NEERAV Parekh has asked for 'a little bit more patience' from Barnsley fans towards the owners while adding: ‘trust me, I feel your pain.’
Parekh, the Indian businessman, is the chairman and majority owner while other owners on the board are Jean and James Cryne plus Australian businesswoman Julie Anne Quay.
They have been the subject of angry chants from the terraces this season which has seen the Reds fall short of another promotion challenge in the third tier.
One of the regular chants is ‘greedy ********, get out of our club’ and another that ‘Barnsley FC is in the wrong hands.’
Parekh said that the owners had put in £6million this season and would inject more equity in the summer.
He added that they were ‘as committed as ever’ and the Reds would have ‘a competitive budget’ for next season despite being forecast to lose between £8million and £10million.
Parekh told the Chronicle: “Fans are entitled to their opinion.
“The ones who say we’re greedy wouldn’t be able to read a balance sheet if it smacked them in the face.
“We haven’t taken a penny out of the club and we’ve put in somewhere close to £15million over the last three years.
“It’s pretty evident all the money has gone in and losing money is not a problem unique to Barnsley.
“I think 89 of the 92 EFL clubs lost money and the only three who didn’t were Premier League. It’s a symptom of a broken system.
“A lot of fans have genuine concerns that we could have done better and we could have done in certain instances.
“It’s not easy. Clubs who don’t spend like the top two or three or four in the league are set up to fail.
“Player wages in League One over two years have gone up 41 per cent for the same group of players shuttling between the clubs – that’s absurd inflation. It’s the only industry I can think of where agents negotiate against the club then the club pays them agents fees for it.
“It’s a tough industry.
“But we absolutely need to do better because the goal is to get promoted.
“I hope the fans can give us a little bit more patience.
“I fly 8,000 miles to see us get hammered 3-0. Trust me, I feel your pain.
“I am in the same situation.
“But it’s not as easy as it seems from the outside.”
Parekh was initially a minority owner in the group which bought an 80 per cent stake of the club from Patrick Cryne in 2017. But previous co-chairman Paul Conway and Chien Lee were removed from the board after relegation to League One in 2022, with Parekh taking over as chairman.
Parekh now owns the majority of the shares, with Conway and Lee still thought to hold a reducing stake in the business. While they are not as hated as Conway who looked into moving away from Oakwell and has left a trail of chaos across the various European clubs he owned, the current board have overseen a significant drop-off in results and league positions across their three seasons in charge.
There is a sense of apathy across the Barnsley fanbase which might be seen in the season ticket sales for 2025/26.
Parekh said: “Of course it’s worrying and no football club wants to lose fans or get to the point where they are apathetic.
“I would far rather they abuse the team the coach or whoever.
“We are doing a lot to get fans back in. The number one thing is to play attacking and winning football.
“But there are number of things we’re doing off the pitch to make Oakwell more fun.
“Safe standing should come in before the end of the season which would help with the atmosphere and bring energy back. We have a fanzone which will be in at the end of the season before a boxing event.
“We want other events to come to Oakwell more than just football but we know people come mainly for the football and, if we can get it right on pitch, hopefully we can get those fans back.”
