Fans Buyout Feasibility

[Quist]

1 hour ago, Hornsby said:

Based on your figures and rigorous investment analysis, you may be right.

 

While difficult, of course it can be done, Rangers fans doing it right now.

 

Chansiri would gain some respect and dignity too.

 

 

Ok,

1. You can not compare England with any other country. This is due to income generated from TV. The £150 million which worst performing teams in PL sets a bench mark.

2. Clubs in Championship are allowed to put £13 million per year into club and in order to compete you have to be near to this. Many Chairman of clubs will tell you this is not enough to keep team afloat. To be in Championship or PL these sort of figures mean any widespread funding plan is impossible. 

3. In addition to this there is maintenance of training ground and stadium (including pitch). In our particular case both have serious issues and money needs to be spent on them. This will be well in excess of £100 million to bring up to present day standards.

 

How will this be governed, if you are in 50/50 partnership for it to remain that way both sides have to invest the same. Hence if partner invests more than you which would be likely, you become minor shareholder and lose any control you have. We had shareholders in club I was one, you got extra discount on season tickets it was only perk. The money to buy share is dead money you will never get it back it has gone and to keep any control you have to keep pumping money in and you will have very little say in what is done. For example Safety Advisory Group made recommendations which cost millions to implement. If you take them to court it costs £100,000 to fight decisions.

How do you keep diverse bunch of fans happy who all have different agendas? If some do not get their way they will stop any funding they may be putting into club.

The cost of drawing up legal framework for such an organisation it would be expensive. You would also probably need independent arbiter to sort out any problems which could not be agreed upon.

Sports manufacturers are notoriously fickle and move emphasis regularly. If they wanted to change away from stripes to improve sales (may not work but they would try) how would fans group feel about this. If you imposed constraints upon them you would not see their arse for dust as theu ran away.

 

 DC is very wealthy he has pumped in millions (accept not been used wisely) and made no progress on all levels.

 

What abilities do you have which will make you a success.  Good contacts with agents, good relations with a bank, would EFL approve of you have you run this type of company before. Do you have skin thicker than a Rhino (you would need it).

 

This is just scratching surface it would be quite simply impossible.

 

From what you have stated you have not a clue about what is entailed and difficulties you would encounter. I doubt you would get funding to run a North Eastern Counties club let alone a league club.

 

[Guest Grandad]

On 01/01/2021 at 08:03, Mcguigan said:

 

We’d need to be consistently either buying or developing players and selling at the right price to stay in existence and that will take years to happen.

 

Especially as we now have a club in the city with the cash to improve their already light years ahead academy, into a Cat1

[soldierboyblue]

1 minute ago, Grandad said:

 

Especially as we now have a club in the city with the cash to improve their already light years ahead academy, into a Cat1

The cost incurred for running a Cat 1 academy is significant and whilst we are in the Championship would not really be feasible.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hornsby said:

Barcelona give their sponsorship free, UN recently.

 

All top German andSpanish clubs are fan owned, without majors sponsors.

 

Hasn't stopped Sevilla dominating Europe 2 for last few years. 

 

Plus , we have a company wanting to give us £150 million sponsorship which would no doubt be firmed up with fan ownership. 

 

Although they were one of the last major clubs to sell shirt sponsorship deals, Barcelona haven't given free major sponsorship for some time now.

 

Holding them up as a model to follow is hardly comparative to where we are, the global scale they operate on in terms of fan membership is in a different league.

Besides which, they are currently in deep financial trouble. 

 

Who is the company that is willing to provide us with a £150M sponsorship deal?

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Grandad]

Just now, hirstyboywonder said:

 

Although they were one of the last major clubs to sell shirt sponsorship deals, Barcelona haven't given free major sponsorship for some time now.

 

Holding them up as a model to follow is hardly comparative to where we are, the global scale they operate on in terms of fan membership is in a different league.

Besides which, they are currently in deep financial trouble. 

 

Who is the company that is willing to provide us with a £150M sponsorship deal?

 

 

 

 

 

None if you carry on with this negativity on here

[Guest Hornsby]

11 hours ago, Quist said:

Ok,

1. You can not compare England with any other country. This is due to income generated from TV. The £150 million which worst performing teams in PL sets a bench mark.

2. Clubs in Championship are allowed to put £13 million per year into club and in order to compete you have to be near to this. Many Chairman of clubs will tell you this is not enough to keep team afloat. To be in Championship or PL these sort of figures mean any widespread funding plan is impossible. 

3. In addition to this there is maintenance of training ground and stadium (including pitch). In our particular case both have serious issues and money needs to be spent on them. This will be well in excess of £100 million to bring up to present day standards.

 

How will this be governed, if you are in 50/50 partnership for it to remain that way both sides have to invest the same. Hence if partner invests more than you which would be likely, you become minor shareholder and lose any control you have. We had shareholders in club I was one, you got extra discount on season tickets it was only perk. The money to buy share is dead money you will never get it back it has gone and to keep any control you have to keep pumping money in and you will have very little say in what is done. For example Safety Advisory Group made recommendations which cost millions to implement. If you take them to court it costs £100,000 to fight decisions.

How do you keep diverse bunch of fans happy who all have different agendas? If some do not get their way they will stop any funding they may be putting into club.

The cost of drawing up legal framework for such an organisation it would be expensive. You would also probably need independent arbiter to sort out any problems which could not be agreed upon.

Sports manufacturers are notoriously fickle and move emphasis regularly. If they wanted to change away from stripes to improve sales (may not work but they would try) how would fans group feel about this. If you imposed constraints upon them you would not see their arse for dust as theu ran away.

 

 DC is very wealthy he has pumped in millions (accept not been used wisely) and made no progress on all levels.

 

What abilities do you have which will make you a success.  Good contacts with agents, good relations with a bank, would EFL approve of you have you run this type of company before. Do you have skin thicker than a Rhino (you would need it).

 

This is just scratching surface it would be quite simply impossible.

 

From what you have stated you have not a clue about what is entailed and difficulties you would encounter. I doubt you would get funding to run a North Eastern Counties club let alone a league club.

 

Not 50/ 50, in Germany firms not allowed control so less than 50%.

 

OK, UK. Brentford are making £20 million annually, we are losing £30 million each year.

 

That's a £50 million fissure in financial performance, while they play for promotion, us relegation. 

 

Nearly a million a week. Fans running a pub team could do better.

[OohAahGuyWhittingham]

On 01/01/2021 at 05:48, Grandad said:

Im sorry - I know you went to a great deal of effort to post that but I didnt read it.

 

The answer to the opening question is - its not feasible at all.

 

Meaningful contributions to how we can solve the mess we're in are what's needed at the moment. Small minded shut downs which we have endured on here throughout the Chansiri era do not help at all.

[SolihullOwl79]

If 18000 fans were to put in £5000 each then that would raise £90,000,000. 

 

There would need to be a very very very strict wage ceiling and rely heavily on younger players from the academy and lower leagues. Develop and sell for a profit. 

 

 

[WhiteOwl91]

16 minutes ago, SolihullOwl79 said:

If 18000 fans were to put in £5000 each then that would raise £90,000,000. 

 

There would need to be a very very very strict wage ceiling and rely heavily on younger players from the academy and lower leagues. Develop and sell for a profit. 

 

 

And before any of the wage and transfer fees/running cost debates, the fact we don't even get more than 18,000 or so to spend £450-750 on a season ticket for the ability to go to 23 home games shows how unlikely £5,000 for some piddly ownership right would be.

[soldierboyblue]

23 minutes ago, SolihullOwl79 said:

If 18000 fans were to put in £5000 each then that would raise £90,000,000. 

 

There would need to be a very very very strict wage ceiling and rely heavily on younger players from the academy and lower leagues. Develop and sell for a profit. 

 

 

What he has just suggested is ladies and gentleman is Club 1867

[OxonOwl]

34 minutes ago, SolihullOwl79 said:

If 18000 fans were to put in £5000 each then that would raise £90,000,000. 

 

There would need to be a very very very strict wage ceiling and rely heavily on younger players from the academy and lower leagues. Develop and sell for a profit. 

 

 

 

You wouldn't get sort of 'investment' though.

[OwlOnWheels]

I'm in the fortunate position to be able to invest some money should I wish.  The only reason I'm in that position, is that I'm careful with what I do with my money.  Investing in a football club, in particular ours, is the exact opposite of being careful, it would be a quick way to lose significant money.

[Quist]

17 hours ago, Hornsby said:

By law, no German club is allowed to get control of a club , ie only less than 50% ownership , and only Red Bull got around this.

 

I'd be more than happy with this arrangement with Chansiri.

 

Of course, things would have to change and Brentford make £20 million a year following Sevilla 's example.

 

Nothing can be worse than present situation.

More bullshit, this is not Germany. Their is no real equivalent of English situation anywhere else.

Do you not understand we have Premier league of anywhere else by a mile and finance to match in this country.

The Championship is only way in so you have wealthy backers stumping up millions every year to get in PL where they can enjoy riches.

Why do you think clubs have locust like agents hovering around them trying to grab as much money as they can. The success of Moreno has created an organisations where third rate Iberian peninsula managers are sexed up and sold to gullible owners as next major thing. They are often well funded and therefore have some success but ultimately fail. Money has attracted very rich owners to Sport and made it impossible for any type of ownership you are suggesting. An example of this was Mandaric he took over with intention of launching attempt to get in PL and then sell us on. He quickly realised things had moved on and he did not have sufficient cash to do this. therefore went to Agents to find a buyer in super wealthy category.

To try and achieve what you are indicating you would need 20,000 individuals to stump up £1,000 per year for foreseeable future with no guarantee of any return. For this you could offer say 20% season ticket discount. As some will not pay £10 to watch game at moment when club is in desperate need either through not being able to afford to do so, indifference or principle. How the hell on earth do you think you can raise anywhere near a £1 million let alone sums you actually require.

[Hougoumont]

On 31/12/2020 at 16:46, LondonOwl313 said:

After hearing Mr Chansiri say that the fans should buy him out if they're not happy with how he's running the club, I was trying to come up with some numbers to see whether this is even a possibility.

 

Firstly, we'd have to make him an offer for the club. Being realistic, its worth about what he paid for it (i.e. £35m). And we'd also need him to give us the stadium back included within that. Getting him to agree to selling for that and writing off his losses is probably the biggest sticking point in the whole plan.

 

But say if he did agree to that, how much more would we need. Obviously we'd need more than that because the club loses money so with no wealthy benefactor we'd need capital to absorb the losses. Unfortunately thats just the business model outside the premier league with the pot of gold on promotion the incentive for anyone to invest.

 

So lets assume that we'd need to fund the maximum allowable loss under FFP of £13m a season, and do this for 3 years to 1. give us the opportunity to build towards promotion and 2. because FFP is a rolling 3 year thing anyway.

 

So already we're talking a total of £35m + £13m x 3 = £74m to do this (lets call it £75m to make the maths easier).

 

The easiest way would be to divide that in to equal shares, but being realistic if you start asking most fans for £1,000 or even £500 they're probably going to say no because personal finances at the moment just dictate that its too much money. So lets say 1 share would be £250, which I think you could convince some casuals to part with as an investment.

 

So £75m divided by £250 is 300,000 shares. The plan would be that we either achieve promotion and sell the club for a profit in excess of the £75m at the end of the 3 years, money which would be returned to the investors... or we fail to go up and we sell the club on to someone else to have a go for £35m, and investors lose about half of their investment in the process (£125 loss). Either way, the long term strategy wouldn't be to be fan owned because the ongoing losses make it unfeasible.

 

Obviously the prospect of finding 300,000 individuals to do this is a non starter. But would it be possible to get 50,000 or even 100,000 individuals to do it, with wealthier fans buying more than one share to get us to the required 300,000. I think thats much more realistic. For a start I think most season ticket holders could be convinced... and then many more people would if theres a carrot available of a bigger pay off if promotion is achieved with their personal losses capped at £125.

 

I don't think this is as far fetched as you think, would just take some organising and probably some wealthy fans committing 5 and 6 figure sums to get the numbers up. Thoughts?

 

Stoppit!  I nearly wet myself laughing just then.  

[NIOwl]

On 31/12/2020 at 23:46, LondonOwl313 said:

After hearing Mr Chansiri say that the fans should buy him out if they're not happy with how he's running the club, I was trying to come up with some numbers to see whether this is even a possibility.

 

 

It isn't. NEXT. 

[Guest Hornsby]

On 04/01/2021 at 14:18, Quist said:

More bullshit, this is not Germany. Their is no real equivalent of English situation anywhere else.

Do you not understand we have Premier league of anywhere else by a mile and finance to match in this country.

The Championship is only way in so you have wealthy backers stumping up millions every year to get in PL where they can enjoy riches.

Why do you think clubs have locust like agents hovering around them trying to grab as much money as they can. The success of Moreno has created an organisations where third rate Iberian peninsula managers are sexed up and sold to gullible owners as next major thing. They are often well funded and therefore have some success but ultimately fail. Money has attracted very rich owners to Sport and made it impossible for any type of ownership you are suggesting. An example of this was Mandaric he took over with intention of launching attempt to get in PL and then sell us on. He quickly realised things had moved on and he did not have sufficient cash to do this. therefore went to Agents to find a buyer in super wealthy category.

To try and achieve what you are indicating you would need 20,000 individuals to stump up £1,000 per year for foreseeable future with no guarantee of any return. For this you could offer say 20% season ticket discount. As some will not pay £10 to watch game at moment when club is in desperate need either through not being able to afford to do so, indifference or principle. How the hell on earth do you think you can raise anywhere near a £1 million let alone sums you actually require.

Portsmouth fans via their trust bought and rescued Pompey, now sold to Hollwood.

 

Rangers about to do it.  Several more clubs just sold shares to fans, many in Scotland.

 

We did it late 70s and saved clubs , then funded  promotions.

 

Brentford fan -owned (Bentham been a Bee since a boy) and making £20 million a year in Championship.

 

Which would mean our fan investors would get dividends , if they wanted.

 

No Facebook in 2003.

[Guest Mcguigan]

20 minutes ago, Hornsby said:

Portsmouth fans via their trust bought and rescued Pompey, now sold to Hollwood.

 

Rangers about to do it.  Several more clubs just sold shares to fans, many in Scotland.

 

We did it late 70s and saved clubs , then funded  promotions.

 

Brentford fan -owned (Bentham been a Bee since a boy) and making £20 million a year in Championship.

 

Which would mean our fan investors would get dividends , if they wanted.

 

No Facebook in 2003.

 

They actually make significant operating losses every year recovered by player sales and, last year by sale of land.

 

[Guest Hornsby]

On 05/01/2021 at 15:51, Mcguigan said:

 

They actually make significant operating losses every year recovered by player sales and, last year by sale of land.

 

Tesco lose millions every year on petrol sales to make billions on food and drink. Business.

 

Even without land sale they made nearly £10 million surplus, before tax.

 

And these Brentford figures will also include massive costs relating to new stadium construction, etc. 

 

By contrast, we had a £60 million stadium sale and just made a slight profit.

 

Need to gear up as we may be in a Wigan situation one day where no one will touch us and only fans left to buy.

 

 

[southportdc]

On 31/12/2020 at 16:56, LondonOwl313 said:

 

 

The numbers I set out allow for a loss of £39m over 3 years over and above regular revenue. We'd have to sell after 3 years either way as then we'd run out of cash

 

I don't know if you missed it, but the problem is we're losing a lot more than that. 

[Guest LondonOwl313]

1 minute ago, southportdc said:

 

I don't know if you missed it, but the problem is we're losing a lot more than that. 

We were but I doubt we are right now given how cheap this squad is comparatively. And come the end of this season when the last of the big earners leave or sign reduced terms it will come down again