Message for John Fenty

Quoted from MeanwoodMariner

Some thought provoking points apart from this one:


The reason for the debt is completely irrelevant. The "business" owes that money, end of story. Potential investors either accept that or don't buy the club.

You are effectively asking Fenty to give the club £3m for nothing in return. You may feel he should because it's all his fault. I'm guessing he disagrees!

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Bit late with your message Pete, GYFR was online about an hour ago!

Quoted from grimsby pete

What did he say ?

Quoted from MuddyWaters

He didn't say owt, just noticed he was browsing when I logged in!

Quoted from Quagmire

The debt has been primarily accrued over the years because of JF's policy of deciding to spend way above the clubs income level on the playing budget.

Over his entire tenure he has had the ability to either increase or decrease the deficit depending on what he has allowed managers to spend in terms of wages.

The biggest cost of most businesses is wages - and ultimately he can control that.

He knows, or should know, the likely income of the club over a season plus the likely fixed costs.  The only variable left, and one that he is in full control of, is the playing budget.

It's not like he has suddenly been hit by a massive, unexpected bill that he has had to help the club out.  He can control the level of money that he needs to put into the club.

He could decide to give the manager a playing budget of 200% of income and then at the end of the season let everybody know how much money he has had to put into the club to 'keep it going'.  Then out come the pro JF brigade telling everyone who is critical of his tenure that without him there wouldn't be a club.  It's a load of rubbish, he's decided to put that money in to the club because he has decided to make the playing budget x% of the predicted income.

Add in all the money the club has wasted on paying managers/players off, plus other things such as going to court over Scott & Hurst etc and, IMO, I can understand why any potential investor in the club wouldn't want to pay that money back to him.

Why should anyone hand that money over when they haven't been involved in making those decisions that have cost the club that money???

I would also argue that the club could even have been better off without his 'input', after all where has all of that money got us?  

If you don't have that safety net of that money you tend to make better decisions.  You don't hand out 3 year deals to players and then pay them off a few months later.  You probably spend more time and energy attempting to increase income in order to pay for things.  You don't go to court over a mangerial appointment knowing you might be found out.  You don't allow the manager to bring another 4 players in in January, move some out if you want some in.  You dont' allow the manager to go out and bring another defender in on loan when we are crying out for some attacking intent, you use the defensive youth players you have given pro contracts to plug the defensive gap.

As for the idea that there is nobody else out there, Mike Parker is proof of someone being out there, who nobody had even heard of until it was announced, with money who wanted to be involved with the club - who knows how many more would show their hands if JF was to walk away.

Notwithstanding the fact that if we had someone who knew what they were doing running the club the 'need' for this additional funding might not be necessary, there's a number of clubs outperforming us, being supported by far less fans, generating less income, they can do it, why can't we?

Reading some of the pro JF posts on here you would think that the club generates zero income.

Quoted from 1mickylyons

Did JF rack up £3M of debt or did he inherit a £2m debt from the ITV Digital fiasco? In terms of how the Club is run from a financial point of view most of the decisions the board make seem fairly sensible and they don't throw money around like confetti which is good. I know it isn`t my money but I would walk away and write the debt of personally then the problem is no longer mine and my conscience would be clear I did the best I could but accept it wasnt good enough.However I would much rather JF got in a high profile Manager and dangled a performance related contract with hordes of add ons for success this is very attainable and this Season is the best chance Town have had of a Promotion from this League due to the lack of opposition.

Quoted from Marinerz93

getyourfactsright should be the man to divulge those figures.

ITV digital fiasco - The Club paid that back in full in agreed instalments negotiated by the board / JF.  

At the same time as paying back the tax debt we also paid back JF over 4 seasons in instalments for paying off Ramsden who it is alleged was going to liquidate the club to get his money back.

At the same time the club was paying off managers and players the board had sacked and the shortfall in money in bringing in new managers and players had to be funded / loaned by the board.

Quoted from cleethorpes_mariner

Not sure this is totally correct

ITV digital money was spent in advance by the pervious board, when It did not arrive JF ended up paying the shortfall due to the previous board walking and demanding either  their money back or bankruptcy.
The only deal to repay debts was the tax bill and a very large overdraft.
unfortunately even if JF was to itemise where the 3 mil had gone no one on here would believe him so why would he bother.