Why would it be advantageous? No fans, no matchday revenue of any kind and a furious fanbase. I don't get it?
I wouldn’t watch if we played on the Dearne and district pitch as opposed to oakwell, and I can see it from my house.
But it's the 80% mob that have pulled out of talks to buy the ground and Conway's the one that said he's no longer interested in buying Oakwell. The 80% mob want something for nothing they screwed the Crynes into dropping the price of the club and haven't even paid that lower amount in full yet. The council are right to treat them with suspicion and hold them to the terms of the lease until they either put up or shut up and preferably get out of our club.
But thats a completely different model, and as much as we all doubt their business acumen, I'm pretty sure that they're aware that it wouldn't work here.
This is all completely subjective on my part, and we'll never get the information, but I've long held the view that our eventual sale will be fractious and unsavoury. Conway said earlier in the year that if the fans didn't want them anymore and told them to "f off" they would. Just as an aside, don't you think thats a very strange thing to say... particularly as we'd just lost out in the playoffs and you could argue that fan perception was in a more positive state than thinking our owners would want to leave? But at a stage of disposal, they want to make profit. They won't commit to buy the ground, so that rules out scope to increase value by reuniting the club with land and buildings. The chances of us getting promoted having thrown away a platform is pretty unlikely in the next few years, that minimises the opportunity to benefit from the Premier League TV monies and subsequent write up in value. They seem to have had two legal cases merged into one. We can assume one is non payment to the Crynes, the other probably to do with the source of the £750k and potential breach of the purchase agreement. If such an action is successful against ConLee, the scope to make profit is extremely difficult. At OGC Nice, the final stages saw the revealing of a very strange loan agreement. I think it was around 23m euros, but its been a while since I looked it up. It was at a very high APR with an untypical source and a clause for immediate payment if the club fell below a preset position in the league. That provoked anger in the fan base and the previous CEO who stepped down I believe. That led to offers which were initially rejected and the assertion they werent going to sell and were there for the long term. Within a week, Ratcliffe upped the offer and they accepted trousering an 80m euro profit (for someone). The dissent, the fractious relationship, the animosity from the fan base encouraged a buyer to increase their bid. Now of course, it may be that history isn't repeating itself and there is no intention of doing such a thing. But we do know the ownership group are here for profit.
They will not stop until they get the ground and surrounding land on the cheap. Clearly don't give a **** about the fans.
Why, do you not want the ground owners to spend any money on the ground? The ground is run down and needs some desperate TLC. If we've got to a point where the ground is holding us back financially, then the 80% mob are quite right to want money spending on the ground. I don't agree with the tactics of trying to scare the ground owners into spending, but the owners of the club are only the leaseholders don't forget.
They aren't though really. 30k stadium that they can't even fill half of, and they aren't exactly ripping it up on the pitch either.