by rhroyal »
30 Dec 2009 12:59
Here are my views on JM. He must take a portion of the blame and has lost interest in recent years. I can understand why though.
He has lost hope. I reckon he had a clear business model when he took over the club.
Phase 1 - Buy a lowly, messed up football club on the cheap. Achieved
Phase 2 - Stabilize. Ensure survival and put the club in a position to move forward in the future. Achieved. Indeed exceeded in the 1990-95 era, and we were honestly punching above our weight.
Phase 3 - Invest. Build a new stadium, get some decent playing staff and management in. Achieved Due to the years from 1995-2000 this also came with having to recover the damage of TB 1 and 2.
Phase 4 - Reach the promised land. He never planned to be the man to inject the vast money to take us further than that. Achieved.
Phase 5 - Leave the club in a strong financial situation, looking strong in the top flight with bright prospects. Looked like we would achieve this at the end of 06/07.
Phase 6 - Sell for ££££££. Failed.
We were half way through phase 5. We had finished 8th in the Premiership. We had a solid financial base. We had planning permission approved for 38,000. Yet we never got the buyer Madejski expected. He is a businessman, he didn't want to throw needless money at a football club. All of his work for this club had the intention of selling it on at the end for mega bucks to a man who could take us to the next stage.
The model worked for Brum and a couple of other Premiership sides, and to be honest we must have looked like a seriously worthwhile investment at the end of 06/07. Everything up to then had gone to plan for JM.
Then the buyer never came. Then we were relegated. Coppell's fault for not spending? JM's inability to release transfer funds? It barely matters, finding a buyer would have been far harder for JM.
Last season we had a real go at bouncing back but it didn't happen. Now we are where we are. A return to the Premiership looks near impossible without more investment. JM isn't giving us any. He is letting the club run itself. He's not even giving us any more long term, low interest, loans like he has in the past. He just seems to be desperately hoping that somebody comes in for us based upon our reputation from a few years ago.
It was always a risky investment taking us to the Premiership. The risk didn't pay off. He didn't get his buyer. Now he's lost heart. He doesn't want to put any more of his money into our club when a return can't be guaranteed.
If I could talk to JM, I'd tell him that investing and taking the risk again is worth it. A Premiership club is worth 3 or 4 times that of a Championship club, even with our solid financial footing. If we get relegated again, he can write off any hope of getting a sufficient return on what he's put into this club. He must begin investing and risking his money again if he wants to make money out of this club - at the moment he looks more like he is cutting his losses. Obviously with that decision would come the risk of losing even more, I can see his predicament.
The issue is he doesn't seem to want to cut his losses either. He's holding out for his asking price which will see a sufficient return, whilst the value of his club plummets. He either has to risk more of his money and make a good return off the club or he needs to cut his losses and sell up now. He can't have the return without the further risk though - he needs to wake up.