LatapyBairn

Interesting to see that the directors and MSG have now put even more of their own funds in to the club to secure players. So much for them not caring or feathering their own nests.

I agree- there have obviously been some bad decisions made by the BoD and MSG(many of which the fans would have made the same). Hopefully the ownership situation will be resolved soon but I think the way the MSG have been cast as evil villains is way over the top for a group of unpaid volunteers who have put significant sums of their own money into the club. A group who’ve made some bad decisions is in no way comparable to the likes of oyston at Blackpool and mike Ashley.

Connolly is an absolutely fantastic signing at this level. To sign three upper championship/premier league players at in league 1 just shows the attraction Ray has as a manager. A few more signings of this quality should guarantee us first place.

Great to see the quality of signings Ray is bringing in so far. Real statement of intent for the fans and other teams in the league. Hopefully we can get the ownership issues resolved ASAP and season ticket sales will start to pick up. Certainly be interesting to see how many of the boycotters ever intended to buy one in the first place.

Ray did an incredible job to even keep us in contention until December with a league 2 squad. He then came incredibly close to keeping us in the division, and took it to the last day which I think we’d all have taken in September. He’ll do a great job next year and his 2 year plan to get back to the premiership is just what we need.

I agree with the content of the statement, in that some of the venomous personal abuse and hatred directed towards Craig Campbell has been far too much for what is only at the end of the day a man doing his job(badly). He’s been involved in some poor decision-making at a football club, so it is right he’s stepped down. But some people need to realise that it’s not a life or death situation. On the other hand, the timing of it is far from ideal with season ticket sales beginning and new ownership hopefully imminent. You can see why Martin Ritchie feels the way he does though when you see the physical and verbal abuse he has been subjected to, having invested millions of pounds into the club.

What ownership fiasco? A fan ownership bid was accepted, but there have since been a number of other offers which has to be reviewed. It would have been negligent not to do so.

The statement said there is a budget in place The manager has a small budget with which to make immediate signings, funded from the cash within the business I believe. That will then be supplemented by the new owners.

No, the balance over the life time of the board’s stewardship would run into the millions in terms of what they’ve put into the club.

How much money have our directors made from the club when you include the loans they’ve written off? Nothing- in fact, they’ve lost significant funds.

I’m not really sure what people were expecting the club to announce at this stage. There are negotiations ongoing with up to 4 different bidders, all of which are confidential and the BoD can’t comment on. What they have said is that they won’t be owners in a few weeks time. That is what people wanted yet still we have complaints.

I’d hope any decision would be communicated to the fans ASAP. I think the best option at this stage would be to accept the the bid from the local investors and then revisit the fan ownership set up when we’re back in the championship. There’s no point using £800k extra on the first team in league one.

And by reducing the prices, we’d have even worse players and even worse football

I think the statement makes it quite clear that the ownership will be changing in the near future. The club can’t broadcast details of negotiations that could be ongoing with 4 different bidders at the moment. Those discussions will take at least a few weeks to finish. All not renewing season tickets etc will do at this stage is deprive the first team budget of funds.

Based on what?

I think the board know they have to go given the fan pressure and there seems to be negotiations ongoing. Given that, I don’t see how boycotting season tickets is a sensible option. The club can’t be sold instantly and all it will do is give us less chance of getting back up and potentially put off buyers.

Very few will not renew season tickets due to boardroom matters. I’m not sure how the board can ‘go’ at this stage either given that there are clearly ongoing negotiations with a number of interested parties.

The budget is very similar to last season if not the same I believe.

I think the fan ownership proposal is definitely the best way to move forward at this stage

The current board are lifelong Falkirk supporters. Of course they care about how we do on the pitch.

I think the idea that becoming a feeder club would lead to significant investment in our first team is nonsense. The whole point of a feeder club is that it helps the main investment. The investor doesn’t really care about how we do on the pitch as long as we’re developing Sunderland’s players. Very concerning.

Bringing in 20 new players every season has to stop. We need to be looking at players who can develop/are good enough for the championship in 20/21. All sighing part time league 1 journeymen will get us is an extended stay there.

McGuigan is 30 and his entire career so far has consisted of Albion Rovers, Stranraer and Stenhousemior. He’s done well enough for them but is nowhere near good enough for us, especially if we want to build a squad that can compete in the championship.

They’re loaned to us because we’ve chosen to have them here to help the team. The last thing we want is becoming a B team for Sunderland and the whole thing being set up to develop their players and us being an afterthought. If a player is doing well for us, they’ll be off to Sunderland in a shot with us having no say in the matter. If they want to develop a player for their first team, they’ll come and play for us whether we want him or not. Remember the Ashley saga at Rangers where they were supposedly forced to play loanees. The board shouldn’t entertain any feeder club proposals.

I’d prefer our current owners, who while flawed at least have the club in their hearts than becoming a feeder club for Sunderland thanks very much.