Quote Leaguefan="Leaguefan"Agreed these people are the lifeblood of the game and no doubt "lose" money by their involvement.A concern/niggle is that, to some, running a RL club is seen as a "hobby" and not as a business and unfortunately this has caused a lot of clubs, including Keighley several times, to go to the wall.
I know that the people involved do have the game at heart otherwise why would they bother but sometimes basic financial sense needs to rule the roost.
What I do "know" is that several " top sides" as well as co-op teams, are probably trading "illegally" as are many soccer clubs, even more so the premier league.
The nature of the beast though is that do survive or like the phoenix arise renewed from the ashes but then go through the same process all over again.
I suppose, deep down, we all should be greatful that the game at a "professional" exists at all in some areas thanks to the involvment of these backers because if not, and the the full weight of businees law applied, there would, I suggest, be very few "professional" RL clubs left and soccer would probably cease to exist in places, (although that would be no bad thing.
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I have posted several times that when you get involved with supporting so called proffessional sport at board room level it matters not what your ' Business track record ' is as all sensible business rules go out of the window
How many on here have posted " He Knows what he is doing he wouldn't be a millionaire if he didn't " , it means nothing because nobody gets involved with proffessional sport if the use their heads
If you try to run any business with your heart it will fail
My accountant said to me " are you raving mad " when I told him
He was right
The other problem that rears it's ugly head when you do get involved is ' Pride ' , many people have been mostly anonymous in building their businesses up to that point
Suddenly they are thrust into the spotlight , they are hailed as the ' saviour ' of the towns club
How many times are the words " Thing will be different this time " heard ?
And then when things are not going to plan because you cannot ' plan ' in sport , it doesn't work that way then ' Pride ' starts to kick in , they will not admit that they cannot give the fans what was promised , they cannot guarantee that SL place or that GF
So they continue slowly putting the club in a more and more precarious position , not willing to admit defeat and ask for help until it is too late
They then become the ' devils child ' for not delivering the ' dream '
And quite often they then slip away never to be seen again , which is a shame because they are the people that really understand what trying to run a successful club is all about
They are the ones the next ' saviour ' should talk to
But they are ' a millionaire businessman ' , so they know what they are doing
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