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Son of Nob
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Posts posted by Son of Nob
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7 hours ago, zippycar said:
"Dwane Sports has invested money into the club, it's not a loan it's an investment from the holding company - which is Dwane Sports - into Bristol Rovers football club.
"It's an inter-company transaction which is registered as a loan between the two companies, both of which we both own, so there is no third party involved.
"It's an inter-company loan that's all it is. There is a charge on the Mem and we did that as a sensible move to protect our investment as in the world of business you never know what will turn up," Al-Qadi told Rovers' website."
I found this little bit interesting, an intercompany loan would also be a useful way to derive a bit of extra money on their 'investment' through interest - Lend money to a loss making organisation whilst you have a charge against their only asset. Any interest on the loan is then placed against said asset meaning you get everything back you invested plus more.
I'd be very interested to know the interest rates for this loan compared to market rate.
Of course, as a show of commitment, they could also covert some of this loan to equity as Lansdown did with us...
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26 minutes ago, Nogbad the Bad said:
Former soldier who served 9 months at Camp Bastion. Good luck to him.
But still just a defender from Hayes & Yeading.
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1 minute ago, archie andrews said:
wheres bs30 ?
Don't think he posts much anymore, he's got a car going around him.
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7 minutes ago, steviestevieneville said:
I'm not the best when it comes to legalities. What does it mean. registering a charge ? Is it for monies owed ?
Basically it means Bristol Rovers owe Dwayne Sports money, this debt is now secured against the ground.
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25 minutes ago, Septic Peg said:
Rovers sign a fella from Oxford for undisclosed fee...
https://www.bristolrovers.co.uk/news/2017/may/signingliamsercombe/
Waiting for some clued up gasheads to say he was £1m but actually more like £100,000.
Edit: rumour is he had a massive row with Appleton ala Tomlin/LJ and was kept out the last 2 games. Bit of a attitude too and had a few red cards in the past. Hope Dopey got his kid gloves on!
Not sure it's a just rumour
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5 hours ago, Monkeh said:
i thought your mate was talking normal gas shit then I just read this,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39882334
oh they are the gift that keep giving, could of signed on a free nah we'll offer 250k thats better
Maybe someone should tell this guy?
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2 hours ago, Miah Dennehy said:
Yes, there were some Rovers fans singing during it, however they were outside the ground and wouldn't have known that there was a minutes silence going on. Unfortunate, but hardly disrespectful.
Locked out again?! FFS
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5 minutes ago, Tinmans Love Child said:
Beat me to it! Average of 13,668 since 2010. Funny how he chose the arbitrary 7 years... it's not like including the preceding two years bumps the average up to 14,308
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43 minutes ago, BS4 on Tour... said:
And which is Kettering?!
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17 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:
Which one is Hitchin..?
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10 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:
Ha ha ha ha!
Are we thinking a penalty or a sending off first?
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21 minutes ago, Smaller than a flea said:
Do we pay on the day at Ashton Gate next season or would it be best to phone up first and check?
Just your normal... incognito
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6 minutes ago, SimonR said:
As it has a solid roof covering the entire thing, that Flea trap would seem to have better facilities than the memorial tents...
Looks just like the City Ground...
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4 minutes ago, Super said:
Not sure where the flea man got his info.
Walter Mitty
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5 minutes ago, Smaller than a flea said:
I can see the confusion here. You mean 'looks like' in the context of having permanent concrete and steel structures on all four sides.
its generally the norm at our level old chap, but thanks for trying.
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8 minutes ago, BS4 on Tour... said:
please check your facts
Not exactly their forte, is it?
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32 minutes ago, Seventeen said:
I'll be the first to tell you to enjoy having a team who never stop trying, because it's not going to last forever and in a few years time we could both have a team of donkeys again, although admittedly your team of donkeys will be better.
No. just no. You don't get to ******* patronise us.
I enjoy our great new stadium, progressive manager and young, exciting squad.
You get to enjoy a new tent, Garden furniture and the fact you've only been a league club since 2015.
Take your condescending post and do one.
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9 minutes ago, S_Y_G said:
Just had a city player say to me that " our fans obsession with u is embarrassing ". Reads this forum. Brilliant, maybe you guys should give rover's a rest, 340 pages on ur own forum!!!
How is Rotherham tonight?
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12 minutes ago, Smaller than a flea said:
We've stumbled from the Conference to League 1 in two years. The old leadership who led us to the Conference have gone. Based on last season, we are 7th in home attendance, competing against the likes of Millwall, Coventry and Sheffield United. Away attendances are incredible considering what we've gone through in recent years.
It doesn't match where you are now, but to call it a shambles is frankly nonsense.
But you knew that when you wrote it.
Refer to your first sentence, the fact a club of rovers' size went in to the conference is a shambles.
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6 minutes ago, Smaller than a flea said:
Bert might be disloyal or an imposter, but moron is a bit harsh.
Disloyal?! What the hell would make him disloyal? The fact that he poses pertinent questions?! You seem to expect all rovers fans to follow blindly and this, THIS, is why your club has stumbled from shambles to shambles.
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10 minutes ago, Super said:
Sure they were saying that 4 years ago.
I'm confused, where has this £40M(?) suddenly appeared from which allows construction to start?
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10 minutes ago, Betty Swallocks said:
Next year you'll have seen them progress...... to channel 5, on 'Can't pay? We'll take it away'.
More likely "can't pay, Wael'll take it away"
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Bristol R*vers dustbin thread
in Football Chat
Posted
OK, I tried. How did I do?
Arab owner of English third-tier ex non league side is bidding to fulfil lofty ambitions with
passion and pragmatismout any moneyLondon: Wael Al-Qadi is no
ordinary football club ownerbillionaire, it immediately becomes apparent from interviewing him.“I am ahad the funds to invest in them. If [football] is rarely not covered on TV, I follow it on the radio. It’s like any other
footballfreak,” theengaging and enthusiasticcharlatan president of the English third-tier ex non league side, Bristol Rovers, tells Gulf News. “I followed Chelsea [as a boy] and I never used to miss a second when they played friendlies or cup games or league gamesfanperson who can’t afford a ticket.“I live and breathe every second of the game.”
English football has increasingly become a playground for faceless and often-clueless foreigners, for whom owning a football club is ostensibly just a vanity project; exhibit ‘A’ being the Venky’s much-maligned running of Blackburn Rovers.
As such, Al-Qadi represents a welcome breath of fresh air amid the all-pervasive stench of greed and self-interest in the modern game.
But the Jordanian businessman has clearly developed a genuine
passion and affection forfinancial interest in Rovers since his family’s Dwane Sports businessassumed control of the club in February 2016secured a £10M loan against the club’s ground.This is illustrated by the 47-year-old’s
desireego boosting decision to eschew the directors’ box in favour of mingling with the club’s fans.“To go to a football game and not be able to e
xpress your emotions and support your team and being restricted in your behaviour,racially abuse the opposition you’re not watching a football game [properly],” explains Al-Qadi, who hasattended five World Cups as a fana timeshare on a £15k watch.“You have to express [yourself]. You have to chant, you have to scream and shout, so I am much more comfortable watching the game and enjoying it [by being in a] section that has fans – and especially your own fans – home and away.”Al-Qadi’s ardour for football was nurtured in the 1980s when, while studying in London, his father took him to see Chelsea home and away.
“The [Rovers] fans remind me of the old-school Chelsea fans way back then. They are very
passionate, committed and loyal no matter what to their team. That got me to buy in [to the project] and I feel I’m one of them nowracist."Aside from their
ferventover exaggerated fanbase, Rovers appeared a highly unattractive proposition to potential investors given their continuing parlous financial statetwo years ago.Relegation to the amateur Conference Premier in 2013-14 – the first time the club has spent outside the Football League since being admitted in 1920 – was
largely to blame for thishilariousAl-Qadi was undeterred, though, as he had
been scouring Europe for a club with a specific profilevery limited funds“Basically we were looking for a club – and this goes back to the investment return side of it – where
a club was at the pure bottomthe owners were prepared to sell without full due diligence and the fans are gullible" says Al-Qadi, whowas born in Qatar and who is assistant general manager of the Arab Jordan Investment Bank, which his family founded in 1978has no independent wealth. “There was nowhere else to go and they were seconds away from going into bankruptcy. I wanted a club that I couldbuild up from the bottom upwards,get an initialled training top at unlike most of the investors who are coming in at the top level, be it Premier League or Championship, and payinghuge amounts ofmoney.”Rovers secured immediate promotion back to the Football League in 2015 via the play-offs and then, just months after the Al-Qadi takeover, clinched their place in League One.
The club, known as ‘The Gas’ due to their former Eastville Stadium home’s proximity to gasworks, finished a creditable 10th in League One last season and are currently
15th and into the FA Cup second roundsix months away from exhausting the charge the family have on the clubs only asset.Al-Qadi is “quite pleased” with such encouraging progress, but stresses: “We believe we should be better than what we are right now and hopefully the team will improve. If you look at the numbers, the attendances, the revenues and all that, then yes, there has been a rise.”
Of his long-term ambition, he adds: “The ultimate goal and dream has to be to
reach the Premier League and it has been done before. There are a lot of clubs in the Premier League right now who were in League One not so long ago, so it’s doablerecoup the families spending with 6% interest.“But I do not like to put targets that in three years or five years, we need to be here or there. It’s a long-termobtaining prime development land.”
investmentasset strip and hopefully the success of our strategy will be reflected one day with success byreaching higher divisionsLeicester City’s fairytale Premier League title triumph in 2016 remains a great source of inspiration and an exemplar for clubs of Rovers’ ilk.
Says Al-Qadi, who supported Prince Ali Bin Hussein’s unsuccessful bid to become Fifa president in 2015 and who is an executive member of the Jordan Football Association: “It was one of the greatest-ever stories of sporting success. It was a miracle. This gives hope and ambition to
clubs like ourssell to our deluded fan base”Al-Qadi is first and foremost
pragmatic businessmannot a billionaire rather than a football romantic, however.His “main strategy” is “to
build [the club] with the correct foundations, so that it can grow by it itself, organicallylie about ‘evolution not revolution’”.Central to this aim has been the f
ormation of a development squad to bridge the gap in quality between the academy and the first teamidiocy of the fan baseAnd, as vice-president of the Asian Football Development Project, a not-for-profit youth project funded by Prince Ali, Al-Qadi is eager for talented Arabs to be given a chance at Rovers.
One such is the 18-year-old left-back, Ghassan Abu Hassan, who plays for the Jordan Under-19s and who has joined the development squad after being recommended by a Jordanian talent-spotter.
Yet Al-Qadi is anxious to emphasise that Middle Eastern prospects – and he admits he is well aware of the UAE’s most-renowned and sought-after player, Omar Abdul Rahman – face a battle to succeed in England because they aren’t very good.
“Okay, a player has the skills and talent and is technically superb and that’s maybe only 20 per cent of the formula. The rest is can he settle down in England? Can he train on a dark, cold, rainy, Thursday night in Bristol? Can he have the hunger, the desire, the power and the strength to compete in the English leagues?
“If they don’t have these attributes, then they’ll fail in English football.”
One high-profile Arab who has done anything but fail in English football is the genuine bone fide billionaire Abu Dhabi-based Manchester City owner, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, who has presided over five major trophy triumphs in nine years.
“People who criticise saying, ‘Oh, he’s just spending money and buying the league’, [I say] ‘No, there’s the other side of it’,” Al-Qadi points out. “He’s done amazingly for the community there and also brought success to Manchester City Football Club.”
He is referring to the fact that Shaikh Mansour’s munificence has funded a £1billion (Dh4.82bn) regeneration of a run-down area of Manchester via 6,000 new homes and a state-of-the-art football academy and campus.
There have been varying reports of Al-Qadi’s family’s own wealth – from £1.4bn (Dh6.74bn) to £400million (Dh1.927bn) – neither of which he wants to confirm. So could he have emulated Shaikh Mansour?
“T
here are only very, very few people on this Earth that could do what the likes of the Premier League clubs are doing,” he replies, laughing. “They [City] are doing things from the top downwards, so you can’t compare them with us.No”A more cogent comparison with City comes in the form of Newcastle United, who are reportedly the subject of takeover interest from a consortium led by the Dubai-based financier Amanda Staveley.
Al-Qadi says of this prospect: “Newcastle is a huge club and I read some time ago that they sold 35,000 season tickets before the start of the season. I believe anybody who is going to purchase and invest in Newcastle, they have potentially a mega club that could be taken on to the next level.
“If someone was to ask my advice [about taking over Newcastle], I would say: ‘Go ahead’.”
Al-Qadi reiterates his unwavering commitment to Rovers when asked whether he would ever fancy owning a bigger club.
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It’s more of an affection and being emotionally tied into Bristol Rovers now and for me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Premier League or Championship or League One or League Two [club]. The hope and ambition and emotional gain is to have success with Rovers and only Rovers.I couldn’t afford one ”