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Katrien Meire

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  • Katrien Miere is in an impossible position and has been put in an impossible position by RD
    Think it says it all vff.

    rikofold said:

    We could look at this a tad more generously. KM was clearly put in an untenable position, even if she was naive (and I'm not saying she was necessarily). It is possible that she was trying to give the right message to the fans, even if mindful of how RD was likely to operate, but every time she spoke up she was unaware of the decisions made in the background. It's a tangled web indeed to recover from that. If she was trying to keep the fans informed and giving a positive message, we should take account of the intention as much as the outcome.

    Either way I think she's been badly damaged in terms of her credibility. That would be a shame. Everyone deserves a second chance in my book, but it is difficult to see her role in the truest sense of what most of us understand as a CEO if she has no autonomy regarding decisions for the business. Perhaps it would be in her interests for that to be clarified. I have a suspicion that she may have made many different decisions to those RD has taken in the last 12 months.

    I do agree , it is indeed a 'tangled web', and for the sake of her own credibility, and the position she currently occupies, there is a need for a clear, statement/apology/clarification on those incidents. Hopefully she will reflect on those issues, learn from them, and consider the lines of communication beetween herself and RD are consistent in future. She also has an overriding duty to protect all the members of staff of the club, from intimidation even by the owner if people overstep the mark, and manage the business. I would expect no less.
    Given the comments she made in her interview with the Standard yesterday, this does not loo like it is going to happen.

  • bobmunro said:

    bobmunro said:


    It's an absolute cast-iron certainty it was RD's decision alone. That's how he is, but it's no good KM pretending she's involved then, is it? It just makes her look even more ridiculous.

    Have I missed something, Rick - where has it been said or claimed that KM made the decision to appoint Luzon/sack Peeters? It would always be the owner (normally but not always Chairman) who decides on a manager/head coach appointment and I'm sure KM provided 'on the ground' feedback to RD if the reports of misconduct are true - so involved but not the decision maker.
    There's been plenty of use of the first person singular and plural to imply her being party to the decisions - for example putting Matthew and Roberts in charge in Monday's statement. It grated with me at the time, as I said on here, because it was beyond what I would expect of previous chief executives.

    In any event, I was responding to Prague's statement that it was RD's decision.
    I must have missed the first person singular perpendicular pronoun then as in KM saying 'I decided to sack Peeters' or 'I decided to appoint Luzon'. I may have seen the odd 'we' but in that context the 'we' almost certainly, in everyday speech, refers to the entity, in this case Charlton Athletic Football Club.

    In my direct experience of involvement with a professional football club the Chairman calls the shots on the playing side, the CEO runs the commercial operation and would only get involved in negotiations with agents and players/managers/head coaches over contract arrangements. If the CEO of the club appointed the manager I would be worried - their primary role is commercial and a secondary role of communicator to the outside world as the club's representative. It is not the same role as a CEO of a FTSE company.

    Did Reg make the decision to appoint Dowie? Or was it RM with perhaps Reg's input and opinions?
    My point all along has been that the decisions would not be made by the chief executive, which is why the presentation has been laughable.

    For example, why allow Sky to claim that KM was interviewing him when he arrived at The Valley on Tuesday evening. The decision had already been made and in reality was made at the same moment RD decided to sack Peeters, so why was it not announced before that?

    I doubt the club wanted to imply KM was interviewing Luzon, but you have to manage the media. Allowing Sky to purport to show an interview through the window was crass.

    Absolutely agree with Suzi - of the 20 instant applicants, it's likely at least 19 were Acworths - if not Acworth's.
    the other was Paulie's

  • I thought THE NETWORK hired a PR professional to manage these things? After the initial blunder, you'd think someone would have had a word with Miere and persuaded her to stop digging!
  • edited January 2015

    If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
  • I think the majority of fans wouldn't have been as angry if they'd just appointed Luzon on Sunday night

    I know I'm a bit slow sometimes, but on reading this comment, it reminded me of how, if I remember rightly, Riga was already in the building when Powell got the boot and the fans didn't like this one bit.
    Then it occurred to me that maybe KM felt that they didn't want a similar negative backlash, so made the decision, foolishly as it turns out, to attempt to give the impression that the situation was being played out on a day to day basis rather than pre-planned by RD in December (or even earlier.) Maybe this misjudgement just snowballed to make KM look silly and was her big mistake.

    I could be way off, of course and it doesn't really change anything, but just thought I'd share.
    :smile:
  • I think the majority of fans wouldn't have been as angry if they'd just appointed Luzon on Sunday night

    I know I'm a bit slow sometimes, but on reading this comment, it reminded me of how, if I remember rightly, Riga was already in the building when Powell got the boot and the fans didn't like this one bit.
    Then it occurred to me that maybe KM felt that they didn't want a similar negative backlash, so made the decision, foolishly as it turns out, to attempt to give the impression that the situation was being played out on a day to day basis rather than pre-planned by RD in December (or even earlier.) Maybe this misjudgement just snowballed to make KM look silly and was her big mistake.

    I could be way off, of course and it doesn't really change anything, but just thought I'd share.
    :smile:
    You're probably on the money Romford, but this would be a bad call by KM as the issue with Riga was that they'd sacked the most popular manager, and man, the club had been associated with since God was a boy.
  • RD says get back in the kitchen - Katrien Miere just does what is instructed. Simple!

    Politically incorrect and sexist I know - I'm sure Katrien salary is worth it :joy:
  • Curb_It said:

    Was AFKA's one of the ones you had to look through Suz?

    haha no! wasn't that years earlier?


  • If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
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  • If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
    I posted similarly on Facebook. Having been alerted to the fact that Mrs.Luzon was errr, attractive, I had a nose at her Twitter feed. Yeah, she
    began following CAFC on the 29th or 30th. It's not me on ITTV though.

  • Interesting.
  • If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
    I posted similarly on Facebook. Having been alerted to the fact that Mrs.Luzon was errr, attractive, I had a nose at her Twitter feed. Yeah, she
    began following CAFC on the 29th or 30th. It's not me on ITTV though.

    Well given what was being discussed two weeks before all this blew up its not surprising, although shows a lack of discretion .. whats here twitter addy?
  • Kap10 said:

    If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
    I posted similarly on Facebook. Having been alerted to the fact that Mrs.Luzon was errr, attractive, I had a nose at her Twitter feed. Yeah, she
    began following CAFC on the 29th or 30th. It's not me on ITTV though.

    Well given what was being discussed two weeks before all this blew up its not surprising, although shows a lack of discretion .. whats here twitter addy?
    @‌Danafunluzon

  • If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
    So Luzon is laughing about Riga and not caring about Charlton in March, but Mrs Luzon cares enough to follow Charlton in late December.
    Is this a case for Relate?
  • seth plum said:

    If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
    So Luzon is laughing about Riga and not caring about Charlton in March, but Mrs Luzon cares enough to follow Charlton in late December.
    Is this a case for Relate?
    Think that she is doing some TV programme about Footballers Wives so she'd probably cover it up that way tbh.
  • seth plum said:

    If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
    So Luzon is laughing about Riga and not caring about Charlton in March, but Mrs Luzon cares enough to follow Charlton in late December.
    Is this a case for Relate?
    Think that she is doing some TV programme about Footballers Wives so she'd probably cover it up that way tbh.
    A feature on Mrs Buyens I think.
  • seth plum said:

    If the calibre of applicants were the same level that applied back then, she wouldn't have needed to!

    Fair point! Although there's nothing wrong with the club approaching coaches for interviews. I also highly doubt that Guy Luzon had to apply.
    Someone on ITTV alleges that Luzon's missus friended CAFCOfficial on 29th December.
    So Luzon is laughing about Riga and not caring about Charlton in March, but Mrs Luzon cares enough to follow Charlton in late December.
    Is this a case for Relate?
    Think that she is doing some TV programme about Footballers Wives so she'd probably cover it up that way tbh.
    A feature on Mrs Buyens I think.
    True Footballers Wives the programme is called. There are some snippets to be had via Vimeo.


  • She's Fit!!!! Proper treacle!!!! Oi oi
  • So she really is JUST a pretty face!
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  • rikofold said:

    I really like her. I've seen her down at the Valley and up at Sparrows Lane, away from the fans and media, she is very hands on and genuinely appears to always want the best for CAFC or at least what she believes is best. She is of course loyal to RD, the employer and of course she's can only say so much in public and that's going to alienate the fans every now and then. I'm sure she'll be pissed off that RD has made her look stupid over the past 7 days in his own actions but in Katrien I trust.

    Yes, she's likeable, intelligent and I am sure a decent person, but she's about as much a chief executive as she is a goalkeeper.
    ..and how does that compare to the last lot Rick?
    The last lot had no interest in running the business whatsoever. They were content to leave it to Kavanagh and Varney, until the money ran out, after which they installed Prothero, who was rarely there either. So staff got on with the job. People often misunderstand the role of non-exec directors. I never met Jimenez at all until I forced him to hear my appeal and that was because he almost never came to The Valley.

    While I had much more to do with Richard Murray over the years, I saw a lot less of him when I was on the management team than previously as a reporter and secretary of the supporters' club, etc - even when I was in charge of comms 1998-2003. That's because it was the chief exec's role to run the business day to day. It's not a criticism - quite the reverse.

    The issue now is that nearly all the accumulated internal knowledge of the club has left the building - mainly due to the previous regime, although it is still continuing. So now you have new or previously quite junior people in charge on the one hand and an inexperienced chief executive who isn't able to oversee them fully on the other. It is a problematic combination, in my view.
    I do think KM has been somewhat thrown to the lions this week, totally undermined by RD. Certainly a light has been thrown onto what RD really means by his clubs having their own autonomy - that is, they are free only to agree with him.

    Personally I think the other stuff is unnecessary. We were all junior staff once. The important thing from a staff focus is whether the jobs are now being done as they have been asked to do them. If the remit is incomplete, that's for CEO/COOs - in reality KM - to address.

    Of course it is regretful when knowledge is lost, but it means little more than the replacements having to learn it - and under a new regime things will be done differently anyway. From what you're saying, they are considerably more active in managing the business today than previously, so it may actually be no bad thing. Let's be honest, we've hardly had a model internal operation even in the Premier League years. People got on with it, the fans accepted the limitations because - well - we were all in it together. Things move on, people move on.
    It's off the point, but you're misunderstanding what I'm saying and I think you're largely wrong about the PL years - although I would, wouldn't I?

    There was intelligent structured management from the board prior to 2012, but led by the chief executive (except Waggott!) day to day, not by the owner. That is the difference. In theory the owner could be the chief exec, but not, I suggest, from Belgium.

    Over 2012-14 the tier of management below the chief exec has largely been taken out, leaving the chief exec to manage a wider group operating at a lower level. At the same time the chief exec is less experienced and has less discretion because she is following orders (from someone based in Belgium) to an extent that her predecessors certainly weren't. And the staff under her also know less about the club and its fans.

    Coupled with other staff reductions, it means you have 1) people being overloaded with tasks, 2) managers who feel unsupported and 3) people put in roles they are not equipped to fulfil. Consequently more staff are leaving, and notably without replacement jobs, because the set-up is not tenable.

    That is KM's responsibility to address if she is indeed a chief executive, although to be clear I don't blame her for it. There have been a number of (unannounced) new appointments so we'll see where that takes us, but at present the wheels are coming off.
    Welcome to the world of business AB. That sums up most of the corporations that I have worked in some at a relatively senior level.

    The reality is that football (business though it may be) is now full of so called businessmen who have serious money. They have the power to do what RD has done this week. Football is full of KMs (most of them not so photogenic and with such good presentational skills).

    I have supported the club since I was 8 years old. For most of the 47 years years in between, virtually none of us have not had the chance to hear the CEO give a press conference let alone decide whether it's their lies and/or spin or that of the bloke who's money it is.

    I read that some people are ditching their support - really? Why? It's like turning your back on your children because they fall for somebody you don't like.

    I have no way of knowing if the RD project will be successful or not. None of us knows and neither does he. He is risking some of his dosh to have fun and to trying and make a turn. It's his game of monopoly and he may take them all or lose his shirt. Rest assured that he can afford to lose several shirts.

    I don't like it but there it is.

    Frankly the he said she said stuff is less important than if the new bloke turns out to be decent. RD experiment or not, the club has been in relegation form in the last couple of months. That needed to be addressed. RD has addressed it and KM has been tasked with delivering the message.
    Extremely belatedly have only just caught up with this thread

    But this post was well worth waiting for .

    Well said, Bing.

  • Actually having slept on it for a few days i think she is getting unnecessary stick.

    And having heard one or two more details, I'm inclined to think you are right.

    c'mon Prague you can't just leave it like that
    I have to respect confidences, and also, there is always the distinct possibility that I still don't know all the details necessary to be clear about what happened.

    For now: On this occasion it looks that Reams' source is solid, give or take a few details. Peeters probably had to go, and its probably better that he did. (which of course makes him a bad hire). I think we can also work on the assumption that the decision to appoint Luzon immediately was RD's alone. If so, everyone else has no choice but to go along with that decision. That is not unusual in business, heaven knows I've been there, hence my readiness to agree with @scabbyhorse. the difference of course is that I just had to explain myself to a few clients. At a football club you've got 15,000 customers and a voracious press chewing over every word and every development.

    Nail on head, I believe, PA

  • The truth is that it doesn't mater. If KM was just telling us what she had been instructed to tell us, if it was not true then we still can't trust what she says - even if we can convince ourselves that we can trust her.

    Nail on the head, KHA.
    Halix said:

    Is it possible that she recieved the said number of applications, assumed that there would be an interview process but was then informed by RD not to bother, he was sending his mate round as he already has his own whistle from SL.

    Exactly, Halix.

    Applications in the sense of phone calls/texts/emails made with interviews yet TBA.

  • Thanks for posting that Fanny. I am looking forward to the minutes, and to have a better understanding of events this week.
  • @Fanny Fanackapan

    "Regardless of what AB, PA & others who seems to know FAR more than most regarding a CEO's duties & responsibilities"

    Not a big deal, but I don't think I entered into that discussion of whether she is/plays the role of a CEO, at all.

    Another poster whose ID I unfortunately can't remember pointed out how difficult it is to play a proper CEO role in a football club when you have an active owner. I personally never felt Peter Varney was a CEO as I would understand the role in a normal business.
  • edited January 2015

    @Fanny Fanackapan

    "Regardless of what AB, PA & others who seems to know FAR more than most regarding a CEO's duties & responsibilities"

    Not a big deal, but I don't think I entered into that discussion of whether she is/plays the role of a CEO, at all.

    Another poster whose ID I unfortunately can't remember pointed out how difficult it is to play a proper CEO role in a football club when you have an active owner. I personally never felt Peter Varney was a CEO as I would understand the role in a normal business.


    Then again, Prague, I'm not entirely sure how you reach that conclusion, since you'd had nothing to do with him until after he left the club in 2012, had you?

    I'd guess I do know a bit more than the average person in the street about what a chief exec at a football club does having reported direct to that post for 14 years and worked very closely with the incumbents for most of that time.

    I don't think you'll find me describing KM as a liar, Fanny, indeed I have repeatedly emphasised that she is in my view a well-meaning person with obvious qualities. I was then called out for damning her with faint praise, so can't win on that. But her position seems to me wholly untenable even on the account you provide.
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