That's one hell of a document to read and I would imagine most ordinary fans (myself included) are unlikely to read it and understand it. Fair play to the coalition for doing so and Mashed Potato too and any other fan who has.

How about the doesn’t fit Ismael’s way of playing card - who are they saving that one for?

I’ve said before from my time in the Trust, in addition to those who made public offers (The two Ian’s, and the Qataris), there are at least 4 potential owners (I believe all are consortia) who had maintained an interest from when they first privately engaged Venkys up to at least the point I left the Trust a couple of years ago. That means they were still interested during our L1 season. Nobody should underestimate the appeal to new potential owners of the ‘kudos’ of ‘taking a founding member of the FL and PL back to the top’. It holds real appeal for those people that can afford to play Football Manager in real life. But it continues to beg the questions: Why does that not appeal to Venkys? Why do they not sell or seek external investment? What is in it for them to cling to our carcass?

Of course, Glen, has to piece by piece, Apologies if I misread your post, as it initially red to me that though some may want a sale, a strong board was actually the aim. If that’s an initial, short term aim as we work towards a sale, then fair enough, who could disagree with that - as after fifteen years we know they won’t ever change course, or run the club in a professional way to help this club fulfill its potential, so a sale has to be the ultimate aim.

Thank you for this. I think the club with its history and excellent Academy would attract potential purchasers without too much difficulty. The difficult issue would be negotiating a price.

Somebody should have bought Ismael, a euro millions ticket last night, 199 million in the transfer kitty, problems solved.

Where did he say this?

Yep they're playing the textbook 'player wants away' strategy and as correctly pointed out above phase 1 of that is to try and convince as many people as possible that the club has been hard at work trying to tie said player down to a bumper new long term contract. Immediately shifts the attention away from Rovers and on to the player. Next up it will be talk about the player wanting to play in the Premier League, or having family ties down South, or being offered highest paid player status but refusing to sign. Again cleverly shifting blame away from the club and onto the player or circumstances outside of our control. Seen it all before. Its such a shame that some still can't see what they are up to. The problem they will face is they are going to have to repeat this game 3-4 times this summer with Travis, Dolan, Brittain and Tronstad. They already came with the 'family ties on the continent' rubbish with Tronstad which he swiftly silenced with his interview soon after declaring he would be happy to stay.

Google the words "Football Governance Bill House Of Commons Library" - and then go on to the link dated 23 April 2025. Scroll down that page to the words "Explanatory Notes" as of 27 March 2025. They run for 116 pages. For the purposes of what has been discussed on this thread I think you will find pages 40 to 52 the most relevant. I was interested to see what is about to happen. My hunch is that fans are likely to be disappointed; I've seen comments on here about fans getting "more power" whereas that power is really limited to various heritage issues like club name or colour of shirts. I suspect it won't be too long before the Regulator is one of the most unpopular people in the country.

Sounds like Suhail has got to them using deflection techniques to keep him safe

100% agree there are limits to what can be done if you do not have a channel of communication. I still believe one of the ways to draw out Venkys into actually doing something (or not which still speaks volumes) is to actively source interested investors. Through our network, we must have some corporate financier, private equity professionals, well connected HNWs that could potentially gauge interest? The three amigos (now two) said that they would be present 'credible offers' to Venkys so let's find them....This interest (regardless of how concrete) would provide strong ammo for the Coalition to present to media.

That's not what I've said, I said my personal thoughts (we all have different) is we need to remove things systematically. Toppling the king becomes easier by toppling the pawns. We have to be realistic of what we can or cannot influence. Piece by piece, is in my opinion the correct approach. Unless someone can come up with a viable plan how we remove the owners first? I don't believe a single person in the coalition wants the Raos to own this club, me included. That's our opinion, Removing them is an almighty challenge which requires deeper thoughts and a strategy that reaches the finish line with the desired outcome and hopefully better owners. On your edited part "enough is enough" is exactly where we are. We do not believe communication is worth a dime, However we want to maintain the moral high ground of being amenable. (We knew the club would avoid all communication, we banked on it) it's now one less bullet for them to crucify the supporters in their rebuttals. Playing the game is exactly where we want to be, completely in control of our path without giving freebies to the club to beat us

Jesus Christ, Ryan Cooney got released and couldn't get a kick at Morecambe 2 years ago. He's absolutely terrible and about 2 stone heavy. I know he played a lot for Crewe last year but honestly if that's where we are at with quality of signings just announce voluntary relegation now.

So predictable, also explains the nominal links to Drameh and Cooney as replacements not back-ups

So fundamentally the Coalition is not standing on a platform of wanting new owners? WATR got a lot of stick re sticking to their long held stance of wanting communication and engagement with them, for wanting change at board level, but necessarily ownership. But that is also the preferred outcome of the Coalition? Even though there is no indication as per Glen’s post above mine that they have any interest in changing course? So ‘enough is enough’ is when? I’ll be honest I thought that’s where the Coalition already was, obviously I had the wrong impression.

No, they've gone underground too, I know they are reading comms, but gone silent

Quibbling over the fee we should have gotten for Wharton is ultimately beside the point, as much as we can enjoy pedantic arguments about how we'll obviously receive more than £18m in the end, how much 'credit' we can give for add-ons/sell-ons (as we can debate re: Raya's sale), benchmarks like how much Bristol City received for Alex Scott (eg, I've seen it reported as 'up to' £25m), speculating as to how much we would've gotten if we had at the very least waited until the summer and had a proper bidding war, etc etc etc. The main issue is that it was obviously a replay of the Tom Cairney sale: a distressed seller forcing a star player out the door to alleviate immediate cashflow concerns due to our owners suddenly being unable (and unwilling) to properly fund the club despite their (allegedly) massive wealth.* Hell, it's somewhat frustrating how much we did get for Wharton given the Rovers hierachy can simply deflect any critique saying it was a record fee, it reflected the market at the time, hard to say no when PL club comes calling, etc. I can't immediately recall if they've referred to FFP... blah blah blah, it's all bullshit. They'll obviously never publicly admit it was driven by cashflow needs. Some times I wonder if one angle of attack is to mock Venky's for not being able to properly fund their 'play thing'. For all the talk of making the club 'sustainable' etc, fuck that, you're quasi-oligarchs. Why aren't you pissing away your wealth to chase footballing glory, like the other vain owners across English football? --- *Linked to how much of an 'impediment' it is for Venky's to provide a 'guarantee' for every £ they send abroad. As can reportedly be the case for the super rich, a lot of their wealth is tied up in illiquid assets, is needed as collateral for other loans, etc., so regularly scrounging together ~£10m+ to send over isn't necessarily something they're capable of doing at a flick of a switch (probably also reflecting general in-fighting, poor planning, indecision, bureaucracy, etc within the Venky's empire). And whether the money set aside in the guarantee still earns interest or does it just sit there and have its nominal value eaten away by inflation I've generally found it a bit odd that they've consistently relied on that bank overdraft (at 2% plus BOE rate) for day-to-day funding of the club, which hurts Rovers' bottom line relative to just sending over a bunch of cash, but perhaps that reflects competing interests for cash within the Venky's empire. Anyway, I'm straying into a separate (unending) discussion! tldr; I just had some coffee.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-04/0187/en/230187en.pdf

Do you get any feeling or feedback fom Venkys that they want to implement positive changes?

Has gone literally as people predicted it would: 1. Offer made 2. Progress on a new contract 3. Club confident he will sign 4. All goes quiet 5. Club leaks to the LET that he wants more than we are offering 6. Sold for 1/4 of his value 7. Club blames player for being greedy We've just hit stage 5 by the sounds of it.

How likely is Pasha to go? Surely him going could sort out a lot of issues?

Can I ask why you went to the trouble to read that and do you have any comments positive or negative to make on it? Can you also let me know where I can find them? Thanks in advance.

Elliot Jackson banding around the idea of an ultimatum made to Brittain, that's 100% the club paving the way for him to be sold, be very very surprised if he's a Rovers player next season. Championships' best RB will fetch a few million.

Ritchie Barrett. - Some Other Guy

I’d like owners/senior management who want to go beyond whatever the statutory minimums are.