[Archived] Investment In Our Club

[Hughesy]

I was just wondering when we are planning on trying to generate new income as

We are financially stable I know, however I was wondering. Is the club going to do anything to generate more money for the board to spend on players? Does anyone think we are likely to sell a percentage to an investor or maybe even release shares for the club?

Is Jack Walkers family likely to put anymore money into the club, except for the trust fund that keeps us ticking over?

I just hope that one day we can have abit more money around and be able to compete with the slightly bigger clubs than us.

Also while we are talking about money, I think Blackburn Rovers should increase the price of tickets for away supporters visiting ewood. After all, compared to most our ground is cheap. It could be a source of improving our books slightly.

[1864roverite]

Hughesy your absolutely spot on.

BRFC needs an injection of cash or an outside investor.

I mentioned this in a previous post that it was time to shake the shackles of The Walker Clan (nothing nasty meant by the way) and invite an outside interest, if anything it may give the club a different dimention and keep us beyond the mid table clubs.

its hard to see anyone looking at East Lancs but surely there must be some sort of opportunity for someone.

[stuwilky]

Also while we are talking about money, I think Blackburn Rovers should increase the price of tickets for away supporters visiting ewood. After all, compared to most our ground is cheap. It could be a source of improving our books slightly.

To do this we would have to put prices up for the home fans. It is against Premier League rules to charge away fans more than home fans for equivalent seating.

[Ossydave]

Also while we are talking about money, I think Blackburn Rovers should increase the price of tickets for away supporters visiting ewood. After all, compared to most our ground is cheap. It could be a source of improving our books slightly.

Isn't there a ruling against doing that? I know it's been mentioned on here before.

If we charge away fans more for sitting in the Darwen end then sitting in the Blackburn end would have to cost the same.

[krislu]

BRFC needs an injection of cash or an outside investor.

its hard to see anyone looking at East Lancs but surely there must be some sort of opportunity for someone.

Give me a couple of years, then I shall become the norwegian abramovic and invest heavily in my preeeeecious Blackburn Rovers...

[Hughesy]

Also while we are talking about money, I think Blackburn Rovers should increase the price of tickets for away supporters visiting ewood. After all, compared to most our ground is cheap. It could be a source of improving our books slightly.

Isn't there a ruling against doing that? I know it's been mentioned on here before.

If we charge away fans more for sitting in the Darwen end then sitting in the Blackburn end would have to cost the same.

For the blackburn end it may mean raising the price yes, however most are season ticket holders in the bburn end and therefore it should not effect too many people. You could also keep the family section the same price as now, as you could simply say that its to benifit families, hence why its called the family stand.

That would leave very few tickets in the blackburn end that would actually increase.

As for the away fans. The big clubs will pay the price no matter what. Put an extra £5 a ticket on for the likes of the Mancs

[Hasta]

I suppose the problem with trying to attract an investor is competition. I'm sure the vast majority of clubs in the 1st division (sorry - The Championship) have had similar thread to this.

Anyone with a stupidly large amount of bucks and no loyalty to any club is always going to look for a glamour side such as Abramovic at Chelsea and the Far-Eastern interest in Liverpool. Unfortunately for us anyone with just 'big money' will probably look more towards teams like Derby, Sheff Wednesday or Forest which are 'perceived' as bigger clubs than us.

I fear the only way we can attract investments is by a local or fan such as Jack Walker or by John Williams showing powers of attraction and persuasion beyond what we can hope. In my view, and I hope to god I'm wrong, we should enjoy Premier League football while we can. On our attendances it is only a matter of time before we do fall through the trap door back into the football league and without Jack there is no reason why we should have any better chance of bouncing back than others that have fell before us.

[Hughesy]

They are all seen as 'bigger clubs', however we have been around now in the premier league for most season, and along that time won the league and cup and also finished 2nd.

They may have been 'bigger clubs' in the past but they aint at the present time and they also dont win anything anymore.

Surely we could attract some investors. How about in Norway, is there any rich people there?

[Ossydave]

As for the away fans. The big clubs will pay the price no matter what. Put an extra £5 a ticket on for the likes of the Mancs

You can't do that!!!!!

We won't change the prices for our tickets either so it's just a stupid proposal.

We've been spoon-fed for years now and it's time this club stood on its own 2 feet. Other clubs manage to get by without a cash injection from outside sources, so should we.

[Hughesy]

We've been spoon-fed for years now and it's time this club stood on its own 2 feet.  Other clubs manage to get by without a cash injection from outside sources, so should we.

Other clubs have lower wage bills, bigger stadiums and more supporters.

We are an ambitious club, with ambitious supporters. We dont just want to 'get by'!

Edited September 13, 2004 by Hughesy

[AlanK]

I was just wondering when we are planning on trying to generate new income as

We are financially stable I know, however I was wondering. Is the club going to do anything to generate more money for the board to spend on players?

Because John Williams and co have not been trying to do that have they? Bet it hadn`t even crossed their minds

I was at Swindons `County Ground ` on Saturday. £23 for a standard ticket! The football was dire aswell.

[krislu]

Surely we could attract some investors. How about in Norway, is there any rich people there?

Be patient my friend...

[Ossydave]

We've been spoon-fed for years now and it's time this club stood on its own 2 feet.  Other clubs manage to get by without a cash injection from outside sources, so should we.

Other clubs have lower wage bills, bigger stadiums and more supporters.

We are an ambitious club, with ambitious supporters. We dont just want to 'get by'!

Do they? You've seen our latest wage bill then have you? We've slashed our wage bill this summer as you well know.

We have a 30k stadium, thats easily enough to maintain a good squad of premiership players (Williams himself has said this). The trouble is our 'fans' don't have the desire to fill that stadium and now you think we should increase ticket prices? The mind boggles!

Ambitious supporters? Replace ambitious with 'unrealistic'.

For all the good the Jack Walker era did it unfortunately bred a lot of clueless, ungrateful fans. He wanted the club to stand on its own feet, all the foundations are clearly there already.............

[Bazzathegreat]

Over the past 7 seasons to my knowledge rovers have recieved something like 90million in revinue from sales of players and less than 50% of this money was used in the buying of new players, this gives us over 45mill left over+ the money of uncle Jack. Our wage bill has also been reduced greatly in he past 2 seasons so rovers should be in a good financial state.

However i also have to agree that the club needs an injection of cash to push us forward even a relatively smalll sum of 20mill over 3 yrs would see the club blossom. However the club need the "right kind of investor" that is why we rejected a russian investor last season. As when Roman gets bored of his toy Chelsea will be left to pick up the financial mess he leaves behind ( a wage bill over 60million )

[Hughesy]

So how can we improve our attendances? That flippin question is back

Last season we had the 6th Biggest wage bill. Fair enough we may of reduced that but i should imagine it is still high. Yes we have got rid of the high wages of Yorke and Cole, but we have also brought in more players than we have sold.

The fans will only come back with success and we are unlikely to get that without investment

[krislu]

Since we havent spent much money over the summer, I'm sure that the new manager will have around £1m - £2m to spend when the transfer window re-opens in january.

[BigDom]

I have been told (from a very reliable source who will remain anonymous) that the JW trust fund is now worth a staggering £330 million.....that's a lot of "safeguarding" !!!!!

I know that this money is our for the club's future and that it will stop us from suffering the same fate as Leeds, but what f**king good is that money if we get relegated ?!?

Williams and the trust fund board MUST give the new manager money to spend...Saturday's performance only emphasised this !!!!!

[Hughesy]

I have been told (from a very reliable source who will remain anonymous) that the JW trust fund is now worth a staggering £330 million.....that's a lot of "safeguarding" !!!!!

I know that this money is our for the club's future and that it will stop us from suffering the same fate as Leeds, but what f**king good is that money if we get relegated ?!?

Williams and the trust fund board MUST give the new manager money to spend...Saturday's performance only emphasised this !!!!!

So you believe that basically we have £330 million available? I really cannot see this being correct.

I think that when a new manager comes in he will surely be given a decent sum to spend

[Jimbo]

Ossydave - I have to agree with everything you just said - I really can't understand our current crop of supporters, constantly moaning about how we are doing - even in our pitious state of play at the moment we are playing better & at a higher level than we have for over 75% of the time I have been supporting Rovers

The reason we are doing so well at the moment is because of two people - Jack Walker - bought us Promotion a nice new ground & a team that would win the premiership & Souness who by good management moulded a team from nothing, that won promotion, a cup & two seasons in Europe.

I'd like to be wrong but I'm sure I won't see either of these performances emulated again in my lifetime - we are a small town club that can't even sell out against Manure - what hope have we of challenging the big boys

My biggest worries are that over ambition will drive us into a situation where we either sell our soul to a speculator, like David Lloyd & Hull, a PLC like Spurs or end up mortgaged up to the hilt like Leeds or Citeh - either way the club would no longer the club of the supporters, but the plaything of someone else.

All I can say is enjoy Rovers playing at the highest level while you can - It's not going to last for ever & the departure of Souness says it all to me - He realised that the club is going nowhere, not with the current set of fans anyway

[Roaming Rover]

Pre Season we heard rumours of the club having £10 - £15 mil to spend. This, it seemed was not true. I'm not saying we have that much to spend but if Souness was living on borrowed time and had 3 or 4 games to save his job, would the board give him large sums of money to spend during the summer, especially after losing money on Grabbi and to a point Cole and Yorke???

I think the club will give the new manager money to spend (don't have a clue how much), but i'd think they would need to offer a new manager some money to attract them to Rovers.

[promoted2001]

I think that to fill the stadium we need to be fighting for a uefa cup place. Things are bad when you cant fill your stadium when man u are in town. I still say that we should give big teams like liverpool, arsenal, chelsea and newcastle the riverside stand and move people into other areas. Then we will have a sell-out for the first time in ages. Although that will spark controversy.

Look on the bright side, we're one of the cheapest teams to watch. I only paid 230 quid for my season ticket (ok it was a young adult one). My mate who supports west ham says they charge over 600 quid for theirs and dont even get me started on man utd's season ticket. You need a new mortgage to pay for that.

The reason we have a slightly weaker team all goes down to the attendances. We just cant afford to pay big wages because then we'll be in trouble, especially if we went down to the championship. We need to hope our next manager can generate success or this club will become the yearly relegation struggler.

[BigDom]

I have been told (from a very reliable source who will remain anonymous) that the JW trust fund is now worth a staggering £330 million.....that's a lot of "safeguarding" !!!!!

I know that this money is our for the club's future and that it will stop us from suffering the same fate as Leeds, but what f**king good is that money if we get relegated ?!?

Williams and the trust fund board MUST give the new manager money to spend...Saturday's performance only emphasised this !!!!!

So you believe that basically we have £330 million available? I really cannot see this being correct.

I think that when a new manager comes in he will surely be given a decent sum to spend

I was told that £330 million was in the JW trust fund.....how much of that money is for Rovers I couldn't say..as I understand it, this money is for the various different interests that our sadly missed leader had while he was alive....and so even if only £30million of that was for the Rovers, then it must be made available before it is too late !!!

[Jan]

the departure of Souness says it all to me - He realised that the club is going nowhere, not with the current set of fans anyway

Qualifies for idiotic quote of the week.

He left because he realised HE would be going somewhere if he didn't- straight out of work!

And as for the fans- well lets transfer them all to another club and find new ones shall we!! (I hope it was a mistype and you meant NUMBER of fans)

As for the trust fund- let's make this clear. The trust fund (if it shares the characteristics of most other trust funds) has to be shared between the family and Rovers. The capital (cash) in there cannot be touched by the trustees, only the income- which, given 3-4% per annum in interest and assuming the £330m is correct, would be approximately £11.5 million. That has to be shared with the other beneficiaries.

It may be possible to BORROW from the trust, but it would have to be paid back. (possibly what happened to the Duff money)

[Gav]

We've been spoon-fed for years now and it's time this club stood on its own 2 feet. Other clubs manage to get by without a cash injection from outside sources, so should we.

Absolutely spot on.

This club of ours needs a whole new bread of supporter and player, this needs coupling with a complete change in attitude which is thankfully happening thanks to John Williams and his staff.

For all the good Jack Walker did for our club his millions created the spoon fed brigade and until attitudes change we'll struggle to stand on our own two feet as a club.

I'm sure that at least 25% of our current support believes we're still in the market for 10 million pound players which is astonishing to me.

Cash injection? No, what we need is the support from missing 4-5000 that enjoyed the good times but crawl back under their stones when times are hard.

[Hughesy]

No, what we need is the support from missing 4-5000 that enjoyed the good times but crawl back under their stones when times are hard.

I agree totally with this. Its all about getting bums on seats, how the hell can we do that.