Steve Gibson “pumps in £1m a month to keep the club afloat”

BobendBert said:
Without Gibson’s financial support we would have gone pop.

Without Gibson’s financial support we wouldn’t have seen Juninho, won the cup or got to the UEFA Cup Final.

However, without Gibson’s negligent decisions over the last 6 years we wouldn’t need anywhere near as much financial support. He wasted the opportunity that promotion gave us and since then has lurched from one disastrous decision to the next.
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That's pretty much how I see it. Blokes a cast iron Boro legend but he's not above criticism.
 
Zoophonic said:
I guess because those two clubs owners have taken their clubs to mid Premier Table status in recent years without breaking the Bank. Just canny recruitment.
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Brighton have broken the bank, as have Bournemouth. Not sure on Brentford but I’d wager they’ve spent an absolute fortune as well. They may have a good recruitment model but there’s an idea that these clubs spend little or nothing which just isn’t true. They spend wisely perhaps, but they’re far, far from paupers.
 
Zoophonic said:
I guess because those two clubs owners have taken their clubs to mid Premier Table status in recent years without breaking the Bank. Just canny recruitment.
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Yes it because they have been successful. Last few years people having been saying let's copy their model. This appears to be what we are trying to do now. It's why everyone was delighted when kieron Scott was appointed. Now they're not. Because it's not just about copying their model, it's about being good at whichever way you choose to do it. To which there is no easy answer. Which is why you have so many failures like us. The natural state of a club is failure as there is limited opportunity for success.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Brighton have broken the bank, as have Bournemouth. Not sure on Brentford but I’d wager they’ve spent an absolute fortune as well. They may have a good recruitment model but there’s an idea that these clubs spend little or nothing which just isn’t true. They spend wisely perhaps, but they’re far, far from paupers.
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Without seeing their accounts we've no idea what the financial position is of those clubs. I don't disagree they have spent wisely but the other factor is that they all benefit from a chunk of sky's tv money every season where as we don't. Also they have mostly bought well where as we haven't which contributes to our financial state of affairs. No disagreement there.
 
DCI_Gene_Hunt said:
Without seeing their accounts we've no idea what the financial position is of those clubs. I don't disagree they have spent wisely but the other factor is that they all benefit from a chunk of sky's tv money every season where as we don't. Also they have mostly bought well where as we haven't which contributes to our financial state of affairs. No disagreement there.
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Brighton are a basket case. The first return on Google shows you(it’s a Brighton site using The Price of Football’s stats). Tony Bloom has put in around £427m and took out a loan of £37m around the time of the pandemic. They’re losing money year on year and at some point in the next few years things will turn and they’ll drop back into the second tier. It seems inevitable for anyone whose model depends on selling your best players every summer.

The Bournemouth owner is a Latvian billionaire who’s spent buckets of cash(not the collection buckets used by supporters a decade or so ago, as the football media would often have you believe).

This stuff is in the public domain and easily obtainable. There’s nobody not spending an absolute fortune any more. The difference with some clubs - as alluded to by @Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret - is competence.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Brighton have broken the bank, as have Bournemouth. Not sure on Brentford but I’d wager they’ve spent an absolute fortune as well. They may have a good recruitment model but there’s an idea that these clubs spend little or nothing which just isn’t true. They spend wisely perhaps, but they’re far, far from paupers.
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All these clubs have relied on massive financial support from their owners. Brighton owes Tony Bloom over £300 million. They're better placed and, arguably, better run than Boro at the moment, but still lose money.
 
JackG said:
All these clubs have relied on massive financial support from their owners. Brighton owes Tony Bloom over £300 million. They're better placed and, arguably, better run than Boro at the moment, but still lose money.
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Aye - better to be massively indebted to a chairman but in The Premiership, I suppose
 
NorthumberlandBoro said:
Think of the tens of millions of wealth he has foregone by giving the loans interest free. That is a definite write-off.
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The club couldn't afford to pay interest on the debt HE has created. It would just make the existing debt to self even bigger.

He absolutely has not put that £120m in YET.
You raise a good point however, which there most certainly is an Opportunity Cost by him choosing to offset £120m of Bulkhaul asset with £120m of MFC liability (plus the Rockliffe vanity project).

GO'N could undoubtedly have done something much more productive with the £120m than propping up MFC. At least Mike O'Neill could.
JackG said:
All these clubs have relied on massive financial support from their owners. Brighton owes Tony Bloom over £300 million. They're better placed and, arguably, better run than Boro at the moment, but still lose money.
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I have highlighted which clubs are in worse positions than us re nett shareholder value.
Brighton are worst, but their debt is to Bloom as you say, a billionaire.
Stoke are next worse with 50% bigger nett negative value, but debt to the money making empire of Bet 365.
West Ham and Cardiff are the only 2 other clubs in a worse position.

Lots of people don't understand the finances and have a pop at those who do.
The Sheriff raises a key point, it is about competence, not just finance.
 
h_m_boro said:
You obviously don't like Gibson, you want the perfect owner to come in, spend billions and lead us to CL glory. As do hundreds of other clubs across Europe.

Gibson has made plenty of bad decisions - Southgate, Strachan, Woodgate being the worse ones. Some were "understandable" - Pulis, Warnock. Some were odd and just didn't work out behind the scenes - Monk and Wilder. Mowbray and Karanka were successful appointments in their own way - Mogga steadied a sinking ship and Karanka got us promoted.

Every chairman makes bad decisions, football is full of too many variables for things to be guaranteed. Gibson has made his fair share of those.

But what do you want - new owner to come in, promise the world and we end up like Derby, Sheff Weds, Sunderland, Oldham..... Stockport, Bury, Macclesfield? They (mostly) wanted their owner out, got giddy because of the PR bullsh*t by the new regime and ended being royally shafted.

If this is the risk you are happy to take......cool. Personally not a road I'm happy to go down.
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Talking absolute rubbish, where did I or anyone who is criticising him suggest we expect a new owner to come in and show that level of ambition

So because a few other clubs have had bad experience of new owners it’s something we should never explore? What about all of those clubs sacking their manager and the new manager makes them worse? Should clubs never change a manager Incase it doesn’t work out?
And why are you conveniently ignoring all of the clubs who have new ownership and improved?

But back to the original point, you claim we are a well run club but you can’t tell me a single positive thing he has done in the last 6 years. Not sure how you get to that conclusion

I don’t think it’s unreasonable as a paying supporter to be asking questions about Gibson considering the position of the club.
 
1finny said:
Genuinely - why do we need him?

We ’need’ a football club.
Whatever happens there will always be a local team in Middlesbrough to support.
It may not be as well funded, it may not even be in the championship but… there will be a local team for the community to get behind….. if they so wish.

Lots of supporters get behind their clubs without a ‘Gibson’
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It depends what age you are - those longer in the tooth will tell you that we were less than half an hour away from losing our football team in 1986. That is a fact. And think what a story or stories would not have happened. Our lives would have been very different. There would not have been a Middlesbrough FC.
Am not making any excuses for managerial sackings etc or club policy but the facts are that no one else would be prepared to make such a continued financial commitment to Boro and to keeping the club financially sound.
 
I will always appreciate what Steve Gibson has done for MFC but with better communication we the fans would be much better versed in terms of strategy, direction,objectives etc.
I feel we deserve that,armed with the facts we would all be in a better position to make informed opinions rather than shooting from the hip based upon supposed ITK information.
We have had some wonderful times under Steve Gibson,let's have an open forum and let's get them back
 
fmttmadmin said:
There would not have been a Middlesbrough FC.
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Not necessarily - there might not have been a professional club but there would have been plenty of people willing to make sure some sort of club rose from the ashes even if it meant playing at the absolute lowest level.
 
If Gibson came to the supporters forum and said he would respond to a number of written questions what would those questions be?
 
fmttmadmin said:
It depends what age you are - those longer in the tooth will tell you that we were less than half an hour away from losing our football team in 1986. That is a fact. And think what a story or stories would not have happened. Our lives would have been very different. There would not have been a Middlesbrough FC.
Am not making any excuses for managerial sackings etc or club policy but the facts are that no one else would be prepared to make such a continued financial commitment to Boro and to keeping the club financially sound.
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I started going in 67
If we had folded in 86 a new team would have been born.
It would have been for local people.

We may not have had the ‘glory days’.
Most clubs don’t get them but the locals are happy to support their team.

Sounds like people want to support the team subject to a degree of success.
That’s fine
It’s not, and never has been for me.
It’s unconditional
 
h_m_boro said:
Think a lot of it is the Football Manager / Premiersh*t / FIFA generation thinking running a football club is a piece of p*ss - winning the CL with Hartlepool is an everyday achievement.
Reality is obviously a lot different, and the implementation of FFP has left clubs like Boro behind. We can't compete otherwise we breach spending regs.

Sell out to a billionaire foreign owner? Not for me. Always been something about a local lad saving and owning/running the club. One of our own (which a lot of fans don't like). We are stable and well run (although others will disagree). We're a club where very few fans outside Teesside support us. We're still real.

Gibson isn't perfect, has made huge mistakes and this current period is probably his worst (most damaging) era. Massive few weeks in his tenure coming up......be nice for him to come out of hiding and be there when the new manager is unveiled.
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Fully agree with this and it has always been my view.

However, the crux will be if he leaves us in a worse condition than he found us, when he first got involved in 86. It’s far from impossible as things stand.
 
viv_andersons_nana said:
Brighton are a basket case. The first return on Google shows you(it’s a Brighton site using The Price of Football’s stats). Tony Bloom has put in around £427m and took out a loan of £37m around the time of the pandemic. They’re losing money year on year and at some point in the next few years things will turn and they’ll drop back into the second tier. It seems inevitable for anyone whose model depends on selling your best players every summer.

The Bournemouth owner is a Latvian billionaire who’s spent buckets of cash(not the collection buckets used by supporters a decade or so ago, as the football media would often have you believe).

This stuff is in the public domain and easily obtainable. There’s nobody not spending an absolute fortune any more. The difference with some clubs - as alluded to by @Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret - is competence.
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But this is my point. Was Gibson ever the competent genius we often thought he was, or was he just able to spend way more than the other clubs back then?
 
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