Sounds worrying for their fans especially with the land issue........ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...money-troubles-persist-Championship-side.html So their local rag have gave their opinion on the article now their fans have to decide it Daily Mail are causing **** that's not there or if their local paper is sweetening it to stay on the right side of the club......... http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/f...ancial-stability-perhaps-not-reading-12364043 Thought it was a relevant story to ourselves as Patrick protects the land around Oakwell. More and more football club owners will be looking to buy a club and asset strip the land because it's common knowledge how much land is worth these days with the housing shortage. It's a windfall for someone to come in and pinch it off the club they buy and then put the money made from selling off the land into their own personal bank account rather than back into the club.
The land around Oakwell is worth very little compared to Reading which is in the Thames Valley corridor and has direct trains to London which is in easily commutable distance. Barnsley has also got lots of undeveloped land round and about. You can't compare the two towns.
I see John Madjeski and Patrick Cryne as similar. John sold the club to foreign owners he thought had good intentions. It's not looking much like that now and the land the football club own looks at risk from being asset stripped. It's the same issue we will have when the day comes when our club is sold and is why Patrick is quite right to be weary of the land around our own ground. Obviously it's not worth anything like as much money but it's still worth enough that a new club owner could want to build on it and pocket the money for themselves.
I think you can compare the two clubs. Both have been asset stripped. The value of those assets is irrelevant because they are still assets separated from the football club and into the hands of private owners. The key difference is that ours has been stripped from all the right and well intended reasons while it appears that theirs hasn't. Are we currently in the same position as reading? No. Are we potentially going to be at some point in the future? Not quite because the assets have already been seperated, a dodgy owner couldn't come along and do it.
Isn't there still a Covenant on the land that requires it to be only used for sporting purposes? Also, I thought the Council are partners with Patrick on the land.
Foreign investors means lock up your daughters. Their only objective is to scim as much as they can and flog the residue. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I think the covenant might apply to the land that used to belong to the Co-op where their sports ground was located.
Not all of them. I'm sure Man City and Chelski fans are happy. Plus it's not just foreign owners who are bad, just ask Blackpool.
So the owners have written off debts in return for a stake in the land around the ground. Doesn't seem completely unreasonable if the land is worth a much greater amount if used for housing and it can secure the clubs future. There's only a story if it was sold off on the cheap which the first articles suggests it might have been, with no source, and the second article rubbishes, with no source.
