Chinese Takeover

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board' started by Gordon Owen, Aug 18, 2017.

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  1. tomaiba

    tomaiba Well-Known Member

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    130 years of history is all well and good to keep saying but we've only been in the Premiership once, and in current times we sell all our top players to other teams.. Surely you want that to change?
    I'm super excited at the possibilities, just hearing our name mentioned as potentially being promoted to the Premier league almost makes me faint haha.

    I know most of you probably want this too but I sincerely hope we can become financially secure, competitive when it comes to signing and keeping players and to see us achieve things that most of us never thought we'd see. I think new owners might be the only way for that happen, rather than repeatedly losing our best players to other teams and have other starters simply not sign new contracts.

    I love this team, there are times I've felt super homesick being in the UK but supporting Barnsley has made it easier.
    Here's hoping for a successful and swift takeover.
     
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  2. Ext

    Extremely Northern Well-Known Member

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    At some point our luck would have run out - we might currently have a bit of cash from recent sales, but how long would that last before we had to sell again and ask Hecky to build yet another team ? 130 years of history in the 3rd divison and lower, especially if Hecky got balled off and left.

    If this new ownership is our current model on steroids then bring it on.

    It's not so long since Cryne et al were getting pelters over sacking Wilson, appointing Hill, selling players, sacking Robins, Simon Davey, planning permission for houses on car park and so on and so forth. His son getting verbals on the train was it ?
     
  3. Donny Red

    Donny Red Well-Known Member

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    That statement ( Edit 2) struck a chord with me WAT. Every Christmas when I was a kid, my Dad used to buy me
    an Autograph book and he always wrote in it " To thine own self be true and it must follow night and day, thou cans't
    not be then false to any man." It's only when I saw the play Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford,
    I realised it was one the famous Bard's famous lines. Another of my Dad's favourites was a " A borrower nor a lender be."!

    On the takeover, if you look at the " Moneyball" theory put simply the plan seems to be not dissimilar to our current model, in that low value assets that others seem not to want are bought cheaply and eventually are turned into high value assets, that hopefully along the way, bring success to the " franchise" i.e. Steady growth, without throwing millions at it, because as you have said WAT, that is not guaranteed to achieve the end result re- in our case promotion to the Premiership.
     
  4. Tek

    Tekkytyke Well-Known Member

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  5. churtonred

    churtonred Well-Known Member

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    I've got an open mind on the prospective new owners. I like the plan we've had for the last two years or so and I'm immensely proud of it. It is a very long term plan however. Without significant extra money there is unlikely to be a quick fix.
    If the current plan got us to the premier league we'd still be massively outgunned financially.
    The new owners may keep the same ethos but backed up with a little extra financial muscle. I'd be more than happy with that.
    They may decide to throw millions at going up and while undoubtedly happy I too would have a hollow feeling about going up.
    Let's not lose sight of one thing though. We ARE a small town club fighting against big city clubs. That is not going to change. There is no magical 10,000 extra fans waiting to start supporting us. When the new owners leave, if they leave, we will have to face the realities of our David v Goliath existence again.
    I'm proud of the way we've faced those odds in the past and present. I don't see it as something to be derided. If people want to claim that pride is just a lack of ambition let them. The club has not spent 130 years going nowhere. It's spent 130 years inspiring and fulfilling the dreams of generations of Barnsley people.
     
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  6. Tek

    Tekkytyke Well-Known Member

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    That is exactly what I though when I read (briefly) the principal behind 'Moneyball'. 'Hang on' I thought, that mirrors what BFC business model has been about the last couple of seasons. If that is the case then there is every chance that the Consortium has bought into the club philosophy and why they targeted a 'Team like Barnsley'. If that turns out to be a major factor then I am optimistic they will not want to make major changes to personnel and the way the club is run. except to prudently boost the resources available to PH and facilitate one or two changes to the commercial/marketing side of things. Let's just hope so.
     
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  7. Wat

    Watcher_Of_The_Skies Well-Known Member

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    We're always going to sell our players to the top teams though. If we can't compete with wages without spending other peoples moneythis will always be the case. In my opinion the 'plan' worked too well, and we found ourselves over performing by our own expectations, the bigger teams came in and we were left with the bare bones. What it did do was to line the coffers. So this season we've seen some depth being added to the squad so that if we were to lose good players, we hopefully have Keith Hill's famous 'layering'.

    But hey, Im a dreamer and Id like to have ridden this plan all the way and see where it goes. We still might, but Im cautious, that's all.
     
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  8. Con

    Conan Troutman Well-Known Member

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    The current model will not take us beyond where we finished last season - and that's with a fantastic manager in charge. If we were following the current model with someone like Lee Johnson in charge we would be in Division Three still.

    You seem to have some sort of 1950s mindset when it comes to how you think football clubs should operate. We either move with the times and get someone in with some financial clout behind them or we have what we have now for a couple of years then fall back to the third tier. Never progressing.

    I have no idea why you think it would change 130 years of history. Do you think Cryne is running the club in the same way Rev Preedy did? The game is constantly changing and clubs of all fans have to accept. We might not like it but you either accept it or find a hobby that suits your ideology. You'll have a job on when it comes to top level spectator sport.

    Anyway, it's not for me to convince you, you can either get behind the new regime (if/when it happens) or not. I am excited for the future of the club, more than I have been since about 2011. Might seem immoral to you but there is no room for morality and old school ideology in modern football. You can't beat em.
     
  9. Dan

    DannyWilsonLovechild Well-Known Member

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    My issue in "joining them" is that when the end comes, and it will come as football is so far beyond sustainable, its ridiculous... then we'll go with it. We went into admin before with a pittance of debt. If we "follow the trend"... which is essentially living beyond our means and hoping to get promoted (and there are probably at least a dozen other clubs in this division that have, or have had the same approach), then what? There is no guarantee that chucking millions to become insolvent breeds success.

    I'm not saying they'd do that, and I'm not saying that if they did or didn't we would gain promotion from it either.

    We're losing money at present without spending heavily. To stay break even, we need revenue, not capital or leveraged debt/investment. That's either overseas sales/ commercial/ merchandising. Elevated sponsorship (but we've got most of those local small deals on new contracts). Higher ticket prices and generating more ticket sales. Or sizeable player sales.

    I'm all for increasing what we can spend, getting better players (and keeping them) and going higher up the leagues, but if that is to mortgage ourselves to the hilt and hope foreign investment owners will write off millions (maybe tens or hundreds of millions) whether they succeed or not, that's very dangerous territory.

    I ask myself this very simple question, and its beneficial for anyone else to ask it. Why are an American/Chinese consortium investing in a football club? Its not for vanity, it's not for charity, its for another reason. Typically business takeovers are for profit or capital gain. For the uber rich, vanity and celebrity can play its part. But I don't see them getting that from an unfashionable club from up north.
     
  10. Met

    Metatarsal Well-Known Member

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    I feel very much between a rock and a hard place. The inequalities in Premier and Football League football finances as a result of a top heavy TV deal and "rich owners" leave us with little option, I agree, other than to seek that ownership/investment ourselves if we have any realistic chance of ever playing in the top flight. I find that quite sad in some ways, but the pragmatist in me can sigh and see it's inevitable.

    But there has to be some caution in both financial and success expectations. I reckon there are currently 15-20 clubs outside of the Premier League whom have got, or have had, rich owners or multi million investment in recent years to chase the dream. Paying wages and transfer fees that I still cannot see us paying. So whilst investment will help us, in reality, it doesn't really increase our chances of "success" as I see it. The incentive though is doing a Burnley, or a West Brom. Get up and you're pretty much made for a long long time.

    I've also been a voice (I hope anyway) for all those league clubs who compete honestly in leagues 1 and 2, and whose supporters are bonded to their club by that distant dream of success. As clubs, ourselves now included, secure investment, I can't help feel some sympathy and even guilt towards those provincial clubs we've really had an affinity with for decades. The distance between even "clubs like Barnsley" and those clubs is growing. Long gone are the founding principles of the league that promoted fair competition by sharing gate receipts and such like.

    So the reality of what is imminent does make me nervous, as well as excited. But even more so now than ever before, I really don't want to forget where we have come from as a football club and a football town. Because whilst there optimism, there's also no guarantee that at some point in the future we won't end up mingling with so-called lesser lights again.

    The planned takeover/investment is probably as good a fit with our club as we could get, and credit to all concerned for being able to deliver this. I'm not uncomfortable with this from a Barnsley perspective, but as I say, I have mixed feelings from the wider football angle. Thank God the really important currency in football is still 3 points for a win. COYR.
     
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  11. wak

    wakeyred Well-Known Member

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    I agree, Burnley are enjoying their second season in the premiership on the trot. I don't see that they have sold out their soul, they still are very much the unfashionable underdogs even though they spent heavy to get out of this league.
     
  12. red

    redrum Well-Known Member

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    I think Burnley are just a well run club they got promoted the 1st time by buying smart they didn't spend massive when they were 1st promoted they had no "sugar daddy" or billionaire "investor" Since then they have used the parachute payments to full potential and have a very good manager. The smallest town ever to be in the premiership I do believe.
     
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  13. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    Spending other folks money? BFC have never done this. Never, ever, ever.
     
  14. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    Of course they have a "sugar daddy". They had someone prepared to underwrite their initial tilt at promotion.
     
  15. Redstar

    Redstar Well-Known Member

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    Maybe for the same reason some Russian billionaire bough the even less fashionable AFC Bournemouth. And, yes, I know that that area is affluent but that hardly translates into a footballing hotbed does it?

    These folk are un-imaginably rich and no matter what I think abart that, in their eyes, teh money the could make from "sweating the assets" or even promotion is **** all. They often buy football clubs as summat to do. Rich men buying rich mens playthings.
     
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  16. wak

    wakeyred Well-Known Member

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    Naah, their first promotion was bought, like everyone else's
     
  17. red

    redrum Well-Known Member

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    They had a owner who put money in but Burnley didn't pay massive transfer fees or wages to get to the premier league the 1st time. They still don't pay massive wages in comparison to other premiership clubs when they signed Jeff Hendrick from derby he became their biggest earner. Like I said well run club similar to hudds and a club we probley tried to emulate. And remember owen Coyle 1st got Burnley promoted in 2007 when they beat sheff united in the play offs.
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2017
  18. Wat

    Watcher_Of_The_Skies Well-Known Member

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    Most post was in relation to keeping players re: the wage gap between ourselves and other clubs, even if we were to receive a significant increase in spending. And for this league (historically and most of all recently) we are unsurprisingly near the bottom when it comes to wages and this keeping good players.
     
  19. Wat

    Watcher_Of_The_Skies Well-Known Member

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    Let's be straight here. You had us relegated to division 2 and gave us no chance promotion before Johnson turned it around and Hecky pushed us up the table and got us promoted. Like many you were highly critical of both the players, those in charge, and the plan itself. So for you to now turn around and say "The plan wont get us any further" is risible.

    The club is not operating like one out of the 1950's right now, is it? And if it was, it would be doing a fine job :)

    Because like it or not that history is what the club is today and a significant change (for better or worse) is a massive shift in the way the club is run. You view is "This is a good thing even though I dont know any details", mine is "Until I know more about it, I don't particularly like the idea".

    Change isn't the problem, it's the type of change that is of some concern.

    I'm not here to convince anyone of anything. My concern, which could be wrong, is that the club loses its soul and ethos and becomes just another 'plaything' to some rich investors. But hey, maybe they'll pump in £XXm buy us some success and we can all celebrate our winning lottery ticket. Still, I'll rest assured that if they don't meet your expectations, you'll be the first to complain ;)
     
  20. Con

    Conan Troutman Well-Known Member

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    Well, we were bottom of the third tier and on the worst run in our history - I'm hardly going to praise the club from the rooftops am I? Anyway, Johnno has gone thankfully and we have a proper manager in charge who I credit more than the Plan.

    You seem you be hanging on to some bygone era, but to my mind this is not realistic in this day age and will become increasingly less so in the future. We need investment (buzz word) or we will be a championship league one yo yo club.

    With every change of ownership there is a risk but it's worked well for Bournemouth and Brighton so why can't it work for us?
     

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