Would you rather the club be in league two but owned by supporters

Because their stock was high and bigger clubs came calling.

 

That's not quite what he said though Jay. He said the style of play devalued the players. He didn't say it made them harder to sell, or that we wanted to sell. Obviously we can draw conclusions from what James Cryne said, but the fact is, we haven't regularly sold our biggest assets as is often believed. But every club do sell key players. Arsenal are looking to move on their entire front 3 before the window closes.

I think the issue is, the 20% and 80% are saying two contrasting things.

 

Or at least, better paying clubs.

 

A couple of posters on this thread are, with respect, missing the point. If it was simply about the loss of key personnel then I would agree conspiracy theories about owner intent would, indeed, be "utterly ridiculous", as was pointed out it was outside their control.
Nevertheless, and this has been done to death.... discounting 'intent', the whole situation both on and off field lack of investment, failure to maintain, let alone improve, stadium facilities, including closure of West stand (albeit temporary, public relations with regard to communications (lack of) paying customers, failure to honour the voucher promise thus far (illegal) must all be taken into consideration.
Whether or not the CEO actually did state the whole purpose of the enterprise was to generate revenue from sales superceding competitiveness in the league(s) is irrelevant. What is relevant is that all indicators show that IS the intent. Given that, success on the field, in what is a results driven sport, is the ONLY real way to increase the value of the club and individual players, you are left with only one conclusion i.e. Incompetence at senior level or ulterior, as yet, undisclosed , intentions for the direction that they intend to take the business.

Given how the business is failing, and failing it is, without any substantial investment i.e. new players in the transfer window, plus stadium infrastructure (it shows how bad things have become when the long debated scoreboard fiasco hardly gets a mention nowadays except when it stopped working altogether not so long ago) , how can anyone argue otherwise?

The heart wants to agree that all the criticism on here is overblown, the head, regrettably, says otherwise.

 

I think we've two sets of people arguing the same point from different angles here. I think most of us are saying that the club is in decline due to many factors including underinvestment from external sources, lack of transfer revenue, COVID, but a number of us are saying it's not because the staff are "unhappy" behind the scenes, just that they've been given opportunities to further their careers elsewhere. I don't have to be unhappy in my job to take another that has better remuneration and benefits.

 

I know there are varying views on this but, personally, I'd count James and Cryne family as supporters, so would have no issue with them retaining an involvement with the club under a new ownership model.

As to the original question, I don't think it needs to be straight either/or as suggested. However, if it took an administration process next season to remove the majority owners and replace them, which ultimately meant that we were relegated to League Two shortly afterwards, then I would accept that as being beneficial to the longer term interests of the football club. Ultimately, I think we could work our way back to the Championship under an operating model that was financially sustainable, albeit this might be over a period of several years.

 

Give me the benevolent dictator chairman model. I don’t want these owners and I don’t want to be fan-owned. Fan ownership in the UK usually turns into tin-pot bickering after a season or two.

 

But the offers didn't come in because football finances have taken a hit since the pandemic. Not because of the style of play we employed last season. I refuse to believe there aren't clubs interested in players like Michal Helik, Brad Collins and even Carlton Morris, because of our style of play last year, or our league position this.

 

You are right but I would go on the lines that Val was actually sold & not allowed to walk as such.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if these owners appeared to be interested in the club. Or in football. And communicated with us. Past owners and custodians, despite sometimes at times not being as successful as we would have liked, always had these qualities.

 

Maybe so, and that's the reason Patrick Cryne was willing to sell the club to them. They want the club to be self sufficient, as envisaged by Patrick. I personally don't have an issue with us being used as a vehicle for bringing players in and moving them on, so long as the players we're replacing them with can help us carry on forward.

I think the issue is, the model we introduced 4 or 5 years ago was cutting edge at the time, whereas now, its all the rage. I think we were always going to be caught up, and there'd be a limited supply of Hourihane, Winnall, Brownhills, Mawson, Moore, Dike types. We haven't adapted very well in all honesty, which is why we're now staring relegation in the face again. I just don't believe that the owners are happy to sacrifice league position for profit, as some believe. Its just not financially sensible.

 

NO investment is NOT a viable business plan. The mantra "You have to speculate to accumulate" still holds true! Spending within your means and keeping customers happy is wise but in a competitive market (especially one where there are 60 or 70 competitors all fighting for survival) you have to find ways to match their budget and make you own brand attractive not just to retain existing customers but attract new ones. People argue football and commercial sport is somehow different as the loyalty factor is high but in reality it is like any other business, particularly as there is so much more access to many forms of entertainment on evenings and particularly weekends than there was when Saturday afternoon football attendances was king for the working man. Football is about dreams and ambitions as much as entertainment. Take that away, as any plan simply to make money through player improvement and sales does, and what are you left with?

Simply put.. In my 54 years of following BFC they have always been a 'selling club' inasmuch as, at the right time, they sell whenever they cannot afford to retain, but always TRIED to replace like for like or 'buy better' (and often succeeded) The current plan is to sell and replace with worse in the hope that they can improve and make money an d in the interim get value from the player- There is only one way that works and we are seeing it i.e. a downward spiral.

EDIT: Just another point.. What happened to all the Global Marketing potential and investment that the consortium were boasting they could/would exploit? Yet another empty promise!

We have been well and truly shafted by these charlatans!

 

"oh shut up you're wasting valuable smashing time"

 

For all of them?

 

Just for general information, the basis of the 'not one offer for our players' isn't based on a comment that James Cryne made, as stated earlier in the thread (and something that I've seen referred to a few times recently), but rather the now infamous quote from Khaled in his interview with Andy Giddings.

My post on this at the time, with a link to the recording, is here, for anyone who hasn't heard it directly as yet. http://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/andy-giddings-interview-with-khaled.308910/

 

We've signed too many £1 million duffers. Mcgeehan, Thomas, Wilkes, Schmidt and Kane. A club of our size can't keep doing that. Some of these marquee signings need to start and hit the ground running.

 

Tbf Wilks wasn't really given much time, Grant Macan seems to have got more out of him and he was instrumental in their promotion and in keeping them above relegation this season. Was Mcgeehan as much as a million really? I think Schmidt was a panic buy because we lost out on our main target. Kane should in theory have been able to step up because he's done so well in league 1 and had the Liverpool background. Thomas , well his mental health seems to be the explanation to not filling his potential , it may be that he gets more from football as a hobby than a career.

 

I think the adaptation from the model under Patricks tenure has shifted quite considerably and you're right, it's been extremely poor. Most of our best signings have been from lower leagues in England, and pretty much all of the better sales have come from that route.

However, most of the players we've paid sizeable fees for have pretty much been failures to date, and are likely to prove to be very expensive ones.

And as for sacrificing position for profit. Let's be frank, for all of the mass volume of player and coach trading and talk of profiting on players.... are we in a better position 4 years later after they took over?

We've less cash. We're a little lower in the league but look nailed on for relegation. Is our squad value higher than it was? Probably not. We have legal action going on between owners. Our ground is stagnating and large amounts have been closed. And thousands of season ticket holders can't be bothered to go to games.