The group of investors that only a few months ago tried to buy Bradford City Football Club have bought fellow League Two side Crawley Town. The takeover of Crawley Town by WAGMI United will see Ziya Eren, Erdem Konyar, Emre Eren and Nuhkan Ruzgar leave the board with immediate effect with Preston Johnson and co-founder Eben Smith replacing them with the rest of the board to be announced soon. The new owners have pledged a new era of unprecedented transparency and accountability to Crawley Town Football Club supporters and the Crawley community. Which would be something that would have certainly been welcomed by a growing number of Bradford City supporters in light of constant issues with a lack of transparency from our own owner and representatives.
Few other issues highlight this lack of transparency more than the situation that lead to a five figure sum being donated to Bradford’s Plastic Surgery and Burns Research Unit by Stefan Rupp & WAGMI United in February as part as a joint agreement to “put to bed” the threatened legal action by Rupp after WAGMI United claimed at the time of the failed takeover big that there had been “productive and confidential negotiations with Mr Rupp to purchase Bradford City since early November”. This claim directly contradicted the version of events put out by Stefan Rupp in the Yorkshire Post on December 17th when he claimed “YESTERDAY, I received an e-mail from a representative of the WAGMI United group with an offer to purchase Bradford City AFC. That is all I have received, nothing more, and no further action has taken place”. In an unusual turn of events BOTH parties decided to pay a settlement by way of a donation. Usually the one being sued settles out of court, it is unusual for the person taking the action to end up paying out too. This had left some supporters asking whether there was indeed some truth in the claims made by WAGMI United. But unfortunately we will never know. Ironically WAGMI United have also announced they will be “donating an initial £10,000 to the Crawley Town Community Foundation in order to further develop the community programme and work within the Crawley area” a figure perhaps already earmarked for Bradford’s Plastic Surgery and Burns Research Unit had they taken over at Bradford City.
What we will know in the coming months and years is whether those fans who were dead set against WAGMI United taking over Bradford City Football Club, practically running them out of town, were in the right or not. To some fans ‘better the devil you know’ has become something of a mantra, as if it somehow magically protects the club against relegation from the EFL and bankruptcy. Regardless of the fact said devil we know has overseen the decline of a football club from one on the cusp of the Championship, to one that, if its league position continues its trend will be fighting relegation from the EFL within the next two years. In short, as things stand right now, almost anyone with the resources would be no worse than Stefan Rupp.
We had an opportunity for some hope, for something to get behind, something that had the potential to turn our trajectory into a positive one. Even if it hadn’t worked out, the doomsday scenario the risk averse section of fans constantly use in defence of sticking with Rupp, namely that whoever takes over could leave us without a football club to support, is exactly the same as if we stay with Rupp. Just because something is new, doesn’t automatically make it bad. And just because it is someone different, doesn’t increase our risk of going out of business, it is just as likely if we remain a football club owned by Stefan Rupp.
Anyway, with Crawley Town only a few places above us in League Two, and now owned by the people that could have owned Bradford City, over the next few years we will be able to measure whether we are better off with Stefan Rupp or WAGMI United. One thing is for sure, there will be some of us watching what is going on at Broadfield Stadium very closely and comparing it to what is happening at Valley Parade.