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Bury FC expelled from the EFL


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I’m a free market capitalist but even I fail to understand the way football in England operates. The FA/EFL simply had to create a regulatory framework within which ownership can change hands but ultimately the league has a say in protecting its own brand and customers (the fans). The US sports have done this really well, seemingly.

 

The idea of publishing finances is a great one, it should at least start there!

 

:anguish:

 

:lol: yes, that’s the bit you should focus on instead of the topic at hand. Wrongthink must be called out in every forum (and thread)! Settle down, comrade.

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Guest chopey

David Conn wrote this in the Guardian today: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/26/bury-britain-gigg-lane-brexit

 

This paragraph had me shaking my head in disbelief:

 

At Bury itself, loans now up to £3.7m, secured on Gigg Lane, were taken from an outfit called Capital Bridging Finance Solutions, based in Crosby, with 40% commissions paid to still-unnamed third parties as introduction fees. The publicly filed documents state that Capital in turn mortgaged Bury’s ground to a company registered in Malta, whose own lenders for the deal were eight companies domiciled in the offshore tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. Perhaps you have to know and have been to Gigg Lane, a football haven amid terraced streets just off Manchester Road, to feel in your guts the ludicrous nature of such house-of-cards economics.

 

Will these companies actually make money by selling off Gigg Lane then?

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Of course "they've" brought it on "themselves" - but the question English football now faces is: who are "they"? Bury FC and the rogue who happens to own them should not be one and the same but because the FA have taken their eye off the ball, they now are, just like Newcastle United and Mike Ashley are one and the same.

 

Instead of ensuring that football clubs are protected organisations, valuable to communities, the game in this country has been sold to the highest bidder. Anyone who wants a club and has enough money can have one, regardless of motive or intention. We'll likely see a lot more of this as the Chinese conglomerates that own half the Championship get bored of finishing 14th and the Del Boy businessmen who own clubs further down the pyramid realise there's less and less money in it as more kids grow up interested only in the Premier League and the Champions League.

How do you prove motive or intention ?

 

You can't. Which is why football clubs should have some form of protection against being run into the ground by rogue owners.

 

I don't believe football clubs should be able to be bought and sold like any other business, unfortunately this is the road English football has chosen to go down. Where the Spanish have their club membership model and the Germans have 50%+1 (and those models I'm sure aren't without their own issues), we have sold out. That has worked in the sense that the PL has become a financial behemoth but it leaves a significant chance of clubs like Bury, Blackpool and us ending up entirely subject to the whims of vindictive owners.

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I’m a free market capitalist but even I fail to understand the way football in England operates. The FA/EFL simply had to create a regulatory framework within which ownership can change hands but ultimately the league has a say in protecting its own brand and customers (the fans). The US sports have done this really well, seemingly.

 

The idea of publishing finances is a great one, it should at least start there!

 

:anguish:

 

:lol: yes, that’s the bit you should focus on instead of the topic at hand. Wrongthink must be called out in every forum (and thread)! Settle down, comrade.

 

well depending on your interpretation of events the future of bury has been left to the market, you should be all for it no?  or do we implement "regulatory frameworks" to stop SME's going to the wall as well

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Tbh, as sad as this is it might be a wake-up call for clubs in the lower leagues to get their houses in order.

 

That's the whole point though. This wasn't the "clubs" fault. It was the FA/EFL allowing this owner.

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It's absolutely disgusting. The club is historic and for some chancer to appear to bring them on with promotion and such but clearly had the motives for a quick buck. The football league should hang their heads in shame and the owner should be looking at legal chances. Won't happen and if anything this shows modern Britain in all it's shame. Working class town getting shafted with no help.

 

On a side note, I know sky and the likes interview the local lunatics but fuck me what I've seen of their fans  :o Never been to Bury, never will now. Again brings me back to the above point, shafted Northern shit hole left to rot.

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Absolutely gut-wrenching this. Feel so sorry for the devoted fans who've given up years to support their local club. They're the main ones affected by this. Sincerely hope they can get a Phoenix club going and are able to sort this mess out.

 

The EFL rightly have to take a huge amount of blame for this, as this proves that their 'fit and proper persons test' is just not fit for purpose. Ridiculous how a man who has nefarious intentions from the outset (and who was previously disqualified from owning a club) was allowed to buy the club for £1 purely for the aim of running it into the ground so that he can develop and profit from the land around Gigg Lane.

 

Sky Sports also deserve a bit of criticism here. The complete lack of appreciation and understanding shown by that 'countdown' was nothing short of a disgrace. They should hang their heads in shame.

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Guest neesy111

Tbh, as sad as this is it might be a wake-up call for clubs in the lower leagues to get their houses in order.

 

That's the whole point though. This wasn't the "clubs" fault. It was the FA/EFL allowing this owner.

 

They've had a string of bad owners though, this guy got the club for £1 because of the huge debts previously occurred.  Let's say if this guy hadn't been allowed to buy the club because of proper vetting etc aren't you in majority of cases just delaying the consequences of past issues?

 

If the FA/EFL do sort things out, I think you may find things get worse with some clubs before they get better for the game overall.

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Of course "they've" brought it on "themselves" - but the question English football now faces is: who are "they"? Bury FC and the rogue who happens to own them should not be one and the same but because the FA have taken their eye off the ball, they now are, just like Newcastle United and Mike Ashley are one and the same.

 

Instead of ensuring that football clubs are protected organisations, valuable to communities, the game in this country has been sold to the highest bidder. Anyone who wants a club and has enough money can have one, regardless of motive or intention. We'll likely see a lot more of this as the Chinese conglomerates that own half the Championship get bored of finishing 14th and the Del Boy businessmen who own clubs further down the pyramid realise there's less and less money in it as more kids grow up interested only in the Premier League and the Champions League.

How do you prove motive or intention ?

 

You can't. Which is why football clubs should have some form of protection against being run into the ground by rogue owners.

 

I don't believe football clubs should be able to be bought and sold like any other business, unfortunately this is the road English football has chosen to go down. Where the Spanish have their club membership model and the Germans have 50%+1 (and those models I'm sure aren't without their own issues), we have sold out. That has worked in the sense that the PL has become a financial behemoth but it leaves a significant chance of clubs like Bury, Blackpool and us ending up entirely subject to the whims of vindictive owners.

I agree with that, it's also strange that the duties of directors as laid out in the companies act of 2006  never seem to be mentioned......

 

 

Duty to promote the success of the company

 

(1)A director of a company must act in the way he considers, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole, and in doing so have regard (amongst other matters) to—

 

(a)the likely consequences of any decision in the long term,

 

(b)the interests of the company's employees,

 

©the need to foster the company's business relationships with suppliers, customers and others,

 

(d)the impact of the company's operations on the community and the environment,

 

(e)the desirability of the company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business

 

In this instance, Bury, not solely but in particular Clause d.

 

Efit...then again I'm not sure where this leaves this if the club are owned outright ?

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The entire EFL board should be resigning in disgrace over this, letting a complete conman take over without any checks on him and they wonder what went wrong 

 

Both the FA and EFL Boards are pretty much stuck to their seats no matter how bad things get or how much they fuck up, hard to prosecute the judge i guess :lol:

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I’m a free market capitalist but even I fail to understand the way football in England operates. The FA/EFL simply had to create a regulatory framework within which ownership can change hands but ultimately the league has a say in protecting its own brand and customers (the fans). The US sports have done this really well, seemingly.

 

The idea of publishing finances is a great one, it should at least start there!

 

:anguish:

 

:lol: yes, that’s the bit you should focus on instead of the topic at hand. Wrongthink must be called out in every forum (and thread)! Settle down, comrade.

 

well depending on your interpretation of events the future of bury has been left to the market, you should be all for it no?  or do we implement "regulatory frameworks" to stop SME's going to the wall as well

 

:thup:

 

Every country with any form of capitalism has existed, and exists, within a heavy, albeit ever-changing, regulatory framework. The fine tuning of this framework is the reason we have elections, to elect parties that ensure things don’t get too extreme in either direction (full libertarianism or full socialism).

 

In life and politics, this friction is between voluntary transactions of goods and services between humans (aka market capitalism) and the regulatory framework created by the *government.*

 

In a private sports league created by willing participants of free humans, without any meddling from the state, you can, and should, set up any sort of framework you want. It is then upto owners or teams to want to participate or opt out. The US as a culture and country has been founded on and celebrates capitalism, yet it has very smart scaffoldings enacted within its sporting institutions to protect teams and fans. I wonder why.

 

If you don’t see the difference between the two scenarios, and choose to pretend they’re one and the same, you’re free to do so. I would rather focus on putting pressure on the FA and EFL into mirroring even 1% of the regulations we have in real life for regular “SME’s.” Instead what we have is seemingly the Wild West. If an owner doesn’t like the new rules, they can opt out and we will have willing buyers who wish to play within those rules.

 

Anyways, no interest in furthering this discussion about grand economic systems and politics.

 

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In a private sports league created by willing participants of free humans, without any meddling from the state, you can, and should, set up any sort of framework you want.

 

correct, but they chose not to give a fuck and here we are

 

they have a captive audience so there's no benefit in them doing anything to protect the clubs, i don't think the brand thing applies tbph

 

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In a private sports league created by willing participants of free humans, without any meddling from the state, you can, and should, set up any sort of framework you want.

 

correct, but they chose not to give a f*** and here we are

 

they have a captive audience so there's no benefit in them doing anything to protect the clubs, i don't think the brand thing applies tbph

 

Agreed. I think these administrators are suits with really soft stomachs, and if all fans from all teams begin protesting about needing a change, they’ll fold like a pack of cards and implement something at least. These aren’t thick skinned politicians. In my opinion anyway.

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Unfortunately 99% of football fans in this country don't give a toss about anything outside the PL. They're PL fans. Just look at some (actually, nearly all) of the comments on the tweets posted by Sky related to this. All just taking the piss out of the Bury fans, mock sympathy etc. They seem to think this is funny.

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