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Stefan Rupp

Discussion in 'City Talk' started by Captain Grumpy, Jun 3, 2021.

  1. WilsdenBantam

    WilsdenBantam Squad Player
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    You’d think so Park, but we fail miserably at this level. Since 2007 we’ve finished top 7 once in the previous 8 seasons and had more bottom half finishes than top. For what ever reason we fail at this level over and over again, even the 7th place finish had to be helped along by another team imploding and a very low point requirement for 7th was needed. Strangely enough every season except the one we were relegated in our last spell we ended top half, including a 7th place and 2 playoff campaigns.
     
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  2. How

    How Knows Football
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    Rahic was the chief culprit but years after of Rhodes was like adding fuel to the fire. Bad decision after bad decision and all designed to cut costs. No footballing brain just an accountants style brain.
     
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  3. Faithful Bantam

    Faithful Bantam Squad Player

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    Quite right. The biggest value in owning the ground would be in the security and leverage it would provide against borrowing. The rental cost isn’t pennies, but its not huge either. The longer term return on investment would be a challenge, because the purchase price would need to be above market rate in order to tempt Gibb into selling. In many respects, the most attractive solution would be a new, state of the art stadium, shared with the Bulls as a shared venture with the council and which would integrate retail/leisure opportunities for the public. But that takes a degree of vision, funding and ambition which this City as a whole fundamentally lacks.

    In terms of Rupps longer term aspirations, the obvious conclusion to draw is that he won’t be here long term. Similarly, the obvious assessment of his tenure so far is one of failure, because of how the club has regressed. And I’m not saying either of those assessments is wrong, but there’s maybe a point to consider when looking at his current level of investment appetite. Across the game, more and more clubs and their fans judge owner value on the basis of whether that owner pumps money in to drive growth. And for all sorts of reasons we’ve expected/wanted Rupp to fuel the sort of growth that other much smaller clubs have seen over recent years. However, lets look at his regime in full context:

    Why did he buy the club? He doesn’t look to be massively into football, so any sense of benevolent donation to drive this club up the leagues was clearly never part of his thinking. He also clearly didn’t appreciate exactly what he was getting into and was misled by Rahic. I’d imagine that his motivation was in part, the kudos of owning a club and possibly becoming a figure of adoration. But he’s essentially a businessman - he’ll have been sold a vision by Rupp of how this club could become a conveyor built for talent to be sold at profit and how the commercial side was seriously underexposed. I actually think both points remain true, but his experience to date is one of putting a huge amount of cash in and seeing the club got nowhere but backwards - the idea of relegation won’t have even been discussed, is my guess. And that’s not to say that he’s lost lots of money on running costs, because the McBurnie money covered much of that risk, but nevertheless, he’s likely been shocked by the volatility and risk of financial loss. And that’s before you even start to think about COVID impacts. I think I’m right in saying that this season will be the first whereby our operating and running costs are at a sustainable level, at a level where he can see responsible running of his business. Maybe that’s his primary challenge to Sparks before he might consider putting money in that he has more confidence will provide a return? Purely in business terms, that actually makes a lot of sense - very few business owners will inject their own capital to ‘grow’ a business that’s operating at a loss, that’s going backwards and that has huge amounts of inherent risk. The first job is to stop that bleeding, stabilise things and establish a management team that demonstrate prudence and capability.

    Maybe its wishful thinking on my part - and we DO need to get out of this division ASAP - but even if we don’t go up this season, budgets don’t need to be slashed, we’ll most likely have the same manager, CEO, back room staff, 75% of the squad will remain and next summer would be a much more likely platform for him to consider putting money into transfer fees, for example.

    He’s obviously accountable for the last 4 years, so its not a case of letting him off the hook - but he hasn’t been running the club. If you were him, would you put millions into a club that’s been run like a basket case, or would you want to see some evidence that we’ve got our shit together and are now actually ready to spend money wisely, within a strategic plan that’s actually credible and in the hands of capable people…..?
     
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  4. CrosbyBantam

    CrosbyBantam Fringe Player
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    All this talk of buying the ground sounds good in principle but potentially disastrous in reality unless it's either a true one-off gift to club from someone (good luck finding someone who wants to donate £5m+) or it's a restructure of the current agreement whereby the current lease is torn-up and the payments we currently make are converted into a repayment mortgage though which we at least end up with an asset in 20-25 years, at which point we no longer have to make those payments.

    Fordy's point about "Commercial income would increase" if we owned the ground doesn't stack up for me as what part of being a tenant vs. owner allows us to do more commercially?

    In an ideal world we'd own the ground and wouldn't have the current rental outlay. In reality the only way to own the ground is to still have that outlay but put it towards owning the ground, in the long term, instead. Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of this if it can be achieved without increasing our current out-goings.
     
  5. trevor

    trevor Squad Player
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    A long term lease is the worst way of having the use of anything, You have all the responsibility of repairs and maintenance but none of the advantages of ownership, It can also deter buyers as they not only buy the club but have to legally take on the rest of the lease,
     
  6. Mike Hunt

    Mike Hunt Impact Sub

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    Edin’s been gone longer than he was at City, time to stop blaming him and look closer to home.
     
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  7. borderlescott

    borderlescott Squad Player

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    He was a problem as he broke up the playoff final team. He was the start of the problem. Everything was good under Parky and ML/JR - Golden years. Subsequent decisions have been bad but Edin was the start of it
     
  8. Storck

    Storck Regular Starter

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    was it Edin decision or Parky decision to break up the team?
     
  9. Storck

    Storck Regular Starter

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    15/16 - 15754
    14/15 - 9902
    13/14 - 17631
    12/13 - 7123
     
  10. Mike Hunt

    Mike Hunt Impact Sub

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    Parky had gone by then, end of McCall’s first season in his second spell, the start of Edin pissing about. He was at City from June ‘16 to Dec ‘18, been gone three years, time we moved on. Blaming him is a convenient excuse these days. At the end of the 2016/17 season, Tranmere, Sutton, Lincoln, Forest Green and Barrow were in the National League, Harrogate finished 11th in the NL North, five places above Park Avenue. Hartlepool were relegated from the league and have been promoted back again. Three of those seven clubs are above us in the league, two in a division above.

    To blame Edin three years after he left is to absolve of blame all of those who have been there since.
     
  11. Dubois

    Dubois Squad Player
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    Which two are in the division above?
     
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  12. Ulysses S Grant

    Ulysses S Grant Squad Player
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    Two are above us, one in a league above. Come 5pm tomorrow only The team in the league above will still be above us.
     
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  13. Inspector

    Inspector Squad Player
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    I agree with a lot of what you say but believe the primary reason for Rupp to invest was to make money. Sold a dream by Rahic, probably by him quoting Premiership TV revenue figures and then Rupp seeing the pound signs without fully understanding what it would cost to achieve this. In defence of his own stupidity, he’s still around and will probably leave, when we get back to where we were. He could have bailed and left us in administration or worse a Bury FC scenario.

    In regards to not going up this season and the affect on next years budget. I’m fairly sure Sparks has played all his jokers in terms of enticing supporters back to ground. Numbers will be down and a prop up from Rupp will be needed. We absolutely must go up this season.
     
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  14. borderlescott

    borderlescott Squad Player

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    Edin. Parky left a year earlier. Stuart got us to the pkayoffs with a mainly Parky-assembled team but at the end of the year Edin didnt want to pay the going rate to keep again players like McArdle.

    Cullen loan wasn’t anything we could control but club decision was to get in cheaper alternatives, paying fees even if needed, for players on a lower basic wage (Poleon for 80k ish, 150k on Reeves was it?).
     
    #134 borderlescott, Sep 3, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2021
  15. borderlescott

    borderlescott Squad Player

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    Nobody is solely blaming Edin - at least I aren’t.

    what i said was we shouldn’t be whinging about the budgets Rupp had financed because they are good enough to succeed in L2.

    the problem are the people who have spoffed those budgets. edin was the first real problem. Rupp himself, mcall, abbott, bowyer etc, all part of the problem too.

    no one is saying Edin is to blame for last year for example but he started the rot when he broke up mccalls team and wanted Stuart out after Millwall
     
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  16. Bantam Begins

    Bantam Begins Squad Player

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    Well if I was Adams I would be seething with Rupp. Imagine dropping a division to be given a budget where you get Port Vales cast off striker. Even Peterborough’s chairman stated that with the crowds we get we should have a fantastic budget, forget the cheaper ticket prices; think about the shirt sales, food/drinks sales, the 1903 club…where is all this money going where we can’t back a manager to get a prized striker!? The amount of chances we are creating currently…if we had invested properly we would be sitting very pretty at the top. That striker you may have invested in now worth double the amount or more, why are we so tunnel visioned!
     
  17. Mike Hunt

    Mike Hunt Impact Sub

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    Too many people inside and outside the club are just happy to have a club to support. That’s one problem.

    We should apparently be grateful to Stefan for saving the club. In my mind that’s like thanking the bloke who’s just mugged you for calling the ambulance.
     
  18. trevor

    trevor Squad Player
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    Six years ago was watching us play Brentford in Div one, We are now in Div 2 and they in the same time are in the Premier League and have built a new ground, The difference? Owners that have ambition and prepared to invest
     
  19. pns1945

    pns1945 Impact Sub

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    We'll always struggle to get the right investment for our Club.Ideally a Bradford person through and through ,wealthy and with passion. Yes we've had 'local' in the past but without the desire to fund long term. It would be great to have an involved and hands on owner who could truly relate to our history and heritage. Short of a consortium, difficult to see any one Bradfordian stepping in. Rupp has held things together, but his distant tenure and lack of affinity is less than ideal from a fans perspective.Following City is definitely living on the edge.
     
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  20. 13eta

    13eta Fringe Player
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    Just doing the maths of the season ticket sales, they would have brought in not far off £2m or in weekly wages £38k which should be perfectly sufficient at our level (a 25 assumed squad puts that at £1500 per head as average)
    We’re covering ourselves fine I’d say, if anything there’s the chance of making a profit this year.
    I’m going to assume as was mentioned above that Sparks has had direction to get us back in the black so there’s likely some tied hands when it comes to recruitment and any player fees
     

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