Should we be worried?

I get what you're saying it just think we made bad business decision after bad decision which have hampered the club ever since

 

I think Patrick's signing young hungry players under the age of 25 from lower leagues via data was the best thing that happened at the time. It was great brought us players like conor, winnable, Davies, Roberts, scowen, mawson etc etc. Only thing is every team saw what we did and followed.
I get some have wanted every owner out since john Dennis but credit where it's due had some good spells under Patrick especially when he himself got more involved.

 

Wouldn't disagree at all .

 

Yes. I look at us and the recruitment model is going to be similar to Wigan. Young players, give a lot more chances to youngsters and not spend a penny. Unfortunately that only leads to unsuccessful results. I think Wigan could well go down next season. That’ll be us soon if we don’t change the plan. The league is poor but can honestly see the likes of Port Vale, Donny, Exeter and Mansfield finishing above us next season never mind what’s going to happen going forward.

 

Said all along that Conor is on a hiding to nothing if he doesn’t get the backing. There’ll be precious few signings I fear unless we can offload a couple for decent money. Problem is we’re stuck with the ones we want rid of like MDG and Watters.
Any business is probably going to be late on in the window….again.

 

What it tells me is we are up **** creek expect the big announcement soon.

 

There’s a lot (ratio wise) of negativity this week based on speculation rather than new facts as far as I can see/read.

The forecasted losses are not new news, worrying obviously but not new.

The news about the women’s team is the only news this week and unless I’ve missed something it’s due to increased costs being enforced by the FA. There isn’t any indication that the club couldn’t or wouldn’t maintain the women’s team if they could continue to play on the academy set up, what they have stated is that additional costs would have to be incurred to continue. I have no idea what those costs might be but opening a stadium probably has much wider implications than we know - it could be £50 per match of £5000 per match. For a business losing money it makes perfect sense to avoid additional costs.

As for the squad we’ll all have opinions but they’re the same every year, must by this player or that player, so and so have signed 47 players already so we’re carp, we’ll wait whilst last minute blah blah etc.

The right now, always on, must know culture is so draining. Great to chat and share thoughts but there has to be an appreciation surely that not everything is true just because it’s expressed as an opinion.

 

Look at it this way, if you were chucking your personal money into a business and you had one branch that was struggling and needed as much help as it could get to bring it back to required levels and therefore generate more income and another branch that is desirable but not essential , brings nothing financially and only a very small minority follow, what would you do?

 

Yes all this trimming of cloth and cost cutting ort to have a point.
That is to focus all revenue towards the one thing that if run correctly will bring in it's own revenue to finance itself.
But are the people making the decisions at present capable of running this club reasonable well is the question..? The denial from above about the quality of staff it employs is a massive worry..

 

There very much is

Quote
"It may have been possible to obtain temporary dispensation from The FA, however this would only delay the inevitable decision around the additional costs of playing at a different venue."

So apply for the temporary dispensation from the FA and if it's successful, use the time the team is playing under that dispensation to find a way to carry on. That may have proved impossible, but at least it would have given them a chance. But they've just been shut down and abandoned with no thought to the women in the team at all. "You're done, it's over, we could have tried to keep it going for a while so you could look for alternative funding/venues but we couldn't be bothered."

 

I think my concern for a long time has been the woeful calibre of executives for extremely significant outlay of cost to employ them. "We're probably sinking £350k plus on CEO and Sporting Director for a company turning over a pretty modest amount in business terms.

 

Everyone with any common sense at all can see that Sormaz has been a disaster so far. For him to still be in his role when we're losing as much money as we are defies belief.

 

The one thing on their side though, so people keep telling us, is that Lee and Conway really hurt this club financially.
And so bad apparently, that it could take anybody a hundred years or more to put it right, etc!.
Ohh and nobody will buy us either even if they officially put us up for sale. So we're stuck with them.

 

I think the most recent accounts listed the figure going to directors. Can’t recall it, but think it was a fair bit less than that.

Not that I’m in disagreement with you. Some well paid folk there, and it’s their responsibility to earn it and make lives easier for such as Neerav.

 

Just had a quick look on companies house. BFC disclosed highest paid director at £134k, but, Sormaz and Flatman were only appointed directors in April 2024 and the accounts go to the period ended June 2024.

Overall director costs were circa £350k but that should only be El Ahmed to December, Zuk, then a couple of months of Sormaz and Flatman.

Given 2023 discloses the highest paid director ‘earning’ over £220k which you’d think was the CEO, and given we’ve not had a sporting director before, I reckon £350k for the pair is probably pretty close.

For a company with such modest turnover, the amount we spend on inexperienced execs astounds me and ones who will likely last less than 3 years.