@ReturnToSenda said:
I'd say Rob had a very clear business plan
Quite.
Depicting him as some kind of potless chancer who we recklessly signed the club over to without any fallback or checks, is an outrageous spin on things.
@aloysius does like the opportunity to say ‘I told you so.’
Occasionally with justification.
He (or she) may indeed come back and tell us so in a year or two but the sensible response will be ‘well at least we got a few extra years supporting our club’ as I’m not sure there was a viable alternative at the time.
@floyd said:
The reason so many club owners get away with financial mismanagement is that supporters let them.
@floyd said:
The reason so many club owners get away with financial mismanagement is that supporters let them.
This is a point I was making when Wycombe supporters decided to overwhelmingly vote through giving the club away to a man with no obvious well of income, no clear business plan and barely any accountability. Maybe it will work out ok. But if it doesn't, @aloysius will be saying he told you so...
Can @aloysius remind us how much the playing budget was cut before the Couhig takeover and then he also outline the alternate history where it doesn’t go through does it include promotion to the championship and a multi million pound season if he can’t then @MorrisItal_ will be saying welcome to the real world son
I have said this before, I guess I'll be saying it again. Rob's c£250k investment (in reality a loan that will have been paid back the moment the first Championship cheque arrived) did allow us to improve the playing side but it was Gareth who got us promoted.
There were other consortia looking to buy the club who would have also invested that money. If the Trust hadn't run such a secretive, last-minute firesale of its assets who knows what other bids we'd have received, rather than relying on someone with a plan to buy Yeovil which had just fallen through. It would have allowed for an open process and the competition would have both driven up the price of our club and meant the bidders would have been forced to offer more accountability / checks and balances in order to win the vote. Which means we wouldn't now be in a situation where the Trust face being squeezed out because they can't afford to stay on the board.
As I said, maybe it will work out ok. But fundamentally we gave away a business for c£250k which within a year was being given c£7-9m to compete, money that there seems little accountability over how it's spent. I will be intrigued to see the next set of annual accounts. It'll be fascinating to see what the board of directors are paying themselves in salaries and dividends. And how much our Chief Financial Officer is being paid. I wonder if it will turn out to be more than Gareth's transfer budget for the season we were in the Championship. Time will tell.
And then there comes the simple fact that when the Couhigs get bored or run out of money they can sell the club on to whoever they want, because once again we've failed to ensure there were any checks and balances there when giving away the club to them. So even if they're the greatest owners Wycombe will ever have, the next lot may not be - and we'll have no say over it.
@Chris is right almost all football related financial dealings end in tears so you will have your day @aloysius but as a voting member I’m happy with my decision and I’m amazed how well things are going on and off the pitch.
Of course all weddings end in death or divorce but it’s how you get there.
So @aloysius gets to enjoy a promotion to the Championship, see a strong squad compete in League One and have the stability of an in demand management team staying put to oversee all this but also have his get out clause of ‘I told you so’ if it ever changes or goes wrong.
Nice easy way to live I think. No consequences and no guilt. Who would ever accept a job, start a relationship or loan a friend a tenner with this attitude. That’s not how it works.
I could be wrong, but at the moment we seem to be being run quite well with no big scares. I realise this could of course mean we have been duped by a shadowy group of lavishly paid staff carrying out an Oystonesque siphoning off of our vast riches and land holdings on the QT while seeming to invest in players (admittedly not The Player) and keeping the management happy. Rose-tinted glasses I may wear and thick as I may be about football business, like @MorrisItal_ I'm quite happy with things so far.
I was sceptical when Rob very first appeared on the scene, but that was partly because Luby and Collis had just bailed on us - but the fact that he was willing to take the 'try before you buy' approach and show us what he had to offer over a period or time, rather than just tell us and expect us to vote straight away, got me onboard very quickly. If he really was some kind of charlatan, don't you think the mask would have slipped long before now?
The Couhigs have been great for our club and cleared all debts. The Couhigs have also invested the income from the Championship wisely, supporting the B team, upgrading the training ground and Adams Park (lights, sound system etc).
We are very lucky to have them and they really are true supporters as well as excellent businessmen.
The Uche and Fred sales are something we need to get used to and we have never been a club to restrict any of players from moving on to better opportunities.
Keep going Pete and Rob you are doing a great job.
I think nothing @Chris. Underperforming in League one will be flirting with relegation. We are being tipped upper mid-table and that, even with the squad and investment we have, is probably not far from our level.
We are so used to the team over-performing in recent seasons and we shouldn’t lose sight of that if we don’t carry on like that for a while
I agree, but would the Couhigs. Really they’ve only been in charge during the good times so far, it will be interesting to see what happens if that isn’t the case. Hopefully we won’t have to find out any time soon.
I might be wrong, but didn't the Couhigs buy WWFC with no assets? IE no Adams Park, we didn't own the training ground so wasn't thrown in the deal. In summary they bought a money losing business that's about as attractive to sell as a fart in a lift!
The ideal in football would be for every club to be fan owned, if possible. With that not being sustainable, RC buying was about the best possible outcome, especially as the Trust is still part of the ownership structure.
The big test if we ever properly struggle owing to the vagaries of the sport. Brits can be philosophical about failures, utilizing gallows humour and patiently waiting for the eventual rebound. But losing is a dirty word to Americans.
Comments
I'd say Rob had a very clear business plan
Quite.
Depicting him as some kind of potless chancer who we recklessly signed the club over to without any fallback or checks, is an outrageous spin on things.
I had assumed @aloysius was referring to Steve Hayes. Rob is orders of magnitude better.
Well, we got promoted, ground improved, have a few quid and havent had any points deducted yet...but it's early days I suppose.
@aloysius does like the opportunity to say ‘I told you so.’
Occasionally with justification.
He (or she) may indeed come back and tell us so in a year or two but the sensible response will be ‘well at least we got a few extra years supporting our club’ as I’m not sure there was a viable alternative at the time.
Can @aloysius remind us how much the playing budget was cut before the Couhig takeover and then he also outline the alternate history where it doesn’t go through does it include promotion to the championship and a multi million pound season if he can’t then @MorrisItal_ will be saying welcome to the real world son
Yeah I’d like to be crowing I told you so after the time we’ve had following the Couhig investment.
Long term it will probably end in ill feeling, but only because everything to do with football finance does.
To be fair to @aloysius Rob failed to open his cheque book and buy The Player that would have saved us last season.
You seem to have gone all Kevin Nolan @aloysius.
So has @MorrisItal_ but in ironic mode, I think.
I swear Mr Aloysius loves to plant these little comments, disappear for a couple of days, then laugh himself silly at the fishes he reels in.
Rob’s investment = championship football. What’s not to like?
I have said this before, I guess I'll be saying it again. Rob's c£250k investment (in reality a loan that will have been paid back the moment the first Championship cheque arrived) did allow us to improve the playing side but it was Gareth who got us promoted.
There were other consortia looking to buy the club who would have also invested that money. If the Trust hadn't run such a secretive, last-minute firesale of its assets who knows what other bids we'd have received, rather than relying on someone with a plan to buy Yeovil which had just fallen through. It would have allowed for an open process and the competition would have both driven up the price of our club and meant the bidders would have been forced to offer more accountability / checks and balances in order to win the vote. Which means we wouldn't now be in a situation where the Trust face being squeezed out because they can't afford to stay on the board.
As I said, maybe it will work out ok. But fundamentally we gave away a business for c£250k which within a year was being given c£7-9m to compete, money that there seems little accountability over how it's spent. I will be intrigued to see the next set of annual accounts. It'll be fascinating to see what the board of directors are paying themselves in salaries and dividends. And how much our Chief Financial Officer is being paid. I wonder if it will turn out to be more than Gareth's transfer budget for the season we were in the Championship. Time will tell.
And then there comes the simple fact that when the Couhigs get bored or run out of money they can sell the club on to whoever they want, because once again we've failed to ensure there were any checks and balances there when giving away the club to them. So even if they're the greatest owners Wycombe will ever have, the next lot may not be - and we'll have no say over it.
Not bad for a c£250k loan, eh?
@Chris is right almost all football related financial dealings end in tears so you will have your day @aloysius but as a voting member I’m happy with my decision and I’m amazed how well things are going on and off the pitch.
Of course all weddings end in death or divorce but it’s how you get there.
I should say marriages although a couple of weddings I went to came close
So @aloysius gets to enjoy a promotion to the Championship, see a strong squad compete in League One and have the stability of an in demand management team staying put to oversee all this but also have his get out clause of ‘I told you so’ if it ever changes or goes wrong.
Nice easy way to live I think. No consequences and no guilt. Who would ever accept a job, start a relationship or loan a friend a tenner with this attitude. That’s not how it works.
I could be wrong, but at the moment we seem to be being run quite well with no big scares. I realise this could of course mean we have been duped by a shadowy group of lavishly paid staff carrying out an Oystonesque siphoning off of our vast riches and land holdings on the QT while seeming to invest in players (admittedly not The Player) and keeping the management happy. Rose-tinted glasses I may wear and thick as I may be about football business, like @MorrisItal_ I'm quite happy with things so far.
"One day it might go wrong".
What an attitude to have. Impossible to argue really.
But it probably would have been a "one day very soon this will go wrong " without the Couhigs.
Rob didn’t just loan £250k. He wrote off £2m of debts.
I was sceptical when Rob very first appeared on the scene, but that was partly because Luby and Collis had just bailed on us - but the fact that he was willing to take the 'try before you buy' approach and show us what he had to offer over a period or time, rather than just tell us and expect us to vote straight away, got me onboard very quickly. If he really was some kind of charlatan, don't you think the mask would have slipped long before now?
The crunch will come if we start underperforming in League 1. If we're not in the playoff places at Christmas what happens?
The Couhigs have been great for our club and cleared all debts. The Couhigs have also invested the income from the Championship wisely, supporting the B team, upgrading the training ground and Adams Park (lights, sound system etc).
We are very lucky to have them and they really are true supporters as well as excellent businessmen.
The Uche and Fred sales are something we need to get used to and we have never been a club to restrict any of players from moving on to better opportunities.
Keep going Pete and Rob you are doing a great job.
I think nothing @Chris. Underperforming in League one will be flirting with relegation. We are being tipped upper mid-table and that, even with the squad and investment we have, is probably not far from our level.
We are so used to the team over-performing in recent seasons and we shouldn’t lose sight of that if we don’t carry on like that for a while
I'd say anything less than play-offs next season should be considered underperformance, but even that wouldn't be a disaster.
I agree, but would the Couhigs. Really they’ve only been in charge during the good times so far, it will be interesting to see what happens if that isn’t the case. Hopefully we won’t have to find out any time soon.
I might be wrong, but didn't the Couhigs buy WWFC with no assets? IE no Adams Park, we didn't own the training ground so wasn't thrown in the deal. In summary they bought a money losing business that's about as attractive to sell as a fart in a lift!
I genuinely fancy us to get automatic promotion next season
The ideal in football would be for every club to be fan owned, if possible. With that not being sustainable, RC buying was about the best possible outcome, especially as the Trust is still part of the ownership structure.
The big test if we ever properly struggle owing to the vagaries of the sport. Brits can be philosophical about failures, utilizing gallows humour and patiently waiting for the eventual rebound. But losing is a dirty word to Americans.
@Shev How do the Detroit Lions manage?
By participating in a sport with no relegation!