Next season.......

[Rjc70]

So, this GI own the club and the ground. For some bizarre reason they charge the club £100,000/month in rent. When the club doesn't pay, the stadium owners (who, remember, are the same people as own the club and therefore owe the rent) sue the club owners for the outstanding. The Court finds in favour of the stadium owner and orders the club owner (same person) to pay the outstanding rent and the costs of the other side.

Who wins? The lawyers who represented one man suing himself for millions in rent he failed to pay from himself to himself.

Is Mr Bean buying the club?

Where to start in how naive this posting is.

Who knows, but I would be very surprised if GI's planned business model involves them owning TUFC longer than they own the lease or ownership of our ground, given their record in other sports. I'll await hearing their plans before passing judgement, but I've previously been a fairly regular spectator at one sporting venue they had involvement in and since the doors closed 8 years ago, I've not had the opportunity to do so again. Doesn't mean they'll fail to deliver again, I'll grant you.

I can't be bothered to comment on the rest. Perhaps after an ill thought out retort dressed up as intelligent, but it's like trying to tell a lawyer with no business acumen how to run a business. Pointless. Good luck trying it out yourself if GI don't. May I suggest Argyle if you get an itchy trigger finger. Apologies to those with a soft spot for other Devon/Cornwall football clubs.

Good points, Gulliball. I don't think he'll take them on board, but you never know.

[Southampton Gull]

Where to start in how naive this posting .

It's not that naive for Matt

[madgull]

Where to start in how naive this posting is.

Quick, stop everything! You win, you called someone naive, you win internet arguments. As you so sharply spotted, you don't even need to actually refute your opponent's points in order to win, you just call them naive, throw in a general insult, and voila!

10/10, would debate again.

[Rjc70]

Cheers. I've always thought quoting one line and missing the point was far more sophisticated, though.

He's working on a classic and doesn't need encouragement from previous experience, so I shouldn't worry too much.

I'm keen to wait on GI's stated aims but saying it'll all be good is as futile as saying it'll all be bad if the basic accepted premise is that nobody knows. I have my doubts for reasons briefly outlined in my previous post, but there you go.

Gulliball's short post above really did underline how crass (naive even) the 'rent to the club, it can't possibly happen the way anyone should worry about' scenario is, though. I believe I gave another possibility, too. I just wish, like us all, that uncertainty won't drag out too much longer whilst Rochdale and Barrow sniff around Angus; Blissett lets it be known he mightn't stick around for geographical reasons and our competition strengthen their squads significantly.

[Oh Fer Christ Sake]

The club's main income is gate receipts. We also get sponsorship deals, TV revenues and other sources of income (currently none from owners but in the past Thea put in a lot. From all this revenue we have to meet all our costs, of which the main expense is wages to the playing squad and rent to the council is relatively small.

Say the rent doubles, and the owners pay for this by taking £100k off the wage bill, that's not them paying themselves. There is a huge opportunity to manipulate finances if you own both sides of a transaction. Again, nothing to worry about if you trust the owners or they invest more than they take out, but once they have control they have the freedom to do as they like, so motives are important. If the rent has to be paid and investors have to profit, then it's the footballing side that will miss out if things go wrong and revenues fall.

Let's address Rob first... Actually, let's not bother.

Gulli, I do understand the point you're making and clearly (unlike some) you've grasped the idea of the vastly overblown point I was making in my last post.
What I'm really getting at is that we already have the lowest budget we can have to sustain us in this division. Reducing that will see us relegated. Relegation will see income fall dramatically across the board, making even the smallest rent unmanageable. The only possible next step is to fold the football club, which will result in zero income (from rent or otherwise).
For us, in the position we are in presently, a rent of about £25/week is manageable. Any more than that and we go down. We go down, we go out of business. We go out of business, GI get nothing from us. Yet again, the only way for them to make money from the club itself is to run it at at least the level we're at presently.
In short, we haven't got any scope for giving money. If we had a million pound playing budget, we could reasonably survive (if not thrive) on a £750,000 playing budget and GI could cream off the extra quarter million without needing to worry about the longevity of the investment or model. With us as pared to the bone as we are, that isn't an option.

Dave,

Matt is banned from this forum (for treating others precisely as they have treated "me" since this "I" signed up). If he's not, I'm sure he'd be grateful to revert to posting under his original username, which I gather he very much liked.

[Oh Fer Christ Sake]

Cheers. I've always thought missing the point was far more sophisticated, though.

Which would explain how you've so skilfully managed it on this occasion.

[Rjc70]

Which would explain how you've so skilfully managed it on this occasion.

Good to hear you now regard your point as vastly overblown. Of course I have.

[Scott Brehaut]

Dave,

Matt is banned from this forum (for treating others precisely as they have treated "me" since this "I" signed up). If he's not, I'm sure he'd be grateful to revert to posting under his original username, which I gather he very much liked.

OFCS,

Matt was banned for, amongst other things, posting homophobic comments, racist comments, offensive comments against other posters and offensive comments about those running the trust. In spite of numerous warnings, he continued on and therefore the admin team found that they were left with no choice but to ban him from the forum.

Should you feel that you've been the subject of homophobic comments, racist comments etc, please flag up the post so that a member of the admin team can deal with it.

[Gullscorer]

Next season? I'm hoping we'll do what Leicester City have done: escape relegation one season and become champions the next. And do it with a manager who, like Leicester's, takes a bunch of relatively unknown and unfancied players and merges them into a great team. Well, we've escaped relegation, and we have the manager. Roll on the coming season..

[Neal]

OFCS,

Matt was banned for, amongst other things, posting homophobic comments, racist comments, offensive comments against other posters and offensive comments about those running the trust. In spite of numerous warnings, he continued on and therefore the admin team found that they were left with no choice but to ban him from the forum.

Should you feel that you've been the subject of homophobic comments, racist comments etc, please flag up the post so that a member of the admin team can deal with it.

Nice bloke then, NOT!

[lucy6lucy]

Nice bloke then, NOT!

Tbh, Matt was a passionate fan, and in my opinion missed. He just spoke his mind. Where is brucie these days.

[Dave]

What happened to Mushroom?

[wivelgull]

Indeed, where is he? I miss him.

[wivelgull]

I meant brucie; I don't know this mushroom.

[Southampton Gull]

Finny that, I assumed you were well used to mushrooms .................