or any business jointly before.

We were frequently told by the previous owners that League 1 was about as far as they could take City.

And, more importantly, they'd only ever sell the club to someone who could take the club further than they could. Whether they were also duped by Rahic's spiel or any noble intentions went out the window once the thought of collecting plenty of £'s once City was sold, I don't know.

I don't think it's unfair to suggest that ML/JR weren't overly careful about who the club was sold to though. If all they cared about was City's medium to long term future, why sell to two complete novices in both English and professional sport?

Compare and contrast Lawn and Rhodes reaction to SR/ER buying the club to Parkinson's. He couldn't get out of the building quick enough once the sale was completed. Which can only suggest he really didn't like what he heard.

 

It sounds like more of a personal thing with you regards Mark Lawn, he wasn't every bodies cup of tea but no one could accuse him of not being 100% Bradford City.
Unless it's in some sort of consortium I very much doubt Mark could fund any involvement going forward.

 

Does Sparks lack the balls to get Rupp to part with his money? Sparks has talked about Rupp funding the club through Covid, and providing decent budgets, however we can all see that slowly but surely this funding is dwindling by the year.

Im not saying we should be diving in and throwing the notes around left right and centre but it wasnt too long ago that old Edin was getting Rupp to put £4.5m into a squad, aswell as spending £400k on fixing SOME (!) of the problems with the pitch at the time.

since then the ethos is clearly, sustainability, this appears to have replaced the buzz word of deficit from the lawn and rhodes day.

We have gone from the highest budget, to a top 3 budget, and now to a top 7 budget, and i'm not sure that is fully because other clubs have overtaken us with massive input, excluding wrexham and Stockport. Still far many teams outperform us on considerably lower budgets.

what is the next step after top 3 and top 7 budgets? a competitive budget?

This is all whilst, dont forget, that we are hitting record turnover, yes i know turnover isn't profit, and record levels of commercial income.

Rupp's input is undoubtedly rescinding and that is why the likes of the independent group and other so-called "gloom-merchants" are getting frustrated. somebody will likely correct me but isnt' the current wage bill I think around £1.7m, around £2.5m down from 2018?

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying we need to be spending those sort of numbers again but lets not laud Rupp as someone we should be grateful for

 

There isn’t in my opinion a credible buyer who would bring anything else to the table other than being ‘interested’

 

I believe most we happy with them taking over there was little if any disagreeing with the take over, they came in and approached the club in a very professional manner sacking people who were involved in the "club within a club" comment from Rupp.
We were told how they would approach being new owners and their vision and how they wanted to achieve it, even telling us they weren't here to throw money at the club but would fund it when required.
The problem was the man in control didn't stick to his side of the agreement with his boss and started spending money on things that weren't agreed on because he knew football.
Yes we have to accept it was the wrong call (hindsight and all that) although at the time Lawn was reluctant to sell but from what I'm told had little say as the majority of shares were owned by the Rhodes family.
That's a pretty poor comparison we all knew how Parky worked he was never going to allow any sort of involvement/input from anyone bar himself, I'm sure Rupp and Rahic were more than happy to continue the way things were going and why not we were a club on the up that just needed that extra impetus when required, the Parkinson situation alone should have sent warning signs ouf to the fan base unfortunately some were happy to go along with the tale he'd lined up the Bolton job and walked away it was bullshit but it got them off the hook and the nearly season we had under McCall Parkinson (who) was soon forgotten.

 

Just as an aside, if you read the minutes from the supporters board meeting, it appears that RS has subtly altered what he said at the fans forum (if I remember correctly what he said then).
From the supporters board minutes:
"RS frequently hears mention of the “not accepting mediocrity” quote, and clarified that when he took on the role of CEO he was given an initial remit to ensure that the club stayed in the division and did not go bust." He obviously realises the big bollock he dropped at the fans forum.

 

Steve did an update on twitter to say the package was being returned.

He's previously said he has duplicate packages that he can send to another couple of known addresses. He's also said he's prepared to travel and drop it off personally if needed.

 

Maybe give one of the packages to Ryan Sparks to pass on

 

He was leaving anyway,no question.

 

I'm amazed there aren't more drug dealers and OCGs (or are there ?) involved in football ownership. It's the perfect way to launder money and lets face it the fit & proper test wouldn't pick up anything.

 

Thanks. I don’t do twitter