Supporters Trust letter to the Football league

whatsgoingon wrote:My reading of the last but one paragraph is that they are in agreement with the idea but want to use it to strong-arm the owners into divulging all the financial details which they seem to think they're entitled to, which again points to an arrogance and abuse of position.
I personally don't think there is a sophisticated agenda, I just think they're drunk on power.

Maybe but it is clear by the fact that the ST has gone to the Football League about that, that the owners are not going to tip up all the financial details required of the ST to them.

So why not park that and instead work on how money can be got into the academy for everyone's benefit? Their own pre-established mandate commits them to that course of action anyway!

Drunk on power or not this Steering Group and its actions are doing more harm than good in building up long term trust between them and the club owners.

Agreed, as I have stated I think the route they are taking is inflammatory and detrimental, but I don't think lasting damage has been done yet.
The other thing that puzzles me is whether the subscribers money is the only money available because if it is then even if they get to 4000 members it's only a maximum of £40,000 (more likely to be much less than that as u16's are free, so isn't going to plug the gap between the £1m current academy cost and the £500k for the lower level.
When they were looking for bidder status there was talk of significant funds being available from high worth local individuals and local businesses and institutions like the University, was this all purely for a buyout or is there still funding available from these bodies as part of the trust.

whatsgoingon wrote:Agreed, as I have stated I think the route they are taking is inflammatory and detrimental, but I don't think lasting damage has been done yet.

The other thing that puzzles me is whether the subscribers money is the only money available because if it is then even if they get to 4000 members it's only a maximum of £40,000 (more likely to be much less than that as u16's are free, so isn't going to plug the gap between the £1m current academy cost and the £500k for the lower level.

When they were looking for bidder status there was talk of significant funds being available from high worth local individuals and local businesses and institutions like the University, was this all purely for a buyout or is there still funding available from these bodies as part of the trust.

As someone who has experience of being involved in past community fund raising myself, I never found the claim of the ST of raising pledges of £8 million in just three weeks the least bit credible - if they did someone with very good connections indeed opened a great many doors for them!

As for lasting damage if you were Holdsworth or Anderson would you be happy to see many of the Steering Committee being elected for two years to the ST's board (or having strong influence in the background)?

I wouldn't!