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Post by Dick on Nov 2, 2023 11:41:51 GMT
Imagine being a potential interviewee now. Bradford City looking for their 10th manager in 5 years, knowing you'll have no guaranteed budget at all to work with, 30+ players you have make work, a fanbase desperate for success and an expectation that we must get promoted. How is anyone expected to deliver actual success when they have such limited options and no guarantee of any budget to spend, anywhere? Imagine working a club which since January 2018 years has made the types of appointments and decisions it has. How are you going to buck that trend?
It's been the buzzword for a while hasn't it? Like some of the ones we had in the ML/JR era, I don't remember what exactly, but things like 'has to be within the budget', 'cut our cloth accordingly' and the other ones. The phrases that were always there to dampen hope and and expectations.
In an ideal world, sure - the idea of sustainability makes sense. A club that generates it's own income from a mix of various sources - from fans, player sales, sponsorship, TV deals, non-football events etc - where so much crazy money is thrown around, would be great and refreshing to see.
But you need the investment from the beginning, you need that 3/5/10 year plan. You need the right people making the strategic decisions. You need the foundation in place and the plan to achieve it, even if it gets delayed a year or two, you still have the foundation. We've banged on about Rupp, Rahic and Sparks to death and their faults. We know about zero investment in at least 3 years from the owner and his overall approach to doing everything on the cheap.
There is no foundation here. We had some idea of it in that first year or two with Rahic - invest in the right players for developing further with a view to generating profit. Support that with income streams from other areas. We signed the like of Wyke and Jones.
Superb, we thought, we could see this actually working. That strategy lasted about 12-18 months and died on its arse. Instead of investing in players it was just 'sign any old shite and if we them game time they'll develop'.
We now sell the odd young player once every year or two, and the transfer windows are just revolving doors of ins and outs. Managers constantly having to work with other manager's squads. We know about Sparks, his background and his path to the role and he's making the critical, long term football decisions. And they're just becoming embarrassing now. We can see the almost frantic attitude towards trying to secure whatever 'partnership' deals we can, akin to looking for change behind the sofa.
I know nothing in football is guaranteed, but a big part of our 'sustainability' is paying for the short-sighted and almost blatant mistakes made by the owner, senior management and team management. Paying off contracts of managers, bringing in players who are clearly useless, bringing in players on 3 year deals then binning them off..
I do think Hyughes had a good budget in the summer, but the approach to recruitment and new set was a disastrous decision to make. Thing is, a lot of that was the 'sustainability' money is from our season tickets, the shirt sales, the sponsorship deals and odd player sale paid for. Misused and misspent yet again.
I'm not saying 'sustainability' will never work, but it's getting less likely every time we have to go through this process at the rate we do. And if we do get promoted, or even lets say we get promoted again, how is our 'sustainability' going to support the club when further investment from wherever would be a necessity - then what?
Edit - I'll acknowledge the improvement at least in the youth development side of things, which was almost non-existent for many years. But we have a fair way to go to see more young players come through direct to the first team and being able to make substantial profit on them. Pointon has potential, sure, but we've seen many young forwards come through over the years with hope they could be something and fall out of the game, for whatever reason.
If we were to actually invest in anything, one thing alone, for me it would be whatever it would be to improve bridging that gap from being a youth player to first teamer to sellable asset.
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Post by Neshead on Nov 2, 2023 12:47:13 GMT
Imagine being a potential interviewee now. Bradford City looking for their 10th manager in 5 years, knowing you'll have no guaranteed budget at all to work with, 30+ players you have make work, a fanbase desperate for success and an expectation that we must get promoted. How is anyone expected to deliver actual success when they have such limited options and no guarantee of any budget to spend, anywhere? Imagine working a club which since January 2018 years has made the types of appointments and decisions it has. How are you going to buck that trend? It's been the buzzword for a while hasn't it? Like some of the ones we had in the ML/JR era, I don't remember what exactly, but things like 'has to be within the budget', 'cut our cloth accordingly' and the other ones. The phrases that were always there to dampen hope and and expectations. In an ideal world, sure - the idea of sustainability makes sense. A club that generates it's own income from a mix of various sources - from fans, player sales, sponsorship, TV deals, non-football events etc - where so much crazy money is thrown around, would be great and refreshing to see. But you need the investment from the beginning, you need that 3/5/10 year plan. You need the right people making the strategic decisions. You need the foundation in place and the plan to achieve it, even if it gets delayed a year or two, you still have the foundation. We've banged on about Rupp, Rahic and Sparks to death and their faults. We know about zero investment in at least 3 years from the owner and his overall approach to doing everything on the cheap. There is no foundation here. We had some idea of it in that first year or two with Rahic - invest in the right players for developing further with a view to generating profit. Support that with income streams from other areas. We signed the like of Wyke and Jones. Superb, we thought, we could see this actually working. That strategy lasted about 12-18 months and died on its arse. Instead of investing in players it was just 'sign any old shite and if we them game time they'll develop'. We now sell the odd young player once every year or two, and the transfer windows are just revolving doors of ins and outs. Managers constantly having to work with other manager's squads. We know about Sparks, his background and his path to the role and he's making the critical, long term football decisions. And they're just becoming embarrassing now. We can see the almost frantic attitude towards trying to secure whatever 'partnership' deals we can, akin to looking for change behind the sofa. I know nothing in football is guaranteed, but a big part of our 'sustainability' is paying for the short-sighted and almost blatant mistakes made by the owner, senior management and team management. Paying off contracts of managers, bringing in players who are clearly useless, bringing in players on 3 year deals then binning them off.. I do think Hyughes had a good budget in the summer, but the approach to recruitment and new set was a disastrous decision to make. Thing is, a lot of that was the 'sustainability' money is from our season tickets, the shirt sales, the sponsorship deals and odd player sale paid for. Misused and misspent yet again. I'm not saying 'sustainability' will never work, but it's getting less likely every time we have to go through this process at the rate we do. And if we do get promoted, or even lets say we get promoted again, how is our 'sustainability' going to support the club when further investment from wherever would be a necessity - then what? Edit - I'll acknowledge the improvement at least in the youth development side of things, which was almost non-existent for many years. But we have a fair way to go to see more young players come through direct to the first team and being able to make substantial profit on them. Pointon has potential, sure, but we've seen many young forwards come through over the years with hope they could be something and fall out of the game, for whatever reason. If we were to actually invest in anything, one thing alone, for me it would be whatever it would be to improve bridging that gap from being a youth player to first teamer to sellable asset. Have I logged on to width of a post?
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Post by Dick on Nov 2, 2023 13:03:46 GMT
Have I logged on to width of a post? Sometimes I have the urge to show we're not all about pricks or gompers.
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Post by hobbes on Nov 2, 2023 14:38:27 GMT
Have I logged on to width of a post? Sometimes I have the urge to show we're not all about pricks or gompers. Halfway through reading it i thought how good it would be for someone who is not blocked by Dewhirst to send it to him. His standard dig is "make some constructive suggestions then". The fact is we do that all the time (eg DoF), but people only listen when its coming from the established mouthpieces. I tweeted a reply to someone yesterday to the effect that given we don't have any football people running the club, its mindblowing that we haven't attempted any sort of peer review, or had Sparks get some training on how to run a football club, how to develop a football strategy, how to recruit the right people to the right roles. To study how progressive clubs go about their business. And if he hasn't done that, or isn't capable of it, why the fuck is he making football decisions? Why doesn't Rupp replace him? I guess the answer is Rupp couldn't care less as he thinks one day he'll get his money back without doing anything at all now he's got Sparks in to just keep the business afloat. Because thats literally all Sparks IS doing. The raison d'etre of the entire club is simply not spending the owners cash. All other considerations are secondary. All we're left with is shit football and soundbytes.
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Post by Lofty on Nov 2, 2023 14:41:56 GMT
There are two potential scenarios.
Rupp isn't replacing Sparks cos he thinks he's doing a decent job.
Or more likely (and more worryingly) he isn't replacing him because he couldn't give a shiny shite about us.
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Post by Mossley Bantam on Nov 2, 2023 15:13:56 GMT
The thing is, what the club means by sustainability isn't actually sustainability. What they really mean is 'add no debt' which is an entirely different thing.
Investment/borrowing/debt - whatever you want to call it can and should be part of a strategic plan to grow the club. It's how business works and it's the only way in which you grow permanently (rather than relying on a Parky turning up).
Sadly though, for some reason the club and fanbase have this weird fear of debt. I'm not advocating we put ourselves in circa £40m debt like the end of the GR days, but debt/borrowing/investment has to happen if we're ever going to realise our supposed 'potential'. We've wasted so many years kneeling at the altar of sustainability that the club is lost now and even if it did decide to invest, I'm not sure they'd have a clue what to actually do.
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Post by Lofty on Nov 2, 2023 15:25:20 GMT
Sustainability is defined as 'the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level'.
The fact we're maintaining being a shit league two football club proves sustainability does indeed work IF your aspiration is just to exist.
For the fans only the most harden Gompers (of which we have loads) are happy to tread water in this horse shit division. As soon as the punters get sick of forking out for this shite the 'certain rate or level' will reduce. Ergo we're only going to get worse.
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Post by rahicscissorbudget on Nov 2, 2023 16:37:35 GMT
Sustainability is defined as 'the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level'. The fact we're maintaining being a shit league two football club proves sustainability does indeed work IF your aspiration is just to exist. For the fans only the most harden Gompers (of which we have loads) are happy to tread water in this horse shit division. As soon as the punters get sick of forking out for this shite the 'certain rate or level' will reduce. Ergo we're only going to get worse. That sounds a lot closer to entropy than sustainability.
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Post by Neshead on Nov 2, 2023 16:40:31 GMT
Sometimes I have the urge to show we're not all about pricks or gompers. Halfway through reading it i thought how good it would be for someone who is not blocked by Dewhirst to send it to him. His standard dig is "make some constructive suggestions then". The fact is we do that all the time (eg DoF), but people only listen when its coming from the established mouthpieces. I tweeted a reply to someone yesterday to the effect that given we don't have any football people running the club, its mindblowing that we haven't attempted any sort of peer review, or had Sparks get some training on how to run a football club, how to develop a football strategy, how to recruit the right people to the right roles. To study how progressive clubs go about their business. And if he hasn't done that, or isn't capable of it, why the fuck is he making football decisions? Why doesn't Rupp replace him? I guess the answer is Rupp couldn't care less as he thinks one day he'll get his money back without doing anything at all now he's got Sparks in to just keep the business afloat. Because thats literally all Sparks IS doing. The raison d'etre of the entire club is simply not spending the owners cash. All other considerations are secondary. All we're left with is shit football and soundbytes. Shit football and soundbytes. What a band they were.
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Post by edin on Nov 2, 2023 16:55:45 GMT
Imagine being a potential interviewee now. Bradford City looking for their 10th manager in 5 years, knowing you'll have no guaranteed budget at all to work with, 30+ players you have make work, a fanbase desperate for success and an expectation that we must get promoted. How is anyone expected to deliver actual success when they have such limited options and no guarantee of any budget to spend, anywhere? Imagine working a club which since January 2018 years has made the types of appointments and decisions it has. How are you going to buck that trend? It's been the buzzword for a while hasn't it? Like some of the ones we had in the ML/JR era, I don't remember what exactly, but things like 'has to be within the budget', 'cut our cloth accordingly' and the other ones. The phrases that were always there to dampen hope and and expectations. In an ideal world, sure - the idea of sustainability makes sense. A club that generates it's own income from a mix of various sources - from fans, player sales, sponsorship, TV deals, non-football events etc - where so much crazy money is thrown around, would be great and refreshing to see. But you need the investment from the beginning, you need that 3/5/10 year plan. You need the right people making the strategic decisions. You need the foundation in place and the plan to achieve it, even if it gets delayed a year or two, you still have the foundation. We've banged on about Rupp, Rahic and Sparks to death and their faults. We know about zero investment in at least 3 years from the owner and his overall approach to doing everything on the cheap. There is no foundation here. We had some idea of it in that first year or two with Rahic - invest in the right players for developing further with a view to generating profit. Support that with income streams from other areas. We signed the like of Wyke and Jones. Superb, we thought, we could see this actually working. That strategy lasted about 12-18 months and died on its arse. Instead of investing in players it was just 'sign any old shite and if we them game time they'll develop'. We now sell the odd young player once every year or two, and the transfer windows are just revolving doors of ins and outs. Managers constantly having to work with other manager's squads. We know about Sparks, his background and his path to the role and he's making the critical, long term football decisions. And they're just becoming embarrassing now. We can see the almost frantic attitude towards trying to secure whatever 'partnership' deals we can, akin to looking for change behind the sofa. I know nothing in football is guaranteed, but a big part of our 'sustainability' is paying for the short-sighted and almost blatant mistakes made by the owner, senior management and team management. Paying off contracts of managers, bringing in players who are clearly useless, bringing in players on 3 year deals then binning them off.. I do think Hyughes had a good budget in the summer, but the approach to recruitment and new set was a disastrous decision to make. Thing is, a lot of that was the 'sustainability' money is from our season tickets, the shirt sales, the sponsorship deals and odd player sale paid for. Misused and misspent yet again. I'm not saying 'sustainability' will never work, but it's getting less likely every time we have to go through this process at the rate we do. And if we do get promoted, or even lets say we get promoted again, how is our 'sustainability' going to support the club when further investment from wherever would be a necessity - then what? Edit - I'll acknowledge the improvement at least in the youth development side of things, which was almost non-existent for many years. But we have a fair way to go to see more young players come through direct to the first team and being able to make substantial profit on them. Pointon has potential, sure, but we've seen many young forwards come through over the years with hope they could be something and fall out of the game, for whatever reason. If we were to actually invest in anything, one thing alone, for me it would be whatever it would be to improve bridging that gap from being a youth player to first teamer to sellable asset. Have I logged on to width of a post? does that make Jason, dick? Fitting really
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Post by bantam147 on Nov 2, 2023 16:58:32 GMT
There are two potential scenarios. Rupp isn't replacing Sparks cos he thinks he's doing a decent job. Or more likely (and more worryingly) he isn't replacing him because he couldn't give a shiny shite about us. Rupp doesn't give a shit about our footballing success. Any enthusiasm he might have had died when he realised Rahic had done him up like a Bratwurst. He'll be looking from afar and will likely be basing his whole judgement on the accounts. Which on the face of it, will look ok. He knows nothing about the game and he'll be taking his briefings from Sparks. There's enough for him to blag his way falong or now, given we got to the playoffs last season. All will seem well-enough, revenue is increasing. The actual elements that matter, you have to be close enough to and understand well enough, to really have a handle on things.
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Post by bantam147 on Nov 2, 2023 17:05:01 GMT
Our not having debt isn't a positive. We should have a level of debt, in the form of a capital injection to drive growth, against a proper plan.
Seeing as how you haven't asked, I tell you what I'd do. The squad should be no more than 23 players in size, with a focus on quality over quantity. Get a fixed security loan of say £2m, on an interest only basis and use our healthy revenue position to drive a decent rate. Somewhere in the region of 5-10%. £100-200K per year of outgoings to service the debt, which we can absolutely afford. Then, work with a properly leading scouting and data analytics partner to sign up 6-8 of the best players we can find at conference, L2, Scandanavian and Northern European Leagues. Assume fees up to around £200K each, and aim to sign them across no more than 2 windows. Ages 21-25 and with resale potential. Focus on attacking talent, as that's where the greatest potential for resale value increase is. And defenders are cheap enough in this league anyway.
Bring in proper talent, you'll only need 1, maybe 2 to really take off to cover the debt repayment and if done properly, its one if not two promotions in the bank. Kick start a cycle of bringing in properly talented players who use us as a stepping stone, but we get a financial and footballing win by giving them that platform too.
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Post by Pyongyang Bantam on Nov 2, 2023 21:05:44 GMT
Our business model is basically throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. But within the constraints of financial sustainability.
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