Weird.
If you really saved the forum from oblivion, thank you.
However, I have a couple of questions/remarks here.
1) If the forum/Marty was really in bad debt, why didn't Marty contact us (as in all/most of us) to ask someone to take care of it, like when Martin sold the forum?
2) How come you knew about the financial problems?
3) Why wouldn't you contact people
before buying the forum, so that we could sort out how to make this work with a bunch op people instead of dropping the bomb on us?
4) Will paying members get voting rights? So far the admin could do as he wanted because he was the sole funding source. If we pay, this changes and we have to be given a right to decide on decisions regarding the forum.
4)a. In doing so, we need access to the financial information so that we can decide what would be an appropriate price and what when the forum would be viable without payment again.
5) You talk about "new features". we had #IRC > no success; Torrents > No success; Arcade > no success; VbPlaza > No success; Points > limited success; rep > limited success, mostly used on Hanayuko and JBF.
===> As Seven said: people come to a forum to post.
6) I don't have Paypal. How would I pay you?
7) Why not think about alternative ways of funding?
7)a. Some people would be willing to pay much more than 20$, as a donation, why not use that rather than obligatory payment
7)b. Have you thought of approaching the club for help? They might be interested in hosting the site or give some funding if we make a credible demand. After all, this site has brought many people to buy merchandising, tv subscriptions or go to the stadium, let alone raise the profile of the club internationally.
7)c. Did you approach other football forums, Juventus or not. juventus1897, VS, Xtratime. They have their own financial issues and might want to co-host to reduce costs... hell we could even league up with english fora of other Italian clubs.
7)d. Why not incorporating the forum as a non-profit to provide for more transparency and making donations (which could even be tax-deductible).
7)e. As a member, I don't see a single banner. Why not put some more banners? We'd happily click on them if it generates cash. Hell, we'd even buy things from the advertisers if it's remotely useful (match tickets, merchandising, sportswear, dvd's, games whatever).
8) You're a nice guy, but you're far away in South-Africa. How do we know you wont run away with the money? How do we know a Nigerian scammer didn't hack your account?
9) Why would you, in your sane mind pay a fee to buy over the forum
and take over Marty's debts? If the forum dies in a month because everyone leaves, you're screwed. That doesn't sound very logical and doesn't inspire me any confidence as to your managing skills.
10) Will you ban those annoying moving flags?
EDIT:
11) If you're really the owner, why aren't you an admin yet? Why are you a regular poster?
