In the light of the SFA President’s unfortunate remarks in the MSM today, relegating every Scottish football club other than Celtic or Rangers to support role status, this blog by Auldheid on the need to have a conversation about the leadership and governance of the Scottish game is remarkably prescient. Continue reading →

Since I have lost my voice this week to the Armageddon virus, we decided to do a mini, written version of TWM for your pleasure….

In Armageddon Lala Land (© S. Regan), it’s all falling apart in a major borefest. Continue reading →

Acouple of weeks ago we revisited the OCNC debate. This is a useful exercise to turn to periodically, for I have noticed how, with the passage of time, new aspects have become clear as new information emerges, or some ridiculous claim is made and then debunked.

Continue reading →

When the Scottish Premier League (SPL) and the Scottish Football league (SFL) merged in 2013 to form The Scottish Professional Football League, the word “professional” has been accepted as applying only to the football side of the business.

However, should supporters, the ultimate paying customers, not expect the administration and governance of the game to be a lot more professional than is evident from the handling, by both the SPFL (SPL/SFL) and the Scottish Football Association (SFA), of the descent into liquidation of Rangers FC, which started in 2000, as well as the subsequent damage limitation attempts from March 2011, that  have had serious consequences for the reputation of  Scottish football of being a professionally managed business?

Most folk would not argue that there is a glaringly obvious need for a more professional form of football governance, but the question is how can that be achieved? One way towards   achieving that aim is the subject of what follows.

there is a glaringly obvious need for a more professional form of football governance

Back in the 90’s the Government embarked on yet another an exercise to modernise the Civil Service using a technique known then as Market Testing. The idea was that units, like Information Technology, Human Resource or Office Maintenance within large Civil Service Government Ministries, should be compared with what was available in the private sector to see if the service the internal units provided in a Ministry could be provided more efficiently from external sources.

At the time, internal units operated to their own standards and were answerable only to themselves for the level of service they provided to the users in other internal units.  As a consequence there were no defined levels of service, the users were largely dissatisfied with the service they were receiving, the perception of the IT or HR or OM units was poor damaging their moral and, unlike the private sector, the customer was not the king but the serf.

Before such internal units could be tested there was a lot of preparatory work needed, the most important of which was a change in the culture to one where the customer became king. This was done through the reluctant acceptance that change was necessary in order for those in internal units to hold on to their jobs, followed by the joint establishment in discussion with service users of the level of service that was acceptable to them and the cost in financial terms to the Ministry of that service.

It was a painful and effort intensive process of itself but it did result in a change in culture that not only helped internal staff hold on to their jobs but changed the perception of those both inside and outside the units for the better.

All very fine you say but why am I reading this on Scottish Football Monitor, what is the relevance to the lack of professional governance?

Well I think it fair to say that the Scottish Football Association (SFA) has never at any time in its history been held in such low regard by their ultimate customers, the football supporters, without whom there would be no SFA.

In the public perception, measuring both football and governance performance,  the SFA would be lucky to score 10 for incompetency rather than the more likely and damning similar score for  corruption, where 10 was the worst possible score.

In spite of this and protected by the inertia in SPFL clubs who should be voicing the concerns of their paying customers to the SFA, there appears no appetite or indeed mechanism for change.  This is where market testing comes in.

When viewed from a business perspective the SFA is a service provider to the customers via their clubs. In a sense the clubs act, or rather should act, as agents for their supporters and become the “customer” with whom the SFA provide a number of Services. These services should not be hard to identify, for example.

• Refereeing Services
• Disciplinary Services
• Licensing Services
• Auditing as in Policing Services.
• Fit and Proper Person Services.

The Refereeing Service

Given the current, one might even say perpetual, dissatisfaction of refereeing standards, it, is one activity that could benefit from being treated as the kind of service the SFA might provide to the SPFL.

Under such an approach

• Refereeing would be split into two parts.

• The SFA would be responsible for the recruitment, wage structuring, training and match appointments as the service provider (having taken the nature of the game to be officiated into account and after discussion with SPFL).

• Monitoring and evaluation of a referee’s performance would be the responsibility of the SPFL as the customer.

• Referees or ex refs from anywhere (not just Scotland) hired by SPFL would evaluate performance to a standard set by the SPFL after agreement of standards with SFA.

• Splitting the appointment and evaluation process. would prevent any one person being able to exert any undue individual influence on referees which protects the integrity of individuals, the service itself and referees appointed.

• It would lead to a higher standard of referee because the customer would be setting the standard not the supplier (as happens everywhere in business but football)

• If standards were not met over a period or a particular game required meeting a standard not possible at the time, the SPFL would be free to hire their own referees from wherever they could get them.

• This freedom under a service approach would reduce, if not remove entirely, the burden of suspected allegiance that bedevils every decision made by match referees by supporters to the detriment of the referees and so of Scottish football.
• The corollary is the SFA would also be free to offer their referees to other national associations encouraging the SFA to recruit and train to the highest level possible (and charge the other associations for the service).

• Competition for appointments would raise standards and if Scottish referees consistently reached higher standards, they would be in more demand outside Scotland which gives them a financial incentive to be the best referee they can be.

• Any national association could adopt this service provider approach leading to an international professional refereeing occupation in a world where football is almost a daily event somewhere requiring a steady supply of good referees.

Feedback

Refereeing as a service has been chosen as but one example of how to establish a customer/service provider relationship between the SFA and SPFL, but the principle would apply to the other services listed. SFM readers are invited to give their views not just on the potential hurdles, like inertia, no driving force etc, but also the benefits of overcoming such hurdles if the approach were applied to those services plus any not on the list that would lend themselves to the approach.

I think there has been an appreciable shift of opinion amongst fans of TRFC recently.

Unlike the ‘invest: speculate to accumulate’ rhetoric featured in the press and by ex-players, the ordinary fans are coming to the realisation that there is no quick fix. There are even murmurings that there may never be a fix which involves their club becoming a competitive force.

Poor management of fan expectations has long been an accusation levelled at the TRFC board by SFM. It is possible though that many fans are beginning to manage their own expectations rather better. There are certainly justifiable criticisms of the manager, Mark Warburton, but alongside that is a realism about the limitations and constraints that he is working under.

There is a rather misguided, and possibly not accurate assumption that another liquidation for a team out of Ibrox would result in having to start ‘yet again’ in the bottom division; but in fact there is a growing acceptance that consolidation in the top league is a much better solution than gambling on huge borrowing simply to stop Celtic adding more notches to the goalpost.

Could it be that the fans are about to do the job that the board haven’t had the balls to do –accept the gap between themselves and (at least) Celtic, and settle for mediocrity on the field as a short term price to pay for continuity?

During the 1990s, in the middle of the Murray/BoS fuelled spending spree, and with Celtic in the doldrums, it seemed to many Celtic fans that their club would never be able to bridge that gap. Of course they did, but at the emotional cost of losing the exclusive 9IAR record.

TRFC now find themselves in pretty much the same position, but their road to bridging the current gap is a more difficult one.

There are similarities of course. Like the Celtic of the 90s, Rangers have major infrastructure challenges to meet. Celtic had a stadium to build, Rangers have Ibrox (and Auchenhowie) to fix and improve. Both required massive investment to improve the team, although I would argue that Rangers have a steeper hill to climb in that area.

Unlike RFC of the 90s, Celtic’s accrued wealth has nothing to do with an intravenous hook-up between their bank account and the chairman’s pals at the bank. Their baseline advantage over the current Rangers predicament is a combination of a stadium which holds 10,000 more fans than Ibrox, no debt, a burgeoning cash balance and the current inflow of European cash.

The Euro cash and the cash balance could be depleted, but the 10,000 extra seats won’t.

It also seems difficult to imagine how TRFC can obtain seed capital – even if they were inclined to gamble – given the combination of barriers to achieving that;

• They have a PLC with no stock market listing
• They have NO executive directors on the PLC board
• The current chairman is a convicted criminal, convicted of offences involving money
• The current chairman and vice-chairman are both directors of a previously liquidated club, and therefore associated with the financial mismanagement which brought that about.
• In that climate, sponsorship deals are hard to come by. Major sponsors want to be associated with stability, success and integrity. TRFC don’t tick many boxes in that regard.
• Banks do not lend to football clubs. Pre Murray/Masterton, football clubs were cash businesses with modest overdraft facilities to cover modest cash-flow peaks and troughs. The banks have returned to that model. 1987-2007 was the exception, not the norm.
• They are at war with a powerful and substantial shareholder in Mike Ashley.
• There is still litigation pending on more than one front which could even call into question the ownership of the club’s assets.
• They are in debt already (estimated at around £15m).
• The current onfield situation may require yet another write-off in terms of contracts.

Any one of those bullet points could be enough to derail any plan to get to the top. In combination, there may even be an existential question to answer.

That is why the fans are starting to look a lot smarter than the board, and ultimately the good sense of the fans may well help the board to find a way out of their current dilemma.

But even with realistic expectations from the supporters, is it possible that they can find a way? Is there for instance someone with a magic wand or bag of cash who could come in and turn it around? Perhaps, but who would risk money on a precarious venture like a football club when one of the most powerful businessmen in the country is in dispute with you?

In order for serious inward investment to happen;

• Ashley has to be reconciled with the board (needs King and Murray to go).

• The debt has to be written off .
• The new investor(s) has to be given control of the club (and this would perhaps require another 75% special resolution where current shareholders would be asked to vote to dilute their own influence).
• If they achieved that (and it is a pretty big if) the new investor cash would go into the club’s bank account – not used to pay off the debt –  and they would be free to pursue new and better sponsorship deals, improve the merchandising contract with an onside Ashley, and add new revenue streams.

Even then, any new board would need to see the infrastructure challenges as paramount. Having one eye squinting in the direction of Parkhead will blur the bigger picture.

Their priority should be to reduce the losses (whilst increasing wages for better players), fix the stadium and the training ground (both in need of repair and improvement), build a scouting and youth infrastructure, and free up a (relatively modest) wad of cash to improve the playing squad.

In defence of the current board, the challenges facing them are almost vertical in incline. No matter how skilful they are, nothing other than someone with a barrowload of cash and a very long term outlook can put any kind of fix in place.

£50m might buy the debt and equity, and repair the stadium, but progress requires on-field improvement. It also needs stability, and therefore Ashley’s cooperation. The price of that is the head of Dave King.

Rangers will bring in more at the gate than Aberdeen, Hearts or Hibs, but they have a considerably higher cost base than those clubs. With better players, recurring costs will be even higher – much higher.

To square this circle, however unpalatable it appears to be, peace has to be made with Ashley. That is the key to being able to embark upon a journey that has any chance of success. Otherwise, the clocks will have to be reset to 2022, and the end of the SD contract, before progress can be made.

However there is no chance it can go on that long. Rangers fans may be increasingly less demanding in what they expect, but they will need to see some signs – and not just words – that a plan is in place.

The board are getting ready to throw Mark Warburton to the hounds (the MSM lapdogs have already been armed with poison pens to effect that). This will buy them some time, but not enough.

We’ve said it before, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll say it again;

For Rangers to have a fighting chance of competing at the top of football, King needs to be gone. If he does go, half of the barriers preventing the club raising cash are dismantled. 

So is King’s departure a price worth paying? If he really had Rangers in his heart, he would say ‘Yes’.

Guest Blog by Shyster and Shyster

Anyone hoping for some “on the record comments” made under oath in the Kinloch v Coral case is Court last week would have been sorely disappointed.

Like many people I followed James Doleman’s tweets from Court with interest. However, it became clear very early on in the proceedings that there was to be no seminal moment in the OCNC debate – despite the obvious defence available to Coral which would have made it so.

A tweet from Mr Doleman (see below) makes it clear that Coral sent a letter to Mr Kinloch explaining the reason why they would not pay out on his bet.

The reason, in a a sentence was that “Rangers were demoted, not relegated”.

Here is that Tweet from Mr Doleman.

I assume then, that an employee of Coral communicated this letter to Mr Kinloch without getting it “legalled” first.

That is extraordinary for a number of reasons; firstly, it is factually incorrect, and secondly it can be argued that this position leaves Coral open to exposure in other areas.

I find it difficult to imagine how this letter left Coral without the approval of their legal people, especially given that £250K plus legal costs was at stake.

If I was in Kinloch’s position, I would on the phone to the nearest no-win-no-fee lawyer I could find, because in the light of their explanation for refusing to settle the bet, and using terminology that Coral would understand, he is better than evens to win the case.

I think it would be fair to conclude this employee may be facing disciplinary action, and that this action will turn up as a case study in the training manuals sitting on shelves in every bookmaker shop in the country.

However just because the OCNC debate sat on the bench last week it doesn’t mean there wasn’t something juicy on show.  The SPL’s legal representative, Rod McKenzie – a defence witness in the case –   made some very interesting comments in his evidence.

Before I go into his comments further I would like to address some unfair criticism aimed at Mr McKenzie.  As most of us know, he is the lawyer who helped create in elusive 5 Way Agreement.

Nothing has blurred the lines of the OCNC debate more than this document, and Mr McKenzie himself is most likely to have authored the 5 Way Agreement, and provided a rationale for his client, the SPL signing up to it. But the SPL would have outlined what they wanted in the Agreement, so any anger directed at McKenzie is misdirected.  He was, quite rightly, looking after the interests of his client.  It is not his fault that his client is an idiot.

Notwithstanding this, Mr McKenzie said – or rather didn’t say – some very interesting things.

• He told us that the 5 Way Agreement contains (what appears to be) nuclear grade confidentiality clauses.
• He couldn’t – or wouldn’t provide a definition of Relegation.

The man who wrote the rules for the SPL says he cannot define relegation.  Well he can, but he chooses not to.

Conclusion? I can only infer that there is something in the 5 Way Agreement that precludes him from saying more.

I have seen (online) what are alleged to be draft versions of the 5 Way Agreement. In Football term though, and despite of existing Corporate Law,  the OCNC debate cannot be fully settled until the actual and final terms of this agreement are known.

If only there was a way to see that document.

Since Dave King & Co took over TRFC a year and a few months ago, there have been, almost daily, reports of the imminent demise of the club, or King, or both. At the same time, again on a daily basis, there have been those who proclaimed the imminent ascendancy of the club to the top of the pile.

Up to now I have subscribed to neither theory on the basis that the former was wishful thinking based on very little evidence, and that the latter was something that Santa had passed on just before he disappeared up the chimney. Continue reading →