[Archived] Rovers Might Have Been Sold?

[Pete1981]

I asked Paul Plunkett if the MOU was signed yesterday and hes replied yes signed, but not exclusive. It means Shah can look at the books too

[deryck guyler's spoon]

There is no negativity in my post. I have a different point of view from you, sadly you have demonstrated on numerous occassions you seem have problems with tolerating different views.

I'd be interested to learn from anyone the following:

How will the £300m investment be repaid - including a profit as this is implicit in an investment

What will be the size of the wage bill and how will this be funded? Bear in mind please JW is on record as saying Rovers ALREADY have to offer higher wages to attract players

How much will the 45,000 seat stadium cost?

Where will the additional 20,000 fans come from?

How is Ewood to be expanded to that level?

If we are to be title contenders again where will the money come from? This means challenging Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, City and Spurs at the very least. an extra 20,000 fans aren't going to turn up as we challenge for a Europa league spot.

All we have heard is how wonderful it will be. I have great difficulty in believing much of this, and frankly 45,000 capacity stadium just confirms it for me

If you have a better option Paul then perhaps you should let The Trust know. Dont bother suggesting that they stay on though.

[Balwer]

I asked Paul Plunkett if the MOU was signed yesterday and hes replied yes signed, but not exclusive. It means Shah can look at the books too

Ahh so you must be the other person he was replying to then petew27

[Pete1981]

Ahh so you must be the other person he was replying to then petew27

Yep thats me

[budha]

What will be the size of the wage bill and how will this be funded? Bear in mind please JW is on record as saying Rovers ALREADY have to offer higher wages to attract players

Surely the circa £20M/yr FOR players would include the extra salaries too. One £10M player with £50k/w for 4 years or two £3M players for £35k/w for 4 years..

[thenodrog]

Lancashire United's one and only fan emerges from his 1980s bunker.

Morning.

Quite right too Jim. One of the initial ways forward by the more progressive thinkers obviously is to attract more support from the Morth West. I thought it would be easier from integrating the committed football public that already existed than in integrating this area's immigrant population. The principle is exactly the same.

btw..... Before the Walker Trust decided to bale out exactly where did you think we could get more supporters from Jim? Or are you just one of those useless types that sits on their hands looking lost and doing nowt?

[Kelbo]

Every corner has the same sized open space. You will normally only see that and the Darwen End equivalent which is disguised by the big screen.

Reasons for resiting the telly camera's above the Riverside have been gone over many times by the technical and finacial experts but it appears the marketing experts have never been consulted.

The reason the corners are left open is quite simple, Jack Walker got specialists on turf and ground maintenance involved in the building of the stadium and was told that the open areas allow air to the pitch, note, Man U where the areas are covered, has resulted in the turf looking like a paddy field at times!!

[47er]

There is no negativity in my post. I have a different point of view from you, sadly you have demonstrated on numerous occassions you seem have problems with tolerating different views.

I'd be interested to learn from anyone the following:

How will the £300m investment be repaid - including a profit as this is implicit in an investment

What will be the size of the wage bill and how will this be funded? Bear in mind please JW is on record as saying Rovers ALREADY have to offer higher wages to attract players

How much will the 45,000 seat stadium cost?

Where will the additional 20,000 fans come from?

How is Ewood to be expanded to that level?

If we are to be title contenders again where will the money come from? This means challenging Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, City and Spurs at the very least. an extra 20,000 fans aren't going to turn up as we challenge for a Europa league spot.

All we have heard is how wonderful it will be. I have great difficulty in believing much of this, and frankly 45,000 capacity stadium just confirms it for me

If your post has no negativity then the word has no meaning. Anyway to move on:

I'm tolerant of your views and your right to express them and that's why that I asked you to expand on them. Instead you've simply continued to pour cold water on the proposed takeover as you did before.

So I'll ask you again---what do you want to happen? If your doubts about this takeover are so strong, what do you want instead?

[philipl]

He said 40,000 to 45,000 and possible developments on land around Ewood.

Let's hold fire on all this "too big" and would never fill it" stuff as we haven't got any inkling yet of what the marketing and commercial plans are.

The club is situated right by a motorway and railway and there is a vast amount of under-developed/derelict land close by so there could be some ambitious ideas- the space and communications could be easily developed using the resources WGA have got.

One thing Darmon won't have been hired to do is come up with a new sort of half-time draw. If there are to be major commercialising plans, then Darmon has the sort of contacts and reach that nobody currently involved with Rovers has. I am sure he has looked across the Channel at the PL and shaken his head in disbelief at how the PL has grown so big whilst doing so many things so badly.

Some of you will remember I was around the edges of doing things with Juventus when they visited Malta. The marketing and commercialising there was totally different from Rovers'.

I am not saying Rovers' marketing is poor- in fact it is very productive given the resources the club is currently able to work with. But if Ahsen Ali Syed wants to see Rovers positioned in new markets, then different tool sets are needed and are ones that many Rovers supporters will not be familiar with.

[thenodrog]

There is no negativity in my post. I have a different point of view from you, sadly you have demonstrated on numerous occassions you seem have problems with tolerating different views.

I'd be interested to learn from anyone the following:

How will the £300m investment be repaid - including a profit as this is implicit in an investment

What will be the size of the wage bill and how will this be funded? Bear in mind please JW is on record as saying Rovers ALREADY have to offer higher wages to attract players

How much will the 45,000 seat stadium cost?

Where will the additional 20,000 fans come from?

How is Ewood to be expanded to that level?

If we are to be title contenders again where will the money come from? This means challenging Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, City and Spurs at the very least. an extra 20,000 fans aren't going to turn up as we challenge for a Europa league spot.

All we have heard is how wonderful it will be. I have great difficulty in believing much of this, and frankly 45,000 capacity stadium just confirms it for me

The return of Marvin the Paranoid Android!

Just need to scratch the surface and old Black Dog returns eh Paul? Don't worry whilst not necessarily sharing your pessimism I share your concerns. Frothy uncontainable excitement from our in house Glee Clubbers is not my barrow either.

[Majiball]

Whilst the commercial team are going through the books I presume that the marketing team are looking at a blank piece of paper. If they could get the most famous footballer in the world to turn out in blue and white halves for half a season, it would raise the profile of Blackburn Rovers higher and faster than the next ten marketing initiatives.

The ageing superstar would be an archetypal Allardyce signing. He is still one of the best strikers of a dead ball. The manager would have every set piece from the right pinged into the box, in typical Allargyce fashion.

He and his wife love money and any controversey that increases their celebrity.

A four month block booking of the bridal suite at Stanley House and even the Walkers' get a slice of the action.

Everyone's a winner! Happy days.

You aren't seriously suggesting signing Beckham??? What a ludicrous idea only a madman would suggest that!!!

No its still not right Maji, you rectified the 6mill bit, but then you still have the bit of not having spent that amount in the last 5 years

Sorry Icers I meant the part I quoted, as I had completely over looked and forgotten about Kalinic, oh dear.

[thenodrog]

The reason the corners are left open is quite simple, Jack Walker got specialists on turf and ground maintenance involved in the building of the stadium and was told that the open areas allow air to the pitch, note, Man U where the areas are covered, has resulted in the turf looking like a paddy field at times!!

Correct, but the nprofile of the club would still be raised by re-siting the camera's to the Riverside. The only possibly valid argument that I have heard being the direction of the sun light.

[Iceman]

You aren't seriously suggesting signing Beckham??? What a ludicrous idea only a madman would suggest that!!!

Sorry Icers I meant the part I quoted, as I had completely over looked and forgotten about Kalinic, oh dear.

No worries mate, i can understand that you might have had a couple of drinks last night, upon hearing whats happening at the moment All this excitement and Billions being mentioned at Rovers, has made you forget about the small amount of 6mill we spent on Kalinic. It can happen to the best of us

[PAFELL]

On the WGA numbers.

Syed's moneys for its investment pool are being transferred in tranches- that is why you are seeing various numbers $375m, $1bn, $2bn, $7bn, $8bn. Shifting that amount of "real" wealth (as opposed to banker fantasy money) takes time and it also makes sense to take it steadily to see that the team/locations/model actually works. The 90% ownership masks the reality that it is in fact all his own money as I understand it.

For me the key statement yesterday came from the Irish builder Mr McCabe whose business received E300m in a debt/equity infusion who simply said "Syed is the real deal".

Two words of caution (please note I am not being against anything):

- do we know if the memorandum of understanding was actually signed yesterday?

- in Premier League terms, £300m over 15 years is seed funding and no more. This is not a return to Jack and Kenny buying a different player every day and the fans having the luxury of booing a current England international (Jeff Thomas) playing for the opposition because they don't fancy him being bought by Rovers.

The way I see things, the present Rovers team set-up is very close to being very good. Spotting and signing the right new Tugay and the right new Roque Santa Cruz will put us into real Cup winning and 5th place finish contention.

Everything is about how people are perceived. I bet that yesterday, the phones rang off the hooks with agents trying to place their players with Rovers whereas before the same agents were not taking calls from Rovers. One benefit Syed will have received from yesterday is that his WGA has suddenly become one of the most famous investment vehicles in the world and I bet they are swamped with investment propositions and CVs this morning- to that extent phase 1 of the reason for buying Rovers has already been achieved and all he's done is paid for six people to have a weekend in Blackburn!

I suppose the best advert for an individuals business is owning a premiership football club. Everytime the club is mentioned, even match reports printed around the world, would be advertisment for the owners business.

They wouldn't even need to sponsor shirts or a stand etc, just being the owner. Though I wonder if the stadium would be renamed to the WGA STADIUM or something simular, more advertisment.

[Mike Graham]

He wants to build a stadium that holds 45000.

From the LT, all yesterdays events.

he must be bonkers....obviously not very knowledgable about the Blackburn TTWA

[thenodrog]

You aren't seriously suggesting signing Beckham??? What a ludicrous idea only a madman would suggest that!!!

Let the scales fall from your eyes Maj. You need to stop thinking football and think more like a marketeer.

Granted Beckhams always been over rated as a player but don't diss his influence out of hand. Rem we signed the elderly Archibald and Ardilles and tried seriously hard to sign Gary Linekar to signal the intentions of the club to the nation and raise it's profile.

Beckham for whatever reason commands the front and back pages the world over, and they appear to love him in Asia too. He is 'ambassador' to both the Olympics and the WC bid and attracts publicity like moths to a flame. How much do you think such world wide publicity and air time would cost on the open market?

[koi]

There is no negativity in my post. I have a different point of view from you, sadly you have demonstrated on numerous occassions you seem have problems with tolerating different views.

I'd be interested to learn from anyone the following:

How will the £300m investment be repaid - including a profit as this is implicit in an investment

What will be the size of the wage bill and how will this be funded? Bear in mind please JW is on record as saying Rovers ALREADY have to offer higher wages to attract players

How much will the 45,000 seat stadium cost?

Where will the additional 20,000 fans come from?

How is Ewood to be expanded to that level?

If we are to be title contenders again where will the money come from? This means challenging Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool, City and Spurs at the very least. an extra 20,000 fans aren't going to turn up as we challenge for a Europa league spot.

All we have heard is how wonderful it will be. I have great difficulty in believing much of this, and frankly 45,000 capacity stadium just confirms it for me

No offence but this guy and his family have made billions, you don't achieve that success by naval gazing. I would suggest that he and his team are very capable at achieving their goals. There's always a bigger picture but most cannot see it and quite clearly Syed can see the bigger picture at Rovers.

[chilly]

Finally I can post replies!!!

People who are saying that we will never fill a 45000 seat stadium as we didnt when we won the premier league are thinking wrong.

Firstly although it was the height of our success it wasn't much after our promotion. We rose very quickly from lower divisions to prem title contenders and dropped even quicker as "title contenders" hence not enough time was given for people to start supporting and attending games.

With investment if we start to become regular top 6 contenders, have good runs in the domestic and european cups, better tv and marketing exposure then we'll find more interest in our club and more support causing attendance to rise significantly.

Eg,

Chelsea in the early 90's when they were finishing 11-14th their attendance was 18-19k

in the late 90's to early 2000 once Chelsea had become established top 6 contenders (not yet won prem league nor come runners up) their attendance practically doubled to 33-38k.

[daveoftherovers]

Apologies if this has been posted before, but I got sent this link by the guy that wrote it, via a Rover Linked In Group and that it might be beneficial:

http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/north-west/37718-focus-club-jack-built

[sjsbrfc]

He wants to build a stadium that holds 45000.

From the LT, all yesterdays events.

If you build it they will come

[joey_big_nose]

I would support the idea of taking things really slowly. Defence needs no new signings, get in one quality creative midfielder and one first rate striker. Aim for a finish between 12th and 8th this season. Look to sign in Jan first a few rate young talents who could get on the bench in the 2011/2012. Aim for 10th to 6th in that season, try to get one of the talents to break into being a major player. Bring in two more experienced and quality signings over the summer. Look for 8th to 4th in 2012. Never spend more than six or seven million on a player - ideally spend much less - and be willing to sell for big money. And just keep this going cyclically, slowly improving the squad.

The team we should be looking at is Everton - try to emulate what has happend at Goodison over the last six or seven years and improve on it, but build for the long term.

What will burn us is if we raise expectations too high, and if we start throwing money away after average players like West Ham have done and Stoke are doing now. We want to allow for the possibility of having an excellent season and getting into the CL or a cup final, but if we expect it then it is a route to disaster imo.

And I am wary about Villa as an example because they spent too heavily in my opinion. The likes of Young were over priced if good players.

Very wary about Syeds comments about the CL and expanding the stadium. Not a prudent approach in my opinion.

[PAFELL]

Daily Telegraph article largely re-cycles what they have said before

They do say it is not known whether the Memorandum of Understanding was signed or not.

At least the club will be out of debt. How would the new ownership rules efc the possible new Rovers situation. as well as qualification for the european competitions. Is the there not some rule about entering and debt? If that is the case Rovers could qualify sooner rather than later.

[DP]

40,000 fans per week paying an average of 15 quid, or 25,000 per week paying 35 quid?

Well, there is no correct answer there as unless we're playing ManUre every week, neither is possible.

Maybe in 10 - 15 years time? I dunno.

Redbuilding the Riverside would be essential as far as I'm concerned, but not necessarily to massively increase the capacity. The reason Pompey were hit so hard is that nothing was invested which had any sustainable value. When you're left with nothing but debt and a team of half-arsed players on riddiculous wages there's nothing to offer out there for new investors.

If our new investor (whoever it may be) is serious about being 'in it for the long run' then surely rebuilding one stand must be on their list of priorities as well.

Take time building it I say too. A little on pitch success and we might finally test the hunger of the local football fans if there's a threat tickets will be hard to come by with only 25k capacity for best part of a season.

[tony gale's mic]

With investment if we start to become regular top 6 contenders, have good runs in the domestic and european cups, better tv and marketing exposure then we'll find more interest in our club and more support causing attendance to rise significantly.

Eg,

Chelsea in the early 90's when they were finishing 11-14th their attendance was 18-19k

in the late 90's to early 2000 once Chelsea had become established top 6 contenders (not yet won prem league nor come runners up) their attendance practically doubled to 33-38k.

Chelsea have a massive catchment area which extends throughout London and into the Home Counties.

We don't.

We need to have a season of selling out our ground before we even consider it.

[chilly]

Why is no-one noticing that Ahsan's first aim is to secure our premiership status, thats the only aim he's set for us so far in his 1st "5yr phase". Nowhere is he mentioning going gung ho and trying to buy the title in one season. His first aim is to make us stable, after that he slowly wants to build us over 15 years into a champions league team.

So stop with all the posts about not wanting to be man city and "100mill wont win us the prem,he'll be disappointed and leave us in the lurch" etc etc..100mill is there to make us a stable premiership team. Read what he's saying before posting all the pointless negativity.