OI - no.

Any chance of someone fronting up about finances rather than leaving it to rumours?

Silk - maybe not Bet365, but Paddy Power, at least their adverts are often pretty funnyā€¦ šŸ˜‚

Messages I've received in last few hours suggest my 2027 timeliness is optimistic. Loan of Ā£1m from the named source, to get us to Summer. Anyone on DTB or PLC see this coming with say a five year financial projection?

What does being in charge of the plc mean? If you are talking about the day to day running of the company then the CEO or MD should be doing that. If you are talking about tha strategy and direction of the company then the plc board should be in charge. The CEO should be on the board or at worst consulted about theses subjects. For us the DTB has a veto on the plc board, something we demanded when we stopped saying the DTB should be a majority on the board. If people say they wouldn't start from here fine, but we are starting frrom here and we need to make the best of the situation we have.

Yes I agree with that Silk

Google is hugely worse with the introduction of AI. Sort of apropos- our son's Flemish father-in-law recently reminded us that at one time Google offered you articles in different languages with the possibility of translating them. As English speakers we hadn't noticed the change. He has found it limiting just getting stuff in Dutch.

LD- agree that we need to put in place protections now, if we can. I donā€™t know if it is still possible (I think that there are legal restrictions on the ability of a company to transfer its assets at an undervalue if it is or is nearly insolvent, but I donā€™t know if that would apply to us at present). That is exactly the sort of stuff that the DTB should be looking at now - maybe they are, they wouldnā€™t advertise or minute it publicly if they were doing so.

If we sell the club what controls can we have to stop Mr. Nice Guy circumstances changing and the club being sold to Mr. Asset Stripper shortly afterwards?

TF - isn't that the problem if it was their loss. Shouldn't the MD/CEO be in charge of the PLC. Why do we have so many fragmentations. The DTB do this, the MD/CEO does this and the PLC board does this. Why not have all decisions made from one place from people who are paid to make them and so can devote the time to get them right.

If we go into administration in an uncontrolled way (rather than selling in an agreed sale) we will of course have absolutely no control over who subsequently buys the club, so our DTBā€™s moral scruples will be irrelevant anyway

That loss was from the PLC, right?

Laurence - isn't that what we pay Woodruff for or wasn't he there when the proverbial hit the fan.

Silk - business acumen might have prevented Ā£400,000 of losses?

Iā€™d take that money all day long Silk. Thereā€™s an irony in trying to maintain the moral high ground when the integrity of the trust is at an all time low.

Does any amount of business acumen help when you are losing money every week? I am sure that Woodruff has some acumen and he cannot solve this problem. It is just re-arranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic. If we want to remain a L2 club we have to have someone who will sustain the losses. Otherwise we have to accept we cannot keep on making losses.

'I agree with Nick' which I believe was at one time a common phrase.

Which one were you trying to undress?

The reality is that cutting the budget wonā€™t work either- cutting it enough to balance the losses would almost certainly see us relegated from L2, at which point you lose revenue so you have to cut furtherā€¦. Given our high cost base at Plough Lane I doubt that there is any level at which we could operate profitably without outside investment (the DT should have studied this to identify our options, rather than relying on what I or anyone else ā€œthinksā€, though I doubt that they haveā€¦). As such, we will inevitably end up in administration and the real question should be what happens next and whether we can put any safeguards in place or whether we can find a way to sell out control ( none of this 50%+1 nonsense) while we still have some control of the process

OI, That was one thing I've been wondering myself for a short while. We did have two members of the DTB that reclused themselves of standing again (Maverick and Hoody) that I believe had businesses, or certainly experienced managing them, not sure on size though. There are a few Proboards commentators that often chirped up with sensible observations at the shortcomings of the way things have been managed, again with business experience. I'm not doubting that some/most of the current DTB have senior roles with their employment, but I'm not entirely convinced that equates to being able to run a business, and certainly not of this size. Is there a skills audit available for members to see, as these to some degree would have appeared as part of their election package?

As an aside Google AI can't distinguish between Mick Buckley and Erik Samuelson. Info on one, picture of the other.

If we donā€™t get outside investment (and I think thatā€™s a very difficult thing to achieve with the current bunch negotiating it - happy to be proved wrong here) then an option you missed is administration followed by private ownership.

Laurence - a good reason to avoid it if people like the WM guy are on thereā€¦ šŸ˜‚šŸ‘

No point in saying 'we can't' when we do and it can only be changed through restricted action protocols. Our governnce system may nt be fit for purpose but we can't just wish an alternative one into existence. So I'd like suitably qualified people involved. As an example take Buckley's position. There has been criticism of it for years (OK mostly from me) and the search for a successor ended with the most likely candidates apparently telling us it was a bad structure. Nearly a year on from that, are we any closer to sorting the situation out?

OI - we were due to have three on the board last season from what I could see. One stepped down before starting (family reasons), and two were sidelined off the back of Shane's banning due to hurty words being used.