I would not presume to credit myself in anyway as a businessman or financial person.
However my take for what it is worth is that the timing was all wrong for Roland and that has only become evident with the benefit of hindsight.
Financial Fair Play (FFP) was alive and kicking at the actual moment of the takeover. Within months (weeks even) the likes of Man City and QPR "did a West Ham" in terms of special treatment and evaded any meaningful sanction for flagrant breaches of the rules.
FFP in reality was thus shown to be just a lip service concept and no more which shot the Business Plan of a man with a ready made network of players (the quality and appropriateness of those players is a separate debate) clean out of the water.
Roland therefore needed a Plan B. The Dick Whittington streets of gold of the Premiership would require further investment which would be anathema to what appears to be, in comparative business terms anyway, somebody fairly risk averse.
That leaves asset stripping, be it players or land and buildings, as his alternative Plan B and in my view that is where we are now. A return, or potential return, of £3.5m for a player like Gomez who effectively cost nothing or very little to develop in comparison is an acceptable return to him I think.
I agree that his plan per se was a good one - to have a network of clubs to move players around according to their ability, skill and form. This, if managed correctly, could in my view work very well. However you would have to put in "managers" that are appropriate to the specific sphere they are working in, not bring in hopefuls form different areas. You then have to listen to those managers, and take heed of their advice. If you offer several players from one of your other network clubs, but the manager in situ does not rate them the best candidate for a certain position, you go and find the player most appropriate wherever he may be outside of your network. You do not hoist staff on a manager that he does not think good enough. So , IMO, good plan but very poor execution
Let's not forget that he and Chris Powell fell out over differences in "football strategy". I'm therefore still to be convinced that his plan is/ was a good one for the future of Charlton Athletic...
This may not be too popular but as a businessman I don't there is much wrong with his business plan or ideas but where it palpably fall down his utter failure to harness his plan to the vagaries that are Charlton and its supporters. If he leaned just 10% towards understand us i think it would be successful. I also disagree that the plans are short term and that they are all geared to long term.
It's good to hear your viewpoint, Brunello, but is it really our "vagaries" that upset his plans? There is not much sign it is working elsewhere, unless we include Sint-Truiden's promotion. Do you think that if he had bought , say Brentford, rather than us, he would have been more successful? I doubt that myself. I think he needs to seek and heed the advice of people experienced in the football business. Someone like your good self, perhaps.
Out of interest, what do you do for a living - or did you do if you no longer work?
Only I would've thought that the term "businessperson" could potentially relate to half of the posters on this forum in one guise or another, many of whom try to remain very objective at all times, so I think it would be good to clarify exactly who you're slagging off first before you run the risk of alienating half your audience.
Spot on brunello if they had not gone down the shrouded in secrecy and put so much distance between the owner, ceo and fans I think it would have worked so much better all it would have taken is an explanation of intent, now Imo that would have been a win win
There seems another danger we should consider - what if in the absence of Standard Liege Roland is happy for Charlton to fall down to the level of his other teams playing at a lower standard, rather than having Charlton in a strong position where there's no real scope for shifting players around and so on? If his business model is to have a network, then there isn't much point having one club that's far stronger than all the rest. This wasn't the case with Liege because he could move their players to Charlton, into the championship which is a pretty competitive environment. I don't know much about Hungarian football, but I doubt Ujpest Doza would be of a similar level even though they did win the Hungarian Cup in one of the past few seasons. It would help if he just explained what his ambitions are.
This may not be too popular but as a businessman I don't there is much wrong with his business plan or ideas but where it palpably fall down his utter failure to harness his plan to the vagaries that are Charlton and its supporters. If he leaned just 10% towards understand us i think it would be successful. I also disagree that the plans are short term and that they are all geared to long term.
It's good to hear your viewpoint, Brunello, but is it really our "vagaries" that upset his plans? There is not much sign it is working elsewhere, unless we include Sint-Truiden's promotion. Do you think that if he had bought , say Brentford, rather than us, he would have been more successful? I doubt that myself. I think he needs to seek and heed the advice of people experienced in the football business. Someone like your good self, perhaps.
I think what a lot of people are missing is that the vagaries work two ways. Him/they missed a lot of the salient differences about us but we refuse to see change in its infancy sometimes.
And yes, I do think they should listen to experience but experience shouldn't be mistaken for non-acceptance to change
Out of interest, what do you do for a living - or did you do if you no longer work?
Only I would've thought that the term "businessperson" could potentially relate to half of the posters on this forum in one guise or another, many of whom try to remain very objective at all times, so I think it would be good to clarify exactly who you're slagging off first before you run the risk of alienating half your audience.
Cheers
No one is objective. Especially members of a forum about a football club. Business people in my experience don't buck this. Also anyone who qualifies a statement by saying it's objective at the outset make me suspicious. We are all just giving opinions, some based on business experience but for all that they're still subjective opinions. I have experience of business as a customer and I don't feel from what I've seen that most businesspeople have any special knowledge about much. We're still paying for the muck up businesspeople made a few years ago after all.
I could see how the plan could save money if all the clubs were at the right level relative to each other so you could use economies to balance squads between them. Or you invested in the club at the top of the pyramid as your shop window club and used the other clubs to help develop players and move them up and down accordingly. Neither of these seems to apply based on what I have seen. But that in itself would only be of real consequence if other clubs had restrictions which allowed the advantages to impact. With FFP softened to mush, the plan has to be unworkable as most other clubs will just spend more money.
Don't think you answered the question so I now determine you're a politician. ;-)
No a Housing Officer.
That figures.
Good luck to you, but I still think you have a warped idea of what, or who, "businesspeople " are. Most are indeed "nothing special" as you say, but most don't pretend to be.
Maybe me and you just live in different world's, which is fine. I just wasn't sure what you were saying, that was all.
Comments
However my take for what it is worth is that the timing was all wrong for Roland and that has only become evident with the benefit of hindsight.
Financial Fair Play (FFP) was alive and kicking at the actual moment of the takeover. Within months (weeks even) the likes of Man City and QPR "did a West Ham" in terms of special treatment and evaded any meaningful sanction for flagrant breaches of the rules.
FFP in reality was thus shown to be just a lip service concept and no more which shot the Business Plan of a man with a ready made network of players (the quality and appropriateness of those players is a separate debate) clean out of the water.
Roland therefore needed a Plan B. The Dick Whittington streets of gold of the Premiership would require further investment which would be anathema to what appears to be, in comparative business terms anyway, somebody fairly risk averse.
That leaves asset stripping, be it players or land and buildings, as his alternative Plan B and in my view that is where we are now. A return, or potential return, of £3.5m for a player like Gomez who effectively cost nothing or very little to develop in comparison is an acceptable return to him I think.
However you would have to put in "managers" that are appropriate to the specific sphere they are working in, not bring in hopefuls form different areas. You then have to listen to those managers, and take heed of their advice. If you offer several players from one of your other network clubs, but the manager in situ does not rate them the best candidate for a certain position, you go and find the player most appropriate wherever he may be outside of your network. You do not hoist staff on a manager that he does not think good enough.
So , IMO, good plan but very poor execution
Out of interest, what do you do for a living - or did you do if you no longer work?
Only I would've thought that the term "businessperson" could potentially relate to half of the posters on this forum in one guise or another, many of whom try to remain very objective at all times, so I think it would be good to clarify exactly who you're slagging off first before you run the risk of alienating half your audience.
Cheers
And yes, I do think they should listen to experience but experience shouldn't be mistaken for non-acceptance to change
Business people in my experience don't buck this. Also anyone who qualifies a statement by saying it's objective at the outset make me suspicious. We are all just giving opinions, some based on business experience but for all that they're still subjective opinions.
I have experience of business as a customer and I don't feel from what I've seen that most businesspeople have any special knowledge about much.
We're still paying for the muck up businesspeople made a few years ago after all.
Good luck to you, but I still think you have a warped idea of what, or who, "businesspeople " are. Most are indeed "nothing special" as you say, but most don't pretend to be.
Maybe me and you just live in different world's, which is fine. I just wasn't sure what you were saying, that was all.