Be good to keep comments (positive / negative / enquiringly) on what was shared during the presentation on one thread
1. I don't think you can get a greater example of either the head in sand / outright belligerent approach than from right from the start. The whole point of what has triggered this meeting was the widening division between the Club and the supporters. Highlighting 'Building a Better Future Together' as your Club objective is like getting your wife to agree to go to see a marriage councilor with you due to her obsession with Coronation St, and she booking an appointment to be held in the Rovers Return
2. the £9m spent on players pay no reference to what has been received for players.
Those we have received fees for have been:
Gomez Wiggins Poyet Le Point Stephens Kermorgant Button
We may also have received further payments for
Ajeyi Jenkinson Francis / McCormack Shelvey
We were led to believe by the club the reported £3.5m for Gomez was false, it was a lot more than that. Depending on whatever that was, the whole £9m could equally have been received back in fees
3. The 40% increase in wages from Jan 14. She also points out that only five contracts went beyond Jun 14, so effectively she is comparing a majority bunch of legacy contracts (so a 3-5 year difference now), most of which would have been League 1 contracts, and the fact that there was virtually no money in the club for the 18 months before that.
She makes it sound as if they have done a whole lot of good things for the club. The problem is all of these 'things' have been done terribly. Player recruitment being a case in point. I don't care what you've spent, I care what the result of that spending is and at the moment that result is 22nd in the league.
2. the £9m spent on players pay no reference to what has been received for players.
Those we have received fees for have been:
Gomez Wiggins Poyet Le Point Stephens Kermorgant Button
We may also have received further payments for
Ajeyi Jenkinson Francis / McCormack Shelvey
We were led to believe by the club the reported £3.5m for Gomez was false, it was a lot more than that. Depending on whatever that was, the whole £9m could equally have been received back in fees
In addition to this as pointed out on another thread by @RedPanda
She's likely to be including Watt, Nego, Tucudean, Reza, etc as well, so not money Roland has spent but cash he's moved from one branch to another.
So we have the first nine minutes of video, here's my honest, trying to be objective take (I have time to kill waiting for a flight);
So we have the first night nine minutes (basically Katrien doing her best Ian Dowie impression with PowerPoint slides) - there are three objectives;
1. Charlton to be competitive in the Championship, pushing for promotion (we are in the relegation zone)
2. To achieve regular 20k crowds (taking away fans out we're circa 10,000 off of that and certainly worse than before she rocked up)
3. To improve performances on the pitch (see point one)
They then go on to say how much they've invested in the club, apparently the playing budget has gone up 40% but where is this money coming from ? Has Roland stumped it up or is the club being saddled with debt ?
20/25 players have contracts extending beyond this summer. Can't argue with that, it's stability that we haven't had for a long time.
She then goes on to talk about "growing attendances and engaging with fans" it all sounds lovely, but in reality attendances are worse and I think we all agree that "engagement" is at an all time low
I assume this gets better in the upcoming videos - so far I'm not sold
Please! she must really take us for 24 carat idiots.
On the academy........
(Not verbatim) '5 academy players made their debuts, this means that will be our advantage over the other prem league teams' No it doesn't (with no disrespect to those players) it means we dont have enough senior experienced players at the club, and when we have injuries we have to rely on a bunch of kids.
Strange to hear her proudly talking about the direction in which we are heading, when it happens to be 'towards League One'. Talk of 20K attendances again right now is straight out of Monty Python,and should replace the dead parrot immediately, particularly with West Ham looming. Sadly these two people are living in cloud cuckoo land.
Just shared this with some friends who support other clubs. Opening comments:
'Starting with fans want to know the strategy, I think we've already explained the strategy many times' - nice!
'How is she allowed to run a football club?'
You can see she's rattled by all this and maybe that's a good start moving forward.
Not sure if it's that she's rattled, but one of her first comments was something like "I'll spell out the strategy in black & white, I know that's a popular phrase at the moment" with a casual glance back to her panel of randoms sitting behind her, not sure I liked that.
Just shared this with some friends who support other clubs. Opening comments:
'Starting with fans want to know the strategy, I think we've already explained the strategy many times' - nice!
'How is she allowed to run a football club?'
You can see she's rattled by all this and maybe that's a good start moving forward.
Not sure if it's that she's rattled, but one of her first comments was something like "I'll spell out the strategy in black & white, I know that's a popular phrase at the moment" with a casual glance back to her panel of randoms sitting behind her, not sure I liked that.
I was thinking more about the comment that she's explained all this before, very condescending.
I see nothing in this presentation that explains the actual strategy to become a 'competitive championship club with premiership ambitions'.
'We want to have the dialogue' - so do we!
I just said similar on the other thread - what she states are objectives, not strategy. She tells us what they are trying to do, but not how they are trying to do it. And I don't count breaking even as a strategy - certainly not to achieve those objectives!
Just shared this with some friends who support other clubs. Opening comments:
'Starting with fans want to know the strategy, I think we've already explained the strategy many times' - nice!
'How is she allowed to run a football club?'
You can see she's rattled by all this and maybe that's a good start moving forward.
Not sure if it's that she's rattled, but one of her first comments was something like "I'll spell out the strategy in black & white, I know that's a popular phrase at the moment" with a casual glance back to her panel of randoms sitting behind her, not sure I liked that.
I was thinking more about the comment that she's explained all this before, very condescending.
Sorry, yes agreed, I was just highlighting the other part that I thought was a bit condescending too. I have to assume it gets better than this first nine minutes because the people that were actually there reported back that it was a lot better than the tweets, not seeing that right now.
Ignoring all of the bullshit she's spouting out as though we're all braindead (this attempt at pretending they've spent £9m on player purchases is insulting), what strikes me is just how incompetent she seems in general. She just isn't very good at what she's doing and looks extremely out of depth. She's supposed to be a CEO but she reminds me of myself when I was 16 wet behind the ears nervously stumbling over a budget powerpoint presentation prepared on the train to school for a business studies lesson. She has no gravitas whatsoever, I'm sure she's extremely intelligent and would do well in her own field but she is so far out of her comfort zone and level of expertise here it is frankly embarrassing. I'm the same age as her and I honestly, genuinely think I could do a better job than her, she's just blagging it as she goes along. Terrifying to think she's probably on a six figure income, probably more than we were willing to pay Kermogant when he left, what on earth convinced Roly that she was some wunderkind, I just don't get it
I see nothing in this presentation that explains the actual strategy to become a 'competitive championship club with premiership ambitions'.
'We want to have the dialogue' - so do we!
I just said similar on the other thread - what she states are objectives, not strategy. She tells us what they are trying to do, but not how they are trying to do it. And I don't count breaking even as a strategy - certainly not to achieve those objectives!
I took it as break even by player sales was the objective. What she showed eg increasing attendances, creating young players and giving them long contracts which push up their value etc was the strategy. Eg her comment about having some way to go for sales to cover transfers in.
It's just they same old garbage isn't it. 'We want to be a competitive Championship club with Premier League ambitions'. Great. So do we. So does everyone. But what are they actually doing about it? For the past two and a half seasons we've either signed totally inadequate players (Nego, Piotr, Lepoint) or signed decent players who have barely played any football in the past year making them injury concerns (Mak, Kashi, Ceballos), and we've never had a sufficiently deep squad to challenge. Add to that the fact we've had five different managers because they keep employing inadequate ones or not retaining decent ones and it makes the stated key aim completely pointless. There's no point stating your objective like it matters if you don't approach achieving it in the right way. She may as well have said our ambitions are to win the Champions League on seven consecutive occasions starting from next year, it would be about as useful.
Was she really pressed on the lack of depth in the squad (two seasons running) and the wildly hit and miss nature of player acquisition?
Did the fans come in after that? Only despite her asking, apart from the transfers, no one challenged her at all.
I actually thought her presentation was quite impressive and self assured particularly after the equally satisfying protest on Saturday. Am I correct in saying the 'booted and suited' fans in attendance were specially invited? Whatever, you cannot blame KM if they were content and only had one question that we viewed but I would hope there is more of the meeting to view. Can anyone who was there update please. However I was impressed with her performance and hope I get an invite to the next one..
The condescending comment at the beginning did it for me. Red rag to a bull. Let me explain something Meire, we the supporters are your clients. Without us you have no Club. We are not all thick troglodytes, some of us have run businesses etc. Please drop the smug arrogant attitude and try and work with us. Finally stop lying and bullshitting us. You are making a big mistake and are only ostracising the good loyal supporters.
Did the fans come in after that? Only despite her asking, apart from the transfers, no one challenged her at all.
I actually thought her presentation was quite impressive and self assured particularly after the equally satisfying protest on Saturday. Am I correct in saying the 'booted and suited' fans in attendance were specially invited? Whatever, you cannot blame KM if they were content and only had one question that we viewed but I would hope there is more of the meeting to view. Can anyone who was there update please. However I was impressed with her performance and hope I get an invite to the next one..
Speaking purely personally my heart sank at the presentation. I believe the attitude of a lot of the audience was to let it end, and then get on with the proper meeting. I thought it was a box ticking experience, as I also thought a lot of the rest of the meeting was a kind of attempt to box tick by some representatives of the club, for example 'ah the football, let Jacko take that one, ah the tickets, let Tony take that one'. the opening presentation wasn't very good in itself for one thing it had a lot of etc's, and the damn sofa was listed amongst the achievements fer gawdssakes. I think the presentation was the best start they could think up, and all the staff were roped in to see it too. The meeting proper really started after that in my view when rikofold asked a question that was basically do they know why we're so pissed off, and if they do, then list them. the initial response was 'well you tell us' which was countered with something like 'no, we're asking you if you know why (your customer base/fans) are so pissed off.
I wish the rest of the film was up even though I know I will cringe, and will be outed
I see nothing in this presentation that explains the actual strategy to become a 'competitive championship club with premiership ambitions'.
'We want to have the dialogue' - so do we!
I just said similar on the other thread - what she states are objectives, not strategy. She tells us what they are trying to do, but not how they are trying to do it. And I don't count breaking even as a strategy - certainly not to achieve those objectives!
No she didn't really explain it and frustratingly I think the execution was the bit that most suffered from our difficulty in controlling the meeting. She did state those were objectives - it was the slide heading - and I think she was trying to show that investment in the playing side, growing attendances, improving engagement and developing the Academy were the methods by which the objectives will be achieved. It was extremely high level though, and left more questions than answers.
She was visibly nervous I think in this section and the early part of the subsequent questions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc_RiD27iWI#action=share
Comments
1. I don't think you can get a greater example of either the head in sand / outright belligerent approach than from right from the start. The whole point of what has triggered this meeting was the widening division between the Club and the supporters. Highlighting 'Building a Better Future Together' as your Club objective is like getting your wife to agree to go to see a marriage councilor with you due to her obsession with Coronation St, and she booking an appointment to be held in the Rovers Return
Those we have received fees for have been:
Gomez
Wiggins
Poyet
Le Point
Stephens
Kermorgant
Button
We may also have received further payments for
Ajeyi
Jenkinson
Francis / McCormack
Shelvey
We were led to believe by the club the reported £3.5m for Gomez was false, it was a lot more than that. Depending on whatever that was, the whole £9m could equally have been received back in fees
Player recruitment being a case in point. I don't care what you've spent, I care what the result of that spending is and at the moment that result is 22nd in the league.
She's likely to be including Watt, Nego, Tucudean, Reza, etc as well, so not money Roland has spent but cash he's moved from one branch to another.
Did the fans come in after that? Only despite her asking, apart from the transfers, no one challenged her at all.
"....it really does feel like you're watching someone from a different planet" The Observer
"Miere's depiction of a complete cretin is both convincing and compelling" Jonathan Ross
"I still haven't stopped laughing!" Empire
"I think she might be smuggling peanuts" Mr Largo
'We want to have the dialogue' - so do we!
'Starting with fans want to know the strategy, I think we've already explained the strategy many times' - nice!
'How is she allowed to run a football club?'
Please! she must really take us for 24 carat idiots.
On the academy........
(Not verbatim)
'5 academy players made their debuts, this means that will be our advantage over the other prem league teams'
No it doesn't (with no disrespect to those players) it means we dont have enough senior experienced players at the club, and when we have injuries we have to rely on a bunch of kids.
What bloody world does she live in........?
Ignoring all of the bullshit she's spouting out as though we're all braindead (this attempt at pretending they've spent £9m on player purchases is insulting), what strikes me is just how incompetent she seems in general. She just isn't very good at what she's doing and looks extremely out of depth. She's supposed to be a CEO but she reminds me of myself when I was 16 wet behind the ears nervously stumbling over a budget powerpoint presentation prepared on the train to school for a business studies lesson. She has no gravitas whatsoever, I'm sure she's extremely intelligent and would do well in her own field but she is so far out of her comfort zone and level of expertise here it is frankly embarrassing. I'm the same age as her and I honestly, genuinely think I could do a better job than her, she's just blagging it as she goes along. Terrifying to think she's probably on a six figure income, probably more than we were willing to pay Kermogant when he left, what on earth convinced Roly that she was some wunderkind, I just don't get it
It's just they same old garbage isn't it. 'We want to be a competitive Championship club with Premier League ambitions'. Great. So do we. So does everyone. But what are they actually doing about it? For the past two and a half seasons we've either signed totally inadequate players (Nego, Piotr, Lepoint) or signed decent players who have barely played any football in the past year making them injury concerns (Mak, Kashi, Ceballos), and we've never had a sufficiently deep squad to challenge. Add to that the fact we've had five different managers because they keep employing inadequate ones or not retaining decent ones and it makes the stated key aim completely pointless. There's no point stating your objective like it matters if you don't approach achieving it in the right way. She may as well have said our ambitions are to win the Champions League on seven consecutive occasions starting from next year, it would be about as useful.
Was she really pressed on the lack of depth in the squad (two seasons running) and the wildly hit and miss nature of player acquisition?
Let me explain something Meire, we the supporters are your clients. Without us you have no Club. We are not all thick troglodytes, some of us have run businesses etc.
Please drop the smug arrogant attitude and try and work with us. Finally stop lying and bullshitting us. You are making a big mistake and are only ostracising the good loyal supporters.
I think the presentation was the best start they could think up, and all the staff were roped in to see it too.
The meeting proper really started after that in my view when rikofold asked a question that was basically do they know why we're so pissed off, and if they do, then list them. the initial response was 'well you tell us' which was countered with something like 'no, we're asking you if you know why (your customer base/fans) are so pissed off.
I wish the rest of the film was up even though I know I will cringe, and will be outed
She was visibly nervous I think in this section and the early part of the subsequent questions.