Podcast with Mr Paul Conway

[EastStandRed]

Gally on the BBS has posted Andy Holt's response, which is interesting. Andy Holt is as straight as an arrow, and a salt of the earth bloke.
I am sorry don't know how to post the link. But it is worth reading Holt's comments

Andy Holt said…

Is he buying clubs or trading them. They can flout National regulations by moving players at artificial prices. This is nothing more than a financial raid on football. The industry, player, manager, community isn’t important. The issue is independent government regulations. Regulate the game or it’s gone.

How do we deal with inter company transfers that are not at market value over national boarders. What happens if two teams with the same ownership are drawn in European football. Football is ripe for USA funds. Substitute football for any other business it doesn’t matter. Consolidate drive down costs and then sell is the MO.

Same old marketing ****e in every country, cash flows to US investors.

[EastStandRed]

I can see the logic behind the PMG model. It's very businesslike and offers clubs like us a bit of hope and a way forward, where as under the previous regime we were going absolutely fecking nowhere with an owner that was pretty clueless in running a sustainable football club. Yes, the PMG has its faults but I think the positives outweigh the negatives. They are clued up financially.


Let's be honest, Patrick Cryne pumped a few million of his own money into this club because he was out of his depth when it came to running a championship club within its means. His own mistakes were the reason for us being in debt and also being in league 1 for 2 spells. Patchwork quilt type of job year after year was always gonna catch up with us and it did. Brian Howard, Conor Hourihane and Sam Winnall wouldn't have left this club for peanuts under this regime.

Sorry if that offends but folk need to start facing facts. The PMG are astute business people who stringently run this club and keep us at championship level with their model with an eye on the future. I couldn't give two shiny shytes if they are from Barnsley or not, have any affiliation with the place or speak our language. Time folk started being open minded.

Barnsley was always lauded as a well run sustainable club before they arrived. We were one of the only clubs that ever made a small profit. The consortium said the financials were too good to be true when they arrived which is what attracted them.

When Cryne changed how the club would recruit we were making money for the last few seasons. All this was already in place when they arrived.

Where they come from means nothing to me but I can’t do with people who claim credit for things which they haven’t achieved.

We’ve made a loss of nearly £4m over the last two years by the way, that’s without them paying for the club either yet which they had hoped to do from profits generated by the club itself.

[pass_and_move]

Barnsley was always lauded as a well run sustainable club before they arrived. We were one of the only clubs that ever made a small profit. The consortium said the financials were too good to be true when they arrived which is what attracted them.

When Cryne changed how the club would recruit we were making money for the last few seasons. All this was already in place when they arrived.

Where they come from means nothing to me but I can’t do with people who claim credit for things which they haven’t achieved.

We’ve made a loss of nearly £4m over the last two years by the way, that’s without them paying for the club either yet which they had hoped to do from profits generated by the club itself.

Yes I believe James Cryne had come up with the idea and the club implemented the present model around 2015. It was necessary and got Patrick Cryne some of his money back what he'd pumped into the club in the years prior to that. It's to those years (2015 backwards) that I am referring. The club didn't really have an aim and seemed to paper over the cracks season after season whilst losing money.


With the pandemic over the last 18 months I think a 4m loss isn't too bad. It's not insurmountable is it. I think Conway said in the podcast that the average annual loss for a championship club is 10m.


I agree that Conway taking credit for Nice reaching the champions league was out of order. Nice were well on their way before PMG bought them I think if memory serves me correctly.


For the record I'm not a lover of these owners, I just accept them and try to look at the positives. I see situations elsewhere and think that it could easily be us. As yet, not a single person on here who has criticised or complained abart these owners has offered a viable or realistic alternative where ownership is concerned.

They are here, there's fuq all we can do abart it. Learn to deal with it and let's crack on.

[Arblasterfromthepast]

Yes I believe James Cryne had come up with the idea and the club implemented the present model around 2015. It was necessary and got Patrick Cryne some of his money back what he'd pumped into the club in the years prior to that. It's to those years (2015 backwards) that I am referring. The club didn't really have an aim and seemed to paper over the cracks season after season whilst losing money.


With the pandemic over the last 18 months I think a 4m loss isn't too bad. It's not insurmountable is it. I think Conway said in the podcast that the average annual loss for a championship club is 10m.


I agree that Conway taking credit for Nice reaching the champions league was out of order. Nice were well on their way before PMG bought them I think if memory serves me correctly.


For the record I'm not a lover of these owners, I just accept them and try to look at the positives. I see situations elsewhere and think that it could easily be us. As yet, not a single person on here who has criticised or complained abart these owners has offered a viable or realistic alternative where ownership is concerned.

They are here, there's fuq all we can do abart it. Learn to deal with it and let's crack on.

Correct Pass. I'm not a lover of these owners either and could easily pick out negatives (the club's poor communication, not paying their bills being prime examples). However, they are financially astute and will hopefully keep us in good shape rather than turning us into a basket case, like Wednesday. It does intrigue me as to where the alternative owners are forming their queue because I haven't seen it yet. I'm not even sure there were any other suitors when Patrick Cryne sold.

[Ponte_Steve24]

Well said Pass. I agree with every word.

[SBRed48]

Having listened to the arseoyle forran hour I finished up being depressed. There was still no insight as to why, as businessmen, they are here in Barnsley. The function of a business is to make a profit for that business but Conway kept saying every surplus they make is re-invested and the aim is to balance the budget-no mention of the Consortium making a profit. The conclusion has to be, as at Nice, the profit is made after buying a club cheap and selling for a lot more. Pacific Media Group is in the business of selling entertainment and the arseoyle said their interest in football was sparked by seeing the growing profits to be made from football broadcasting rights in Asia, particularly China but he failed to develop that point.
The aresoyle misled his interviewer telling him he built up Nice into a Champions League club in a year. Wrong. Nice had been built gradually by the previous owner Rivere. He claimed he sold players to balance the budget but a firesale reached a surplus of £41 million over two years including Seri and Saint Maximin with the surplus never being adequately explained what happened to it and suggestions that part of it was used to pay off a loan to buy the club. Around £60 million was then made selling the club.
He said the benefits of multi ownership in a number of countries was to reduce costs, improve recruitment and have one strategy at them all based on buying cheap young players recruited by data and all playing the press on the field, He is looking not to focus on Barnsley but buy further clubs in Holland, Poland, Germany and Scandinavia.
He said Barnsley were the club to use the press earliest in the Championship but others will catch up as more and more introduced it. We will continue to use "analysts" using data rather than scouts.
He said he expects coaches to move to other clubs fairly quickly but the club anticipate that by building in compensation clauses.
He will continue not to use loans.
He claims some clubs renage on promised transfer payments which is ironic.

All in all Barnsley is part of a multi ownership portfolio with no real focus on one clubs fortunes. The aresoyle said he had spent most of his time recently in Denmark. He said if the club were getting near promotion no money will be spent on the last piece of the jigsaw to get them them there if it meant not balancing the budget.

[Young_Nudger]

I can see the logic behind the PMG model. It's very businesslike and offers clubs like us a bit of hope and a way forward, where as under the previous regime we were going absolutely fecking nowhere with an owner that was pretty clueless in running a sustainable football club. Yes, the PMG has its faults but I think the positives outweigh the negatives. They are clued up financially.


Let's be honest, Patrick Cryne pumped a few million of his own money into this club because he was out of his depth when it came to running a championship club within its means. His own mistakes were the reason for us being in debt and also being in league 1 for 2 spells. Patchwork quilt type of job year after year was always gonna catch up with us and it did. Brian Howard, Conor Hourihane and Sam Winnall wouldn't have left this club for peanuts under this regime.

Sorry if that offends but folk need to start facing facts. The PMG are astute business people who stringently run this club and keep us at championship level with their model with an eye on the future. I couldn't give two shiny shytes if they are from Barnsley or not, have any affiliation with the place or speak our language. Time folk started being open minded.

Keep it going Pass - because there ain’t much that you say that I can fault.

Not only Patrick has struggled - most if not all of the Championship owners are struggling.

As for Andy Holts comments - he’s still on the front row in the Chansiri School - How To Run A Football Club.
Old Fashioned, outdated cod’s wallop.

Now we can go down the Chansiri or McCabe, or dozens of other owners like them, that have either gone bust or put £100s of millions of debt around the necks of the clubs they are supposed to care about.
Or - we can thank the foook that we have owners here at Barnsley that want to make money from our club I.e. run the club as a business.

And the beauty of that is simply this - for the owners to make money then the players and the club have to be a success - otherwise they have no value.
And if the players and club are successful - isn’t that EXACTLY what us supporters want ???

I’m not bothered if these owners make a fortune out of making Barnsley a successful football club.

[animallittle3]

Keep it going Pass - because there ain’t much that you say that I can fault.

Not only Patrick has struggled - most if not all of the Championship owners are struggling.

As for Andy Holts comments - he’s still on the front row in the Chansiri School - How To Run A Football Club.
Old Fashioned, outdated cod’s wallop.

Now we can go down the Chansiri or McCabe, or dozens of other owners like them, that have either gone bust or put £100s of millions of debt around the necks of the clubs they are supposed to care about.
Or - we can thank the foook that we have owners here at Barnsley that want to make money from our club I.e. run the club as a business.

And the beauty of that is simply this - for the owners to make money then the players and the club have to be a success - otherwise they have no value.
And if the players and club are successful - isn’t that EXACTLY what us supporters want ???

I’m not bothered if these owners make a fortune out of making Barnsley a successful football club.

Your not having that .

Andy Holt is one of the most respected owners in the EFL .

He keeps his club Accrington competitive on penny's in league one but they still come in on budget .

The fan experience is one of the best in the EFL and the club is massively community committed .

A thousand PMG's couldn't make one Andy Holt .

[SBRed48]

Keep it going Pass - because there ain’t much that you say that I can fault.

Not only Patrick has struggled - most if not all of the Championship owners are struggling.

As for Andy Holts comments - he’s still on the front row in the Chansiri School - How To Run A Football Club.
Old Fashioned, outdated cod’s wallop.

Now we can go down the Chansiri or McCabe, or dozens of other owners like them, that have either gone bust or put £100s of millions of debt around the necks of the clubs they are supposed to care about.
Or - we can thank the foook that we have owners here at Barnsley that want to make money from our club I.e. run the club as a business.

And the beauty of that is simply this - for the owners to make money then the players and the club have to be a success - otherwise they have no value.
And if the players and club are successful - isn’t that EXACTLY what us supporters want ???

I’m not bothered if these owners make a fortune out of making Barnsley a successful football club.

You can also make money by asset stripping (selling players) and then selling the bones of the club as long as you bought it cheap enough, say £8 million.

The only example we have of their full cycle of ownership is OGC Nice.

[SBRed48]

Your not having that .

Andy Holt is one of the most respected owners in the EFL .

He keeps his club Accrington competitive on penny's in league one but they still come in on budget .

The fan experience is one of the best in the EFL and the club is massively community committed .

A thousand PMG's couldn't make one Andy Holt .

Correct Animal.