Consultants & External Investment

Now Fenty and Marley have mentioned this a few times publically, and also in the notorious Fenty Tapes, but I’d like to know a bit more about this process where the club paid the best part of £20k for consultants to identify external investment opportunities, and then came back with absolutely nothing.

Marley puts this squarely down to the fans, stating a couple of times how “high net worth individuals” came back to him asking why they’d put themselves through the excrement that the fans give. Is that really the reason why people won’t invest, or is there a bigger gap that needs bridging?

Ignoring debts to directors, there MUST be something that the consultants came back to the club with which would make the club a more attractive investment, otherwise have we just forked out twenty grand for someone to fire off a load of emails and get no replies?

What would make people WANT to invest in the club, what are we doing to get the club into that position and are we building on our current strengths?

The issue of owners and directors of football clubs getting abuse from fans is not unique to gtfc.

There are many examples of where investors have not gone ahead and bought clubs because they do not want to get abuse of themselves and their families.

Seems to me that there are only two reasons why anybody would want to own and run a club:

1. To make money
2. Because of a longtime deep interest in the club.

Don't think#1 applies to gtfc.
#2 not sure that there are enough people around with the money to take it on.

Does that just leave Fenty, or is there anyone else out there?

I think you can add to that list:

3. Vanity ownership for billionaires;

You obviously haven’t worked with any consultants before.

£20,000 won’t get you very far at all. It’s about four days worth of day rate for a junior, middle manager at one of the big accountancy firm’s consulting arms.

They said it got them a lead with an American franchise and brought about Extreme but that’s about it. I’m sure there’s probably a PowerPoint somewhere but not sure why they would share that openly.

They'll have done an initial meeting with Fenty, Marley and co where they'll have asked them what they thought the major block to investment was. Having been told it was the fact the fans were a bunch of ungrateful sharp objects they'll have taken their £20k, pottered around for a few days and done a snazzy presentation that said the biggest problem is indeed the fact the fans are ungrateful sharp objects.

Quoted from ska face

Now Fenty and Marley have mentioned this a few times publically, and also in the notorious Fenty Tapes, but I’d like to know a bit more about this process where the club paid the best part of £20k for consultants to identify external investment opportunities, and then came back with absolutely nothing.

Marley puts this squarely down to the fans, stating a couple of times how “high net worth individuals” came back to him asking why they’d put themselves through the excrement that the fans give. Is that really the reason why people won’t invest, or is there a bigger gap that needs bridging?

Ignoring debts to directors, there MUST be something that the consultants came back to the club with which would make the club a more attractive investment, otherwise have we just forked out twenty grand for someone to fire off a load of emails and get no replies?

What would make people WANT to invest in the club, what are we doing to get the club into that position and are we building on our current strengths?

And we are supposed to believe that?  Shut up!!  

I'm not party to whatever discussions may have taken place but if an unlikely someone were to come along prepared to invest, why would they automatically assume that we, the fans, would be on their backs?

They would be making an investment to try and turn things around which if anything would allow for positivity for the fans and not just to continue with a depressing downward spiral

We are one of 24 clubs in League 2 and there is no divine right for any investor to expect success of course, but I am pretty sure when the investors at Lincoln came along there was probably apathy and mistrust amongst their fans, but with an injection of funds and enthusiasm, their objectives are probably being more than met

It would be a risk for anyone to come and invest in Town but if they are turned off before they know the outcome, citing fan abuse as a reason not to proceed, then imho they are not the right people to come in and try to take us forward

What those American investors need is a football club where the fans don't care if you totally intercourse everything up.

Still good news that they didn't have an issue with the debts, the dilapidated ground, the lack of assets and the lack of infrastructure and professionalism.

Quoted from IlkleyMariner

The issue of owners and directors of football clubs getting abuse from fans is not unique to gtfc.

There are many examples of where investors have not gone ahead and bought clubs because they do not want to get abuse of themselves and their families.

Seems to me that there are only two reasons why anybody would want to own and run a club:

1. To make money
2. Because of a longtime deep interest in the club.

Don't think#1 applies to gtfc.
#2 not sure that there are enough people around with the money to take it on.

Does that just leave Fenty, or is there anyone else out there?

There are HNW out there that are coming to the stage of their lives where they want to get involved in something they enjoy and have a far greater desire to leave a long lasting legacy on this planet, rather than worry about losing an insignificant proportion of a wealth that could see them in luxury for another 100 lifetimes..

I think if an investor or investment firm were indeed considering a football club, they would look at potential and not current status. Our potential way outweighs our status presently, we have the fanbase to achieve much better attendances than presently attending. Mainly due to the current board and their non-ability to run a football club and engage with their biggest investor (us the fans ) in a positive and sincere way. Any potential investor worth their salt would know what can be achieved if managed in the correct way.

And I didn't need £20,000 to tell Mr Marley that.