Bury - EFL to discuss re-entry to L2 | and Bolton - sold

AlwaysRed66

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What is really sad is when you have mercenaries like Sanchez on around £350-500,000 per week, & not even doing a decent days work.
 

matt10000

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Why are there so many crooks involved in football? Actually I probably know the answer to that.
Steve Vaughan!!!! Boooooo!!!!
There was a Rochdale fan on Talksport before. Bury is their biggest derby and that game brings in a lot of money, which Rochdale will now lose as well. The amount of business in Bury this will affect, pubs, food outlets which are now going to lose valuable income.
Another of his mates

http://twohundredpercent.net/northwich-victoria-drugs-rushe/
 

dbs235

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I don't get it either. You put your heart and soul into the club.
If their fans all stick with them/the "new" club and continue to attend matches then I'd imagine they can fly up the lower divisions pretty quickly.
 

jojojo

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Another filling in the (financial) blanks article from David Conn at the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/aug/27/bury-historic-club-football-league-financial-ruins

Including another glimpse into the murky world of how to (try and) make money from a business sliding into bankruptcy.
Frith has also called for an investigation into the deal by which a company, RCR Holdings, bought for £70,000 any potential claim against Bury by Day’s company Mederco, which is in administration. The Mederco administrator told creditors it was uncertain if a claim could be made, as loans from Mederco did appear to have been converted into shares at the club. Nevertheless, the potential claim was admitted into the Bury CVA as a £7m debt owed to Mederco. RCR’s £7m vote enabled Dale to have the CVA passed with the necessary majority of creditors. RCR’s sole owner and director, Kris Richards, confirmed to BBC Radio Manchester that he is Dale’s daughter’s partner. Dale responded: “All dealings with the CVA have been done in a correct and proper manner.”
 

Oggmonster

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What is really sad is when you have mercenaries like Sanchez on around £350-500,000 per week, & not even doing a decent days work.
That's the same with anything and any job. There will be people losing jobs every day on minimum wage whilst directors of companies will make millions a year.

I agree the situation is sad but Sanchez's wage or situation has nothing to do with it and I don't think it makes it any worse.
 

Ban

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Surely with that kind of negligence someone must be accountable for what has happened?
 

jojojo

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Just as an update on Bolton. It looks like there are two bidders - Football Ventures and another one, "a Manchester businessman" (who's staying anonymous). Both bidders want both the hotel and the club. It looks like they've both been told to do the work to prepare to complete on the hotel and then the hotel administrator will choose the best offer. It's expected the club sale will follow on from that.

FV have been the ones who provided interim finance to keep the club running but they're relying on "structured finance" (ie: loans and deferred payments) to do it, but they have recently got support from one of the hotel's key creditors, which may have given the enough of a boost to finally close the deal. The other buyer may not need finance or deferred payment arrangements - he may just be able to buy it. Either way, it still looks like Bolton have options and should be able to close the deal before time runs out completely. They hope.
 

fergiesarmy1

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Surely with that kind of negligence someone must be accountable for what has happened?
Someone from the EFL was on sky earlier saying due diligence was done but lessons will be learnt :rolleyes:

Till next time.
 

RedRover

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This is devastating for the fans. I used to follow may local League 2 club regularly but wasn't a die hard fan like some. The commitment shown by some fans of football clubs is incredible. Especially when said club has very little success.

That said, the stark reality is that clubs like Bury will continue to struggle. Few countries have four fully professional leagues and its not hard to see why. There is a lot else competing for people's attention these days - including top level football readily available on TV, but generally the days of Saturday afternoon being about watching your local team are gone.

I don't get the argument that the PL clubs should fund the lower leagues, by whatever means simply because they have the money to do so. These are loss making businesses, often run by people with no real qualifications to run them, or worse, at best iffy businessmen trying to somehow make some money from it, usually by pretending they have money they don't to get control in the first place. If the PL funds this then you're only going to see more of the latter. The bottom line is a club which has a ground to look after, staff and players to pay can't always survive on gate receipts from 5000 (or, in many cases less) fans and limited TV money which is largely down to trying to sell a product with limited appeal.

Simon Jordan was speaking with some sense about this on the radio the other week. He was speaking about how clueless some of the owners were about the challenges the clubs faced and how to address them. He made the point that the Football League arguably doesn't work because every club gets a vote, despite the huge differences between clubs at the top of the Championship and those further down. Clubs who want the PL have a different agenda to those simply trying to survive.

All in all, its very sad, but I'm not sure there's an easy answer. If a business can't make enough money to survive, it doesn't and that applies in football as well. Despite people's emotional attachment.
 

matt10000

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This is devastating for the fans. I used to follow may local League 2 club regularly but wasn't a die hard fan like some. The commitment shown by some fans of football clubs is incredible. Especially when said club has very little success.

That said, the stark reality is that clubs like Bury will continue to struggle. Few countries have four fully professional leagues and its not hard to see why. There is a lot else competing for people's attention these days - including top level football readily available on TV, but generally the days of Saturday afternoon being about watching your local team are gone.

I don't get the argument that the PL clubs should fund the lower leagues, by whatever means simply because they have the money to do so. These are loss making businesses, often run by people with no real qualifications to run them, or worse, at best iffy businessmen trying to somehow make some money from it, usually by pretending they have money they don't to get control in the first place. If the PL funds this then you're only going to see more of the latter. The bottom line is a club which has a ground to look after, staff and players to pay can't always survive on gate receipts from 5000 (or, in many cases less) fans and limited TV money which is largely down to trying to sell a product with limited appeal.

Simon Jordan was speaking with some sense about this on the radio the other week. He was speaking about how clueless some of the owners were about the challenges the clubs faced and how to address them. He made the point that the Football League arguably doesn't work because every club gets a vote, despite the huge differences between clubs at the top of the Championship and those further down. Clubs who want the PL have a different agenda to those simply trying to survive.

All in all, its very sad, but I'm not sure there's an easy answer. If a business can't make enough money to survive, it doesn't and that applies in football as well. Despite people's emotional attachment.
Exactly, if PL clubs gave more money to lower league clubs then the additional money would instantly be spent on higher player wages. As soon as one club is prepared to use the extra money to get better players, the other clubs do the same to keep up.
 

jojojo

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That said, the stark reality is that clubs like Bury will continue to struggle. Few countries have four fully professional leagues and its not hard to see why. There is a lot else competing for people's attention these days - including top level football readily available on TV, but generally the days of Saturday afternoon being about watching your local team are gone.
The actual attendances in L1/2 aren't much different to the attendances in the old D3/4 of the 70s. What has changed is the amount of money in the PL, and the ripple down effect on the lower leagues. The financial difference between the levels of the pyramid are now massive - the temptation to gamble to get promotion is
huge and the cost of failure can send a club into a debt spiral very quickly.

It is possible to run a pro team with the kind of income that Bury get. What isn't possible is to have an owner who's willing to gamble the club's existence to overspend on wages or anything else or who'd mortgage the ground, the ticket office and every other tangible asset along the way and pay 40% introduction fees for the privilege. When that owner in his real business has a business plan that relies on getting new investors to pay the returns guaranteed to the old investors, it should ring alarm bells. Bury had that kind of owner for 5 years without the EFL stepping in to call a halt.

Unfortunately any significant change relies on a bunch of private businesses that comprise the EFL insisting that accounts are transparent, mortgages/loans are explicitly stated, arrangement fees are declared and so on - with sanctions against the owners, that kick in long before any action gets taken against the club.
 

RedRover

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What a stupid answer. What lessons, not to let shady businessmen destroy a football club..
Whilst a certain amount of due diligence is required, it's a tough position for the Football League. How do you determine if a proposed buyer is "shady"? The problem is that 90% of football clubs in the lower leagues are not attractive to potential buyers and generally, a buyer "rescues" a club in trouble - like the owner of Bury did. If the FL refused him the chance the club may have gone under then and they'd be the bad guys.

Its tough for the Football League to make a judgement on someone at that point since it is unlikely they will be sufficiently independently rich, or well known to actually guarantee they can invest millions. What you or I may consider "rich" people or successful businessmen are often asset rich but don't have millions lying around. Funding streams are not always guaranteed - for example, a bank might allow an overdraft to be run up but then call it in or potential investors may pull out. Its not always easy to tell what people's motives are. I read an article that the owner of Bury had 17 "dissolved" companies. That in itself means very little since people legitimately dissolve companies all the time for numerous reasons. He may well prove to be dodgy but I suspect it's often hard to tell at the outset.

As I said above, very few easy answers here and its the fans who suffer. That's the worst part.
 

fergiesarmy1

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Whilst a certain amount of due diligence is required, it's a tough position for the Football League. How do you determine if a proposed buyer is "shady"? The problem is that 90% of football clubs in the lower leagues are not attractive to potential buyers and generally, a buyer "rescues" a club in trouble - like the owner of Bury did. If the FL refused him the chance the club may have gone under then and they'd be the bad guys.

Its tough for the Football League to make a judgement on someone at that point since it is unlikely they will be sufficiently independently rich, or well known to actually guarantee they can invest millions. What you or I may consider "rich" people or successful businessmen are often asset rich but don't have millions lying around. Funding streams are not always guaranteed - for example, a bank might allow an overdraft to be run up but then call it in or potential investors may pull out. Its not always easy to tell what people's motives are. I read an article that the owner of Bury had 17 "dissolved" companies. That in itself means very little since people legitimately dissolve companies all the time for numerous reasons. He may well prove to be dodgy but I suspect it's often hard to tell at the outset.

As I said above, very few easy answers here and its the fans who suffer. That's the worst part.
His track record should have raised flags 43 liquidations in 51 of his businesses so far.

What did they expect to happen?
 

Champ

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Have to strongly disagree.

No way should the Premier League or the clubs give money to crooked owners or fund sheer incompetence. You cut your cloth according to the TV deals, sponsors and gate receipts/merch.

If an owner wants to asset strip a club it would foolish in the extreme to fund that.

What should happen is more safeguards in terms of rules so clubs can be used to fund other crap or gamble the club away.

If there's something viable about the club it will carry on and survive just like any business.

More money just means more money to steal or misuse.
Sorry, but I never stated that premier League clubs should pay for the failures, just that there needs to be a fairer way of distributing the money in the game, not sure what you got from my original post?!
The premiership has created a monopoly of TV games nearly and it's destroying the lower leagues, but I agree that crap.owners aren't helping.
 

jojojo

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Sold to Football Ventures - club and hotel. Statement from the club's administrators.
https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2019/au...artners-administrators-for-bolton-wanderers3/

The Sun has a bit of background on the deal and the investors at:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/9815835/bolton-wanderers-saved-football-ventures/
I'm linking to them because Nixon has been very close to the story across the last couple of weeks and includes such details as the new owners include Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason :smirk:
 

redshaw

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Sorry, but I never stated that premier League clubs should pay for the failures, just that there needs to be a fairer way of distributing the money in the game, not sure what you got from my original post?!
The premiership has created a monopoly of TV games nearly and it's destroying the lower leagues, but I agree that crap.owners aren't helping.
This is the Bury and Bolton thread. The lower leagues are functioning fine and hundreds of smaller clubs than Bury are still going. They just pay the staff what they can afford.

You say lower leagues are getting destroyed, how exactly? Perhaps this is another thread topic where you can include evidence. If people stop going/watching then the club/league will have to face facts no-one wants to go and "distributing money" won't solve anything. The country and society will change and evolve, propping up dead clubs is not the way to go about it just like any business.

Premier League is now a global brand. The lower leagues probably won't be and if they want to increase revenue they should look into ways of marketing to the best of their means.

I wouldn't obsess over numbers/digits of one club or league to another. You run your club like any other business and if it's no longer viable it's gone. You earn and pay within the means of the club whether that's £50 per week for a player or 500 or 5000. Extra money doesn't solve anything at all, distributing money in the game as you put it, which is the Premier league's fairly earned money would mean dodgy owners paying players more and going broke or stealing more.

The fairest way is the current one where you run within your means of income and capability. Subsidizing, or distributing money only means an increase in digits.

I think you're exaggerating about leagues getting destroyed but there will be locations where clubs will have to downsize, some will grow due to location and better running. Clubs and leagues will have to adapt and evolve to people's habits, geography and technology.

In a hundred years people might not even care about a bag of wind being kicked around and the tribal nature of it and all the clubs go to the wall.
 
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Dancfc

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Certainly puts panicking over not winning our opening two games into perspective.

Further strengthens my opinions on FFP, the rules should have been defined to protect clubs like Bury, not the "elite" from being challenged.
 

Champ

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This is the Bury and Bolton thread. The lower leagues are functioning fine and hundreds of smaller clubs than Bury are still going. They just pay the staff what they can afford.

You say lower leagues are getting destroyed, how exactly? Perhaps this is another thread topic where you can include evidence. If people stop going/watching then the club/league will have to face facts no-one wants to go and "distributing money" won't solve anything. The country and society will change and evolve, propping up dead clubs is not the way to go about it just like any business.

Premier League is now a global brand. The lower leagues probably won't be and if they want to increase revenue they should look into ways of marketing to the best of their means.

I wouldn't obsess over numbers/digits of one club or league to another. You run your club like any other business and if it's no longer viable it's gone. You earn and pay within the means of the club whether that's £50 per week for a player or 500 or 5000. Extra money doesn't solve anything at all, distributing money in the game as you put it, which is the Premier league's fairly earned money would mean dodgy owners paying players more and going broke or stealing more.

The fairest way is the current one where you run within your means of income and capability. Subsidizing, or distributing money only means an increase in digits.

I think you're exaggerating about leagues getting destroyed but there will be locations where clubs will have to downsize, some will grow due to location and better running. Clubs and leagues will have to adapt and evolve to people's habits, geography and technology.

In a hundred years people might not even care about a bag of wind being kicked around and the tribal nature of it and all the clubs go to the wall.
Sorry but you are so so wrong.
My local clubs chairman is asking for fans to buy shares in order to fund the club, there are chairman who have stated that their club are one defaulted mortgage payment away from going the way of Bury.
Get your head out if the sand and wake the hell up, these clubs are not ' running above their means' they have been put out of business by a bigger monopoly in the premiership, people would rather watch City, United etc on TV then lower leagues.
I actually cannot believe what you are saying, I despair I really do.
 

fergiesarmy1

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Still a chance for them apparently, money has been put in the bank by an international consortium and the EFL have seen it. It’s up to the EFL to rescind the decision.
 

Champ

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Still a chance for them apparently, money has been put in the bank by an international consortium and the EFL have seen it. It’s up to the EFL to rescind the decision.
They won't rescind.
They should.
But they won't.
 

fergiesarmy1

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They won't rescind.
They should.
But they won't.
Threat of an injunction against them if they don’t, uefa and fifa run for the hills once a lawyer gets involved so be surprised to see the EFL make a stand.
 

Champ

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Threat of an injunction against them if they don’t, uefa and fifa run for the hills once a lawyer gets involved so be surprised to see the EFL make a stand.
I get the feeling though that the integrity of the league would be at stake if they rescinded the decision, I'm sure that's the line the EFL will take anyhow.
 

Penna

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It's so sad about Bury. Football is a completely different animal these days, small town clubs with a long and proud history seem to be irrelevant to virtually everyone (bar the die-hard local fans).

I know Bury's successes were over a hundred years ago, but that's what makes it a bit special. The club survived two World Wars, but is killed by mismanagement.
 

jojojo

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They should admit that FFP is not being used as it should and either change it or bin it completely
I think we'll see it changed. But the central model of a club comprising a bunch of limited companies places massive limitations on that. Anyone can buy the shares, so anyone can be the owner. The only real sanction the EFL has got is club expulsion.

Other national associations have more constraints. Spain has a specific legal business type called a SAD that describes professional clubs that aren't member owned. It doesn't stop rogue owners or bankruptcies, but it does give them a legal mechanism for regulations. Germany has its 50+1 rule. If nothing else, these structures help make the club accounts and asset ownership etc more transparent.

For the EFL (and PL) to do it realistically requires legislation and it also requires existing owners to vote for it. I suspect there's no chance of that. Instead we'll hear more about audited accounts and financial health checks. Until the next club crashes out.
 

redshaw

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Sorry but you are so so wrong.
My local clubs chairman is asking for fans to buy shares in order to fund the club, there are chairman who have stated that their club are one defaulted mortgage payment away from going the way of Bury.
Get your head out if the sand and wake the hell up, these clubs are not ' running above their means' they have been put out of business by a bigger monopoly in the premiership, people would rather watch City, United etc on TV then lower leagues.
I actually cannot believe what you are saying, I despair I really do.
You don't seem to understand what I've said. I didn't say there's not one club struggling but there are hundreds still going with many people in the stadiums up and down the country. Some will struggle, some will be poorly run and ask for help and like I said clubs and leagues will have to adapt to changes in peoples habits, geography and technology. If we take your scenario as fact that people are not going to said club, then some more money isn't going to tempt them back.

I think you need to get your head out of the sand, you can't stop the change happening.
 

Champ

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You don't seem to understand what I've said. I didn't say there's not one club struggling but there are hundreds still going with many people in the stadiums up and down the country. Some will struggle, some will be poorly run and ask for help and like I said clubs and leagues will have to adapt to changes in peoples habits, geography and technology. If we take your scenario as fact that people are not going to said club, then some more money isn't going to tempt them back.

I think you need to get your head out of the sand, you can't stop the change happening.
I give up.
These clubs are struggling because the interest is dwindling. The money is filtered down anymore, it stays at the top.
My local club is incredibly well run, but not very rich due to this fact.
We're obviously going to beg to differ but you are so very wrong with your point of view.