Bottom line is that Raj is a businessman who has the wherewithall to buy and run our club but has no real affinity for it so it's unlikely he's willing to walk away from his money owed.
If he decides to compromise and sell players for whatever he can get then drain the clubs accounts prior to walking away the next day would most certainly be bad for us.
Without being party to any of the financial details of the day to day running costs, the club debt and who the debtors are, or of the details of what was asked for and what was offered by the Consortium, it's impossible to know if he's being a prick or not.
Hopefully we'll see an upturn on the pitch now which should make the club more saleable and everyone gets what they want.

Probably no surprise but I also thought the statement was spot on. Where are we at now - 12 managers in 7 seasons? When was the last time we had any sort of substantial communication from the club? What's the plan and where's the ambition? It all comes back to the owner.

It was a few years ago now but the trust actually got Raj to do a Q&A. You might not like everything that was said but Raj got respect for that and don't know why it wasn't repeated.

As much as I hate Singh I don't think he's deliberately a shite chairman, he's just a shite chairman despite his best efforts.
He's done to you exactly what we said he would, every penny in as loans rather than genuinely bankrolling the club.
He'll want every penny back, just like he did with us, and he'll play hard ball with any potential buyer to make sure he gets that money back.
He wont bat an eyelid at putting you into administration either.

As for the managers job, which manager in work will gladly give up a job to work for a man who has gone through more manager in a couple of seasons than we have in over 12 years?
You'll get someone out of work who is in a no lose situation. Paul Simpson for example.

He's a successful granny farming businessman but buying a club is rarely a good investment. It's generally acknowledged that the club loses around 500-700k per season, which is something Stelling confirmed a while back. If Raj is putting that in as a loan, how is he going to get that back? The higher the debt, the less likely he is to get it back, so the sensible thing would have been to cut his losses a while back, or sell while the club was relatively affordable.
If he pulls the plug he could probably get a chunk back as a tax write off but much less than he apparently put in.
He could just hang in there, continuing to put money in but he's not really wanted here anymore, doesn't enjoy going to the match and will likely never get the money back. What would be the point of that?

The other part of this that irks me though is that there isn't really a concerted effort to make the club more sustainable. It's not inevitable that we lose say £500k/year. Not engaging with fans and local businesses, and not communicating a vision and acting on it is losing him more money. It's like he's just resigned to losing money, instead of working hard to minimise losses.

Buying a club is never an investment.
It’s either a labour of love that’s gonna cost you….or a challenge to a successful businessman who ignores the warnings and who suddenly discovers he’s not the businessman he thought he was ….land has bought a demanding pup.

Do you see any value in the club? Millions in debt, more losses every year, history of failure, nothing is actually owned, fans who call everyone connected worse than shit every few weeks. His terms are indeed stupid if he expects someone to pay him for that. Would be like buying cancer from someone.

I feel for Raj and don't think he has bad intentions at all but he has to see that it has no value

Spot on again Robbie. A failing business, millions in debt, with no way of recouping that money, would normally snap someone's hands off to get rid of their problem. The fact that the trust/consortium were willing to pay anything is something of a minor miracle. If as was said at the time the offer was generous, then quite possibly Raj made a mistake not getting out while he could. Feels like he missed his sliding doors moment but we'll just have to wait and see on that.

An owner should not be able to call investment into his club a loan. It should be converted to equity, and when the time to sell comes, you hold out for the price you want for your shares. It should not sit as a debt against the club. If you can't afford to lose the money, you really shouldn't own a football club.

There is more than enough publicly available information to validate each and every concern that has been expressed on here.

You talk of affinity, well If HUST are concerned, people who live the club just as much as you or I, then I am inclined to believe even more that there is cause for concern.

But there isn't any publicly available information is there unless you mean guesswork and rumours on here?

Agree with the first line--Singh didn't come in for this to enrich himself, he's just not very good as a chairman and is now also pissed off---a bad combination.

I do find it funny Darlo fans coming on with a 'we told you so attitude' --the choices were Singh or liquidation, so not like we had any real choices--its like having gangrene, and your only chance of a cure is to cut your leg off....then you get all these darlo fans with some weird air of superiority later.....eeeh well we did warn you you'd need a crutch if you did that !

Can't disagree although Ithink it's interesting to hear how Raj might tick. Smugness? no thanks but I'm not sure any was meant.

Raj singh has never been interested in selling the club and will only get interested when he gets a daft offer. He put the club up for sale to take the heat off himself, he appointed Walter Mitty Shithead to take heat off him even further. We are screwed while this guy runs the club but lets be honest he backed this clown a lot better than all the other managers.

Its no magic bullet but in over 100 years this is our worst position ever for one reason or another. He didnt back managers when we were on the up foolishly yet backs an absoloute idiot when we are on the slide. Crazy stuff. Lets see who he brings in now. No doubt a club that doesnt pay his manager very much or an under 21 lad. Its like rinse and repeat. Maybe this time they will get it right.

The club proved maybe for one year only if you get it right on the pitch you can make a profit. I know very rarely happens at pools but it is possible, that has got to give us some hope that someone out their is waiting in the wings. We are bound to make losses when for years we dont invest in the team and crowds then dwindle. Get a good manager in see what happens and go from their 5000 crowds at pools are their if the club is run right and is moderately succesful even at this level.

Most of us have known that from day one, but at the time that was our only option and we should be grateful for that, but since its pretty much been one disaster after another. Clueless i would describe him as at the minute, we all probobly know more problems will eventually come our way when raj does eventually, genuinely want to go

unless you are a pools fan or a local rich business man who loves the area its really hard to see a person or group coming in to give the fans what they want. feel there are better prospects around with less fans at the moment than us. just need to look at our history of little real long term success and financial problems the club have had over a long time. really if you were somebody who liked football but did not support a single club but had millions to spare and wanted to run one would pools be your first and only option.

Other clubs manage to get new owners with money, just look at York no shock to now see them on the up, hasnt the same happened with rochdale of all clubs? First of all the chairman needs to want to sell the club, anyone can say their is no interest. It seems their has been interest and the only man that seems to say different is raj. I know who id believe or trust more.

feel its a bit of both going on. nobody with big money coming in and raj only willing to sell if everything is totally in his favour.

Well to be fair we did tell you so! Its like being warned not to marry a woman with a history of screwing over former husbands then realising she was doing exactly the same to you!
And there was always a choice, if you had gone under you would more than likely be back at the level you are now, what with your fan base and ground to use and people who actually give a toss being owners of the club.
Short term pain for long term gain if you like.

Your analogy is flawed--more accurate to say we had a choice of marrying a woman who screws over their husbands or become a eunuch --- we opted to keep our balls----even though they are now in a vice and may get lopped off anyway (at least we got to shoot our load in Bristol though )

To look at the flip side...
Your club has basically reached a ceiling it will never break without outside investment (no ground or realistic prospect of having one, average budget at best for the division, fans digging deep in their pockets just to keep head above water and always at the mercy of one bad decision that completely screws you)--
None of that is your fault, and the 1,200 or so fans left deserve a lot of credit--but it would be weird for pools fans to say 'I told you so' when you turned down Singhs investment.
I think if we went pop we are likely in a better position than you because of the ground---but their are no guarantees and plodding along in amateur regional football with the fanbase slowly dwindling is not a future I want for Pools.....though it may happen

Think you'd be surprised. The northern league has gone downhill since teams started taking promotion and you would be a massive fish in there, you'd have all the best players wanting to play for you and you would get the crowds to pay for them too. I reckon you would be back at our level in straight seasons.
All by the by though. he hasn't pulled the plug yet! You do need shot of him though.

Who is going to put the pressure on ?

There's no guarantee we'd be able to stay at the Vic though is there. Players would want to play for us if the price was right, where would the money to pay them and the ground rent co.e from?
As far as I recall, Darlo regularly had bigger average crowds than us back in the day yet they're down to 1200 or so now, why would we be able to keep our crowds higher when they couldn't?
Darlo seem to have reached their ceiling after what 12 years or so? Burys phoenix like resurrection is lagging way behind even Darlo. Going pop will mean no realistic prospect of efl football for decades imo if ever.

Yes definitely possible but not certain--I feel sorry for you lot--had you kept your own ground or had a council that helped etc you would be in a lot better place--as it is its hard to see anyway you move fwd in your current model--a new ground would add to your gate and upward potential considerably but that doesn't seem likely and more and more fans are growing up with the baseline of Darlo as a part time regional club that gets gates of around 1,000---that my worry with pools, the longer we are here the longer Nat League will be perceived by many as our natural home and accepted as such.

Yes if we didnt keep the Vic as our home we would be fucked

There are no indications that we would not keep it. It is possible we wouldn't but it seems quite quite unlikely.

There are also no indications that Raj has a long term plan for us too remember. Like I've said before, we can bury our heads and just concentrate on the team affairs but this isn't going away and the clock is ticking. At the moment the debt is growing and we are becoming less and less attractive a purchase. Chances of our redemption are growing more and more distantant every day.

in the same way that div.3 north and the 4th division were for our first 40 odd years as a league club. there must have been hundreds of poolies who never saw anything above that level. getting back into the efl is not some magic event where suddenly overnight games get more exciting. could discuss this all day of whether its better to stagnate in league 2 or the nat.league. if only it was obviously better playing playing doncaster than maidenhead it would be great getting back up, but feel a lot have it in their minds that certain games will be better ones than others and jigher the league the better entertainment is bound to be on offer. a pools win is a pools win no matter who and what league we are in.