Fan ownership

Is the amount required really insurmountable?

I note even tho willing to sell Fenty has never actually named his price. Bit we know about the 2m loans and let's say it would take another million to rid him completely and allow a good lump left for solvency. That's 3mill.

Well there's 5,000 season ticket holders (for now), then there's the floating or exile regulars who alternate but add another 1 or 2,000 to the gate regular. When we go to Wembley in out lowest ebb we take 10,000.

If those fans could be enthused a la operation promotion and enticed with the option of ridding Fenty and owning their own piece of the club and having a real say then to raise 3m would only cost 10,000 fans 300 quod each. Surely manageable if the desire is there?

There are 3k STH a lot of whom will be kids and a lot will be OAP`s who may not have a lot of spare cash either? The amount is not insurmountable but not naming a price makes life difficult but the Trust would need a fighting fund of at least 500k to get started and would more than likely require 2k people putting in £250 EA. I think the Trust membership stands around 1k and these are the people most likely to cough up so it would have to be cap in hand to local business etc and a massive drive at the remaining fanbase to get the rest.

The club has no net worth. Wasn't it Glasgow rangers that was sold for one pound".   You should be able to buy the club for a similar amount on condition Fenty wipes out his debt. I am sure a new fan owned club could easily raise working capital with a share issue or omething similar.

Quoted from realist

The club has no net worth. Wasn't it Glasgow rangers that was sold for one pound".   You should be able to buy the club for a similar amount on condition Fenty wipes out his debt. I am sure a new fan owned club could easily raise working capital with a share issue or omething similar.

The thing is, if JF wipes out his debt, it would improve the value of the club by that amount (tax payable offset against cumulative losses?) and from memory would then give the club a positive net worth..

There seems to be some fresh start middle ground somewhere going forward..

For what it's worth, I think a figure approaching £5m needs to be raised, a proportion to JF, a £2m injection into cashflow, £1m set aside for contingencies and £1m set aside towards the cost of the new stadium application and sprucing BP up in the meantime to make matchdays a more pleasurable experience.

If someone wanted to push the club further and at a faster rate you could add the £5m to another £25m to cover the cost of the new stadium build and not be fixated on just PP, enabling development cash coming back at a later stage. For example, central area of the town for the stadium and a longer term plan to improve central Grimsby side by side the council with enabling developments exactly where they are needed. So that could be an initial £30m.

£5m or £30m seems way outside the realms of fan ownership, but the lower amount could be a fan involved consortium. We can't just want regime change without having plans for the club to make a great stride forward however tempting it would be to sack Slade on the spot on the first morning..

Not an option unless the club ends up in receivership first.

When you collect whatever sum Fenty needs to clear his loan please don't forget the sum required to buy his shares as well, not much point even in having a pipe-dream about owning the club if Fenty is left with as much as a seat with his name on even less any shares which still give him a say in the running of the club.

His sole involvement when he does finally go (however that happens) can be no more than a season ticket which he pays full price for

I do not think fan answer is the answer.

In any group of people (or fans) it is human nature that a few good people will take the lead and do 80% of the work.

Fans taking ownership of the Club sounds good in principle. Even if this work initially, what happens in the medium and longterm when key leaders are no longer involved?  This can happen for a number of reasons (eg work commitments, personal reasons or too much work involved in running the Club).  

Initial enthusiasm can easily wane over time.  The Trust has had different leaders over time, a commitment that is very laudable but does not come with the much greater responsibilities and stress that running a football club does. We would always need more money to keep things viable.

As well as the initial outlay it would need working capital and a contingency budget,think that is out of fans reach.

Additionally the annual balance sheet in my experience does not convey the whole picture and reality is often very different .

Think a club run by a fans committee would be a nightmare myself,but then again no answer than a very wealth individual taking a benign interest,Must go my unicorn needs feeding.

So much easier to grow a fan owned club from afresh as opposed to taking over a lumbering established club with ongoing contracts, commitments, full time behind the scenes staff etc...
from day one you have a massive commitment to pay existing staff etc and need an overdraft to run through the pre season times were staff still need paying but your income has all but ceased.  That has to be guaranteed somewhere.

Minefield !!

But just imagine, a board composed of an Operations Director, a Director of football, a Business improvement Director, a Communications Director.  All answerable to the shareholders.  Nah, it’ll never happen, far too sensible and structured for GTFC........ or is it?