I think a lot have you have forgotten that there is just one person in the EFL structure that deals with takeovers & the "fit & proper" test. It is the xmas & New Year period & could easily have been off work since last week.
To keep up with the house buying analogy, my local Estate Agent with whom I've been dealing with recently has been shut since the 22nd Dec & not open again until Thursday (2nd). And that is a branch with about 10 staff. Dont expect anything from the EFL until at least Thursday.....and probably not until next week.
Just chill people. It will happen. Just not yet.
This gives me hope. Had a viewing for my house on Sunday, thought it went really well. They said they would contact the Agent on Monday, but haven't heard a thing so written them off. Hope mine's a similar lazy bunch of wasters.
I’ve spent zero time in the corporate world in my career and know little about the bottom line. The vast majority of financial explanations and company legalese posted by those here goes so far over my head that I don’t even feel the draught.
From this position of absolute hopeless understanding I come to the conclusion that providing a football clubs chairman has the right people around him to do the financial stuff and general management of the club it is beneficial if that chairman has a grounding in the football world. Agents have a relatively bad press but they know the way around clubs and how things work. They will know other agents and have contacts at most clubs. I would expect they know what players are on the up and those that are causing problems. Cutting a good deal is their stock in trade. Networking is the order of the day. Those qualities are I believe useful for a football Chairman. Like everything else in life when judging people it’s about character. As long as our Chairman is of good character the skills set he has will do fine for me. What I’ve managed to see of MS so far is top draw. Time will tell but I look forward to the next part of Charltons journey and wish ESI nothing but good wishes.
If I wanted to buy and run a football club I certainly wouldn't be coming on here looking for answers. That's not a comment on your post, but as the great Frank Gallagher used to say, so many people know fuck all about fuck all.
Someone asked Cawley who funded the apparent signing that we’re making today. Rich said “ Way it has been told to me is that ESI are driving getting the deals done. Which again suggests that takeover is close to completion.”
@grapevine "Tell me how his standing, beyond his personal life in which I have no interest, differs in anyway with any CEO the club has had over the past 10yrs."
The CEO until July 2012 was Steve Kavanagh, who is and was a qualified accountant and had worked as the club's finance director since 2001.
@Airman Brown your probably best placed to answer this. How complex is the proper running of a football club?
The impression I have is that it's quite a simple business? You only really have a small range of products, 1 or 2 sites of operation. Your revenue streams are quite basic in structure, if not value. The none football side of it is, relatively, a small business. Even the separate business units such as ticketing, catering, hospitality and comms aren't big compared to similar industries.
I understand how a bad CEO, chief executive, chair or what ever title is given to the person running a club, can have a negative effect but it doesn't sound to me like you need to be that qualified or experienced to be able to do a good job.
One point about that is that the role can be many different things depending on what’s going on around you. Richard Murray as chairman liked to work closely with the manager, so Peter Varney as chief executive was less involved with the football side. He was very active in most non-football areas, particularly strategic and commercial ones, and was accused of being a control-freak by some as a consequence but he was enormously conscientious. His senior staff were - and are - extremely loyal towards him, which tells you a story.
You know my views on Steve Waggott so I won’t elaborate them again but to say he was distant from the day-to-day activities of senior managers would be an understatement.
Steve Kavanagh was much more hands on but as he would probably admit had less experience or knowledge of certain areas of the business. Like Varney he was highly professional and like Varney he has the respect of those who worked for him. At the time, Varney handled the football relationship not Murray - a reversal of 1997-2008.
Since he left the club has not really had a chief executive. The senior management structure under the spivs post 2012 was a shambles as even Slater admitted, with Prothero refusing both the title and the role, but empowering the hopeless Steve Bradshaw and Ben Kensall, and promoting David Joyes. Prothero acted as intermediary between Jimenez and Powell; Slater had no role in football at all. A key function at least for Varney was managing out Jimenez.
We know about Meire. I would just say that under RD there has been no strategy and no sense of direction, which is in part about the lack of a CEO. But of course RD was never going to empower anyone to take a lead since his modus operandi has been random intervention.
The point is that it is not just the person that changes but the role, and to a large extent that is dictated by other senior staff available. Varney had a large staff and an experienced senior management team to support him, all of whom were fully committed to the club and its success.
The conventional wisdom was that the non-football stuff doesn’t matter much - the “open the gates” mentality which dominated the game before the 1990s. I think on the contrary you can set the culture of the club, strengthen the relationship with fans and drive revenue growth but obviously if the team goes backwards - as it did after 2006 - that becomes more difficult.
You can also take the view that the TV revenues in the PL are so disproportionate that none of the other revenue streams matter much, but culturally that would be quite damaging. The situation in the Championship is more balanced and in L1 revenues from fans are critical.
The business is diverse if not complex but most importantly it is relationship focused. That requires insight and investment of time.
The health and safety challenges of staging football matches with 10-27,000 people can’t be underestimated either. Few other “small businesses” have to deal with that.
Outsourcing retail and catering changed things again. RD tried outsourcing comms, but not very successfully. This may have been in part because he had a range of ex-comms people lined up against him, but he was his own worst enemy.
If you have one person as chairman and CEO - and an owner based overseas - that is necessarily going to put a big responsibility on that person, IMO.
Edit: I should probably add that between 1991-2002 the small business - and it really was very small pre-1998 - built a 27,000 seater stadium, which is no small project, quite apart from anything that happened at Sparrows Lane. It then converted the old community scheme set-up into a charitable trust, which change was led by the football club CEO. And pushed plans for further Valley expansion through planning.
You can have short term chief executives who do nothing without significant impact but the stadium and training ground issues will surface again.
Someone asked Cawley who funded the apparent signing that we’re making today. Rich said “ Way it has been told to me is that ESI are driving getting the deals done. Which again suggests that takeover is close to completion.”
Fingers crossed they were just holding out to thwart whatever balance sheet skullduggery Duchâtelet was getting steamed up about and now we're in January they'll hit the green button pronto.
Comments
2020, the year we sign plenty.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
He bought a half year season ticket.
So is Douchatelet pissed off that he didnt sell yesterday?. Can we expect anothe rant on the website?
He borrows Andrew Muir's.
Andrew Muir had a 3 year season ticket.
Talking of Michaelangelo.
You know my views on Steve Waggott so I won’t elaborate them again but to say he was distant from the day-to-day activities of senior managers would be an understatement.
Steve Kavanagh was much more hands on but as he would probably admit had less experience or knowledge of certain areas of the business. Like Varney he was highly professional and like Varney he has the respect of those who worked for him. At the time, Varney handled the football relationship not Murray - a reversal of 1997-2008.
Since he left the club has not really had a chief executive. The senior management structure under the spivs post 2012 was a shambles as even Slater admitted, with Prothero refusing both the title and the role, but empowering the hopeless Steve Bradshaw and Ben Kensall, and promoting David Joyes. Prothero acted as intermediary between Jimenez and Powell; Slater had no role in football at all. A key function at least for Varney was managing out Jimenez.
We know about Meire. I would just say that under RD there has been no strategy and no sense of direction, which is in part about the lack of a CEO. But of course RD was never going to empower anyone to take a lead since his modus operandi has been random intervention.
The point is that it is not just the person that changes but the role, and to a large extent that is dictated by other senior staff available. Varney had a large staff and an experienced senior management team to support him, all of whom were fully committed to the club and its success.
The conventional wisdom was that the non-football stuff doesn’t matter much - the “open the gates” mentality which dominated the game before the 1990s. I think on the contrary you can set the culture of the club, strengthen the relationship with fans and drive revenue growth but obviously if the team goes backwards - as it did after 2006 - that becomes more difficult.
You can also take the view that the TV revenues in the PL are so disproportionate that none of the other revenue streams matter much, but culturally that would be quite damaging. The situation in the Championship is more balanced and in L1 revenues from fans are critical.
The business is diverse if not complex but most importantly it is relationship focused. That requires insight and investment of time.
The health and safety challenges of staging football matches with 10-27,000 people can’t be underestimated either. Few other “small businesses” have to deal with that.
Outsourcing retail and catering changed things again. RD tried outsourcing comms, but not very successfully. This may have been in part because he had a range of ex-comms people lined up against him, but he was his own worst enemy.
If you have one person as chairman and CEO - and an owner based overseas - that is necessarily going to put a big responsibility on that person, IMO.
Edit: I should probably add that between 1991-2002 the small business - and it really was very small pre-1998 - built a 27,000 seater stadium, which is no small project, quite apart from anything that happened at Sparrows Lane. It then converted the old community scheme set-up into a charitable trust, which change was led by the football club CEO. And pushed plans for further Valley expansion through planning.
You can have short term chief executives who do nothing without significant impact but the stadium and training ground issues will surface again.
Would it not bring Roland's reign into disrepute, funding players from a 3rd party.
Maybe that's the plan to get rid of him?