Remember Patrick Cryne saying people were not queuing up to buy Barnsley Fc and he then went on to sell the club to PM group consortium due to his illness. (reluctantly I feel) Now many people want this board to sell up and go as they appear to have zero ambition to take the club forward. Well I ask the same question... Ie do you think owners willing to invest heavily in the club and purchase players who can lift the club into the championship and keep it there are about? I would like to think so but doubt it.
There's many more owners like Readings, Wigans, Macclesfield, Bury, Portsmouth, Boltons, Blackpool than there are the rarities of Brentford and Brighton unfortunately.
I thought it was disgraceful though how much debt Brighton were allowed to add up, in trying to get into the Prem. And how much have Bournemouth spent to get where they are now as a club. Let's not kid ourselves that its a fairytale story, with them allegedly spending hardly anything at all etc.
We aren't Macclesfield, Aldershot or Bury. I'd like to think we're in the bracket of clubs that would be bought. However, it's our structure that hinders us. There's very little to make money on. This safeguarding the stadium malarkey is a massive hindrance. At end of the day stadium is bricks and mortar. Too much made of it. We need an owner willing to buy everything out and then it's up to them whether they build a new stadium and sell the land. Unfortunately as things are structured no one will have that autonomy and it puts perspective buyers off.
There’s really three paths any club can go on: 1) Wealthy, probably foreign, owners, with no local links or historic attachment, making a vanity investment; a mercenary squad here for the money; Premiership or bust, most likely bust 2) A local or fan group owner, probably no money, using homegrown players, and hoping they’re any good 3) No-one cares enough for 1) or 2) Personally option 2) would mean more to me than buying some short term success in exchange for the soul of the club.
I don’t think we need new owners, what we need is additional board member(s) who could provide the extra funding we need to be able to move forwards rather than just treading water .
I genuinely do think that the only value, the club has, is us paying, returning fans and our good will. They don’t own the ground and the existing squad carries little sell on value. And paying fan numbers are dwindling.
Why would ownership of the stadium be better in the hands of most probably foreign owners? All it does is give them the power to dispose of the only tangible asset with any real value. The Thai canned food bloke or the Chinese or Indian chicken farmer or the New York hedge Fund boss doesn't give a toss about Barnsley FC, or Barnsley the town...generally speaking they don't know the first thing about football...all ownership of the ground does is give them the last asset to strip on their way out.
Its not about the money. Its about experience - we've got a group of people who own the thing who have never worked in football employing people to run it that have never run football clubs. Say what you want about the old times, but we had people who had tenure and experience and knew how things should be run. All of those people have gone now - that's why the FA Cup debacle happened, that's why we can't seem to get deals over the line and why its a period of instability and decline. Even the left field appointments like Mansford or that Dane fella had experience in the game. I'm not sure this Mladen fella does at the right level for what he's accountable for. IMHO of course.