Not Wanted - One Owner With Previous
The chair of the new Independent Football Regulator has been appointed.
After three rounds of interviews, the government had a preferred candidate although one of the other contenders had scored higher. They eventually plumped for neither of them, and went for the man who didn’t even apply in the first place.
But this is English football. And the UK government. So it's probably about right.
David Kogan is the man the hot seat. He’s a Labour donor, so of course the appointment was inevitably described by the Conservative Shadow Culture Minister as ‘cronyism’ which like Sepp Blatter saying – with a straight face and brown envelope sticking out of his jacket pocket - that something looks a bit dodgy.
Undeterred, the new man wasted no time in his role by meeting with four supporter’s clubs of Sheffield Wednesday and then telling journalists that he (the regulator) would– as a last resort – force unsuitable owners to sell if it meant protecting the club’s future.
What he actually said was ‘The job [of the regulator] is there for fans of any football club where people are committed to a local institution that has existed throughout their lifetime in many cases.’
So that’s practically all clubs and all fans, using that definition.
And it’s easy to point at Wednesday, while Bury were also mentioned in the interview for obvious reasons, but I guess the new watchdog won’t be turning up at Nottingham Forest any time soon to query some of the decisions made there.
Because while not paying staff wages and placing the club into transfer embargos is right up there on the Bad Owner Scale, others can make decisions that their fans also suffer from but get away with it.
Usually it’s quite small and blows over quickly. Sometimes it’s a little bigger, like a badge or colour change that hasn’t been well communicated (if at all). But these things – whilst annoying and tone deaf – don’t often result in disaster.
Rolling the Dyche
But what if the decision does? Like sacking a manager who’s doing well and replacing him with someone else. What if that decision gets a club relegated and undoes years of progress?
Enter one Ange Postecoglou. Possibly blameless. He’d just won a major European trophy, was out of work and was hardly likely to knock Evangelos Marinakis back when he came knocking. But eight games later, it’s already over. Losing a fourth consecutive games was the final straw.
You know it's bad when the only silver lining that the presenters on TalkSport could offer up for the situation was that Marinakis only had two feet; so shooting himself in one for the third time couldn't happen (although I'm not sure it's impossible - I guess Sean Dyche will answer that in time).
Now, I live in Nottingham, so I have to tread carefully. You never know who you might run into in Greggs. Or Costa. Although seeing Big Ange finding solace in a Maple Hazel Hot Chocolate in the latter would have been a headline writers dream wouldn’t it?
But couldn’t everyone – not least the owner - see that the change of manager they were presiding over was not going to end well?
As I said, Big Ange wasn’t necessarily the problem. He’d just won the Europa League, so he was hardly Russell Martin, so it was more the massive clash of styles. Nuno Espirito Santo had built a squad in his image, including several big purchases in the last days of the window, but they were players that suited his way of playing. To expect a new manager – with the polar opposite approach when it comes to tactics - to come in and hit the ground running with the same players was always a stretch. And yet here we are.
Nuno has already fled to West Ham, and they know a thing or two about replacing successful managers. David Moyes won the UEFA Conference League but not playing the ‘West Ham’ way, so fans were glad to see the back of him. At the time anyway.
It’s not a unique situation. Remember when Charlton got rid of Alan Curbishley because the club felt he’d taken them as far as he could (which was eighth in the Premier League)? There are lots of other examples of owners doing this. Sometimes because they want to adopt a new broom approach; other times because of a clash of egos. Whatever the reason – and how sensible or not it is – it is their prerogative to do so.
But is that right?
If any owner is – as many believe – a custodian of a club, and that one day will move aside for another custodian, then fans have a right, do they not, to expect that none of these custodians burn the place down on their watch?
Metaphorically. Although some owners have also tried it literally.
Passing The Buck
A problem here is that the purpose of a football club has changed. If it’s there to provide a community asset, that the whole city or town, or at least a significant proportion of it, benefit from then you’d argue that the owner of the club has some morale, wider obligations. When most owners were locals with a connection to the club, that made a lot of sense.
But if that owner has no such connection and is just looking to make money – and many are – then it’s not surprising, although it’s still unreasonable, that they couldn’t give two hoots about the community or the people within it. Their longer-term goals and objectives won’t be aligned with the club’s future, and they’ll not be too worried about what happens to it – or its fans - when they are no longer at the helm.
But is that about to change?
Kogan enters a footballing world where fan power is on the up, albeit very slowly. Fan consultation is increasing although I think some of it is probably fudged in the club’s favour so they can pass the buck if they get something wrong. ‘We did consult with the fan advisory board first’ is going to be the new get out of bad decisions free card going forward.
Just how much say, and sway, these FABs and other supporter groups have on the direction a club takes is yet to be fully seen, but one thing’s for certain; Hashtag United they are not.
So where does this leave fans?
Should they just suck it up – accepting it’s the way clubs and owners operate – or be angry that decisions that impact them so much are taken so lightly?
Taking A Chance
If they purchased a season ticket expecting a tilt at the Champions League places, only to end up dropping nearly a grand to watch a relegation scrap, is that just a chance they have to take?
With the current set up it has to be.
Prospective owners only have to pass a test to purchase a club. After the question of funding, most of the other things on the test seem little more than ‘nice to have’.
Previous experience? ‘Everyone has to start somewhere.’
Football knowledge? ‘I sat next to David Beckham at a basketball game once.’
Main source of income? ‘I’ll come back to you ASAP.’
Attitude towards human rights? ‘See, and we were just starting to get on.’
Germany’s 50+1 rule removes – in the main – much of the risk but that’s very much the outlier in global footballer. At some clubs around the world, replacing a manager who’s doing well is the least of the fans’ concerns.
And most of the clubs who have been owned by fans have opted to sell to someone with more money when the opportunity arose. They can’t have it both ways.
If the fans own a club, they will have the final say on the most important role within it, but when there is a wealthy owner pulling all the strings, those fans can only hope for the best.
They might get Ryan Reynolds. But then again…they probably won't.
They might even get one who tries to set fire to the stadium. But hopefully, if they do, David Kogan will be there to intervene.
Fans, at long last, might have someone who sees their side of things in future.
But that still won't save a good manager.
Next time: Slot out! He's no longer a machine.
