Moving on to NPS. To use @PragueAddick supermarket analogy, all supermarkets can be good or bad at the same time. It's not mutually exclusive.
Not all football clubs can be doing well at the same time. Regardless of intention football fans will blame the owner when things go wrong, examples.
Should have/haven't sacked the manager Should have signed a x Shouldn't have sold y Shouldn't have built x and bought y with the money.
By my fag packet calculations of the 20 teams in the Premier league today, 6 want to finish in the top 4, 4 want to finish 7th, 10 want to stay up. By that definition 8, nearly half will fail, before a ball has been kicked.
Luck and timing would have a massive baring on any NPS.
Cardiff's owners NPS would probably fluctuated massively over the last 5 years.
I would fully support the collection and publication of NPS by an independent body and agree that it would promote good governance but shouldn't be seen as good/bad owner.
Also a good owner at one club, wouldn't necessarily be good at another, and the same with a bad owner. The Accrington owner wouldn't be good for us, for example.
Again have not had a chance to properly consider all the excellent posts here, but in thinking quickly about @NapaAddick and @Cafc43v3r posts on th financial side, I remembered that BDO do an excellent annual survey of CFOs of all footie clubs in England, all divisions. and sure enough they have a new one out. (you may have to register to download it, but it's free) I mainly downloaded it because I am a bit sceptical about @Cafc43v3r suggestion that finances of clubs outside the FAPL have improved due to the ODT. The test is only done on new owners, not existing ones, and in no way regulates how an owner behaves once has bought the club. And hardly anyone has failed it. With one notable exception: Belekon, the Latvian who pumped £30m into Blackpool, and lost it due to the fraudulent activities of the Oystons. Now he has been barred from taking Blackpool off Oyston's hands.
And sorry to do the broken record thing , but up comes your regular reminder that the CEO of the EFL is a childhood friend of Karl Oyston.
Anyway I have a lot of reading to do. BTW @NapaAddick , what is SCMT?
Moving on to NPS. To use @PragueAddick supermarket analogy, all supermarkets can be good or bad at the same time. It's not mutually exclusive.
Not all football clubs can be doing well at the same time. Regardless of intention football fans will blame the owner when things go wrong, examples.
Should have/haven't sacked the manager Should have signed a x Shouldn't have sold y Shouldn't have built x and bought y with the money.
By my fag packet calculations of the 20 teams in the Premier league today, 6 want to finish in the top 4, 4 want to finish 7th, 10 want to stay up. By that definition 8, nearly half will fail, before a ball has been kicked.
Luck and timing would have a massive baring on any NPS.
Cardiff's owners NPS would probably fluctuated massively over the last 5 years.
I would fully support the collection and publication of NPS by an independent body and agree that it would promote good governance but shouldn't be seen as good/bad owner.
Also a good owner at one club, wouldn't necessarily be good at another, and the same with a bad owner. The Accrington owner wouldn't be good for us, for example.
This thread is focused on how to determine good or bad governance in EFL football clubs. There might be a subtly different approach as to whether the owner is "good" or "bad", but that's surely of less importance. I would prefer Charlton to be governed well by a bad owner, than governed badly by a good one.
If you're a football club owner, whether you're "bad" or "good" should really be between you and the fat man in the red suit each December.
My point @Chizz is that perception is very subjective, football fans are very fickle, and it changes over time.
The subject was raised because I asked what anyone wants the EFL to do about our current situation. Lots of good points and ideas raised so far, none that answer the question unfortunately.
My point @Chizz is that perception is very subjective, football fans are very fickle, and it changes over time.
The subject was raised because I asked what anyone wants the EFL to do about our current situation. Lots of good points and ideas raised so far, none that answer the question unfortunately.
I don't t think they do anything, other than some sort of mediation, in our case. That was my original point.
Firstly as far as I am aware RD hasn't broken any EFL rules, or any British law. What he has done is incompetent at best, purposly damaging at worst. I would imagine the truth is somewhere between those 2.
The EFL have no power, or right, to force the sale of a private company. I would imagine it would be illegal to do so anyway.
Anything they do have the power to do would push us, the fans more than RD. Fines, point deduction, relegation, removal of the golden share would only make things worse.
Massimo Callino failed it while owner of Leeds didn't he?
and it was overturned and he resumed as owner. Great. (more in this rather confusing Wiki page.) Didn't Owen Oyston fail it?
No. That is why our Blackpool comrades are so angry. He's a convicted rapist but that fell before the current ODT was adopted. So that's alright then. Did I mention Shaun Harvey and Karl Oyston? :-)
It has prevented repeats of Portsmouth and Notts County. Which are the cases it was designed to prevent happening?
We don't actually know how many people fail it do we? As the EFL don't publish the information, it comes from the clubs or the individual involved?
True.
More questions than answers.
But Chizz asked you, what would YOU like the EFL to do. Not what they do or don't do now. We are trying to work out a better form of governance. Are you saying that it's all basically OK?
@PragueAddick I am not saying its OK. What I am saying in a crude and condensed manor is that someone has to pay the cash.
The biggest gripe of most fans is lack of spending on players. Their biggest frustration of fans of owners is if they can't, or worse won't, spend money.
All the time owners pump cash into some clubs, at all levels, you can't have hostilic community owned clubs as the norm.
I think football has made its own bed and has become the biggest example of capitalism in any sport.
I want Roland to sell, today if possible, I also want the buyer to have deep pockets and longer arms! For no other reason than that his relationship with the fan base is toxic.
I will flip this around a bit, if you don't mind.
If you were the football version of the CPS what charges would you bring against RD? I mean ones that were fact?
@PragueAddick I am not saying its OK. What I am saying in a crude and condensed manor is that someone has to pay the cash.
The biggest gripe of most fans is lack of spending on players. Their biggest frustration of fans of owners is if they can't, or worse won't, spend money.
All the time owners pump cash into some clubs, at all levels, you can't have hostilic community owned clubs as the norm.
I think football has made its own bed and has become the biggest example of capitalism in any sport.
I want Roland to sell, today if possible, I also want the buyer to have deep pockets and longer arms! For no other reason than that his relationship with the fan base is toxic.
I will flip this around a bit, if you don't mind.
If you were the football version of the CPS what charges would you bring against RD? I mean ones that were fact?
Not too difficult actually
1. Opaque ownership structure; Staprix owns other clubs, so CAFC finances not exclusively managed for good of CAFC. CEO a Staprix not a CAFC employee, so not required to act in interest of CAFC.
2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possiile infringement of FIFA regs.
3. Employment of people patently unqualified for key roles (Meire, Driesen), and employed as part of a social experiment, not in pursuance of a well managed football club.
4. Total refusal to engage with fan groups especially CAST, constituted in accordance with English football best practice and with a large membership for club size. Propogation of false information to fans.
5. Interference with team management in a way which brings club and game into disrepute.
Thats just off the top of my head over breakfast. May well be more I forgot.
Having said that, I concede that writing the rules that prevent all that, is not so easy.
The speaker at this year's CAST AGM (Wed October 17th at The Bugle Horn, Charlton Village) is Ashley Brown who is former Chairman of Portsmouth FC and now CEO of Supporters Direct.
We have asked him to address the issue of what the EFL can realistically be expected to do. He can bring his experience of being a club chairman plus his experience of leading a lobby group. We hope he will also be able to update us on progress on the EFL clubs' charter on ownership.
By coincidence, October 17th is also the day that CAST representatives are meeting the EFL so we may well have some more information from that source.
I don't know how many contributors to this debate are CAST members but, if you are, it would be great if you could make it. I believe @PragueAddick will be there.
1. Opaque ownership structure; Staprix owns other clubs, so CAFC finances not exclusively managed for good of CAFC. CEO a Staprix not a CAFC employee, so not required to act in interest of CAFC.
This should have been a benefit of the ownership model. Shared services, legal, medical etc If I understand it Staprix is totally owned, or as near as, by RD. The Ceo was required to work in his interest.
This model works very well at city, you could argue that this failed due to incompetence as opposed design. Would anything have been different if KM worked for CAFC?
2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possiile infringement of FIFA regs.
Do you have examples of this? I personally don't recall any, that of course, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
3. Employment of people patently unqualified for key roles (Meire, Driesen), and employed as part of a social experiment, not in pursuance of a well managed football club.
The first half of your statement is 100%, however you could make the argument that what does qualify you to be a CEO of a football club?
She was promoted from within and got a bigger job after she left. We all think she did a bad job, we could reel off 100 reasons why she did a bad job, but what were her internal KPIs, did she a achieve them, what sanctions were taken against her if she didn't? We don't know the answers to any of that, she convinced her new employer she had done a good job...
Again with Driesen do we actually know what he did? I "think" he used a statistical method to identify potential players. If he then passed that information to a scouting team to assess is that an issue?
4. Total refusal to engage with fan groups especially CAST, constituted in accordance with English football best practice and with a large membership for club size. Propogation of false information to fans.
They would say they did, fans forum, KMs pre match meetings, meeting RM. I don't think they did enough, or early enough, neither do you obviously.
The false information could be their Al Capone. However as I have said repeatedly being wrong doesn't mean you are lying.
Using the LDT/aussie/FA example he either
A) knowingly lied Repeated what he had been told, thinking it was true C) It was true when he said it.
I have my suspicions but I couldn't prove it. However this could be the easiest way for a governing body to take action. I would suggest only using proven facts, there are enough of them, not opinon.
5. Interference with team management in a way which brings club and game into disrepute.
Now this one is very delicate imo. RD wanted a new model for the playing side of the club, presumably on the advice of someone else, maybe Driesen, maybe not. The current manager didn't agree with it and refused to implement it.
The irony is that the whole idea was dropped almost as soon as Powell went, none of the players involved played for us the next season.
The whole thing was a shambles, I think even KM said it was. Could you not make a point of arguing that the person that leeked the emails was bringing the game/club into disrepute?
You must have an internal process where the manager is accountable to the owner?
I don't personally disagree with anything you have said, I don't even agree with everything I have said. Just highlighting how difficult the whole thing is.
I think governance is becoming more and more important. I have some ideas but what might be best is if there's a fans conference to look at this. Comprising of any relevant national and local groups and nominees from each clubs fans. All for one and one for all etc.
The danger now is that we divert back to a discussion of what RD actually did or didn't do. It's probably more constructive to approach it this way: Assume for the sake of argument that what I claim about RD is correct in fact. If that is assumed, what could or should be the rules that would prevent such things happening?
Just to start with no 1. CEOs are basically expected to "maximise shareholder value". Agreed? Meire, as a Staprix employee (or possibly "consultant", we do not know) would be required to act in a way which optimises vlaue to Staprix sharholders, not those of CAFC. Absolute fundamental problem, whereby you end up with unclear issues surrounding Watt, Vetokele, as well as the trash he sent us in the first season. Who pays for what in those cases. Whom does it benefit?
There the rule seems to me to be straightforward : All clubs should be standalone UK companies. All their staff should be UK employees and UK taxpayers as a result. Where the ultimate owner owns more than one club he should:
1. Clearly adhere to FIFA/UEFA competition rules (i.e. not sell the club to his wife for £1 to get round such rules)
2. Make available to the football authorities the full details of player transfers and loans involving other clubs in the "network". If such transactions are below/above reasonable market value the owner would be personally sanctioned if he cannot provide a reasonable explanation (and in turn the football authorities would be expected to assure any external complainant over such a transaction that the owner has satisfied the authorities he has been compliant.)
This would in no way stifle the network concept btw. What I describe above is how global advertising agencies (my area of expertise) generally are set up. The Czech office of Ogilvy is a Czech legal entity, the CEO is focused on optimising results of the Czech office, and if his bosses suggested that the Warsaw office should get their hands on his top art director, he would hit the effing roof.(It doesnt happen, although a regional team can be assembled with costs carefully apportioned to each office)
I hesitate to enter a debate where the protagonists (maybe the wrong word to use in this context) are clearly so well informed on these matters and where there are subtleties in interpretation which are beyond my ken.
However, there is one example in the 5 charges put forward by Prague against Duchatelet re the EFL ODT which still bears further examination.
@PragueAddick wrote: 2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possible infringement of FIFA regs.
@Cafc43v3r questioned this: Do you have examples of this? I personally don't recall any, that of course, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
Well, @Cafc43v3r - in my best Parliamentary language may I refer you to my recent posting entitled 'Whilst Duchatelet was buying Charlton he was doing this'
That posting provided clear and damning evidence that in early 2014 Duchatelet was contacting PL clubs in England (Everton being one) with a view to selling them Michy Batshuayi whose contract Duchatelet owned by way of a TPO (Third Party Ownership).
We know from the cases of Tevez and Mascharano that TPO is not sanctioned in this country. However, at the same time that Duchaetelet was in the process of buying Charlton and completing ODT there was something of a press storm (for want of a better word) in Belgium over Duchaetlet's treatment of Batshuayi.
The player's parents questioned why Duchatelet offered their son to Everton via e-mail. They came to the conclusion that he would profit personally if he sold Batshuayi before he (RD) relinquished control of Standard Leige
"A clause in Michy’s contract means he can be sold for a sum of 8 million euros but that this amount is reduced to 5 million if Duchâtelet no longer owns Standard".
So just how thorough was the EFL examination of Duchatelet's credentials at the time of his acquisition of Charlton? The above information was available in January 2014.
He was engaged in a practice not recognised as legal in football in this country.
I think the UK registered idea is spot on, I would go even further and suggest it has a minimum number of executives?
I don't think anyone should be able to tell someone else how much they can or can't sell a club for. My angle on this would be influence. In my mind it's the same issue as the father/son manager/agent scenario. Not sure how easy that would be to prove.
Aren't all football transfers reportable already, along with agent fees?
Was it PSG that got round FFP by a cash injection through a shirt sponsorship that was massively over the market rate, but no one could prove it? That may not be correct but value of transfers is very subjective, and often the true value is only obvious in hindsight.
Using you analogy, although highly unlikely to happen, if you have a college in Prague that has no work on should the managment be able to shift work form another office?
I appricate it's crap example but isn't it up to an individual company how they best use their resources?
I hesitate to enter a debate where the protagonists (maybe the wrong word to use in this context) are clearly so well informed on these matters and where there are subtleties in interpretation which are beyond my ken.
However, there is one example in the 5 charges put forward by Prague against Duchatelet re the EFL ODT which still bears further examination.
@PragueAddick wrote: 2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possible infringement of FIFA regs.
@Cafc43v3r questioned this: Do you have examples of this? I personally don't recall any, that of course, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
Well, @Cafc43v3r - in my best Parliamentary language may I refer you to my recent posting entitled 'Whilst Duchatelet was buying Charlton he was doing this'
That posting provided clear and damning evidence that in early 2014 Duchatelet was contacting PL clubs in England (Everton being one) with a view to selling them Michy Batshuayi whose contract Duchatelet owned by way of a TPO (Third Party Ownership).
We know from the cases of Tevez and Mascharano that TPO is not sanctioned in this country. However, at the same time that Duchaetelet was in the process of buying Charlton and completing ODT there was something of a press storm (for want of a better word) in Belgium over Duchaetlet's treatment of Batshuayi.
The player's parents questioned why Duchatelet offered their son to Everton via e-mail. They came to the conclusion that he would profit personally if he sold Batshuayi before he (RD) relinquished control of Standard Leige
"A clause in Michy’s contract means he can be sold for a sum of 8 million euros but that this amount is reduced to 5 million if Duchâtelet no longer owns Standard".
So just how thorough was the EFL examination of Duchatelet's credentials at the time of his acquisition of Charlton? The above information was available in January 2014.
He was engaged in a practice not recognised as legal in football in this country.
Morally deplorable, legally done though.
It does highlight the need for a "common rule book" either Fifa allows TPO or it doesn't. Can you disqualify someone for a practice that is legal where they are doing it? That's a tricky question......
Good reminder there. Might well be something we will bring up on October 17.
@Cafc43v3r I think you are right that transfer and agent fees a re now reported, because the BBC published a list of agent fees paid by club. In which the leagues have benchmark figures.
I generally agree with you that you cannot dictate to an owner how mcuh he should sell a club for, but good governance rules, which RD would breaking would put pressure on him to sell for what the market -rather than his wet dreams - say is reasonable.
To the last point "the individual company", exactly. No geeze in London can tell Ogilvy in Prague they must hire this or that person, or send that person to Warsaw, so it should be with English clubs in a wider network. Autonomous local management should be a requirement.
Reminder : in 2016 lil' ol' STVV were fined CHF60K by FIFA for breaching TPO rules, surely a big boys' crime (done at the same time were Twente Enschede, Sevilla and Santos).
Reminder : in 2016 lil' ol' STVV were fined CHF60K by FIFA for breaching TPO rules, surely a big boys' crime (done at the same time were Twente Enschede, Sevilla and Santos).
Don't know for certain but I suspect the sanction suffered by STVV was in response to a crowdfunding scheme administered by Munich-based Kickrs.
The idea was that fans could invest in players and be paid a dividend if/when the player was sold for a profit. In the case of STVV the speculative investment was focused on a young Greek player whose name escapes me just now.
The scheme was abandoned because of TPO issues and they were fined not long afterwards.
The entire country of England has horrible sports governance in football. It never ceases to amaze me how incompetent it is.
In the NFL, things are run... tight. There are not criminal owners and even modest worker abuse gets punished hard.
The former Carolina Panthers owner was driven out of his club and fined $2.75M by the Commissioner for treating his employees poorly. Has that ever happened in England?
Jerry Jones of the Cowboys was fined $2M just because he feuded with the NFL, publicly! In other words... he took a spat to the public.
Both of these fines were just in the last 3 months, btw.
Heck, the Colts owner was fined $500,000 just for making his club look bad after he was found guilty of drunk driving by a court of law. Imagine paying a $1500 legal fine for drunk driving and then getting fined 33x that amount by your regulating body!
I can't imagine any of that ever happening in English football. And because they run such a loose ship, it sends a message down the line across all clubs and owners that poor behavior is accepted. England governance aims low and reaps what they sow.
I hesitate to enter a debate where the protagonists (maybe the wrong word to use in this context) are clearly so well informed on these matters and where there are subtleties in interpretation which are beyond my ken.
However, there is one example in the 5 charges put forward by Prague against Duchatelet re the EFL ODT which still bears further examination.
@PragueAddick wrote: 2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possible infringement of FIFA regs.
@Cafc43v3r questioned this: Do you have examples of this? I personally don't recall any, that of course, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
Well, @Cafc43v3r - in my best Parliamentary language may I refer you to my recent posting entitled 'Whilst Duchatelet was buying Charlton he was doing this'
That posting provided clear and damning evidence that in early 2014 Duchatelet was contacting PL clubs in England (Everton being one) with a view to selling them Michy Batshuayi whose contract Duchatelet owned by way of a TPO (Third Party Ownership).
We know from the cases of Tevez and Mascharano that TPO is not sanctioned in this country. However, at the same time that Duchaetelet was in the process of buying Charlton and completing ODT there was something of a press storm (for want of a better word) in Belgium over Duchaetlet's treatment of Batshuayi.
The player's parents questioned why Duchatelet offered their son to Everton via e-mail. They came to the conclusion that he would profit personally if he sold Batshuayi before he (RD) relinquished control of Standard Leige
"A clause in Michy’s contract means he can be sold for a sum of 8 million euros but that this amount is reduced to 5 million if Duchâtelet no longer owns Standard".
So just how thorough was the EFL examination of Duchatelet's credentials at the time of his acquisition of Charlton? The above information was available in January 2014.
He was engaged in a practice not recognised as legal in football in this country.
Morally deplorable, legally done though.
It does highlight the need for a "common rule book" either Fifa allows TPO or it doesn't. Can you disqualify someone for a practice that is legal where they are doing it? That's a tricky question......
I think my point was that although TPO is legal in Belgium Duchatelet was attempting (by trying to sell the player to Everton) to engineer the same kind of deal which took Tevez and Mascherano to West Ham. I believe West Ham were subsequently fined for having entered into that arrangement but not before Tevez in particular had helped them stave off relegation from Prem at Sheff Utd's expense.
Therefore IMO, there should have been questions asked at the time about this in relation to Duchatelet and his purchase of Charlton, the Everton approach being an illegal (in this country) TPO approach I believe.
What I still find unclear is whether Duchatelet still had some kind of hold on Batshuayi's contract when the player was subsequently sold to Chelsea from Marseille. If he did then he profited personally from a TPO arrangement by a payment made in this country whilst also owning Charlton Athletic. If he didn't then there is indeed no case to answer on that later occasion.
I just wanted to say what a great debate this is. Well thought out arguments and examples from all. Charlton Life at it's best.
My only hope is that the high knowledge levels of the most prominent posters doesn't intimidate other Lifers into keeping quiet. No matter what your experience of business governance, we can all propose ideas for what good looks like and how the EFL might encourage it, or what bad looks like and how the EFL might police it.
I just wanted to say what a great debate this is. Well thought out arguments and examples from all. Charlton Life at it's best.
My only hope is that the high knowledge levels of the most prominent posters doesn't intimidate other Lifers into keeping quiet. No matter what your experience of business governance, we can all propose ideas for what good looks like and how the EFL might encourage it, or what bad looks like and how the EFL might police it.
Any application of a random sample of all these ideas would probably be better than how it is currently done.
Comments
Not all football clubs can be doing well at the same time. Regardless of intention football fans will blame the owner when things go wrong, examples.
Should have/haven't sacked the manager
Should have signed a x
Shouldn't have sold y
Shouldn't have built x and bought y with the money.
By my fag packet calculations of the 20 teams in the Premier league today, 6 want to finish in the top 4, 4 want to finish 7th, 10 want to stay up. By that definition 8, nearly half will fail, before a ball has been kicked.
Luck and timing would have a massive baring on any NPS.
Cardiff's owners NPS would probably fluctuated massively over the last 5 years.
I would fully support the collection and publication of NPS by an independent body and agree that it would promote good governance but shouldn't be seen as good/bad owner.
Also a good owner at one club, wouldn't necessarily be good at another, and the same with a bad owner. The Accrington owner wouldn't be good for us, for example.
I mainly downloaded it because I am a bit sceptical about @Cafc43v3r suggestion that finances of clubs outside the FAPL have improved due to the ODT. The test is only done on new owners, not existing ones, and in no way regulates how an owner behaves once has bought the club. And hardly anyone has failed it. With one notable exception: Belekon, the Latvian who pumped £30m into Blackpool, and lost it due to the fraudulent activities of the Oystons. Now he has been barred from taking Blackpool off Oyston's hands.
And sorry to do the broken record thing , but up comes your regular reminder that the CEO of the EFL is a childhood friend of Karl Oyston.
Anyway I have a lot of reading to do. BTW @NapaAddick , what is SCMT?
Didn't Owen Oyston fail it?
It has prevented repeats of Portsmouth and Notts County. Which are the cases it was designed to prevent happening?
We don't actually know how many people fail it do we? As the EFL don't publish the information, it comes from the clubs or the individual involved?
More questions than answers.
If you're a football club owner, whether you're "bad" or "good" should really be between you and the fat man in the red suit each December.
The subject was raised because I asked what anyone wants the EFL to do about our current situation. Lots of good points and ideas raised so far, none that answer the question unfortunately.
I really am think about this to much.....
Firstly as far as I am aware RD hasn't broken any EFL rules, or any British law. What he has done is incompetent at best, purposly damaging at worst. I would imagine the truth is somewhere between those 2.
The EFL have no power, or right, to force the sale of a private company. I would imagine it would be illegal to do so anyway.
Anything they do have the power to do would push us, the fans more than RD. Fines, point deduction, relegation, removal of the golden share would only make things worse.
The biggest gripe of most fans is lack of spending on players. Their biggest frustration of fans of owners is if they can't, or worse won't, spend money.
All the time owners pump cash into some clubs, at all levels, you can't have hostilic community owned clubs as the norm.
I think football has made its own bed and has become the biggest example of capitalism in any sport.
I want Roland to sell, today if possible, I also want the buyer to have deep pockets and longer arms! For no other reason than that his relationship with the fan base is toxic.
I will flip this around a bit, if you don't mind.
If you were the football version of the CPS what charges would you bring against RD? I mean ones that were fact?
1. Opaque ownership structure; Staprix owns other clubs, so CAFC finances not exclusively managed for good of CAFC. CEO a Staprix not a CAFC employee, so not required to act in interest of CAFC.
2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possiile infringement of FIFA regs.
3. Employment of people patently unqualified for key roles (Meire, Driesen), and employed as part of a social experiment, not in pursuance of a well managed football club.
4. Total refusal to engage with fan groups especially CAST, constituted in accordance with English football best practice and with a large membership for club size. Propogation of false information to fans.
5. Interference with team management in a way which brings club and game into disrepute.
Thats just off the top of my head over breakfast. May well be more I forgot.
Having said that, I concede that writing the rules that prevent all that, is not so easy.
We have asked him to address the issue of what the EFL can realistically be expected to do. He can bring his experience of being a club chairman plus his experience of leading a lobby group. We hope he will also be able to update us on progress on the EFL clubs' charter on ownership.
By coincidence, October 17th is also the day that CAST representatives are meeting the EFL so we may well have some more information from that source.
I don't know how many contributors to this debate are CAST members but, if you are, it would be great if you could make it. I believe @PragueAddick will be there.
This should have been a benefit of the ownership model. Shared services, legal, medical etc If I understand it Staprix is totally owned, or as near as, by RD. The Ceo was required to work in his interest.
This model works very well at city, you could argue that this failed due to incompetence as opposed design. Would anything have been different if KM worked for CAFC?
2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possiile infringement of FIFA regs.
Do you have examples of this? I personally don't recall any, that of course, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
3. Employment of people patently unqualified for key roles (Meire, Driesen), and employed as part of a social experiment, not in pursuance of a well managed football club.
The first half of your statement is 100%, however you could make the argument that what does qualify you to be a CEO of a football club?
She was promoted from within and got a bigger job after she left. We all think she did a bad job, we could reel off 100 reasons why she did a bad job, but what were her internal KPIs, did she a achieve them, what sanctions were taken against her if she didn't? We don't know the answers to any of that, she convinced her new employer she had done a good job...
Again with Driesen do we actually know what he did? I "think" he used a statistical method to identify potential players. If he then passed that information to a scouting team to assess is that an issue?
4. Total refusal to engage with fan groups especially CAST, constituted in accordance with English football best practice and with a large membership for club size. Propogation of false information to fans.
They would say they did, fans forum, KMs pre match meetings, meeting RM. I don't think they did enough, or early enough, neither do you obviously.
The false information could be their Al Capone. However as I have said repeatedly being wrong doesn't mean you are lying.
Using the LDT/aussie/FA example he either
A) knowingly lied
C) It was true when he said it.
I have my suspicions but I couldn't prove it. However this could be the easiest way for a governing body to take action. I would suggest only using proven facts, there are enough of them, not opinon.
5. Interference with team management in a way which brings club and game into disrepute.
Now this one is very delicate imo. RD wanted a new model for the playing side of the club, presumably on the advice of someone else, maybe Driesen, maybe not. The current manager didn't agree with it and refused to implement it.
The irony is that the whole idea was dropped almost as soon as Powell went, none of the players involved played for us the next season.
The whole thing was a shambles, I think even KM said it was. Could you not make a point of arguing that the person that leeked the emails was bringing the game/club into disrepute?
You must have an internal process where the manager is accountable to the owner?
I don't personally disagree with anything you have said, I don't even agree with everything I have said. Just highlighting how difficult the whole thing is.
All for one and one for all etc.
Just to start with no 1. CEOs are basically expected to "maximise shareholder value". Agreed? Meire, as a Staprix employee (or possibly "consultant", we do not know) would be required to act in a way which optimises vlaue to Staprix sharholders, not those of CAFC. Absolute fundamental problem, whereby you end up with unclear issues surrounding Watt, Vetokele, as well as the trash he sent us in the first season. Who pays for what in those cases. Whom does it benefit?
There the rule seems to me to be straightforward : All clubs should be standalone UK companies. All their staff should be UK employees and UK taxpayers as a result. Where the ultimate owner owns more than one club he should:
1. Clearly adhere to FIFA/UEFA competition rules (i.e. not sell the club to his wife for £1 to get round such rules)
2. Make available to the football authorities the full details of player transfers and loans involving other clubs in the "network". If such transactions are below/above reasonable market value the owner would be personally sanctioned if he cannot provide a reasonable explanation (and in turn the football authorities would be expected to assure any external complainant over such a transaction that the owner has satisfied the authorities he has been compliant.)
This would in no way stifle the network concept btw. What I describe above is how global advertising agencies (my area of expertise) generally are set up. The Czech office of Ogilvy is a Czech legal entity, the CEO is focused on optimising results of the Czech office, and if his bosses suggested that the Warsaw office should get their hands on his top art director, he would hit the effing roof.(It doesnt happen, although a regional team can be assembled with costs carefully apportioned to each office)
However, there is one example in the 5 charges put forward by Prague against Duchatelet re the EFL ODT which still bears further examination.
@PragueAddick wrote: 2. Related to this, unclear ownership of player registrations, possible infringement of FIFA regs.
@Cafc43v3r questioned this: Do you have examples of this? I personally don't recall any, that of course, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
Well, @Cafc43v3r - in my best Parliamentary language may I refer you to my recent posting entitled 'Whilst Duchatelet was buying Charlton he was doing this'
That posting provided clear and damning evidence that in early 2014 Duchatelet was contacting PL clubs in England (Everton being one) with a view to selling them Michy Batshuayi whose contract Duchatelet owned by way of a TPO (Third Party Ownership).
We know from the cases of Tevez and Mascharano that TPO is not sanctioned in this country. However, at the same time that Duchaetelet was in the process of buying Charlton and completing ODT there was something of a press storm (for want of a better word) in Belgium over Duchaetlet's treatment of Batshuayi.
The player's parents questioned why Duchatelet offered their son to Everton via e-mail. They came to the conclusion that he would profit personally if he sold Batshuayi before he (RD) relinquished control of Standard Leige
"A clause in Michy’s contract means he can be sold for a sum of 8 million euros but that this amount is reduced to 5 million if Duchâtelet no longer owns Standard".
So just how thorough was the EFL examination of Duchatelet's credentials at the time of his acquisition of Charlton?
The above information was available in January 2014.
He was engaged in a practice not recognised as legal in football in this country.
I think the UK registered idea is spot on, I would go even further and suggest it has a minimum number of executives?
I don't think anyone should be able to tell someone else how much they can or can't sell a club for. My angle on this would be influence. In my mind it's the same issue as the father/son manager/agent scenario. Not sure how easy that would be to prove.
Aren't all football transfers reportable already, along with agent fees?
Was it PSG that got round FFP by a cash injection through a shirt sponsorship that was massively over the market rate, but no one could prove it? That may not be correct but value of transfers is very subjective, and often the true value is only obvious in hindsight.
Using you analogy, although highly unlikely to happen, if you have a college in Prague that has no work on should the managment be able to shift work form another office?
I appricate it's crap example but isn't it up to an individual company how they best use their resources?
It does highlight the need for a "common rule book" either Fifa allows TPO or it doesn't. Can you disqualify someone for a practice that is legal where they are doing it? That's a tricky question......
Good reminder there. Might well be something we will bring up on October 17.
@Cafc43v3r I think you are right that transfer and agent fees a re now reported, because the BBC published a list of agent fees paid by club. In which the leagues have benchmark figures.
I generally agree with you that you cannot dictate to an owner how mcuh he should sell a club for, but good governance rules, which RD would breaking would put pressure on him to sell for what the market -rather than his wet dreams - say is reasonable.
To the last point "the individual company", exactly. No geeze in London can tell Ogilvy in Prague they must hire this or that person, or send that person to Warsaw, so it should be with English clubs in a wider network. Autonomous local management should be a requirement.
The idea was that fans could invest in players and be paid a dividend if/when the player was sold for a profit. In the case of STVV the speculative investment was focused on a young Greek player whose name escapes me just now.
The scheme was abandoned because of TPO issues and they were fined not long afterwards.
In the NFL, things are run... tight. There are not criminal owners and even modest worker abuse gets punished hard.
The former Carolina Panthers owner was driven out of his club and fined $2.75M by the Commissioner for treating his employees poorly. Has that ever happened in England?
Jerry Jones of the Cowboys was fined $2M just because he feuded with the NFL, publicly! In other words... he took a spat to the public.
Both of these fines were just in the last 3 months, btw.
Heck, the Colts owner was fined $500,000 just for making his club look bad after he was found guilty of drunk driving by a court of law. Imagine paying a $1500 legal fine for drunk driving and then getting fined 33x that amount by your regulating body!
I can't imagine any of that ever happening in English football. And because they run such a loose ship, it sends a message down the line across all clubs and owners that poor behavior is accepted. England governance aims low and reaps what they sow.
Therefore IMO, there should have been questions asked at the time about this in relation to Duchatelet and his purchase of Charlton, the Everton approach being an illegal (in this country) TPO approach I believe.
What I still find unclear is whether Duchatelet still had some kind of hold on Batshuayi's contract when the player was subsequently sold to Chelsea from Marseille. If he did then he profited personally from a TPO arrangement by a payment made in this country whilst also owning Charlton Athletic. If he didn't then there is indeed no case to answer on that later occasion.
My only hope is that the high knowledge levels of the most prominent posters doesn't intimidate other Lifers into keeping quiet. No matter what your experience of business governance, we can all propose ideas for what good looks like and how the EFL might encourage it, or what bad looks like and how the EFL might police it.