The James Ramsden Column

Monday 20 May, 2002

Geoffrey Richmond and the L.A.W.

Oh dear, It's happened. We all thought that it could come to this, but I suspect most of us thought we were pretty water tight. The club started last season to show signs that it needed to get rid of the big earners.

Out went Petrescu, Hopkin and Stan, Beni was farmed out on loan. We also got rid of Blake, Clarke and Windass. All this without really replacing any of them with big earners. Add on to this that we receive £500k in August for Boro staying up, we're being linked with good young players and things look pretty good.

Then a double whammy happens. ITV digital decide to pull out of the deal with the Football league and Boro decide to pull out of signing Beni. All of a sudden we've gone from losing Beni's wages and gaining £3 million from television rights, to gaining Beni's wages and losing £3 million. Add on to this that we owe £400k to the Inland Revenue and we are in trouble.

Geoff calls the Administrators in, and all of a sudden we are up for sale. So what is the way forward? I work in sales, and we have a tool for negotiating called, funnily enough, LAW. This stands for Like, Accept, Walkaway. Underneath each heading you write down exactly what you would Like in an ideal world, what you would realistically Accept and what would make you Walkaway from the situation and discuss it another day. So, lets apply this to the Bradford situation:

Like

It would be nice if businessman Mr Morrison came in to buy the club. A Bradfordian with pots of cash and good business sense, who could pay off the Inland Revenue and invest heavily into the club. Not being big on football, Mr Morrison would employ a knowledgeable board to assist in decisions (Stuart McCall would be good - remember, this is in an ideal world).

Nicky Law would be left alone to concentrate on the day to day running of the team and have responsibility over the playing staff - who stays, who goes and who joins. Alternatively, as reported in BFB, Sharif Tariq buys the club and brings with him Arab tycoons who make Al Fayid look poor. Bradford becomes the new Fulham and buy their way out of division one and back to the Premiership - who needs ITV Digital now?

Accept

The FA decide to move into the real world and let the club cancel players contracts. Beni, Ward, Jess,Juanjo, Davison and Tod all leave, drasticallyreducing the wage bill. The club are granted 'time to pay' by the inland revenue and use the £500k from Boro to pay it off. Geoffrey Richmond, who has redeemed himself due to owning up about 6 weeks of madness, goes on holiday and returns refreshed with a plan.

He gets together a new board of clued up businessmen and together they buy the club. He also has a plan to get Bradford Council to stop being so generous to the Bulls and put some cash our way. Nicky Law is given a free role and will continue his plan for bringing in younger players - starting with Chris Greenace.

Walkaway

The FA decide that it is illegal to cut players contracts short. Beni and Ward can't get moves anywhere due to wage and contract demands. Due to this, Bradford are forced to sell their most promising young players - Emmanuel, Standing, Kearney etc, hoping that it will stave off the club folding.

Teams take advantage of our need for money and get these players for a song. Richmond, embarrassed by his failure, admits defeat and no longer wants control of the club and hands over all responsibility to Jack Tordoff, who looks to start where he left off in the mid eighties. Bradford are losing thousands each week. The club is destined to plummet down the leagues and soon Bradford PA will be the number one team in the city again.

After reading through these, I'd like to say that the Like scenario would be great, but compared to the walkaway situation, I don't think it would be too bad if Geoff got a consortium together and bough the club. Who knows, maybe it will be called Richmond, Morrison and Tariq holdings - now that I would Like.

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