Andy Scott Appointed Technical Director - Gone Feb 2025 (p35)

PragueAddick said:

@fenaddick thanks for your coherent reply. I have some questions, which should not be taken as arguing with you, just trying to make sure I, and everyone else understand better.

Re Lenegan your remarks imply that he is *not* on the club payroll and that his correct title is *Group* Sporting Director. Is that how you understand it?

Rodwell’s role may be misunderstood in part because he was the one who presented the hapless 8-8-8 thing to us. Admittedly he didnt seem to fully understand it himself, but that is not our fault, is it. I wonder who you think was involved in developing that? 

If your perspective is accurate, then Scott is very exposed and deserves all the criticism coming his way. Are you quite sure he deserves it all and none of the others I name, do?

Finally I certainly ask myself what the total wage bill of that lot chargeable to CAFC is (Lenegan may or may not be included). As a % of CAFC revenue, I suspect that figure may be very high regardless of any positive things any of them lay claim to. If I were a “hedgie” type businessman, or any typical hard-nosed Yank for that matter, I’d be looking at that line on the P&L with a very baleful eye.

Reliable source had Warwick, Rodwell and Scott on £10k per month when they first came and TS still owned the club.

No idea what they are paid now.  That was TS's money so maybe the new owners are less generous/gullible. 

I agree with @fenaaddick that some of roles are clear and not I would say that unusual.

Rodwell is the CEO
Warwick is the Finance Director
Scott is the Technical director so oversees all the men's and women's football activities including recruitment, sports science, etc.

Most football clubs now will have someone in these roles, even at our level but certainly above.

Whether they are performing well is open to debate.  Without knowing the key performances indictors for Rodwell and Warwick we can't say but I would guess their roles are to maximize income and efficiency on the non-football side either by cutting costs and/or by increasing commercial and ticket income.  We don't have figures for sponsorship but a few new names have appeared on the display boards. 

We can see with our own eyes how tickets sales are doing.  We are averaging a bit over 12K IIRC which is 4th highest in league 1 but fair below our potential at this level.  Lack of success is clearly a factor here but even if we were 10th I doubt the attendances would be much higher.  And yes, bums on seats don't match official numbers but that has always been the case as ST holders are counted regardless as those seats have been sold.  I don't have figures for freebies but there seems to be a lot less noise about those, perhaps because Rodwell isn't a fan of them.  It's another debate we don't need to repeat again here.

As for Scott, the evidence is much more damning.  The football side has been a disaster as we all know, the managerial appointments have failed and the recruitment was poor in the summer.  Jury still out on the recruitment and sales in the last window.

If that was all Scott's doing then he has to take the blame.  It was the managers and players losing games but he oversees this aspect of the club.

But was it all his doing?

We've moved on as many players as we've brought in suggesting that the books needed to be, if not balanced, at least kept in line with budgets. Methven has said that his role is to keep the club within FFP regulations so he has an input on signings either directly or indirectly.  Who else is influencing who the managers should be?  Lenegan and Methven are both Oxford Utd men so would have known Appleton and the good job he did there so seems unlikely they did not give that input.

Methven probably doesn't have a role in the day to day running of the club. He's not negotiating with suppliers or dealing with blocked toilets, that is for Rodwell, but he is around three or four days a week, he's at games, he talks a lot about what is going on, both on the record and off, so it no absentee landlord.

And that is no surprise as this is all his baby.  He put the deal together, he picked the management team and he sold the idea to the investors.

And he owns shares.  Some people think he spent his own money on these, others that he was given £700k of shares as his fee for brokering the deal.  I don't know, but either way he has skin in the game.

Lenegan is different and it is interesting that only in the last fortnight has his name come to prominence.  Yet, he has been around since SE7 and GFP came in.  Clearly he was having his say on who the new manager should be and was, with Scott, said to be the one that delayed the sacking of Appleton.

He was known to Methven before via Oxford Utd but works for, on paper at least, Global Football partners as Sporting Director.   It's a reasonable assumption that this is role not just for Charlton but perhaps other yet to be bought franchises.

Gavin Carter said on the CAST interview that he'd look at why the breakdown of share holdings hasn't been revealed.

My understanding was that in was 23% for Brener, Friedman and Rosenfeld given them nearly 70% so, as a block vote, control of GFP but without anyone of them being the sole decision maker.

Brener and Friedman were said to have intervened in the Jones appointment (WIOTOS) but not Rosenfeld.   Not sure if that is significant or not.  Probably not. 

So for me some of the structure is clear, some of it not.

I don't think they are "chancers" either.  They UK directors all have backgrounds in football.

I do think it is fair to challenge their performance and competence based on the outcomes they have achieved.

The counter argument, ably expressed by Gavin Carter who is both a fan and an investor, is that is takes time to turn around a failing organisation.  

I agree.  It will take time and we won't become a well run, well structured, high performing club again overnight.  

It will take years but so far we seem to be going backwards, not forwards.