Bradford City in real danger

[kwik1980]

http://www.bradfordcityfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10266~536002,00.html

Bradford City are in severe danger of being closed down tomorrow. Adminsitrators have said that unless there is an arrangement in place, by tomorrow, to allow Bradford to play at Valley Parade, rent-free, there will be no other choice but to close the club down. Apparently all the staff has been told that if the deal is not in place by 10 am, they will be laid off.

Obviously, more will come out tomorrow, but the future does look grim at this point for Bradford.

[E3Hammer]

It's a shame to see a club like Baradford go out of business. They're part of football history and I hope they get the rent free deal they're after. The football league should provide some help and get them out of this. I seriously feel sorry for the people who work there, the fans and the history that'll go if Bardford go out of business.

[RichardL]

The upside, if you can call it that, is that they don't own their ground, so if they do go bust a new club can form playing at the same ground. If they'd owned it then it would have been sold off to pay the creditors.

I'm not 100% they'll fold tomorrow. As the grounds owner said, they've just announced it out of the blue to make him look like the villan if he doesn't give them the rent-free agreement the club are after.

With debts of £30 million they are almost certainly trading illegally under UK law.

As much as I understand the sentiment of asking the FA or whoever to bail them out, it's not something I'm comfortable with as it means that the clubs who are prudent suffer, while those who are reckless and invariably architechts of their own downfall get to enjoy the advantage of spending money they haven't got. It also encourages everyone else to spend money they can't afford in order to keep up.

[prk166]

http://skysports.planetfootball.com/article.asp?id=211403&cpid=11

Ya, things don't look good. It'll be a shame to loose an important part of the community. And I'd put that, keeping a community institution, in the plus column for reasons to help out a club in financial trouble. But like RichardL points out, it rewards those who made poor or reckless choices. Hopefully the deduction of points for clubs that go into administration will help level the playing field for clubs that keep an eye on their finances when assembling their squad and running the team.

[kwik1980]

Zero hour for Bradford City is 10am, British time, of course.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bradford_city/3854545.stm

This article quotes Gordon Gibb, who owns Valley Parade, and used to be the Bantams' chairman basically says that going rent-free is NOT an option. He throws this whole situation back at adminstrators claiming that they came to him at the 11th hour with a "ridiculous request", and, more worringly, that his "conscience is clear". He claims that he offered to delay rent payment at Valley Parade (around £300,000), but that forgiving them is out of the question.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bradford_city/3853265.stm

This one has general information on the situation:

Bradford are reportedly £30 million in debt, and have been in administration since May 2002, at which point, debts were only £13 million. This also means that if Bradford survives this near-death experience, they could start the new season at -10 points, because of new Football League rules.

One of the administrators says that going rent-free is "crucial" to just breaking even financially next season.

Bradford can't really buy any new players, they haven't started selling season tickets yet for the new season either. Survival is a very big "if" at this point.

And, a little trivia: according to the BBC, the last Football League club to fold was Maidstone United in 1992. Already this summer, Telford was folded, but they weren't part of the League.

[kwik1980]

Bradford have gotten a stay of execution. There has apparently been interest from other groups, but everything is still up in the air. The administrators have asked the players to defer wages, and there is no answer as of yet. Right now, the next deadline is probably July 8, when the Football League will meet. At that point, administrators will probably have to give guarantees that Bradford will be able to play all scheduled matches this season, though, concievably, those assurances might be delayed until the league meeting in August, right before the start of the new season.

Meanwhile, Bradford today also lost their #1 (and only senior) goalkeeper, when Alan Combe left the club, probably to go to Kilmarnock. There is no money to sign new players (and no money to PAY any players), so if their website is to be believed, the only goalkeeper in any way connected to the club is a 16-year old who just finished his first season in the youth scheme.

It's still very much touch-and-go at this point, but the club survived the first deadline at least.

[RichardL]

And, a little trivia: according to the BBC, the last Football League club to fold was Maidstone United in 1992. Already this summer, Telford was folded, but they weren't part of the League.
Telford were a victim of circumstances - the guy who was bankrolling them and building their stadium saw his business collapse and he couldn't afford it any more.

Aldershot went bust the same year as Maidstone. Almost uniquely in the trail of clubs going (or nearly going) to the wall, their problems were largely down to their poor support. They certainly couldn't be accused of reckless transfer spending or unnecessarily expanding their stadium. What put them in debt was, to a large degree, winning a short-lived promotion to what is now laughably called League One in 1988. They paid their players Div 3 (as it was called back then) wages and went into debt after relegation back to Div 4 as they couldn't get rid of their players. Their debts weren't that high, but they didn't own their ground so their debts were unsecured, and the banks called in the debt. They never seemed able to get a chairman with any money. For years they were run by Arthur English, better known for being in dreadful sitcom "Are You Being Served", which wasn't exactly a high paying job. Shortly before extinction they were 'saved' by 19 year old millionaire entrenprenuer spencer trethewy, who gained national fame for his grand gesture, even appearing on the country's biggest chat show. Sadly, when it actually came down to young Spencer shelling out his millions, it transpired that he didn't have any money at all.

Maidstone were also an odd case. Their owner sold their ground and moved the club 'temporarily' 40 miles up the road to groundshare with non-league Dartford (Maidstone were also non-league at this point). Unsurprisingly they struggled for crowds, and despite spending much of the cash raised from the sale of their ground on wages for new players, they gained promotion in front of crowds hovering around the 700 mark. Crowds doubled as a league club, but is was nowhere near enough to sustain a pro football club. Dartford were also struggling financially but fans should have felt safe from another possible ground-sale and movement (Dagenham FC in the conference are the production of about half a dozen instances of one club buying another, merging with it, selling their ground for the cash, then finding their next victim) until one shady evening when the Dartford and Maidstone directors decide to erase an entry from each club's article of association which prevented directors from personally benefitting from any profit from the ground's sale in the event of the clubs going bust. Within a month both clubs were declared bankrupt, the ground was sold, and the directors of both clubs were suddenly able to holiday homes in Provence.

[kwik1980]

It looks like Bradford will survive, for now. The short-term future of the club is secure, and players have aggreed to defer wages until at least June 16. They'll have some questions to answer at league meetings, but so far, so good.

[Atouk]

It looks like Bradford will survive, for now. The short-term future of the club is secure, and players have aggreed to defer wages until at least June 16. They'll have some questions to answer at league meetings, but so far, so good.An update can be found here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bradford_city/3871717.stm). According to that BBC report, in addition to the deferred wages, "Both parties have agreed a short-term deal on the rent at Valley Parade and a structure is in place for the eventual buy out of former chairman Gibb," but "It remains uncertain who will bankroll the club until September and provide funds for the purchase of new players."

Their official site (http://www.bradfordcityfc.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Home/0,,10266,00.html) currently lists a roster of 16 -- I've no idea how many of those are youth guys, etc., but 7 of the 16 have jersey numbers of 20+ and there is a story on the front page about one of the others on that list possibly leaving for Chester City (!).