Bratt "Threatens" To Stand Down 15/12/09

[X-Valiant]

[Jimmy]

 

 

Same old story....Boring Bill has never changed his tone.

[cossievale]

and yet he's still here picking up his wages just to billy bull****ter

[X-Valiant]

I wonder how many more "archive" video clips or interviews in the press we can find of his the lying **** saying exactly the same thing?

 

On the basis of that you tube clip alone because we "havent" found any investment, he should stand down because thats what he says in the video clip, no investment and he will stand down

[X-Valiant]

http://www.port-vale.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10381~2141120,00.html

[X-Valiant]

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Port-Vale-Bratt-ready-quit-chief-executive-role/article-1615316-detail/article.html

[X-Valiant]

Bratt stated that he planned to stand down at the end of the 2009–10 season.[29][30] However when investor Mike Newton was willing to invest £400,000 in the club and take the chair of the board at the season's end,[31] Bratt claimed to be unhappy with Newton's policy of negotiating in public (who had by then upped his offer to £500,000[32]),[33] and so Bratt remained chairman for the 2010–11 season. Newton claimed that his "efforts to become chairman and to invest in the club have been hampered and made almost impossible" by Bratt and his board,[34] and said that the reasons giving to reject his investment were "one long round of excuses".[35] Bratt also denied claims by Newton that the club were heading for administration under his leadership.[36] In September 2010 Bratt gave up his role as Chief Executive, but remained as Chairman,[10] denying that this decision was influenced by the recent Newton takeover bid.[37] By this time the club's debts were estimated at around £2m, a level described by Bratt as "manageable".[11]

 

In September 2010 Bratt owned £44,120 of the club's £1.132m shares, with the nine man board's total share value at £359,400.[38] In December 2010 local businessman and Water World owner Mo Chaudry went public with his investment proposal for the club,[39] however Bratt said it was the first he had heard of the proposal, despite Chandry's legal advisor's claims they had spoken and that "it was made clear to me the club wasn't interested in selling to Mo Chaudry."[40] The board swiftly and unanimously rejected the £1.3 million proposal.[41] Following another anti-board protest from Vale supporters and the resignation of director Mike Thompstone, Bratt and his team decided to re-examine the Chaudry bid.[42][43][44] In January 2011, another group of prospective investors, this time a group of Texas businessmen, announced they had pulled out of talks with Bratt's board.[45] The group said: "the deal is completely dead because the directors don't want to sell the club... we believe they [the Vale] are run by the wrong people... [and] we didn't get anything apart from a cup of tea before watching a game."[45] Fans began a protest movement called "Black and Gold Until it's Sold" - inspired by Manchester United's anti-Glazer scarf protest - in which fans wear black and gold scarves to symbolize their opposition to Bratt and the board.[46] Despite this Chaudry's takeover deadline passed without comment from the Vale board,[47] though another director, Paul Humphreys, resigned his position.[48]

[X-Valiant]

This is one of my favourite Bratt interviews taken from the Sentinel on 7th March 2009:

 

Port Vale: The Valiants are not going to go into administration, says Bratt

By sshaw

by Steve Shaw

 

How bad is the financial situation at this moment in time in terms of cash flow and the club's ability to stay solvent?

 

The club is solvent and we haven't got any cash flow problems at the present time.

 

There seems to be a lot of people out there who are supposedly friends of the club, or part of it, but they are enemies because they keep spreading malicious rumours that we are going into administration.

 

But I can categorically state that we are not going into administration.

 

All football clubs at the present time are going through a very bad time cash-wise.

 

Surely it is common sense to sponsor players' wages (referring to the sponsorship of Adnan Ahmed's wages during his loan spell from Tranmere Rovers) and to try to get money in from every avenue to help our cash flow situation.

 

In football, things can change from day-to-day, but we have got plans in place to go forward for as long as we can.

 

We are talking to quite a few interested parties who could help us out in the near future. But our position is stable and our survival doesn't depend on investors coming in.Administration is always a fear for clubs. We've suffered a big one-off loss of more than £300,000 through our savers scheme with the Britannia Building Society. If we weren't financially strong, that hit would have put us under right now.

 

Because we're fairly strong we've weathered that, but we have to ensure the finances are kept as tight as possible in the future. That is the only way to survive at the present time.

 

What steps are the board taking to attract new investment, both to stabilise the club's finances and to improve Dean Glover's squad?We are not going into administration, we are looking for investment and that's all I can say at the moment.

 

All board members have said that if somebody comes in with the correct amount of money, with the right plan and who have the club at heart, they will all stand down ... and they will. That person has not come forward yet.

It's been said that we've turned investment down from various people, but we haven't.

Everybody who has shown an interest in investing has been shown around the club and have been asked for proof of funding and asked what their intentions are. But everybody has fallen by the wayside.

 

Out of the last three interested parties, Pat Munro – the consortium including Earl Barrett and the foreign-based consortium – not one of them came forward with the requested proof of funding needed to take the club forward.

 

That is essential in any deal.

 

We sent someone to look at one potential investor's property and they had a semi-detached house, which had a Nissan Micra parked on the drive, on a run-down council estate in Scotland. Now, that is supposed to be a creditable buyer.

 

We received a lot of stick about that because some people said we should have taken the deal ... but there was nothing in it.

 

That particular 'buyer' would have sold the club to Liverpool-based developers.

So somebody can come along with £380,000, the maximum share stake you can buy, and sell the club on. Is that what the supporters want? I'm sure it isn't.

 

What is the prospect of attracting a cash-rich investor?

I don't think there is a golden goose out there. There are 29 Football League clubs currently in financial danger.

 

We've seen clubs go into administration and there will be a lot more that do so and they could include Championship clubs, while a couple of Premier League clubs are also in danger.

 

If you go through the whole Football League and ask every club what their financial situation is, you'd find a lot more are up for sale than people realise. Football in its present form is not sustainable.

 

Is the club up for sale?

 

We've always said that if the right people come along the board will abdicate – no problem.

 

As a board, we've got Port Vale's interests at heart ... it's not about ego trips.We know that we have taken the club as far as we can financially.

 

But that applies to a lot of boards of clubs throughout the Football League.

 

However, there is nobody out there that wants to risk chucking £2-3m down the Swannee. We try to run a tight ship so the club survives.

 

It's certainly not the right time to sell a football club. We are in the worst recession in living memory and people who come in will want to buy the club at a rock-bottom price. It's not the right time to sell anything at the present time. Property prices have gone down by up to 60 per cent in some areas, and this area isn't immune to it. It's like stocks and shares. You never buy when prices are at the top and never sell when they are at the bottom. That applies to anything – and certainly property. We haven't placed an advert in the paper (to attract potential buyers) because it is not the right time to do so.

 

You will soon be taking a decision on season ticket prices for next season. There has been no promotion push or cup run and the fan base hasn't grown this season. Can you afford to sustain the current pricing structure?

 

The only way we can sustain the current pricing structure is if we get the same number of people, i.e. 5,000-plus, to buy season tickets – it's as simple as that.

 

When you consider that we generate less than £1m per season in gate receipts, including season tickets and walk-up tickets, and our turnover is £4m, you'll realise we have to raise another £3m from all other sources just to break even. That is a very difficult job in the present climate.

 

The board would love to keep the structure as it is, but we would need to have pledges from a minimum of 5,000 people.

 

The prospects of achieving that aren't very good, at the present time simply because of the performances on the pitch. We all know the performances aren't good enough and we are as frustrated about that as everybody else.

 

But directors have no influence on the actual football.

 

The pricing structure is being worked on at the current time.

 

What effect has the credit crunch had on football clubs such as Vale?

 

It is absolutely massive. I can't describe how bad it is and it's affecting everybody.

 

As I've already mentioned, we've lost well over £300,000 per season from the Britannia Building Society's affinity scheme. The scheme has been around for around seven years and savings had built up to £39m, from which we earned one per cent of a five per cent interest rate.

 

Once the interest rate goes below three per cent, we get next to nothing. We can't do anything about that, although it's certainly not Britannia's fault either.

 

If the interest rate goes down to 0 per cent, how will anyone earn money on that basis? At the moment, the country is being run on the economics of madness.

 

It doesn't look like that money will come back to us in the near future, so we have to plan for next season without depending on it.

 

There are a lot of companies which previously provided us with sponsorship, but they have now gone into administration. Other people who used to sponsor things such as matches and the match ball have lost their jobs.

 

We didn't have a main match sponsor for a couple of games recently simply because people had gone out of business. You can't do anything about that.

 

Robbie Williams attended the recent match at Brentford. He is still the majority shareholder. Has he given any indication that he is prepared to invest further money into the club?

 

No he hasn't. I've been criticised for not asking him to put a couple of million pounds into the club.

 

If Robbie wants to do something, he'll do it. At the end of the day, to keep badgering on about Robbie Williams is wrong because he is not responsible for Port Vale Football Club.

 

He's got his own life to lead and it's his money, not ours.

 

He helps local charities and local people and he should be applauded for that. In most people's view, that is more important than football.

 

What we discuss with Robbie Williams stays within the club and that's how it will continue.

 

Is the current nine-man board too big to achieve progress? Is it efficient?

 

I don't think the board is too big to achieve progress. Saying that, I do think a smaller board could possibly work more quickly and in a better fashion.

 

Everybody has got their own opinion, so if you've got nine opinions, it makes it more difficult. I think everybody on the board accepts that.

 

But is a director going to come off the board and still have the responsibility of the club on their shoulders along with all the cash they have to pay out?

 

Let's face it, you would want control of your money. People have got to realise that the directors are responsible for the debts of the club, the loans and everything else.

 

If anything happens to the club, they have to pay out. So why should anybody resign unless somebody comes in and takes their financial guarantees off them?

 

We know the board was split over the appointment of Lee Sinnott. Now Dean Glover is in charge, results haven't improved to the extent the fans would like. What is the manager's current position?

 

Dean Glover is the manager for the foreseeable future.

 

The same players are out there who played under Sinnott and that's the main point.

 

Dean deserves time to turn it around and to settle in his new assistant Keith Downing, who will introduce a new training regime, probably toughen things up and bring new ideas. We've got to give that a chance to gel.

 

Dean was given the job by the board until the end of the season and let's see what happens. He has got a contract, on his assistant's deal for another 12 months at the end of this season, so there is no hurry to do anything, let's see how it goes.

 

How do you assess the current squad?

 

I think the performances tell you what the current squad is like.

 

The position in the league doesn't lie and we are as disappointed as everybody else. It's up to the players during the rest of the season to do something about it.

 

Everybody knows that Dean has got to get players out before he can get players in.

 

What is the board's view of the recent protests?

 

My personal view is that I can understand why the protests have happened. If people want to protest, they have a right to do so.

 

But all I would ask is that they do it in the right manner.

 

To abuse people like some were before and after the Luton match is not right or civil. I believe there was one lady, who was against the protest, and she got abused and faced abusive chanting.

 

I think that's wrong. That woman is as entitled to her opinion as the protesters are to theirs.

 

We all know what the situation is at the club and that the team isn't doing well on the pitch. That's got to be put right. But it can't happen overnight.

 

Has any member of the board considered resigning?

 

Everybody has stood together, but I know that everybody can sometimes feel that it's not worth carrying on.

 

A lot of the directors say if people want them out, let's give it to them. But they have got a sense of responsibility and they care about the club, so they're not going to just jump ship.

 

I would ask one question ... if we succumbed to everything the protesters want, and walked out of the door, where's plan B? What are they going to do to take the club forward then?

 

If we all resign and take our financial guarantees away, what happens then? The club will fold immediately. If they want us to do that, all well and good.

 

But it's time that the people who care about the club stand up and be counted.

 

All the directors share financial guarantees on things like loans, our overdraft and guarantees for our credit card payments. It's a substantial amount of money that each director has guaranteed.

 

If directors haven't got enough money behind them, their house and possessions can be taken away if the club goes bump.

 

There are several members of the board who are in that position. Ask somebody else to take that on.

 

One of our directors said last Saturday that if somebody wants to come and buy his shares off him he is quite willing to sell them as long as that person is willing to take on those guarantees, care about the club and look after it.

 

Valiant 2001 laid down a five-year plan to stabilise the club, improve the stadium's facilities including the Lorne Street Stand, achieve promotion to the Championship and extend youth facilities. How successful have you been?

 

We've pretty much done everything we set out to do except improve the club on the pitch and achieve promotion to the Championship.

 

Unfortunately, what happens on that bit of grass is the most important thing.

 

But we have to depend on managers. And when managers haven't done what we thought they could do, it's put us in the position we're in.

 

If we'd have won promotion in Martin Foyle's first or second season in charge, it would have been a different kettle of fish.

 

If we were anywhere near the play-offs this season, there wouldn't be protests.

 

It's all about what happens on that pitch. We understand that and we want to put it right.

 

None of the directors have got a million pounds to chuck into the pot, so we've got to financially manage the club successfully and prudently.

 

That's what I mean when I say we've gone as far as we can money-wise. We can't do any more for the club and we've done our utmost.

 

Every director has put in what they can afford to put in, and in some cases, what they can't afford to put in.

 

But if we hadn't done what we did five or six years ago, there wouldn't be a football club here.

 

We've done what we set out to do by stabilising the club's finances up to a point.

 

We've improved the stadium in lots of ways, including the creation of the children's centre, and enterprise suites are now bringing money into the club.

 

We have also made general improvements around the ground. There are lots of small things which mount up to ensure supporters have a more enjoyable match-day experience.

 

We want to keep improving that side of it, but the main thing is to improve our performances on the pi

[Howjy04]

X-Valiant post. that's frightening.

[Burslem Academicals]

Sorry X-Valiant despite the good work couldn't read it as I just kept hearing Bill Bratt's voice which is like a bad smell....just can't listen to the blokes lies

anymore and can't stand the bloke.....life bans for them all.

[suge1w]

Bill always wanted to be a politician.

[fairportnick]

Bill always wanted to be a politician.

 

I wanted to be a train driver.

[MarkB2]

We are where we are, eh?

 

Lying *******!

[who was markin him?]

===Surely it will not be long before we follow Tunisia, Yemen and Egypts lead and another evil regime is toppled.

[Fosse69]

So if land prices stay low, they will never sell. But have they not improved, with the latest valuation?