Talk Sport - Jim White (ed. Page 21 - Grapevine destroys Roland)

Grapevine49 said:

Thank you Lardiman a prodigious piece of work to which I hope to do justice.

I must also thank Weegie for her professional response on Talksport 2.

It is often unfair to go into too much detail over comments expressed in an interview which are often free flowing, interactive and repetitive. In addition I respect English is not M. Duchatelets first language.

I will repeat I do not do the personality stuff. I have no reason to doubt M.Duchatelet is a jolly nice chap, good family man, good Belgian etc.

I commend Mr White for trying to address the issues. We could all argue he could have challenged the veracity of the Duchatelet comments but sometimes there is more to be gained by letting people talk. M. Duchatelet in terms of the substance offered little new but what was anyone really expecting?

For me I was struck by a case of "deja vu". I was reminded of so many professional banking discussions during the mid/ late 90's with executives with 6 months in the industry. The 2008 financial crash was a decade in the making. Too many did not know what they didn't know.

Can we be clear other than a generic "who doesn't make mistakes" shrug of the shoulders M.Duchatelet is not admitting he or his executive made any mistakes in the running of the club.

He blames;
- the clubs comms team & Murray for not managing the message to "the masses".
- the fans for relegation and the failure to secure promotion

It is a victim mentality, now where did we see this before?

He does state it was a mistake for him to buy the club.

In truth we now have little need of an endless debate over emails, historic protests, Wilder, etc., While they were very important issues in the moment they now largely only serve to distract.

Yet - there is need of a rebuttal.

Mr Roland Duchatelet this is your failure. The one overriding ingredient was the 2% parameter.

The "facts" you offer are 98% based on 2nd/ 3rd hand information. From where does the tenuous misguided conspiratorial angst over social media and ex employees emanate? As per any failing "regional office" the reports to "head office" were set on deflecting and denying responsibility.

Where in your words are the details of the corporate failings. You reflect the corporate briefing where no one admits to anything. Yet we will all know of the litany of "on the ground" failings having been debated to death against the executive response in denying accountability at every turn.

Your argument it only started to go wrong in the 3rd season betrays a lack of understanding. The failings were 3 seasons in the making. If all was well just how had we gone through 4 coaches (Powell, Riga, Peeters & Luzon) in that period? No discernible football plan, no stability, no idea.

Overall sir you chose to avoid any personal involvement in the fabric of the business but then interfere in key decisions. It was an approach fundamental to your lack of respect for the industry, the club and the supporters. It was and is offensive. We were/ are simply not important enough.

Tell me on what basis any organisation can succeed with a decision maker, with no industry knowledge, spending just 2% of his time on the issues involved.

It was your choice to abdicate the responsibility of the corporate due diligence and oversight needed.

The structure you created, combined with the key advisors you selected, was destined to become the perfect storm.

Thus a challenging if not questionable strategy, flawed policies, ill defined and abject implementation, supervised by the ill equipped and inexperienced executive you appointed, under your inadequate executive oversight infrastructure are the causes of where we are today.

You and your executive abdication of ownership, leadership and accountability has been endemic to your regime. You have deflected and denied responsibility for every failing performance. The corporate immaturity was and is breathtaking.

Your focus appeared forever based on financial theory over tangible operational evidence. Thus if your theory was the corporate "holy grail" the failure had to be for some, indeed any, other reason. It can but be nobody understood what you were trying to achieve.

You ignore one crucial point. If you fail to or simply cannot explain or evidence your intent you have only yourself to blame.

The tragedy, of course, is the ignorance of the industry in which you chose to invest time and money rested with you and your entourage.

It was and is an error you compounded by an exclusive style of communication. You literally have to be dragged into a radio studio to "talk to the fans". Your latest step into the media only serves to reinforce the mentality involved.

In reality, as with the executive you employed, your dialogue is ultimately not about the club. It is about you. I have a modicum of understanding. At every point of failure you have been told it is always somebody else's fault.

Your latest contribution now displays the current "what aboutitis" tactic while never addressing the real issue.

The real issue is you sir, no matter your intent, have failed.

You chose to;
- fail to respect & understand the industry & UK market in which you invested
- fail to respect the aspect of delivering to the pursuit of sporting excellence
- subvert that core value of any professional sporting organisation
- attempt to commoditise the recruitment, development & sale of young players
- disenfranchise the core values of thousands who supported the club*
- pursue a guaranteed recipe for conflict
- employ an executive with no experience of the industry &/or UK market
- not empower your executive or clubhouse to deliver to either the industry or your core values
- not display a single aspect of leadership & accountability

It is the epitome of 2% management.

(*to where they no longer shared the aims, ambitions and values of an organisation they and/ or their families had supported for decades)

Consequently you have failed;
- to maintain the competitive status of the club
- to deliver to a single aspect of any sustainable strategy
- beyond a new pitch and ticketing to deliver to a single initiative
- to manage the financial health of the club
- after 18 months of trying to sell the club.

The club under your stewardship is diminished against every performance standard required of the industry.

You can point fingers where you may but in business, as in life, we all face challenges to what we want to achieve. Whatever the veracity of the impact of the actions of any external party such challenges are there to be embraced and overcome.

The decision point is you either meet those challenges and succeed or you fail.

To argue external influences were the deciding factor in the fortunes of the club ignores the fact for every single day of the 57 months of your "stewardship" the power to remedy the challenges facing the club rested in your own hands.

You chose to pursue a different path.

You sir are defined by your very first interview with the club. You are an investor who chose not to run a club, not to run a business but to make a series of investment decisions.

You have singularly and negligently failed your investment.

gilbertfilbert said:

So he spent 'a lot of time in the beginning to understand what the problems were' did he? And apparently decided that the problems were Chris Powell and Yann Kermorgant? Idiot.

Stu_of_Kunming said:

Grapevine for PM.

Weegie Addick said:

Here's my Taksport interview:https://castrust.org/2018/11/heather-mckinlay-responds-to-duchatelet/