Seem to remember Gretna having a similar business model.



What happened to them again?

Plans have been passed and work starts in the summer on the new stand which takes our capacity to 5,000 which will get us into the football league.



As for your history comment, thats obviously just something you have made up because we have never had success. Sure a trip to wembley but our crowds never increased on that.

Telfords is very similar except our new stand will blow their stadium out of the water, with its function suites, VIP boxes etc.

They went bust. Fleetwood wont.



Unlucky.

www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?storycode=3157781 Look at that beauty

www.propertyweek.com/story.asp?storycode=3157781 Look at that beauty

What if multi-millionaire owner gets bored / goes bankrupt?



Not really a sustainable way to run a club is it?

He wont go bankrupt, trust me.



And the club are hoping to be self sufficient within 4 years and this is based on their current average attendence. Wether this happens or not I dont know

Brooks Mileson never went bankrupt. Do you not understand that you are a club spending beyond your means like many non-league teams before you? Most teams who do this incur serious problems down the line. How does the team become self sufficient with the current attendances in a national professional competition when this guy is having to bail them out in a semi pro regional league?

The problem was that the basis that Gretna were run on sounds eerily similar to the way that Fleetwood are being run under Andy Piley.



Gretna's survival was based entirely on Brooks Mileson being able to underwrite the club's expenses. He had a family who had no interest in football and there was no plan B, or at least, not one sufficient enough to underwrite the club's eye watering cost base. There was a plan to make the club self sufficient in the long term, but that long term didn't factor in the unexpected. If, hypothetically, Mileson left his front door one morning and was hit by a bus, the club was finished.



In the end, that is effectively what happened. Mileson became extremely ill and his family had no interest in bankrolling the club. It had nothing to do with Mileson's fortune.



It's no bad thing that Fleetwood are investing, in fact it's encouraging. The concern is where the pay-back comes into it. It was the same problem that Farsley had - running up costs in the belief that those costs could be recouped from asset sales and investments that would make the business more profitable. Those asset sales never happened and the rest, as they say, is history.



Things may well come off for Fleetwood but it's a scenario that is all too common in non league football. If I were a fan, I'd be crossing everything I had that Andy Pilley looks both ways before crossing the road.

You do realise that a football club can also generate income from other activities dont you? Im not even talking about money generated from a stadium or anything at all to do with the club. Nor am I talking about asset sales or investments either. I dont want to get involved with specifics because I am privvy to the financial side of not just fleetwood, but Andy Piley too, but having seen the plans for how the club intends to be self sufficient, I can honestly say that its very probable. I would even say nailed on, but nothing is nailed on these days so id better not.

So Fleetwood are going to become self sufficient by gaining money from what? You say they don't need income from the stadium or the actual club. You don't want to get involved in details because it is nigh on impossible for a club in the lower leagues to make money from anything but their stadium. I would of thought they would balance the books by hiring out meeting rooms etc but you seem to think this wouldn't be needed. Seen as they won't be selling assets, investing or making any sort of money from the stadium i would love to know exactly how they will make enough money to be self sufficient?

There is hire of stadium facilities yes. I should have made myself clear. It is possible to generate money and good profit from activites other than those associated with football or stadium facilities. As I said, I have been involved in it all and its very probably that the club will be self sufficient. At the very worst, Piley will have a little bit of outlay to find.