[St Charles Owl]

While I have sympathy for all Bury supporters, this was a club that was so badly run for the past 5 years plus.  Steve Dale bought the club for a pound and passed the fit and proper test, but that test is so flawed its pointless.  It is really only a check on criminal convictions and connections to football and almost everyone would pass it!!  That needs to be fixed by the EFL but legally they are on dodgy ground denying someone who has the money to buy a club.  Had they not approved Dale buying them, then they would have folded in December by all accounts.  As Themaclad said, the loans the previous owners made to the club were set up on ridiculous terms that could not be sustained by a club of Bury’s size, could the EFL had done anything about that, I don’t think they could.  Bury won promotion last season, their fans were ecstatic about that but they bought their promotion by paying crazy wages while having little revenue to cover the costs, it was a house of cards that was bound to crash at some point!!

Also at what point do the fans need to take some of the blame for this sort of situation?  I have no idea what the fans of Bury had as regards expectations but we see plenty of posts on here where fans plead with their clubs to spend more money on players to try to win promotion, its on the SWFC board on here often enough but everyone one of our teams have fans that want the owners to spend more.  Jeremey Peace ran WBA on a strict budget from what you guys have said, ultimately that possibly led to your relegation but it didn’t lead to your demise after relegation.  You came down as a solid club in a good financial position (in comparison to quite a few others) and are still challenging to regain your PL spot.  Newcastle fans slam Ashley for not spending more money, he refuses to do so and they are a profitable club but we see them as a basket case??  I think Ashley is protecting his investment by spending what he thinks he needs to to keep them in the PL and keep them in the money, accepting that occasionally he might get it wrong and spend a season in the Championship, but unless he goes bust they will financially be sound.  The problem is the fans want more, they want to spend money to challenge the top 6 as they think they are a big enough club to do so, which would see them go into debt if they truly spent that sort of money!!  Even then if they got it wrong, they could still go down but then the finances could see them do a Portsmouth or Sunderland.

The EFL have put in rules with regard to the finances of club to try to keep them in a solvent position, those rules need to be updated and constantly improved but I am not sure they can stop a club getting investment from wherever they want and that when we see loans like the Bury one at 138% interest!! Clubs, owners and fans need to move towards a sustainable model with regards to finances or else it only takes one bad owner to see a club disappear!! One suggestion on here would be for the top 6 in the PL leave and go to a European Super League, this would kill the silly money the PL has and would see an English league with far more competitiveness and probably a better league, but how many of the remaining PL clubs would potentially go bust once the money dries up and how many of the Championship clubs would see owners lose interest once the pot of gold is removed?? Moving clubs to the German model might be a better solution but while ever the PL has all the money then clubs will stretch themselves financially to try to get there, and some will fall away and maybe even disappear as a consequence.

I’ll put my tin hat on now!!!!