Bradford City CEO Ryan Sparks has come in from a lot of unfair criticism from a section of Bradford City supporters since the moment he took up the role. He has been an easy target for some fans who don’t fully understand his job and certainly have minimal understanding of the different aspects of running a business, which like it or not, Bradford City Football Club is. Worse still there’s a big whiff of Captain Hindsight from many of the critics as non of them could be heard warning Sparks he was making a big mistake when he hired Derek Adams, in fact, most were applauding the decision at the time.
Taking part in the interview with the new podcast The City Vent has confirmed that Ryan Sparks has been true to his word about being willing to talk to any fans that wish to engage with him. He has stated that his door is always open, and even his biggest critic would be hard pushed to see this as anything other than a genuine offer. Whether he is willing to be grilled in more detail by anybody more likely to pick up the CEO speak which has all too often been taken at face value by those that have interviewed him so far remains to be seen, and I must admit, at this stage I’m tempted to put that to the test sooner rather than later. However the interview on The City Vent is probably the biggest test he has had yet, with him facing some questions that lead to answers that give us more of an insight into what is going on at Bradford City than we have had before.
Ryan Sparks seemed his usual bullish self and spoke with as much honesty as could be expected, whilst remaining in control of the narrative as would be expected given the circumstances. His honesty in the content of what was said must be treated with some caution. That’s not to say he is lying, just that there are ways of saying things that are not as black and white as they may sound to the casual listener. A statement that sounds like a cast iron guarantee to the latter is nothing more than a vague generalisation when you listen to what is being said word for word, and Ryan Sparks will be perfectly aware of the subtleties of the English language and will choose his words very carefully. So this is not a case of looking for things that don’t exist, that is something those people who find meaning in vague statements are actually doing.
An example of this was when Sparks was talking about the ambition that Stefan Rupp has for Bradford City. It is his job to follow the narrative set by his employer, and his job depends on it. When he was talking about the playing budget, he was a little cute with the truth, but he chose his words wisely. Telling the audience that if Rupp wasn’t committed to the club “he would just simply tell me to cut the cloth to the point where we don’t have any risk”. This statement is smoke and mirrors, it is misleading, even though it isn’t a lie. We do know, because it has been published by Bradford City, that the first team budget has been cut over the last few years from £3.5million to £2.9million, and then again to £2.7million. That is a fact, there’s no debating that. And had Sparks stopped the sentence at “he would just simply tell me to cut the cloth” it would have been a lie. But he reframed it by adding the “ANY risk” on the end, which was a little bit crafty and gave his statement a totally different meaning, using a very frequently misunderstood word, one that is also vague in the extreme.
Crossing the road is a risk, but it’s something we have to do every day or we’d never go anywhere, so we don’t see it as taking a risk, it’s just something we have to do to live a normal life. However when most people think about risk, it throws images into our mids of behaviour that can be considered risky, like asking someone to tie you to a railway track and seeing if you can untie yourself before you get hit by a train. They’re very different types of risk and Ryan Sparks understands this.
The fact remains that we are cutting our cloth accordingly, and there is no evidence so far that we aren’t. Even the signing of Colin Doyle as player/goalkeeper coach has a two-for-one benefit to it. Most people have failed to pick up on the fact that John Vaughan has left the club, and that has saved us a wage. So far it still looks like Mark Hughes is doing a magnificent job of squeezing as much as he can out of the same first team budget as his predecessor.
One negative myth about Bradford City Football Club that is often used by the same fans who believe that without Stefan Rupp the club would have nothing, is that nobody would want to buy our club. Rupp had already explained why this unimaginative theory is incorrect in a recent interview with Simon Parker and it was again confirmed when Sparks said “lets be very straight, it’s a very valuable club to own”. He didn’t stop there, and left no doubt about the situation:
“It’s extremely attractive to investors, there are numerous approaches for our football club”
So if you ever hear the “who’d want to buy Bradford City” point them to that inside information that can be checked and verified.
Another belief that people backing Rupp have is that his choice not to sell the club to WAGMI United was swayed by the belief that he felt they were not “fit and proper” people to own a football club. This is possibly the least credible of all of the claims defending Rupp that I have heard so far. Although Ryan Sparks stated that Rupp isn’t actively looking to sell the club, there is nothing to suggest that he wouldn’t sell if the price was right. There is an unfounded assumption that he will only sell to whoever can show they can be trusted custodians of the football club, like his decisions are purely based on the best interests of Bradford City.
The facts are that Rupp has already put a sizeable amount of money into the football club and has lost that money. However, it is understandable that at the very least he would want to break even on what he has spent out on the football club. This is why I’m confident he doesn’t want to flush any more money down the toilet and why Ryan Sparks openly talks about the effort that goes into making sure the club can break even with a competitive budget without Stefan Rupp needing to spend any more money himself. And so far, so good, for at least the last two seasons he hasn’t, which again shows that Sparks is doing a good job. But don’t expect this to convert to promotion when you’re sacking a manager every time the going gets tough.
During the podcast Ryan mentioned that he often gets calls asking “how much the club would be” and in terms of concrete offers to buy the club he points out that “not many of them get anywhere near”, this in reference to due diligence or meeting the asking price. The former is less about whether they are the right people to run a football club, that is the job of the EFL to not do very well. It is mainly to do with whether the money will be clean and if they actually have the funds to do the deal. Like with buying a house or any other business, selling a football club costs money. The seller has a number of expenses such as hiring solicitors to draw up contracts, and this alone would be a drain on resources if you hired a solicitor every time someone enquired about the club.
Another reason, and one of the most likely is that although Bradford City are a very attractive prospect for any investor, it isn’t at any price. This doesn’t mean the football club is worthless because it doesn’t own it’s ground, all of that will be taken into consideration when Ryan Sparks states it is an attractive prospect. Put simply, the money that Stefan Rupp is wanting for the club to prevent him having to write off a load of money he didn’t want to spend in the first place, and the fact it is now worth less than what he paid for it, means that his asking price will be inflated in comparison to what the club is actually worth, therefore selling it at what he wants for it is easier said than done.
Just to make it abundantly clear to those with a difficulty in understanding the grey areas that sit between black and white, this does not mean I believe Stefan Rupp is acting in any way dishonourable. In fact I can completely understand where he would be coming from, it makes perfect business sense. I simply don’t live in some fantasy land where I believe things without a trace of evidence as long as they a serve to make someone look like a knight in shining armour.
But mark my words, had WAGMI United offered £50million for Bradford City direct to his bank account, up front, Bradford City Football Club would now be owned by WAGMI United.
Another subject that was talked about was the story behind the hiring of Mark Hughes. On this Ryan Sparks has calmed one of my own concerns about how things might turn out in the next six to twelve months, and for anyone that thinks due to the age of Sparks he is too young and inexperienced to do the CEO job, the maturity and long term thinking behind his approach to taking on a manager with such a profile really spoke volumes of his ability.
Sparks explained that he went to the effort of “under selling” Bradford City to Mark Hughes. For some this may sound counter intuitive or will no doubt be used as yet another reason to bash him, however long term this makes a lot of sense. With such a big name and a manager that hasn’t had to deal with the realities of managing a League Two club, overselling the club could easily have lead to Mark Hughes quickly regretting what he had signed himself up for and offering his resignation prematurely. The last thing the club needs is yet another quick change in manager, it needs stability. Clearly Ryan Sparks had recognised this risk and took the right approach to minimising it. By managing the expectations of the incoming boss, this will have reduced the chances of him feeling like he has been mislead. So should there come a time in the next 12 months that Mark Hughes does resign, nobody can blame the Bradford City CEO because he was up front with Hughes and went as far as he did to make sure there would be no misunderstanding the task ahead.
Being up front has also allowed Mark Hughes to do his job of rebuilding the team at the earliest opportunity. As was mentioned about Kian Harratt, he has been a target for the Bantams for the last 8-10 weeks. It is a lesson learned from the last minute nature from previous season when we had to wait until the end of the League Two play-off Final before we could begin signing players. And at this point Derek Adams was working blind because he didn’t have the benefit of getting to know what types of personalities were in the dressing room months before the transfer window opened.
Although there’s nothing wrong with holding Ryan Sparks accountable, most of the vitriol directed at him has been completely unfair. As I have said before in relation to the number of fans complaining about all of the announcements about new commercial partnerships, instead of complaining, maybe you should be recognising that this is a very big clue that Ryan Sparks is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing in his role as Bradford City CEO, and he is delivering! You can point to failures on the pitch, but he has done as much as he can reasonably be expected to do, if you’re unhappy with the budget, you’re looking at the wrong person.
Or maybe you look to his record in recruitment, as many have, especially those who have given him unforgivable levels of abuse over hiring Derek Adams. Usually the same people saying he was wrong to offer permanent deals to joint-managers Mark Trueman and Connor Sellars. Pointing at a perceived poor judgement when hiring managers as evidence that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Find me any post on social media where you said at the time that it was a mistake to do it and how much of a terrible idea you thought it was. Funnily enough, I can only think of one example, and he was run out of town in the Telegraph & Argus for being a lunatic! If by some miracle you can find any posts you wrote that states what a terrible mistake Ryan Sparks was making, I’d love to find out the reasons you thought it was such a bad idea. I’m inviting you to provide links to your posts in the comments right now, otherwise you are just another Captain Hindsight!
The vast majority of Bradford City supporters felt Ryan Sparks made the right decisions at the that time. And there are a lot of people who have been using things like this as a stick to beat him with, yet they’d have done exactly the same thing if they were the Bradford City CEO. There is only so long that you can get away with using hindsight to accuse other people of doing a bad job, and remember, at this moment in time you think Mark Hughes is the best manager for the Bradford City job. What will your excuse be if by February Bradford City are sat in 14th position in League Two? Will you yet again forget that you thought hiring Mark Hughes was a great idea? Believing that if anyone could get us out of League Two Hughes was most certainly that man? Or will you again point the finger of blame at Ryan Sparks for hiring another “no hoper” and pretend you knew all along? And if Bradford City do get promoted this season, does this mean you will apologise to Ryan Sparks and thank him for hiring what you believe to be a wise choice of manager? The clock is ticking.