This is Google translate from Flemish Dutch. The rest of the article is hidden behind a paywall, but it looks like our CEO has found time to talk to the Belgian press.
Supporters Revolt at Charlton Athletic puts CEO Katrien Meire in awkward situation 26-01-16 , 00.00h
The scenario is Roland Duchâtelet (69) are known. As with his former club Standard given the current owner of Charlton Athletic to deal with supporters protest. Yet he does not plan to do the English club of the hand. Katrien Meire captures Belgian CEO as the blows. " The easiest way is to run away but I do not."
"Good things do not come easy". To the English proverb pull Katrien Meire themselves these days, because currently the CEO of Charlton is experiencing perilous times. As the right of club owner Roland Duchâtelet she co scapegoats by thousands of fans who last weekend against Blackburn club 's policy on the grain names.
* Be aware that this article is not written from a perspective critical of the regime. * I have snipped some of it, mostly about Meire and Riga.
Thanks @MountsfieldPark, but I'd recommend reading the whole article. It's the duplicitous shite that Meire talks about dealing with the fans that really makes my blood boil.
Mind you, she's getting media help from someone competent...
* Be aware that this article is not written from a perspective critical of the regime. * I have snipped some of it, mostly about Meire and Riga.
Thanks @MountsfieldPark, but I'd recommend reading the whole article. It's the duplicitous shite that Meire talks about dealing with the fans that really makes my blood boil.
Mind you, she's getting media help from someone competent...
You mean this bit...
---
Yet Katrien Meire, 31, the Belgian he installed as chief executive, could hardly avoid them and has been a target of personal abuse too.
Admitting that communication with supporters has been a problem, she has hired a new PR advisor and is desperate to build bridges with a fan base that won widespread acclaim for its successful campaign to return Charlton to The Valley after seven years in exile from 1985-92 -- even forming a political party to influence the local council.
Last week, two local members of parliament met her at their request to discuss supporters’ concerns.
“I know they (fans) are the lifeblood of the club,” Meire told Reuters in an interview at the stadium. “I recognise there is a huge gap but we all love this club and I'm sure we can find common ground.”
To that end, 'Target 20K', an organisation with supporters’ representatives, has been set up with the aim of restoring attendances to the 20,000 and more who regularly attended home games until Charlton dropped out of the Premier League after seven years in 2007.
Failure to put over a positive message, she believes, means fans do not realise that Duchatelet has invested an extra 20 million pounds ($28.69 million) since buying the club, 12 million of it on the training ground and academy.
“I don’t think that has happened in the past with any previous (Charlton) owner,” Meire said.
On the pitch, however, things are looking increasingly bleak.
Having dispensed with five managers in two years, Duchatelet recently recalled one of them, compatriot Jose Riga, for a second spell.
Two years ago, Riga saved Charlton from relegation in the final week of the season.
Taking over a team that has sunk almost to the bottom of the Championship after losing their last two away games 5-0 and 6-0, he knows how hard a repeat will be.
“I prefer to think it’s the most difficult challenge of my career because I want to put the most energy I can into it,” he said. ---
I presume that article was written by the Steve Tongue who was at the Independent.
* Be aware that this article is not written from a perspective critical of the regime. * I have snipped some of it, mostly about Meire and Riga.
Thanks @MountsfieldPark, but I'd recommend reading the whole article. It's the duplicitous shite that Meire talks about dealing with the fans that really makes my blood boil.
Mind you, she's getting media help from someone competent...
Awful; here's her quote:
“I know they (fans) are the lifeblood of the club,” Meire told Reuters in an interview at the stadium. “I recognise there is a huge gap but we all love this club and I'm sure we can find common ground.”
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
Her newly hired PR guru must be good, because they've got a hell of a lot of work cut out for them - every time this moron opens her mouth it contains at least one contradiction.
Failure to put over a positive message, she believes, means fans do not realise that Duchatelet has invested an extra 20 million pounds ($28.69 million) since buying the club, 12 million of it on the training ground and academy.
This £12 million quid on the training ground that has been spent, on what exactly?
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
Failure to put over a positive message, she believes, means fans do not realise that Duchatelet has invested an extra 20 million pounds ($28.69 million) since buying the club, 12 million of it on the training ground and academy.
This £12 million quid on the training ground that has been spent, on what exactly?
Nothing yet. I think the 12m is the cost of all the work that needs to be undertaken. Have they started any work there yet?
* Be aware that this article is not written from a perspective critical of the regime. * I have snipped some of it, mostly about Meire and Riga.
Wed Jan 27, 2016 2:05am GMT Network failure prompts Charlton fans to rebel LONDON | By Steve Tongue
It might have seemed an attractive idea to own a network of clubs all over Europe, moving players and coaches between them, while cutting out fees for transfers and agents, but Charlton Athletic fans are rebelling against the whole concept.
In January 2014, Belgian entrepreneur Roland Duchatelet, 69, added the English second tier side to a stable that already included teams in Hungary (Ujpest), Germany (Carl Zeiss Jena), Spain (AD Alcorcon) and Belgium (Standard Liege and St Truiden, both subsequently sold).
The attraction of Charlton to Duchatelet was clear -- they were a former Premier League club based in London with a fine stadium at The Valley, crowds of 15,000 and obvious potential.
Yet the south London club have fallen into decline. They are heading towards the third tier of English football, prompting a rebellion by some supporters like the one that forced Duchatelet out of Standard.
Fans have been gathering outside the club’s offices following every home game to demonstrate against Duchatelet, accusing him of poor managerial appointments, bringing in sub-standard players from the network clubs and refusing to talk to potential investors.
Reported not to have attended a home game for some 15 months, the owner has not witnessed these scenes.
...
Charlton fought in vain against what Meire calls a “ridiculous” relaxation of the Football League’s financial fair play rules.
This allowed Championship clubs to make losses of up to 30 million pounds a year and encouraged them, she believes, to spend beyond their means in the madcap dash for Premier League money -- estimated to be worth 100 million pounds to the team finishing bottom next season.
One such club, Bolton Wanderers, last year reported debts of 172.9 million pounds.
As Duchatelet struggles to win over Charlton followers with his network concept, it is little consolation that Bolton sit below them in the Championship table because they are the only team who do.
(Editing by Toby Davis)
I have sent a link to the Reuters article post to the Belgian paper Het Nieuwsblad with a little bit of context. Keep chipping away at the regime in their own back yard.
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
She made it perfectly clear that she thought it weird that we are passionate about the club and we should behave more like when we go to a restaurant. She has never retracted that statement or the fact that she thinks that our 1/3rd of the financing of the club is derisory.
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
She made it perfectly clear that she thought it weird that we are passionate about the club and we should behave more like when we go to a restaurant. She has never retracted that statement or the fact that she thinks that our 1/3rd of the financing of the club is derisory.
That's not what she said or suggested. Not even close.
What she said was this: Fans have an understandable sense of ownership of the club, different to how the same people approach other businesses. While fans contribute around 1/3 of revenue through tickets, ultimately it's the shareholder who has to finance any losses. So she is in a "weird" situation where both the fans and the shareholder feel they own the football club and it's a difficult balance for the CEO.
Which, incidentally, was very similar to what the American bloke said right before her about the possibility of fans owning a percentage of shares, except he said it in businessjargon.
IA, that was not what she said and it did not sound like it was what she intended.
She did not suggest fans had an understandable sense of ownership of the club. She said that fans shouted at you when things went wrong. She said that the fans say it's our club but it isn't, it's the property of the owner. And that's wierd.
At no point did she say that there was a complex dichotomy and balance between owner and fans and she was the fulcrum in the centre. If she had, people might have cut her some slack.
At no point did she say that there was a complex dichotomy and balance between owner and fans and she was the fulcrum in the centre. If she had, people might have cut her some slack.
"that's a really difficult balance is how you try to engage with fans and make them incorporate into some decisions of the club but I mean in the end the bill is paid by somebody else so he should have the final say"
That's a direct quote from the "weird" section of the Dublin interview, around 14 minutes in. I had to look it up now to get the quote. I'm not going to tidy it up into better English, the above is exactly what she said.
At no point did she say that there was a complex dichotomy and balance between owner and fans and she was the fulcrum in the centre. If she had, people might have cut her some slack.
"that's a really difficult balance is how you try to engage with fans and make them incorporate into some decisions of the club but I mean in the end the bill is paid by somebody else so he should have the final say"
That's a direct quote from the "weird" section of the Dublin interview, around 14 minutes in. I had to look it up now to get the quote. I'm not going to tidy it up into better English, the above is exactly what she said.
My view of her comments was that she was saying that, while she wanted fans to accept/agree with the decisions made by RD, RD's decisions would stand, no matter what, as he is the shareholder. From my memory, this tied in much more with the notion of fan ownership of clubs (she felt it was only workable at a lower level - but she's obviously keen on it, as it's where we're heading); the weird comments were relating to how fans are different from other customers. I might have agreed with her weird comments, if she had made clear that fans are weird because they have a sense of belonging to the Club, unlike McDonalds or the cinema (though I am about 65% McDonalds to be fair).
The NASL Commissioner made a much better fist of talking about the questions posed, in my view.
Failure to put over a positive message, she believes, means fans do not realise that Duchatelet has invested an extra 20 million pounds ($28.69 million) since buying the club, 12 million of it on the training ground and academy.
This £12 million quid on the training ground that has been spent, on what exactly?
Nothing yet. I think the 12m is the cost of all the work that needs to be undertaken. Have they started any work there yet? Spend the £12mill on players chosen by Curbs and we'd probably go up. Not that difficult is it Dushatts / Meire you fukinn Morons. They are sooooooooooooooo stupid it's unbelievable.
Soccer - Network failure prompts Charlton fans to rebel
LONDON (Reuters) - It might have seemed an attractive idea to own a network of clubs all over Europe, moving players and coaches between them, while cutting out fees for transfers and agents, but Charlton Athletic fans are rebelling against the whole concept. Source: Reuters 28 JAN 2016 - 3:49 AM UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
In January 2014, Belgian entrepreneur Roland Duchatelet, 69, added the English second tier side to a stable that already included teams in Hungary (Ujpest), Germany (Carl Zeiss Jena), Spain (AD Alcorcon) and Belgium (Standard Liege and St Truiden, both subsequently sold).
The attraction of Charlton to Duchatelet was clear -- they were a former Premier League club based in London with a fine stadium at The Valley, crowds of 15,000 and obvious potential.
Yet the south London club have fallen into decline. They are heading towards the third tier of English football, prompting a rebellion by some supporters like the one that forced Duchatelet out of Standard.
Fans have been gathering outside the club’s offices following every home game to demonstrate against Duchatelet, accusing him of poor managerial appointments, bringing in sub-standard players from the network clubs and refusing to talk to potential investors.
Reported not to have attended a home game for some 15 months, the owner has not witnessed these scenes.
Yet Katrien Meire, 31, the Belgian he installed as chief executive, could hardly avoid them and has been a target of personal abuse too.
Admitting that communication with supporters has been a problem, she has hired a new PR advisor and is desperate to build bridges with a fan base that won widespread acclaim for its successful campaign to return Charlton to The Valley after seven years in exile from 1985-92 -- even forming a political party to influence the local council.
Last week, two local members of parliament met her at their request to discuss supporters’ concerns.
“I know they (fans) are the lifeblood of the club,” Meire told Reuters in an interview at the stadium. “I recognise there is a huge gap but we all love this club and I'm sure we can find common ground.”
To that end, 'Target 20K', an organisation with supporters’ representatives, has been set up with the aim of restoring attendances to the 20,000 and more who regularly attended home games until Charlton dropped out of the Premier League after seven years in 2007.
POSITIVE MESSAGE
Failure to put over a positive message, she believes, means fans do not realise that Duchatelet has invested an extra 20 million pounds ($28.69 million) since buying the club, on top of 12 million spent on the academy.
“I don’t think that has happened in the past with any previous (Charlton) owner,” Meire said.
On the pitch, however, things are looking increasingly bleak.
Having dispensed with five managers in two years, Duchatelet recently recalled one of them, compatriot Jose Riga, for a second spell.
Two years ago, Riga saved Charlton from relegation in the final week of the season.
Taking over a team that has sunk almost to the bottom of the Championship after losing their last two away games 5-0 and 6-0, he knows how hard a repeat will be.
“I prefer to think it’s the most difficult challenge of my career because I want to put the most energy I can into it,” he said.
Charlton fought in vain against what Meire calls a “ridiculous” relaxation of the Football League’s financial fair play rules.
This allowed Championship clubs to make losses of up to 30 million pounds a year and encouraged them, she believes, to spend beyond their means in the madcap dash for Premier League money -- estimated to be worth 100 million pounds to the team finishing bottom next season.
One such club, Bolton Wanderers, last year reported debts of 172.9 million pounds.
As Duchatelet struggles to win over Charlton followers with his network concept, it is little consolation that Bolton sit below them in the Championship table because they are the only team who do.
($1 = 0.6972 pounds)
(This story has been refiled to clarify extra investment in para 12, no other changes)
Ok fair point, I had missed that particular part on the first hear through having got distracted by the odd parallels being drawn.
That section in full then:
'I think the other interesting thing is that fans don't see themselves as customers. And so now when I do get 'very friendly' emails from the fans saying get out of 'our club' so it's not, er the shareholders' club? It's quite funny because er they say they pay. Obviously the ticketing system is one third of our revenue stream but they go to the restaurant every week and they go to the cinema but if they are not satisfied with the product will they go and scream to the people in charge of it, no they don't, but they do it with a football club and that's very wierd because they feel a sense of ownership and thats a really difficult balance because you try to engage with the fans and make them incorporate into the..some of the decisions of the club but I mean in the end the bill is paid by someone else and he should have the final say.'
Then the host suggests that she is copping the flack and she says yes the previous CEO said when they bought the club that she would become the most unpopular person there. At the time she didn't know what he was talking about and now she knows.
So, she didn't suggest that the fans feeling of ownership was understandable. She doesn't appear to understand the feeling of ownership outside of the economic and legal position.
Fans cannot expect to make all the decisions at the club. However, it is the quality of communication with the fans and the incorporation into the decision making that good CEOs manage even when the bill payer makes shocking decisions time and time again. It's the continued inability of the club to manage that which (allied to the shocking decisions around player recruitmen and even more so managerial and coaching positions) that have brought her and her boss to the current position.
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
She made it perfectly clear that she thought it weird that we are passionate about the club and we should behave more like when we go to a restaurant. She has never retracted that statement or the fact that she thinks that our 1/3rd of the financing of the club is derisory.
That's not what she said or suggested. Not even close.
What she said was this: Fans have an understandable sense of ownership of the club, different to how the same people approach other businesses. While fans contribute around 1/3 of revenue through tickets, ultimately it's the shareholder who has to finance any losses. So she is in a "weird" situation where both the fans and the shareholder feel they own the football club and it's a difficult balance for the CEO.
Which, incidentally, was very similar to what the American bloke said right before her about the possibility of fans owning a percentage of shares, except he said it in businessjargon.
I am still inclined to agree that is what she was trying to say, but she made a dog's dinner of it and has since failed to communicate what she actually meant allowing the wound to fester.
Also think, of the two main things to come out of that interview, the far bigger issue was the idea that we as Charlton fans will have to get our kicks out of watching us groom youngsters for sale to the Premier League every six months, rather than trying to use those youngsters for our own onfield improvement.
All of this about KM not understanding how fans feel about their club, but I thought her and RD met because she was a fan of St Truiden FC, so surely she should be aware how a fan feels
All of this about KM not understanding how fans feel about their club, but I thought her and RD met because she was a fan of St Truiden FC, so surely she should be aware how a fan feels
Depends how much of a 'fan' she really is. I've always thought that clubs have fans and followers. She's probably a follower more than a fan, hence why she just doesn't get it.
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
She made it perfectly clear that she thought it weird that we are passionate about the club and we should behave more like when we go to a restaurant. She has never retracted that statement or the fact that she thinks that our 1/3rd of the financing of the club is derisory.
That's not what she said or suggested. Not even close.
What she said was this: Fans have an understandable sense of ownership of the club, different to how the same people approach other businesses. While fans contribute around 1/3 of revenue through tickets, ultimately it's the shareholder who has to finance any losses. So she is in a "weird" situation where both the fans and the shareholder feel they own the football club and it's a difficult balance for the CEO.
Which, incidentally, was very similar to what the American bloke said right before her about the possibility of fans owning a percentage of shares, except he said it in businessjargon.
I am still inclined to agree that is what she was trying to say, but she made a dog's dinner of it and has since failed to communicate what she actually meant allowing the wound to fester.
Also think, of the two main things to come out of that interview, the far bigger issue was the idea that we as Charlton fans will have to get our kicks out of watching us groom youngsters for sale to the Premier League every six months, rather than trying to use those youngsters for our own onfield improvement.
Agree on both points.
Her biggest problem is that she repeatedly tries to talk about Charlton fans, and never bothers to talk to Charlton fans. Every CEO of every company should use any media interview to speak to existing and potential customers - with football clubs it's even more important.
The 'Premier League stars of the Future' thing, she does try to sugarcoat it by throwing in the types of phrases that would be used on here when discussing young players like Lookman - eg she does say something like 'players can get to the Premier League, hopefully with us or move to another club'. But it's definitely the worst part of that interview.
Alwaysneil, she states it as a fact that fans feel an ownership and therefore she has to 'engage with' and 'incorporate' the fans into the decision-making at the club. I think that shows an understanding, but maybe you don't. You've gone on to make a general point about communication and management, which is fair enough. I'm not going to argue that she's doing a great job.
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
She made it perfectly clear that she thought it weird that we are passionate about the club and we should behave more like when we go to a restaurant. She has never retracted that statement or the fact that she thinks that our 1/3rd of the financing of the club is derisory.
That's not what she said or suggested. Not even close.
What she said was this: Fans have an understandable sense of ownership of the club, different to how the same people approach other businesses. While fans contribute around 1/3 of revenue through tickets, ultimately it's the shareholder who has to finance any losses. So she is in a "weird" situation where both the fans and the shareholder feel they own the football club and it's a difficult balance for the CEO.
Which, incidentally, was very similar to what the American bloke said right before her about the possibility of fans owning a percentage of shares, except he said it in businessjargon.
I am still inclined to agree that is what she was trying to say, but she made a dog's dinner of it and has since failed to communicate what she actually meant allowing the wound to fester.
Also think, of the two main things to come out of that interview, the far bigger issue was the idea that we as Charlton fans will have to get our kicks out of watching us groom youngsters for sale to the Premier League every six months, rather than trying to use those youngsters for our own onfield improvement.
Agree on both points.
Her biggest problem is that she repeatedly tries to talk about Charlton fans, and never bothers to talk to Charlton fans. Every CEO of every company should use any media interview to speak to existing and potential customers - with football clubs it's even more important.
The 'Premier League stars of the Future' thing, she does try to sugarcoat it by throwing in the types of phrases that would be used on here when discussing young players like Lookman - eg she does say something like 'players can get to the Premier League, hopefully with us or move to another club'. But it's definitely the worst part of that interview.
Alwaysneil, she states it as a fact that fans feel an ownership and therefore she has to 'engage with' and 'incorporate' the fans into the decision-making at the club. I think that shows an understanding, but maybe you don't. You've gone on to make a general point about communication and management, which is fair enough. I'm not going to argue that she's doing a great job.
But her point was that the fans don't have an "ownership", she clearly believed that fans believing they have an "ownership" is weird and that the only ownership is that of the shareholder.
She states clearly that, no matter what the views of the supporters about any initiatives under the current regime, it is Duchatelet's way or the highway - so any discussion of engaging, with this qualification, is clearly a one way street.
While you or I might argue that being the owner of a football club's assets is in effect holding the club in trust for future generations (we hope), a custodianship, it's not the view that Katrien expressed.
I'd have to stress that there was plenty of opportunity to talk in a different way. If she was the fan she has claimed to be, she would have expressed herself differently, because she would have understood the investment (emotional and otherwise) that generations of supporters make to a club. If she was only talking in purely financial terms, she would have had no need to compare fans with general consumers. While the Web Summit (the last in Dublin before relocating to Lisbon because the Irish company running it feels there is not sufficient infrastructure, hotel rooms, in Dublin) is an international IT/e-commerce event (or e-vent); there would be more than enough understanding in the audience of how fans, in all sports, feel about their teams.
I would be inclined to suggest that Mr Petterson's view was more coherent because, as the Commissioner for the NASL he was clearly expressing views that related to establishing secure clubs/franchises in a growing league. In relation to ownership, he was talking solely about the financial ability of fans to own clubs; and whether this was practical or desirable.
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
She made it perfectly clear that she thought it weird that we are passionate about the club and we should behave more like when we go to a restaurant. She has never retracted that statement or the fact that she thinks that our 1/3rd of the financing of the club is derisory.
That's not what she said or suggested. Not even close.
What she said was this: Fans have an understandable sense of ownership of the club, different to how the same people approach other businesses. While fans contribute around 1/3 of revenue through tickets, ultimately it's the shareholder who has to finance any losses. So she is in a "weird" situation where both the fans and the shareholder feel they own the football club and it's a difficult balance for the CEO.
Which, incidentally, was very similar to what the American bloke said right before her about the possibility of fans owning a percentage of shares, except he said it in businessjargon.
I am still inclined to agree that is what she was trying to say, but she made a dog's dinner of it and has since failed to communicate what she actually meant allowing the wound to fester.
Also think, of the two main things to come out of that interview, the far bigger issue was the idea that we as Charlton fans will have to get our kicks out of watching us groom youngsters for sale to the Premier League every six months, rather than trying to use those youngsters for our own onfield improvement.
You know, whatever she means she is still responsible for the words she elects to use. She absolutely described the sense of ownership fans feel as weird; the phrasing she used was almost mocking. She absolutely described her proposition as watching Premier League stars of the future before the club sells them.
Gerald Ratner learned to the cost of his business that using the wrong words on a public platform can be impossible to recover from. I'm struggling to see, given the context of her previous 2 years, what Meire can do to recover from Dublin.
We're now the lifeblood of the club? What happened to customers? We all love the club? What happened to that being a bit weird?
It's almost as if that was never what she meant.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
She made it perfectly clear that she thought it weird that we are passionate about the club and we should behave more like when we go to a restaurant. She has never retracted that statement or the fact that she thinks that our 1/3rd of the financing of the club is derisory.
That's not what she said or suggested. Not even close.
What she said was this: Fans have an understandable sense of ownership of the club, different to how the same people approach other businesses. While fans contribute around 1/3 of revenue through tickets, ultimately it's the shareholder who has to finance any losses. So she is in a "weird" situation where both the fans and the shareholder feel they own the football club and it's a difficult balance for the CEO.
Which, incidentally, was very similar to what the American bloke said right before her about the possibility of fans owning a percentage of shares, except he said it in businessjargon.
I am still inclined to agree that is what she was trying to say, but she made a dog's dinner of it and has since failed to communicate what she actually meant allowing the wound to fester.
Also think, of the two main things to come out of that interview, the far bigger issue was the idea that we as Charlton fans will have to get our kicks out of watching us groom youngsters for sale to the Premier League every six months, rather than trying to use those youngsters for our own onfield improvement.
Agree on both points.
Her biggest problem is that she repeatedly tries to talk about Charlton fans, and never bothers to talk to Charlton fans. Every CEO of every company should use any media interview to speak to existing and potential customers - with football clubs it's even more important.
The 'Premier League stars of the Future' thing, she does try to sugarcoat it by throwing in the types of phrases that would be used on here when discussing young players like Lookman - eg she does say something like 'players can get to the Premier League, hopefully with us or move to another club'. But it's definitely the worst part of that interview.
Alwaysneil, she states it as a fact that fans feel an ownership and therefore she has to 'engage with' and 'incorporate' the fans into the decision-making at the club. I think that shows an understanding, but maybe you don't. You've gone on to make a general point about communication and management, which is fair enough. I'm not going to argue that she's doing a great job.
But her point was that the fans don't have an "ownership", she clearly believed that fans believing they have an "ownership" is weird and that the only ownership is that of the shareholder.
She states clearly that, no matter what the views of the supporters about any initiatives under the current regime, it is Duchatelet's way or the highway - so any discussion of engaging, with this qualification, is clearly a one way street.
While you or I might argue that being the owner of a football club's assets is in effect holding the club in trust for future generations (we hope), a custodianship, it's not the view that Katrien expressed.
I'd have to stress that there was plenty of opportunity to talk in a different way. If she was the fan she has claimed to be, she would have expressed herself differently, because she would have understood the investment (emotional and otherwise) that generations of supporters make to a club. If she was only talking in purely financial terms, she would have had no need to compare fans with general consumers. While the Web Summit (the last in Dublin before relocating to Lisbon because the Irish company running it feels there is not sufficient infrastructure, hotel rooms, in Dublin) is an international IT/e-commerce event (or e-vent); there would be more than enough understanding in the audience of how fans, in all sports, feel about their teams.
I would be inclined to suggest that Mr Petterson's view was more coherent because, as the Commissioner for the NASL he was clearly expressing views that related to establishing secure clubs/franchises in a growing league. In relation to ownership, he was talking solely about the financial ability of fans to own clubs; and whether this was practical or desirable.
This is the key point for me. There is no question a football fan would for a second consider - let alone express - their sense of ownership as anything other than entirely natural and normal. Even if you were restricting yourself to a cold detached observation of their contribution to football finance, the idea that fans' contribution is limited to a customer offering just oe third of the football club's income shows a breathtaking naivety.
And all that's without even mentioning the 'value add' that the Charlton fan base in particular can offer the club - and has offered to her - for free. Or, indeed, appearing to fail to grasp that comments made to a web summit in Dublin would not be limited to the audience in the hall.
Oh Katrien. On Saturday she reportedly tells a few fans that she stopped talking to the media because her words are taken out of context. Then an interview - Reuters and possibly more in Belgium - appears. So another little white lie from a woman who simply can't help herself.
And the warm references to "love" and "our club" are clearly on PR advice. And tie in with the sentiments echoed by Jose Riga when he arrived. Coincidence?
Oh Katrien. On Saturday she reportedly tells a few fans that she stopped talking to the media because her words are taken out of context. Then an interview - Reuters and possibly more in Belgium - appears. So another little white lie from a woman who simply can't help herself.
And the warm references to "love" and "our club" are clearly on PR advice. And tie in with the sentiments echoed by Jose Riga when he arrived. Coincidence?
A compulsive liar is someone who lies with ease and finds comfort in it. The person may even continue to lie when presented with the truth in cold, hard facts. Getting a compulsive liar to admit he or she lied can be nearly impossible.
One other point. Were I to be giving media advice to Katrien, then based on my working as a journalist I would advise her to do exactly as she has done. Speak to agencies and not directly to individual journalists other than those you believe are more receptive to your message. Agencies such as PA and Reuters have a wide client base and so do not ask probing questions, They are not investigative and allow the interviewee to pretty much get their side across unchallenged. She is also speaking to foreign media (ie Belgian press) as, again, they will be more receptive and probably less informed. I would also have advised Jose Riga to do exactly as he has - distance himself from the regime, appeal directly to fans.
Expect to hear more use of "our club" "engage" etc and for constant repetition of phrases which imply the club and fans are closely allied. Much of what is being said now is carefully crafted to get a constant message across, aimed at the less commited fans and the media, and to marginalise the protesters. Whether this works, however, is dependent on one thing they cannot control - result on the field.
One other point. Were I to be giving media advice to Katrien, then based on my working as a journalist I would advise her to do exactly as she has done. Speak to agencies and not directly to individual journalists other than those you believe are more receptive to your message. Agencies such as PA and Reuters have a wide client base and so do not ask probing questions, They are not investigative and allow the interviewee to pretty much get their side across unchallenged. She is also speaking to foreign media (ie Belgian press) as, again, they will be more receptive and probably less informed. I would also have advised Jose Riga to do exactly as he has - distance himself from the regime, appeal directly to fans.
Expect to hear more use of "our club" "engage" etc and for constant repetition of phrases which imply the club and fans are closely allied. Much of what is being said now is carefully crafted to get a constant message across, aimed at the less commited fans and the media, and to marginalise the protesters. Whether this works, however, is dependent on one thing they cannot control - result on the field.
All excellent points but your last sentence is not quite correct.
They can control results by buying some decent fucking Championship players and stop appointing Belgian pub league managers to run the joint!
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http://www.demorgen.be/plus/-net-alsof-ik-misdadiger-ben-b-1453769404454/
"Just like I'm a criminal"
Supporters Revolt at Charlton Athletic puts CEO Katrien Meire in awkward situation
26-01-16 , 00.00h
The scenario is Roland Duchâtelet (69) are known. As with his former club Standard given the current owner of Charlton Athletic to deal with supporters protest. Yet he does not plan to do the English club of the hand. Katrien Meire captures Belgian CEO as the blows. " The easiest way is to run away but I do not."
"Good things do not come easy". To the English proverb pull Katrien Meire themselves these days, because currently the CEO of Charlton is experiencing perilous times. As the right of club owner Roland Duchâtelet she co scapegoats by thousands of fans who last weekend against Blackburn club 's policy on the grain names.
Mind you, she's getting media help from someone competent...
You mean this bit...
---
Yet Katrien Meire, 31, the Belgian he installed as chief executive, could hardly avoid them and has been a target of personal abuse too.
Admitting that communication with supporters has been a problem, she has hired a new PR advisor and is desperate to build bridges with a fan base that won widespread acclaim for its successful campaign to return Charlton to The Valley after seven years in exile from 1985-92 -- even forming a political party to influence the local council.
Last week, two local members of parliament met her at their request to discuss supporters’ concerns.
“I know they (fans) are the lifeblood of the club,” Meire told Reuters in an interview at the stadium. “I recognise there is a huge gap but we all love this club and I'm sure we can find common ground.”
To that end, 'Target 20K', an organisation with supporters’ representatives, has been set up with the aim of restoring attendances to the 20,000 and more who regularly attended home games until Charlton dropped out of the Premier League after seven years in 2007.
Failure to put over a positive message, she believes, means fans do not realise that Duchatelet has invested an extra 20 million pounds ($28.69 million) since buying the club, 12 million of it on the training ground and academy.
“I don’t think that has happened in the past with any previous (Charlton) owner,” Meire said.
On the pitch, however, things are looking increasingly bleak.
Having dispensed with five managers in two years, Duchatelet recently recalled one of them, compatriot Jose Riga, for a second spell.
Two years ago, Riga saved Charlton from relegation in the final week of the season.
Taking over a team that has sunk almost to the bottom of the Championship after losing their last two away games 5-0 and 6-0, he knows how hard a repeat will be.
“I prefer to think it’s the most difficult challenge of my career because I want to put the most energy I can into it,” he said.
---
I presume that article was written by the Steve Tongue who was at the Independent.
Her newly hired PR guru must be good, because they've got a hell of a lot of work cut out for them - every time this moron opens her mouth it contains at least one contradiction.
I wonder if any fans saw the Dublin interview and commented on websites like this one that she wasn't calling fans weird. And that "weird", while a bad choice of word, was used more in reference to herself and her role than anyone else.
Nothing yet. I think the 12m is the cost of all the work that needs to be undertaken. Have they started any work there yet?
*just seen this has been mentioned*
What she said was this: Fans have an understandable sense of ownership of the club, different to how the same people approach other businesses. While fans contribute around 1/3 of revenue through tickets, ultimately it's the shareholder who has to finance any losses. So she is in a "weird" situation where both the fans and the shareholder feel they own the football club and it's a difficult balance for the CEO.
Which, incidentally, was very similar to what the American bloke said right before her about the possibility of fans owning a percentage of shares, except he said it in businessjargon.
She did not suggest fans had an understandable sense of ownership of the club. She said that fans shouted at you when things went wrong. She said that the fans say it's our club but it isn't, it's the property of the owner. And that's wierd.
At no point did she say that there was a complex dichotomy and balance between owner and fans and she was the fulcrum in the centre. If she had, people might have cut her some slack.
That's a direct quote from the "weird" section of the Dublin interview, around 14 minutes in. I had to look it up now to get the quote. I'm not going to tidy it up into better English, the above is exactly what she said.
The NASL Commissioner made a much better fist of talking about the questions posed, in my view.
Spend the £12mill on players chosen by Curbs and we'd probably go up. Not that difficult is it Dushatts / Meire you fukinn Morons. They are sooooooooooooooo stupid it's unbelievable.
Soccer - Network failure prompts Charlton fans to rebel
LONDON (Reuters) - It might have seemed an attractive idea to own a network of clubs all over Europe, moving players and coaches between them, while cutting out fees for transfers and agents, but Charlton Athletic fans are rebelling against the whole concept.
Source: Reuters
28 JAN 2016 - 3:49 AM UPDATED 3 HOURS AGO
In January 2014, Belgian entrepreneur Roland Duchatelet, 69, added the English second tier side to a stable that already included teams in Hungary (Ujpest), Germany (Carl Zeiss Jena), Spain (AD Alcorcon) and Belgium (Standard Liege and St Truiden, both subsequently sold).
The attraction of Charlton to Duchatelet was clear -- they were a former Premier League club based in London with a fine stadium at The Valley, crowds of 15,000 and obvious potential.
Yet the south London club have fallen into decline. They are heading towards the third tier of English football, prompting a rebellion by some supporters like the one that forced Duchatelet out of Standard.
Fans have been gathering outside the club’s offices following every home game to demonstrate against Duchatelet, accusing him of poor managerial appointments, bringing in sub-standard players from the network clubs and refusing to talk to potential investors.
Reported not to have attended a home game for some 15 months, the owner has not witnessed these scenes.
Yet Katrien Meire, 31, the Belgian he installed as chief executive, could hardly avoid them and has been a target of personal abuse too.
Admitting that communication with supporters has been a problem, she has hired a new PR advisor and is desperate to build bridges with a fan base that won widespread acclaim for its successful campaign to return Charlton to The Valley after seven years in exile from 1985-92 -- even forming a political party to influence the local council.
Last week, two local members of parliament met her at their request to discuss supporters’ concerns.
“I know they (fans) are the lifeblood of the club,” Meire told Reuters in an interview at the stadium. “I recognise there is a huge gap but we all love this club and I'm sure we can find common ground.”
To that end, 'Target 20K', an organisation with supporters’ representatives, has been set up with the aim of restoring attendances to the 20,000 and more who regularly attended home games until Charlton dropped out of the Premier League after seven years in 2007.
POSITIVE MESSAGE
Failure to put over a positive message, she believes, means fans do not realise that Duchatelet has invested an extra 20 million pounds ($28.69 million) since buying the club, on top of 12 million spent on the academy.
“I don’t think that has happened in the past with any previous (Charlton) owner,” Meire said.
On the pitch, however, things are looking increasingly bleak.
Having dispensed with five managers in two years, Duchatelet recently recalled one of them, compatriot Jose Riga, for a second spell.
Two years ago, Riga saved Charlton from relegation in the final week of the season.
Taking over a team that has sunk almost to the bottom of the Championship after losing their last two away games 5-0 and 6-0, he knows how hard a repeat will be.
“I prefer to think it’s the most difficult challenge of my career because I want to put the most energy I can into it,” he said.
Charlton fought in vain against what Meire calls a “ridiculous” relaxation of the Football League’s financial fair play rules.
This allowed Championship clubs to make losses of up to 30 million pounds a year and encouraged them, she believes, to spend beyond their means in the madcap dash for Premier League money -- estimated to be worth 100 million pounds to the team finishing bottom next season.
One such club, Bolton Wanderers, last year reported debts of 172.9 million pounds.
As Duchatelet struggles to win over Charlton followers with his network concept, it is little consolation that Bolton sit below them in the Championship table because they are the only team who do.
($1 = 0.6972 pounds)
(This story has been refiled to clarify extra investment in para 12, no other changes)
(Editing by Toby Davis)
That section in full then:
'I think the other interesting thing is that fans don't see themselves as customers. And so now when I do get 'very friendly' emails from the fans saying get out of 'our club' so it's not, er the shareholders' club? It's quite funny because er they say they pay. Obviously the ticketing system is one third of our revenue stream but they go to the restaurant every week and they go to the cinema but if they are not satisfied with the product will they go and scream to the people in charge of it, no they don't, but they do it with a football club and that's very wierd because they feel a sense of ownership and thats a really difficult balance because you try to engage with the fans and make them incorporate into the..some of the decisions of the club but I mean in the end the bill is paid by someone else and he should have the final say.'
Then the host suggests that she is copping the flack and she says yes the previous CEO said when they bought the club that she would become the most unpopular person there. At the time she didn't know what he was talking about and now she knows.
So, she didn't suggest that the fans feeling of ownership was understandable. She doesn't appear to understand the feeling of ownership outside of the economic and legal position.
Fans cannot expect to make all the decisions at the club. However, it is the quality of communication with the fans and the incorporation into the decision making that good CEOs manage even when the bill payer makes shocking decisions time and time again. It's the continued inability of the club to manage that which (allied to the shocking decisions around player recruitmen and even more so managerial and coaching positions) that have brought her and her boss to the current position.
Also think, of the two main things to come out of that interview, the far bigger issue was the idea that we as Charlton fans will have to get our kicks out of watching us groom youngsters for sale to the Premier League every six months, rather than trying to use those youngsters for our own onfield improvement.
Her biggest problem is that she repeatedly tries to talk about Charlton fans, and never bothers to talk to Charlton fans. Every CEO of every company should use any media interview to speak to existing and potential customers - with football clubs it's even more important.
The 'Premier League stars of the Future' thing, she does try to sugarcoat it by throwing in the types of phrases that would be used on here when discussing young players like Lookman - eg she does say something like 'players can get to the Premier League, hopefully with us or move to another club'. But it's definitely the worst part of that interview.
Alwaysneil, she states it as a fact that fans feel an ownership and therefore she has to 'engage with' and 'incorporate' the fans into the decision-making at the club. I think that shows an understanding, but maybe you don't. You've gone on to make a general point about communication and management, which is fair enough. I'm not going to argue that she's doing a great job.
She states clearly that, no matter what the views of the supporters about any initiatives under the current regime, it is Duchatelet's way or the highway - so any discussion of engaging, with this qualification, is clearly a one way street.
While you or I might argue that being the owner of a football club's assets is in effect holding the club in trust for future generations (we hope), a custodianship, it's not the view that Katrien expressed.
I'd have to stress that there was plenty of opportunity to talk in a different way. If she was the fan she has claimed to be, she would have expressed herself differently, because she would have understood the investment (emotional and otherwise) that generations of supporters make to a club. If she was only talking in purely financial terms, she would have had no need to compare fans with general consumers. While the Web Summit (the last in Dublin before relocating to Lisbon because the Irish company running it feels there is not sufficient infrastructure, hotel rooms, in Dublin) is an international IT/e-commerce event (or e-vent); there would be more than enough understanding in the audience of how fans, in all sports, feel about their teams.
I would be inclined to suggest that Mr Petterson's view was more coherent because, as the Commissioner for the NASL he was clearly expressing views that related to establishing secure clubs/franchises in a growing league. In relation to ownership, he was talking solely about the financial ability of fans to own clubs; and whether this was practical or desirable.
Gerald Ratner learned to the cost of his business that using the wrong words on a public platform can be impossible to recover from. I'm struggling to see, given the context of her previous 2 years, what Meire can do to recover from Dublin.
And all that's without even mentioning the 'value add' that the Charlton fan base in particular can offer the club - and has offered to her - for free. Or, indeed, appearing to fail to grasp that comments made to a web summit in Dublin would not be limited to the audience in the hall.
And the warm references to "love" and "our club" are clearly on PR advice. And tie in with the sentiments echoed by Jose Riga when he arrived. Coincidence?
Expect to hear more use of "our club" "engage" etc and for constant repetition of phrases which imply the club and fans are closely allied. Much of what is being said now is carefully crafted to get a constant message across, aimed at the less commited fans and the media, and to marginalise the protesters. Whether this works, however, is dependent on one thing they cannot control - result on the field.
They can control results by buying some decent fucking Championship players and stop appointing Belgian pub league managers to run the joint!