Khaled El Ahmad tonight....

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That's good.

 

We have no evidence to claim it was anyone from the board who leaked it or even to assume that there were only Schopp and the board present as we don't even know where they met, or if they did at all. I would imagine the only physical meeting that could have taken place was between Schopp and the CEO, but now I'm guessing.

I'm not going out of my way to defend a board of directors I don't particularly like, but neither do I think they are worthy of criticism for waiting to make an official statement until when they were asked to do so. Nor do I think we should assume they then leaked it without any evidence to suggest they did.

 

Extremely naive then, in that case.

 

Obviously we don't know which individuals were present but we know for sure that the only people present were working on behalf of Marcus Schopp and on behalf of our owners. One of those parties leaked it. As our owners have stated that it was marcus' wishes to delay the announcement until he had spoken to the players face to face the logical conclusion is that it wasn't he who leaked it.

 

Sorry, I may have misunderstood, but surely as a board member, James Cryne was aware.
And as regards where the money came from, assuming it wasn't delivered a briefcase of used 20s, won't your bank statement show the source of the payment?
You're right about it not helping to speculate though. I'll wait for further updates.

 

Sorry to be a pain @Loko the Tyke and @55&counting but why exactly were we close to not being allowed fans at the Coventry and Luton games?

 

He’s definitely got ******** and the way he’s conducted himself, he believes in the plan. I don’t like some of the stuff he says though. Selling in Jan, team needing to change style of play to make sure players have value to sell etc no matter how good or **** the team is. I do think he’s fed some of these things by the board but he does it well and with some confidence. Unfortunately, I’m not as confident about him and the plan.

 

He didn't say Helen, and, (as the kids say) "our bad" for not following up with the crucial follow up question.
It was getting slightly intense I think and the audience were firing rat-a-tat-tat questions at him.
Someone else who was there might have a better memory of that particular issue.

 

Thanks for this, everyone I have asked that has been to these have said he came across as a believable person, time will tell if he is a stooge, but we should give him that time.
I found interesting after the first one people were very quick to condemn his answers but when Beth and the Comms guy spoke no one accused them of anything derogatory, despite some of their answers not fitting the narrative against the owners.

 

Thanks

 

Thank you, I still can't make head nor tail out if it all. I just don't get how other clubs manage to avoid these situations.

 

Beth and Comms guy don't make the decisions though.

 

No, but they were answering questions which repeated things said and nobody called them out for lying etc.
I’m not saying they were lying and they certainly shouldn’t be subjected to the vitriol he has received in such a short time that some post on here.

 

I’m just going second hand mate. Just the negative ninja I am at the moment with the club, I may interpret everything negatively.

 

Just going back to the £750k.

Firstly. I'm surprised he's not been asked to use the obvious get out. That its a dispute that is going to court and no further comment will be made. They like to use that phrase, so surprising its not been trotted out again.

I just want to add whats been said about the "promotion bonus"... a couple of people have accurately picked out that it was initially a payment of circa £6m payable on staying in the championship at the end of the 2017/18 season. As we were relegated this payment wasn't due, saving the "owners" £6m at that time.

At some point after that, a renegotiation took place as the original agreement allowed for the payment to be made if we were promoted the following season (it would be interesting to know what date that agreement was made, but I doubt we'll ever know). They collectively agreed for a fixed fee, not contingent on promotion or staying in league 1. The Crynes agreed to a fee of £3.5m paid in instalments, ultimately saving the 80% owners £2.5m.

What hasn't been mentioned is that the Crynes essentially reduced their asking price by £6m for the deal to go through at the outset. Had we been slightly better placed and our championship status more certain, there should have been no need for this reduction. The initial benefit from the reduction is for the new owners. BFC doesn't benefit, the Crynes don't benefit, the fans don't benefit. Only the 80% owners.

Whatever the £3.5m is called, it is still linked to the deal to buy the club because of this contingent discount. If the 80% owners wanted to take dividends out to then pay for this fee, they could... if there were sufficient reserves there (though I think the reserves have largely been used up by losses under their tenure).

 

Or schopp told his mate who told his mate who leaked it, or a thousand other possibilities