New Owners - Soon?

[Dazza]

Do you really think Dave Phillips would really want to stay even on the board let alone Chair while GI run the club they have taken on a default clause. Excuse the pun but I think he would give long odds on that one !

[Southampton Gull]

He was happy to be part of their plans when they first confirmed their interest.

[Southampton Gull]

It has been suggested on another forum that the insistence of some board members that they remain on the board after any sale is what is holding things up. Wasn't it said previously that GI would keep the current board if they took over?

I've been saying this for months on here, glad the other forums are catching up.

[Dazza]

Dave there is a difference between being on board when you think they are taking over the club for the good and being on board when they are taking over the club because you haven't repaid them money. What pleasure would you get from being the Chair in the Directors box in that situation? ( especially when we lose at home ! ).

[Southampton Gull]

I understand where you're coming from. The fact remains that the Board are enjoying their stint in the spotlight, if not the financial side of things. They were more than happy to grant GI exclusivity for the chance to keep their feet under the table so it's not stretching things to see them maintain that stance.

[Dazza]

I don't doubt there are those on the board who might want not to be seen to be walking away and to by implication therefore look as if they have failed. I can imagine there might be 'discussion' with prospective new owners over that. However I just can't see them doing that if GI are those new owner or de facto new owners. They have publicly said GI are not currently in the picture and there has not been communication with them. If that isn't the case to be then to be working as 'local agents' of GI by taking Board positions in their regime would in my view be incredulous. If the rumour about the wishes of some for continued involvement is true I suspect we are not talking about GI as the owners.

[hector]

It's not unique at all. It's a business. It's owned by someone who isn't you. Just because you feel an affinity to it, that's unlucky. It's double unlucky when we're talking about selling to another business, especially one which has shareholders to appease and absolutely no interest in the history or the culture of our fanbase.

You're letting your heart get the better of your head. This is a private business transaction. What you're asking IS personal. The business belongs to Dave and his friends. What he is doing with that business is as much your business as it is if he sells his house, or his car. You're only entitled to information if you are party to the sale.
Yes, you'd like to know, because you're concerned about the future of the matchday XI, but your concern and your curiosity will quite rightly remain unsatisfied because the bit that's actually changing is bugger all to do with you.

It's a harsh dose of brutal reality. One for which you and so many others are quite alarmingly unprepared. Sadly, reality is what it is. You will find out when the new owners want to tell you and not a second before. I wish it wasn't the case. I wish I was involved and at liberty to pass on all the information in the world, but I'm not and the present parties are and they don't give a toss about you. Today, you're nothing but a service user. A number on a computer screen. A figure in a balance sheet.

Awful, but true.

Matt.

You're right of course; the club is a private business.

But then not many private businesses would have the gall to ask its customers to simply hand over money for nothing in return. The Players Fud would be the equivalent of going to the cinema and paying the entry price and simply saying, 'Hey, have the rest of my wallet contents as well. I don't even want a bag of minstrels in return.'

It is disingenuous at best.

So if the club is a private business whose concerns are nothing to do with us, then let it be. Let us see how far it gets without the keyboard w@nkers and terrace fodder and Alpine's troublemakers of TUST. Let's see how much 'their' private business is worth without the very people it depends on.

TUFC would fold tomorrow if the fans walked away. It is just a name after all. Once the parasites consume the body there is nothing left of what was there before they came. Once GI and Masters finish their feeding frenzy, TUFC will be gone and whilst it is lumbers on, dying before our very eyes, perhaps we, as fans, should take some control ourselves by pulling the plug and starting again so it really is OUR club.

Plainmoor78 is correct, in a different thread, when he suggests TUST should focus on buying the ground. GI wouldn't be interested in TUFC if there was no ground to try and buy and profit from. GI giving TUFC that loan was akin to drug pushers giving kids free heroin, in the hope they get hooked and the club went shuffling like some addict, rolling their sleeve up ready for the big hit and now they are screwed.

[SenorDingDong]

Exactly football clubs became businesses because of the need to pay players and staff not because they're meant to be turning over profits or making their owners rich, although over the last 20 years this has become corrupted somewhat with the commercialisation of top tier football and the huge media rights contracts, where it is now possible to turn a profit in the EPL if you're savvy. However the simple fact is football clubs in the lower leagues are a peculiar type of business, more akin to a social institution or a charity than a traditional business. A football club in the lower leagues is a business by necessity not by CHARACTER.

One of the ways the current board have gone oh so wrong is by treating the fans as if they are consumers to be exploited and fleeced for money and then given no insight as to how the club is being run...and when the club is being run oh so badly, when money seems to be disappearing into a unexplained black hole, it's no surprised the fans are totally pissed off with them...yet the board still act incredulous at the mere suggestion that they should consult with fans or let them get involved, this the board that suggested they would be the most open and transparent board in the club's history!

[yellowmonkey]

This would be nice
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... globe.html

[Dutchgull]

Yes please !!

[ferrarilover]

Good Lord you do make things difficult.

Yes, take away the customers and the business will die. No one is saying take away the customers. What I'm saying is that by being a customer, some people seem to feel entitled to information which relates not to their custom, but to the business, which is privately held.

That's like demanding to know Tesco's MD's salary because you shop there. It's **** all to do with you, or me, or anyone apart from him and his God.

We're customers. We can be as brand loyal as we like, but that doesn't earn us entitlement to that sort of information.
It earns you the right to complain online. It earns you the right to boo at full time. It earns you the right to Tweet GG and call him a gangly Aussie gentleman's sausage, to cheer when we score, to cry when we are relegated and to give the other residents of the care home stick when we have a better weekend than their respective teams. What you don't get to do is intrude on the private areas. For that, a whole other level of financial investment is required.

As to the PF, there's nothing stopping Vue asking for a voluntary contribution of £500/ticket. There's nothing stopping you giving it (actually, I suspect some tax law probably would, but we'll ignore that, make like this is a theatre in the Cayman Islands) and any number of reasons why you might choose not to. If you perhaps hoped that the money would go towards Hollywood making more entertaining movies, or indeed making movies at all, then I can well understand how you might conclude that a donation would be a good use of your money.

DingDong, do you write speeches for one D. Trump? I know we live in a post-fact era, but you could at least try.

Matt.

[PhilGull]

Good Lord you do make things difficult.

Yes, take away the customers and the business will die. No one is saying take away the customers. What I'm saying is that by being a customer, some people seem to feel entitled to information which relates not to their custom, but to the business, which is privately held.

That's like demanding to know Tesco's MD's salary because you shop there. It's fu<k all to do with you, or me, or anyone apart from him and his God.

We're customers. We can be as brand loyal as we like, but that doesn't earn us entitlement to that sort of information.
It earns you the right to complain online. It earns you the right to boo at full time. It earns you the right to Tweet GG and call him a gangly Aussie prick, to cheer when we score, to cry when we are relegated and to give the other residents of the care home stick when we have a better weekend than their respective teams. What you don't get to do is intrude on the private areas. For that, a whole other level of financial investment is required.

As to the PF, there's nothing stopping Vue asking for a voluntary contribution of £500/ticket. There's nothing stopping you giving it (actually, I suspect some tax law probably would, but we'll ignore that, make like this is a theatre in the Cayman Islands) and any number of reasons why you might choose not to. If you perhaps hoped that the money would go towards Hollywood making more entertaining movies, or indeed making movies at all, then I can well understand how you might conclude that a donation would be a good use of your money.

DingDong, do you write speeches for one D. Trump? I know we live in a post-fact era, but you could at least try.

Matt.

A football club is not like a supermarket or a cinema. Like someone else said before, it's only recently that business has come to the fore in football. Traditionally, first and foremost a football club is a part of it's community. We are not mere customers, we, as fans, supporters are an integral part of the club. We aren't all demanding to know the intimate details of the board's lives. We want to help, we want to be involved. What we are demanding is that the current custodians of the club pull their heads out of their arses and allow us to work with them. The board should be happy that the TUST exists, the board should be happy that there are more fans who want to get involved and help the club. Just because we aren't all moderately successful business people with thirty grand each to invest doesn't mean we don't have something to offer the club.

[Soupdragon]

Actually, ferrarilover, Dave Lewis, CEO of Tesco, earns in excess of £4m pa, including his bonus. That information is easily and readily available. As a customer, it is my right to know that, which is why it's in the public domain. It's also my right to choose not to shop there if I disagree with it.

You seem to forget that criticism of this board is made against the background of them promising to be open, honest and transparent with fans. Even you must agree that they haven't lived up to their own promises.

[PhilGull]

Actually, ferrarilover, Dave Lewis, CEO of Tesco, earns in excess of £4m pa, including his bonus. That information is easily and readily available. As a customer, it is my right to know that, which is why it's in the public domain. It's also my right to choose not to shop there if I disagree with it.

You seem to forget that criticism of this board is made against the background of them promising to be open, honest and transparent with fans. Even you must agree that they haven't lived up to their own promises.

To be fair I think that's more to do with them being a PLC and shareholders having a right to know the information.

Agree with you about the openess though, this board have been the most secretive I can remember for a while, but I blame most of that on the poisonous attitude of Deano.

[Soupdragon]

Philgull, of course you are right. Yet perhaps ferrarilover should have chosen a different example.

It remains that this TUFC board promised to be open, honest and transparent, yet have been anything but.

The good Senor had it right, to my mind, when he posted on 8 November: clubs at this level are more like a social institution.

There may well be money to be made here for someone, but it's going to rely on finding a few O'Kanes a season, getting good cup runs, league results that provide a consistently good turnout, and - most importantly - making something of the facilities more than just one day a fortnight for just nine months of the year.

The first on that list means that we desperately need a youth structure back. For the second and third, well, Nicholson may well be able to manage it, but not without a proper club infrastructure behind him. And the last depends on, among other things, getting in professional people who know what they're doing, who have ideas, and who have the wit and the wherewithal to carry them out. Currently, we have none of those things.