Stan A. Einstein wrote:

Willthiswork wrote:OK, another thread 'tidied up'. I've also merged it with the 'tidied' original thread too. Keep this one on track please - I think this is an important thread that doesn't need immature comments spoiling it.

Threads develop.

My post makes no sense thanks to your tidying up. My view is that you are becoming a little too precious.

Damned if you do - damned if you don't!

I thought there were some good comments on the original thread.

Hi everyone, I’m not a newcomer to Rodney Parade but I am to this forum, drawn in by the ownership discussion.
To me it’s impossible to have this discussion without first establishing the ambition and aspiration of the club. If it is to one day achieve premiership or championship status then cold hard conclusion is that the trust structure is unsustainable. It will absolutely require greater investment, greater commercialization and wider external expertise.
If however we wish to remain a community club drawing a 4-6000 regular fan base, with perpetual roots in league 2 then the trust can work as long as the guiding hands are both accountable AND firmly committed to securing through constitution a medium to long term future, by minimizing expenditure and maximizing fan (customer) involvement.
The latter will not mean attracting ambitious playing youngsters, and so the trap door is everpresent.
We need to agree and set aspiration first, and only THEN determine the model.
MJ

AmberRundgren. wrote:Hi everyone, I’m not a newcomer to Rodney Parade but I am to this forum, drawn in by the ownership discussion.
To me it’s impossible to have this discussion without first establishing the ambition and aspiration of the club. If it is to one day achieve premiership or championship status then cold hard conclusion is that the trust structure is unsustainable. It will absolutely require greater investment, greater commercialization and wider external expertise.
If however we wish to remain a community club drawing a 4-6000 regular fan base, with perpetual roots in league 2 then the trust can work as long as the guiding hands are both accountable AND firmly committed to securing through constitution a medium to long term future, by minimizing expenditure and maximizing fan (customer) involvement.
The latter will not mean attracting ambitious playing youngsters, and so the trap door is everpresent.
We need to agree and set aspiration first, and only THEN determine the model.
MJ

Thanks for a genuinely interesting contribution.

Two questions.

I agree entirely about greater external expertise and commercialization. However I don't understand why this is not possible under the Trust model. I think that there's no reason why the board should not hope to attract people with skills in that area.

Secondly with respect to investment. Are you of the view that investment should be seen in it's proper sense? By that I mean do you believe that properly managed a football club can offer a return to the investors? If that is the case would not the German model, 51% owned by the Trust and 49% by the investors allow for them to make a return whilst ensuring that the club doesn't fall into the hands of rogues?

If however your view is that investors in football clubs are really altruistic people, could they not do so via a trust model?

Again thanks for putting the case for private investment I look forward to your reply.

AmberRundgren. wrote:Hi everyone, I’m not a newcomer to Rodney Parade but I am to this forum, drawn in by the ownership discussion.
To me it’s impossible to have this discussion without first establishing the ambition and aspiration of the club. If it is to one day achieve premiership or championship status then cold hard conclusion is that the trust structure is unsustainable. It will absolutely require greater investment, greater commercialization and wider external expertise.
If however we wish to remain a community club drawing a 4-6000 regular fan base, with perpetual roots in league 2 then the trust can work as long as the guiding hands are both accountable AND firmly committed to securing through constitution a medium to long term future, by minimizing expenditure and maximizing fan (customer) involvement.
The latter will not mean attracting ambitious playing youngsters, and so the trap door is everpresent.
We need to agree and set aspiration first, and only THEN determine the model.
MJ

Like Stan I think this is an excellent contribution and the level of discussion required /debated.

I have a few sort of comments around who would make this decision - existing board/ a new board or put to the fans. It would have to be a well developed proposals/presented out and not like a Yes/No Brexit one.

To get from one to the latter a lot of the prep work/ real investors would have to be in line and transition quickly otherwise a few months of uncertainty could be our undoing and I guess in reality this would be forced off the back of an actual proposal.

My only other thought would be if the carrot of potential Championship football is dangled in front of us fans then I would really want that ambition to be robustly challenged so that it is not just an easy throw away to get a result and indeed have some real substance and creditability behind them.

I have to confess I'm all ownershipped-out. Whatever models are proposed or acted on, there will always be a segment of supporters - it need only be handful - who will do their level best to undermine things.

It would always have been the case, but the prevalence of social media makes it deadly. Sometimes people will be able to join up their thinking and have an answer to "if we do this, what happens next?" but not always.

Thanks for responses, I think to be clear I don’t believe the 51/49 model does work in UK without over time, clear returns/benefits being made to the private investor. Only a handful of clubs make profit under this model as the wage bills in higher leagues put too much pressure on the margin. The investors who hang in there despite losses are a strange breed! For NC I think the best model at the moment, under current aspiration is to maintain the trust, but to create non-executive roles that bring commercial advisory in of a greater level than I’ve seen. I also want to say FourThousand is spot on regarding the smoke and mirrors ‘promises’. Realism is the foundation of club success. I would still start by communicating a clear aspiration. For record mine is League 1 under current structures. Beyond that I believe the governance structure needs to be very different. MJ

George Street-Bridge wrote:I have to confess I'm all ownershipped-out. Whatever models are proposed or acted on, there will always be a segment of supporters - it need only be handful - who will do their level best to undermine things.

It would always have been the case, but the prevalence of social media makes it deadly. Sometimes people will be able to join up their thinking and have an answer to "if we do this, what happens next?" but not always.

George,

Have you ever considered that being critical is not the same as undermining. I am 100% in favour of the Trust model. Some are not. Having a discussion on this is not undermining.

George Street-Bridge wrote:I have to confess I'm all ownershipped-out. Whatever models are proposed or acted on, there will always be a segment of supporters - it need only be handful - who will do their level best to undermine things.

It would always have been the case, but the prevalence of social media makes it deadly. Sometimes people will be able to join up their thinking and have an answer to "if we do this, what happens next?" but not always.

I agree George the only hope that I have is that if the Board is somehow aware that within our fan base there is some joined up thinking about ownership, then they too would be unrelenting going through a similar process and due diligence (to best be able to present well thought through options for what is best for our club).

Stan A. Einstein wrote:

George Street-Bridge wrote:I have to confess I'm all ownershipped-out. Whatever models are proposed or acted on, there will always be a segment of supporters - it need only be handful - who will do their level best to undermine things.

It would always have been the case, but the prevalence of social media makes it deadly. Sometimes people will be able to join up their thinking and have an answer to "if we do this, what happens next?" but not always.

George,

Have you ever considered that being critical is not the same as undermining. I am 100% in favour of the Trust model. Some are not. Having a discussion on this is not undermining.

You are making stuff up again. Where have I equated being critical with undermining?

There are plenty of things I criticise. I think it's crazy that in 2018 you can't renew a season ticket other than by printing a form and taking or sending it in like you would have 50 years ago, the assumption being supporters still live a few streets away, for example

George Street-Bridge wrote: there will always be a segment of supporters - it need only be handful - who will do their level best to undermine things.

It would always have been the case, but the prevalence of social media makes it deadly.

You are making stuff up again. Where have I equated being critical with undermining?

Some are critical, some set out to undermine. They are not one and the same, and George's statement doesn't claim they are.

excessbee wrote:Some are critical, some set out to undermine. They are not one and the same, and George's statement doesn't claim they are.

I'm a fine figure of a man. You're plump. He's fat.

Favourite Landscape song

whoareya wrote:Favourite Landscape song

Einstein a go go

I contribute my bit every month but know it will not be enough. I do it because we enjoy the theory of the supporter owned model and so must hold up our end of the bargain by financially supporting it when we can. Clubs are showing that a fully supporter owned club can be succesful such as Exeter, Wimbledon and Wycombe, and small budget clubs like Accrington keep hope alive for us all.

I'm not sure we should give up on a supporter owned model until such time as we can say we gave it the best chance to succeed with the best people in place. We have a good bunch of volunteers and our directors appear to do a reasonably good job. Our supporter base is active and supports the club financially as best it can. The question I would ask is whether the paid people in crucial positions at the club have been the right choice and have optimised the business operations and commercial operations and revenue centres of the club? it's not personal but in my work life as a recruiter I look to suitability and experience of key executive and personnel during lean and challenging times for organisations. If they are not from the right experience and background it can be critical for the organisation and can see the death of it.

I've read plenty of frustration and annoyance here about professionalism of the commercial and operations area from paid employees and felt moved to sign up and comment because in my opinion that is the underlying issue of the clubs sustainability and future. Whilst we are not rich by any means, we can still expect to get decent performance and return for the wages that we DO pay out for paid positions within the club.

At a crucial period for our club in terms of finances, we recruited a club secretary to the club in January 2017 and also made him head of operations. He had a background as a head of foundation at Stevenage and then managinf director of their academy. A reasonable background/candidate for a club secretary perhaps , a head of foundation or academy, but lacking in experience or suitability for a head of operations role at a professional league 2 football club.

within 6 months , perhaps due to the quality of the individual, we promoted him to CEO of the club. His experience to date had been in COST centres of football such as academy and foundation. Funding stresses are not traditionally an issue for these areas and certainly commercial revenue targets and operational matters are not a large part of football academy or foundation skill sets.

So effecively at a critical time for our club in terms of revenue, commercial, finances and operations, we put a young man ( not doubting his quality) into our highest paid role whose experience in no way prepares him for the challenges we need solved.

12 months later he appoints a commercial manager, the person tasked with leading our most important department financially to our club in terms of sustainability, who has no experience or backround in football, sport or high pressure sales environments.

I stress neither of these two individuals can be found to be at fault for being appointed, but it is worth pointing our that largely the decision making that has been in "our" hands, can perhaps be brought into question ?