“It’s an absolutely essential part for success. The stadium is a requirement for the club and it has to be built, and it will be built when everything is in order and 100 per cent ready to go.”
There are variations of the above answer to the same question - this one is via Bristol TV - such were the media rounds he was doing at the time, but each one essentially said the same thing as Wael Al-Qadi held his first press conference at the Mem seven years ago this week, after his family had purchased a 92 per cent controlling stake in the club.
It was, and in many respects always has been throughout their and his ownership of the Gas, the subject that has underpinned everything; four managerial changes, two promotions and one relegation, countless transfers and loans in and out, boardroom manoeuvres, battles with the Supporters Club, the pandemic and everything else in between, it’s a question that has never gone away, and continues to represent an uncomfortable millstone around Wael Al-Qadi’s neck.
Although the above statement seems damning given the apparent inactivity on that front, seven years on with Rovers still homed at the Mem - which retains its charm but with no real sense of modernity beyond bolt-on upgrades here and there, electronic turnstiles and the addition of external food and drink facilities and entertainment to significantly improve fan experience - the context has changed over the passage of time.
Seven years ago, UWE was very much in the immediate vision of the club. The legal battle with Sainsbury’s was a blow but not a fatal one, as Nick Higgs and then Wael Al-Qadi repeatedly insisted (although, with hindsight, those protestations look more hope than actual belief), planning permission had been granted with the papers gathering dust over the three-and-a-half years of delays, seemingly all that was required was large-scale investment from a benefactor such as, funnily enough, the son of a Jordanian banking dynasty.
Except it wasn’t quite as simple and within 18 months of the Al-Qadi takeover the project was over and nothing was in order, nor anywhere near 100 per cent ready to go, and Steve Hamer was endearing himself to fans by referencing Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang as a kind of banterous cushion to absorb what was a considerable blow.
Rovers’ seemingly eternal search defines the club almost as much as the quartered jersey, Goodnight Irene or the Thatchers end; the very club name “Rovers” may imply a wilful wish to be nomadic but, really, everyone is just looking for somewhere to lay their hat.
The frustration of UWE lasted for years - and, in some respects, has never disappeared - but Wael Al-Qadi’s pronouncement in August 2019 before the opening game of the season at Blackpool presented a new dream for Gasheads to believe in, with the words “fruit market” entering Rovers-related lexicon for the first time.
“We have identified one site, along with others, we are very interested in. We have options but one of the sites is the site at the fruit market - we are very interested in that site,” Al-Qadi told BBC Radio Bristol. "We have already started the work that goes into planning permission. As you know it's a very long process and there's a lot of technical work that must be done to get approval from the council."
Three-and-a-half years on, while the Conygar Investment Company’s desire to develop that area of central Bristol with accommodation, leisure and entertainment facilities is pressing on, albeit with the land deal still to be publicly confirmed primarily due to the merger between Total Produce - the site’s largest shareholder - and Dole Foods, Rovers’ position in the project appears in a state of limbo and, boy, is that technical work with the council taking some time.
The genesis of the concept of having a stadium within the proposal significantly pre-dates the Blackpool statement - almost as far back as when the UWE deal collapsed - as Hamer was very much a driving force in those early discussions between club, developer and investors before he was cast aside.
Talks have evolved, changed significantly - as the idea of majority or minority stakes in the club were on, then off, then on and then off the table - but essentially everything remains the same; there are provisions for a stadium to be built and leased long term (we’re taking 100+ years here) on the basis of the Mem being relinquished for development and potentially some aspect of the revenue from the new ground split. The latter remains a significant bone of contention.
There are many, many, many detailed arguments within all this but that is the crux of it all. And while there have been matters out of his control that have conspired against them - the pandemic, and how much everything costs in 2023 compared to 2019, being a pretty big one - there are also others, most notably, although not in a critical way, the ownership of the club.
Wael Al-Qadi will retain his critics no matter what he does. Some of that we know is loaded with a certain unpleasant strain but there is also validity in terms of the overall progress of the club against what he said seven years ago which, for the record, also included the academy, the recruitment operation and the commercial department.
“It’s not like a magic wand where you can throw some money at the club and improve things," he said at the time. "Lots of owners have tried that and lots of owners have failed, it’s about building sustainability by improving the football club on and off the field.”
Within each aspect, there’s been a little bit of riding the wave of whichever manager is in charge, outside of a brief period during the ill-fated Garner/Widdrington axis in which there seemed to be a genuine plan of trying to create something self-sustainable.
It was just that unfortunately matters on the pitch dictated such a programme had a very limited shelf-life as the pressure of league position has a tendency to interrupt with any concepts of long-term thinking. Now, for better or for worse, it is aligned solely with the Joey Barton regime, and whenever that should end, not for the first time, the Gas will need to start again.
Nevertheless, throughout the Clarke, post-Clarke and now Barton era, Wael Al-Qadi has unquestionably funded the club and spent significant amounts of money to ensure it remains on a relatively even financial keel while also providing his managers with competitive budgets to deliver on the field. Some managers, of course, have been able to extract a little bit more than others.
Through capitalisation of loans and the writing off of interest on those liabilities, Wael Al-Qadi has effectively personally invested more than £20m into the club, just to keep its head above increasingly choppy financial waters. The forthcoming accounts for 2021/22 should reveal further commitments.
Gasheads may not feel the emotional pull of a training ground compared to a stadium (why would they?) but the development of The Quarters has been absolutely essential in giving the club a sense of moving forward. It was conjured out of necessity as the end of the agreement with Cribbs Sports & Social Club left them homeless (a familiar story) and those first 6-12 months at the site were a challenge for players and staff but there is now a permanent headquarters for the team and, while there is work still to be done, it’s a facility that is of benefit to the club, both on and off the field.
The progress of the academy is tied to this to some extent, with the desire to house the younger age groups as part of Phase 2 of the development in Almondsbury, but it remains an idea, at present, rather than anything practical. Since 2016, Alfie Kilgour, Luca Hoole, Jed Ward, Jerry Lawrence, Tom Mehew, Lucas Tomlinson, Zain Walker, Jamie Lucas and Kieran Phillips have made at least one first-team appearance and varying degrees of impact, having been developed through the club, but it's not a particularly prolific supply line and the Gas remain without an under-21 set-up - although there is a will to reinstate it - denying players a bridge between junior and senior ranks.
Rovers are not a perfect model, and there are obvious flaws, but without his own personal investment - yes, you could make the argument that to some extent he has had no choice - there wouldn’t be much of a club to speak of.
However, pouring money in a black hole can only last so long. The concept of a club being “up for sale” is a difficult one because effectively every club is, or, at least, there are varying degrees of not being. The pandemic, if you hadn’t noticed, dropped a huge bomb on the finances of clubs across the EFL and if all 20 club owners in the Championship are actively listening to offers for investment, then it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that those in League One and League Two are as well.
Bristol Live is aware of two American-based consortiums who have cast their eyes over Rovers but have since moved on. There remains a third interested party, combining British and American investors, who have held conversations but then again, in many ways, such a situation hasn’t changed throughout Wael Al-Qadi’s tenure, something he’s admitted as such in the past.
While it’s nothing short of a financial liability, owning an English club remains a deeply desirable concept and as the Jordanian travels the world, invariably he’ll meet people who harbour varying degrees of interest. Finding the most agreeable deal to move any sale on is the key and, as it stands, there is no sign of that happening in the immediate future.
Any full or partial sale of Rovers, at this stage, will undoubtedly include the prospect of the Fruit Market as a provision, should it ever come to that.
Which brings us back to that site at St Philips Marsh. He may not be able to match that same guttural desire you possess, but completing the process of a new stadium for Bristol Rovers is a deeply personal quest for Wael Al-Qadi. He is a proud man and, both as a strength and weakness, genuinely cares what people (fans) think of him and what his legacy will be like whenever the day shall come when he departs north Bristol.
Post-Bloomfield Road, the club have been especially careful to manage the messaging around the project because they are well aware what an emotive subject it is and every word will be poured over relentlessly to try and reach some kind of mental solution, before anything practical presents itself.
CEO Tom Gorringe’s programme notes last week ahead of the Ipswich Town game both addressed the subject but also glossed over it. Not because there was anything good or bad to say but because it had to be said in the context of the proposed South Stand developments, and with the straightest of possible bats played to the most awkward of deliveries.
Seven years have helped shape that. It’s become something that everybody wants to know about but can be so rarely spoken about with so few tangible signs of progress that every time there is something to say, it becomes a huge event.
The ability to reach what is now a promised land-type scenario is therefore heightened far beyond anything Wael Al-Qadi probably first anticipated when he stepped through the doors of the Mem to face the cameras as the new smiling face of the club. It’s no longer just an “essential part for success”, on a personal level, it now represents success itself.
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