weebudsbud
Well-Known Member
Barnsley????????
The only good thing to come out of Barnsley was Kes.
The only good thing to come out of Barnsley was Kes.
Barnsley owner Paul Conway insists he could break the stranglehold of Celtic and Rangers if the SFA allowed him to purchase a majority stake in a Scottish club.
Aberdeen, Dundee, Dundee United, Hearts and Hibs are paying Deloitte to conduct a strategic review of the national game.
And dual ownership rules will be one of the areas placed under the spotlight in a quest to attract new money to the Scottish game.
Conway’s Pacific Media Group already own Barnsley in England, AS Nancy in France, KV Oostende in Belgium, Den Bosch in Holland, Esbjerg in Denmark and FC Thun in Switzerland.
Their attempts to add Partick Thistle, Livingston or Dundee to the stable collapsed last year when the SFA capped the ceiling for owners of other clubs at 24.9 per cent.
Conway’s PMG acquired Oostende and turned the £1.7million purchase of Scotland defender Jack Hendry into a £4m profit from Club Brugge three months later.
He believes if they could apply the same data-led ‘Moneyball’ approach to transfers to a club in Scotland, they could finally give the Old Firm a run for their money.
‘If we had a Scottish club we could challenge the duopoly of Celtic and Rangers, 100 per cent,’ Conway told Sportsmail.
‘Look at our Belgian example. With the lowest budget in the league at Oostende we finished fifth. We have a team now which is aged 24 to 27, we are competitive again this year - and why is that? It’s because our biggest cash flow source is player trading.
‘Think about it and the biggest shopping market in the world is just a few miles south of the border. So if you have a bunch of young attacking players, you can buy a medium-sized club and, through the trading profits, you can be competitive.
‘The way it is set up now, you have the Old Firm who have control of the league and no strategic investment is going to come in to these other clubs.
‘Part of the problem is that the Old Firm, as I understand it, don’t want to encourage inward investment because they have an anti-competitive duopoly.
‘You pick Hearts, Hibs or any other middle-sized clubs and they obviously can’t compete because of the difference in the matchday revenue.
‘But that can be fixed immediately if they are generating £10m to £15m of transfer profit like Oostende.
‘We got into Belgium and in our first year the transfer revenue was two times what we paid for the club the year before.
‘We sold Jack Hendry. We also sold Arthur Theate to Bologna in Italy for £6.5m after we got him on a free the year before.
‘So, if you bring in some strategic investor to recapitalise a team outside the Old Firm and these teams are generating transfer profits, guess what? The league is going to get a lot more competitive.
‘And that will dwarf anything you can do to make commercial improvements to the league. It will also give you a chance of greater TV rights.’
The aim of the Strategic Review led by Aberdeen, Dundee, Dundee United, Hearts and Hibs is to double the revenue available to Scottish clubs from £27m to more than £50m.
Aware of potential investors waiting in the wings, the American-based owners of four of the clubs want all options placed on the table - and dual ownership will be one of those in Phase Two of their study.
Warning that Scottish football will be left behind after Holland relaxed their rules enough to allow PMG to buy Den Bosch this summer, Conway added: ‘I will talk to anybody about this. Tell those clubs to give me a call or whatever works.
‘I spoke to the American guys at Dundee before. But I’m happy to talk to anyone about ideas for change.
‘We looked at probably four opportunities to buy a club in Scotland and eventually gave up. It just doesn’t work for us or anyone like us and we grew so fed up we moved on to four other countries.
‘We now have clubs in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland.
‘Scottish football is falling behind. And you either get on this bus or the league continues to suffer compared to the other leagues.
‘The Dutch league opened up to strategic investors in January and if you are an American investor you are certainly going to go into Holland way before you go into Scotland.’
There is no money in it.Im suprised a wealthy backer hasn’t bought hibs or hearts as a modest investment would see them challenging
They've only purchased the clubs fairly recently so it is going to take a bit of time before they start seeing the rewards. Their strategy isn't about pumping money in, it's about making the clubs self sustainable and profitable and reinvesting those in the team. So a slow burner.Conway’s Pacific Media Group already own Barnsley in England, AS Nancy in France, KV Oostende in Belgium, Den Bosch in Holland, Esbjerg in Denmark and FC Thun in Switzerland.
None of these clubs have done anything of note in their respective countries so why does this cocksocket think he'd come up here and break up the Old Firm dominance?
Don't trust anybody who says celtic before Rangers ;-)Barnsley owner Paul Conway insists he could break the stranglehold of Celtic and Rangers if the SFA allowed him to purchase a majority stake in a Scottish club.
Aberdeen, Dundee, Dundee United, Hearts and Hibs are paying Deloitte to conduct a strategic review of the national game.
And dual ownership rules will be one of the areas placed under the spotlight in a quest to attract new money to the Scottish game.
Conway’s Pacific Media Group already own Barnsley in England, AS Nancy in France, KV Oostende in Belgium, Den Bosch in Holland, Esbjerg in Denmark and FC Thun in Switzerland.
Their attempts to add Partick Thistle, Livingston or Dundee to the stable collapsed last year when the SFA capped the ceiling for owners of other clubs at 24.9 per cent.
Conway’s PMG acquired Oostende and turned the £1.7million purchase of Scotland defender Jack Hendry into a £4m profit from Club Brugge three months later.
He believes if they could apply the same data-led ‘Moneyball’ approach to transfers to a club in Scotland, they could finally give the Old Firm a run for their money.
‘If we had a Scottish club we could challenge the duopoly of Celtic and Rangers, 100 per cent,’ Conway told Sportsmail.
‘Look at our Belgian example. With the lowest budget in the league at Oostende we finished fifth. We have a team now which is aged 24 to 27, we are competitive again this year - and why is that? It’s because our biggest cash flow source is player trading.
‘Think about it and the biggest shopping market in the world is just a few miles south of the border. So if you have a bunch of young attacking players, you can buy a medium-sized club and, through the trading profits, you can be competitive.
‘The way it is set up now, you have the Old Firm who have control of the league and no strategic investment is going to come in to these other clubs.
‘Part of the problem is that the Old Firm, as I understand it, don’t want to encourage inward investment because they have an anti-competitive duopoly.
‘You pick Hearts, Hibs or any other middle-sized clubs and they obviously can’t compete because of the difference in the matchday revenue.
‘But that can be fixed immediately if they are generating £10m to £15m of transfer profit like Oostende.
‘We got into Belgium and in our first year the transfer revenue was two times what we paid for the club the year before.
‘We sold Jack Hendry. We also sold Arthur Theate to Bologna in Italy for £6.5m after we got him on a free the year before.
‘So, if you bring in some strategic investor to recapitalise a team outside the Old Firm and these teams are generating transfer profits, guess what? The league is going to get a lot more competitive.
‘And that will dwarf anything you can do to make commercial improvements to the league. It will also give you a chance of greater TV rights.’
The aim of the Strategic Review led by Aberdeen, Dundee, Dundee United, Hearts and Hibs is to double the revenue available to Scottish clubs from £27m to more than £50m.
Aware of potential investors waiting in the wings, the American-based owners of four of the clubs want all options placed on the table - and dual ownership will be one of those in Phase Two of their study.
Warning that Scottish football will be left behind after Holland relaxed their rules enough to allow PMG to buy Den Bosch this summer, Conway added: ‘I will talk to anybody about this. Tell those clubs to give me a call or whatever works.
‘I spoke to the American guys at Dundee before. But I’m happy to talk to anyone about ideas for change.
‘We looked at probably four opportunities to buy a club in Scotland and eventually gave up. It just doesn’t work for us or anyone like us and we grew so fed up we moved on to four other countries.
‘We now have clubs in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland.
‘Scottish football is falling behind. And you either get on this bus or the league continues to suffer compared to the other leagues.
‘The Dutch league opened up to strategic investors in January and if you are an American investor you are certainly going to go into Holland way before you go into Scotland.’
There is 30m reasons to win the league going forward potentiallyThere is no money in it.
That was my exact thought, got to be a better investment surely, maybe winning the Champions League is a bit ambitious but if you have money to invest in Scottish Football the OF is where any sensible investor would go.Why doesn't he just buy Rangers or Celtic, play moneyball there and win the champions league?
He is a meat trader rather than a winner of trophies. Ashley has the same business modelBarnsley you say?
This is about him making money off of transfer fees, not improving the game up here, what's to stop the Man City owners taking over us or the rotten mob then?
The whole article is based on two lucky sales as his Belgian club, completely ignoring his failures elsewhere.Funny that none of his other clubs under his wing has broken the stranglehold in their respective countries.
He's probably gave the same speech every time he targets a new clubHe’s got a half dozen no mark mid table European teams and a 2nd tier team from the arsehole of England in his portfolio and suddenly he’s going to win the league with…..Partick?
Ok bud
I stopped reading when I saw the list of clubs they haveFull of patter. Aye very good on taking Oostende to 5th. Theres a world of difference taking a small Belgian club to 5th and taking Partick, Livi or Dundee to a title infront of 2 clubs that dwarf any Belgian side in stature.
This "moneyball" thing is fine for improving clubs to levels they may not have been capable of. Its not a means of beating bigger wealthier clubs though. You only need to check out the league winners across Europe every year to see that.
Completely agree. It's good to see some other teams show ambition and the Americans might help improve the game here.Good on him - I’d welcome the chase/challenge.
I think if you look at the models at other clubs it’s a bit different to breaking the duopoly in Scottish football. Yes there is potentially 30m if the league is won and that brings automatic champions league … but how realistic is that? How much invested is needed? I think it would be a hell of a lot before any reasonable return would be seen.There is 30m reasons to win the league going forward potentially
Us the Rangers support, after 2012 and the fat lad Nobody will get near us that aint Rangers menBarnsley you say?
This is about him making money off of transfer fees, not improving the game up here, what's to stop the Man City owners taking over us or the rotten mob then?
Formalising city’s feeder club across the city may be why the league will suddenly be open to dual ownership.Barnsley you say?
This is about him making money off of transfer fees, not improving the game up here, what's to stop the Man City owners taking over us or the rotten mob then?