Blackburn End: Waggott Out

[Aqualung]

How thoroughly depressing. 

Shit owners, shit CEO and absolutely nothing to look forward to. 

Thread bare and a tired squad and Leeds up next. 

Won't surprise me if they turned off the undersoil heating next. 

[glen9mullan]

Just now, wilsdenrover said:

Thank you.

Did they have a date for going to court?

This is going to be a long drawn put thing, only thing we can guarantee is money will be signed off until end of season, so not expecting restrictions to be lifted any time soon

[wilsdenrover]

2 minutes ago, glen9mullan said:

This is going to be a long drawn put thing, only thing we can guarantee is money will be signed off until end of season, so not expecting restrictions to be lifted any time soon

Sorry I should have been clearer.

A date for going to court to get the next transfer of funds cleared (not to get the restrictions lifted)

[Gav]

8 minutes ago, Aqualung said:

How thoroughly depressing. 

Shit owners, shit CEO and absolutely nothing to look forward to. 

The side are playing some of the best football we have seen for a while. The support is tremendous and we have a manager who actually gives a toss.

Whilst I understand the sentiment Aqua, it’s not all bad.

[Oldgregg86]

3 minutes ago, Gav said:

The side are playing some of the best football we have seen for a while. The support is tremendous and we have a manager who actually gives a toss.

Whilst I understand the sentiment Aqua, it’s not all bad.

It’s thoroughly depressing because of all the above. How often do the stars align in football at a club like ours

[Aqualung]

13 minutes ago, Gav said:

The side are playing some of the best football we have seen for a while. The support is tremendous and we have a manager who actually gives a toss.

Whilst I understand the sentiment Aqua, it’s not all bad.

I agree with the style of football and I think JDT is great. 

But it's only temporary imho. We are being killed by a death by a thousand cuts and next season will be the most important in our history I reckon. 

Our loans will go back to their parent clubs, our better academy players will be sold and the money unlikely to be re invested. And JDT will leave to manage Forest Green fucking Rovers! 

Im enjoying the football mate, I really am but I cant see it lasting. 

What's the betting we receive a nice Xmas present from Waggot? 

[tomphil]

2 hours ago, wilsdenrover said:

Regarding points 4 and 5.

If we sell a player, what’s to stop the Indian court saying that money should be used to pay the bills (and therefore refusing to sanction more funds being sent over)?

Well that's been happening since day dot anyway so they wouldn't need to order it, it's already how we operate.

[roversfan99]

1 hour ago, Aqualung said:

I agree with the style of football and I think JDT is great. 

But it's only temporary imho. We are being killed by a death by a thousand cuts and next season will be the most important in our history I reckon. 

Our loans will go back to their parent clubs, our better academy players will be sold and the money unlikely to be re invested. And JDT will leave to manage Forest Green fucking Rovers! 

Im enjoying the football mate, I really am but I cant see it lasting. 

What's the betting we receive a nice Xmas present from Waggot? 

It feels even more frustrating that when we have such an exciting manager and a few of the younger players seem to have kicked on, that Venkys simultaneously have doubled down on their budget cutting to the point that we arent going to be competitive over 46 games. The team under Tomasson could have been but the squad isnt.

This "situation" over in India seems all very peculiar to me. Its never been explicitly explained, the owners havent had the decency to clarify and those underneath still seem in the dark trying to maintain the image of everyone working together in full understanding but with very little answers. It seems from the meeting that its almost accepted that Tomasson will leave when he can.

[Mike Graham]

7 hours ago, wilsdenrover said:

Sorry I should have been clearer.

A date for going to court to get the next transfer of funds cleared (not to get the restrictions lifted)

January.

[Mattyblue]

So third January in a row then that this dysfunctional operation will torpedo any chance of top 6.

With yet another record PL TV deal signed (which, of course, exponentially started rising in value as soon as we were relegated). We will certainly look back at these last three seasons as the biggest of all the big missed opportunities we’ve had in this sorry decade.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Mattyblue

[philipl]

Huge thanks to Glen and Mark for having the meeting with Steve Waggott and for putting such direct well thought through questions.

The way it reads is that Steve Waggott responded in kind with direct clear answers- is that the case or good editing after clearing waffle?

The requirement to account in detail for the moneys spent to the Indian Courts is not surprising but an indication that the Rao family were far from out of trouble when the meeting happened. The January transfer situation is a kick in the guts. 

 

 

[glen9mullan]

34 minutes ago, philipl said:

Huge thanks to Glen and Mark for having the meeting with Steve Waggott and for putting such direct well thought through questions.

The way it reads is that Steve Waggott responded in kind with direct clear answers- is that the case or good editing after clearing waffle?

The requirement to account in detail for the moneys spent to the Indian Courts is not surprising but an indication that the Rao family were far from out of trouble when the meeting happened. The January transfer situation is a kick in the guts. 

 

 

In fairness he answered in detail all points,

I've opted to put the points down brief, or I'd needed two pages

[wilsdenrover]

8 hours ago, tomphil said:

Well that's been happening since day dot anyway so they wouldn't need to order it, it's already how we operate.

I’m not sure that’s quite true - whilst we may have always needed to generate our own transfer funds I don’t think we’ve had to sell in order to pay the bills.

[wilsdenrover]

1 hour ago, Mike Graham said:

January.

Thank you, did they divulge the exact date even if you’re not able to reveal it?

[glen9mullan]

30 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

Thank you, did they divulge the exact date even if you’re not able to reveal it?

List of bills have been sent, and should be forthcoming pretty quickly 

[tomphil]

48 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

I’m not sure that’s quite true - whilst we may have always needed to generate our own transfer funds I don’t think we’ve had to sell in order to pay the bills.

No obviously not, i mean we didn't sell 30 million worth of players in a short time then not make a cash signing for 2 years -c200k-.getting relegated in the process.

Nor did we sell two players this summer for a combined 4.5 million.

Edited December 5, 2023 by tomphil

[tomphil]

He says the club isn't under investigation and that is good but it's not actually the club being under suspicion of miss appropriated funds.

It's the money leaving VH and where it actually all goes whilst under the guise of being 100% for football club operations.

If they are pouring over every transfer of money over the last decade and following its trail it will take a while.  It might just uncover a skeleton or two as well.

[phili]

Thanks Glen and Mark for taking the time to do this.

I do have a quick question in that something doesn't add up funding wise. Normally Venky's send through £20m a season to keep us running.

So far this season we have received an upfront payment of the sponsorship of around £2m, we have received around £11m from the court order, £4m from transfers, reduced the wage budget by about £3-4m for the season and however much we received from the training ground loan. This should be more than enough to see us through to the end of the season, as I get well over £20m from these events.

So would like to know why we need another trip to the high court for the second half of the season, it sort of hints we have built up a lot of unpaid bills up until October that we hadn't paid and had bigger cashflow problems than we thought we had.

[lraC]

That's a brilliant post by Glen and I admire them for attending the meeting and for getting the answers they did.

I also had a meeting with Waggott, which I think was earlier the same day. Mine lasted for about an hour and I found him to be a bit like a politician, padding out answers and maybe avoiding a couple too.

I did not get anything like the amount of information that Glen and Mark did, but can point out a couple of contradictions he gave to them in his answers compared to mine.

He made out that the funding re received, keeps us afloat until February and suggested that the court had now set a precedent and therefore would be unlikely to not allow future funding. he did got to great lengths too, in suggesting how he had to provide a statement for all outstanding commitments and had to provide a precise breakdown of exactly what the funding was for.

I pressed very hard about fans being priced out of buying season tickets and suggested a HUGE marketing plan was put in place for the 150th anniversary, suggesting a 20% cut in season ticket prices and a big drive to get lapsed season ticket holders to return. He did not like the suggestion of the drop in prices.

I also put it to him, that I believe Venky's have something to hide and that is the reason they remain. He refuted that and would not be drawn into a debate about the initial takeover and my suggestion that the fall from the premier league was a managed catastrophe. He insisted that Venky's are proud people and remained in situ for that reason, more than anything else. I did suggest that now was the perfect tine for them to put the club up for sale and bow out gracefully, as they have the much publicised problems now with the illegal payment from 2010 to date story and on going problems and adverse publicity, that is clearly bringing. They have no way of getting back, what they have put in, so why not put the cub up for sale now and cut their losses. Who in their right mind would carry on under these circumstances?

One other thing to mention was that he almost seemed resigned to losing JDT and I am now even more convinced that there is a rift between them that cannot be repaired. 

I would much rather SWAG was given his notice now than JDT.

[tomphil]

I was thinking the sums seem unusually excessive especially at a time we've allegedly reduced the wage bill a bit, not spent significant fees, have some transfer income etc.

Although if they haven't sent any since last Jan apart from the sponsorship then the overdraft is probably busting at the seams.

Edited December 5, 2023 by tomphil

[Mattyblue]

‘Resigned to losing him’. Ah well, what you gonna’ do. 🤷‍♂️

Pathetic from a CEO.

[cesus]

Thanks to all who have taken the time to speak to the CEO and report back to us. I dare say most other clubs have local reporters for newspapers who do the same but we don't seem to be so lucky!

[arbitro]

I seem to recall Waggott boasting to the Fans Forum that he had exceeded his financial target with regard to ticket sales. If that is true then he has a financial target to meet rather than a number of season tickets sold. Surely if he wanted to increase the fan base he would be more creative on the pricing and try and attract greater numbers. In my view it's the low hanging fruit again, a malaise that has infected our club and is being allowed to fester.

[Mattyblue]

It’s all transactional to Swag. Very simple equation, he knows he will hit his financial target with 8/9k buying at £400/£500, he can’t be certain that he can still hit it by selling more under £300.

So why take a risk? More bums on seats? Better atmosphere? Why does he care about that? Sounds like too much hard work, think of the extra stewards and cleaners!

[Wheelton Blue]

7 minutes ago, Mattyblue said:

It’s all transactional to Swag. Very simple equation, he knows he will hit his financial target with 8/9k buying at £400/£500, he can’t be certain that he can still hit it by selling more under £300.

So why take a risk? More bums on seats? Better atmosphere? Why does he care about that? Sounds like too much hard work, think of the extra stewards and cleaners!

Absolutely this in a nutshell.