TVC15 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 4:40 pm
I’m guessing you have had little involvement with football clubs and how they are ran ? - no disrespect intended.
I have been heavily involved in the sector in my banking career with the likes of Man City, Liverpool, Leeds, Celtic, Chelsea, Sheff Wed and many others as my customer.
There is a reason that many banks pulled out of this sector for lending purposes years ago - they are basket cases !
There is no template that they follow for how to run a club and the egos of the people running them are through the roof - unfortunately so were the egos of the Bank directors and executives who decided they wanted to be associated with these clubs. Some / many of the risks taken by clubs and banks were absolutely crazy - these would never have been agreed for any other sector / type of business.
It was only in the 2008 / 2009 crash and the tightening of PRA guidelines that things finally began to be more sensible and many people (including where I worked) pulled out of the sector all together.
Football clubs often live for the here and now - they rarely have a 5 or 10 year strategic plan...some might say they do but in reality it’s about the next 12 months / season and as soon as there is a change in manager or owners you can rip everything up that went before.
As for planning for a pandemic - that is about as far away from the thoughts of a football club as I could possibly imagine. Most of them don’t even plan for relegation even though the stats show there is a 90% chance of it happening.
You are 100% correct in the involvement of football clubs and how they are run, and did not see as an insult, a very valid point, also same as response from Chester, love the name by the way
However have been involved with numerous businesses large and small, particularly regarding business planning over the last 15 years including setting up several new businesses in new regions including those in a new venture with an unknown partner. Additionally I have worked with numerous banks, including the World Bank and have actually done a couple of studies for national banks from African nations regarding review/commenting on financial planning by companies wanting Gov. grants to start there business, but that's probably 15 to 20 years ago.
I do recognize a football business is different, however I don't see a huge difference, I can see some clubs are merely playthings and a mechanism to flaunt or store funds by billionaires and they would be run very different. However most have CEO's directors who are more from the business world and while I definitely don't know I would imagine (strongly) that they do have yearly plans and also perhaps 5 year plans. I don't think I would ever be convinced otherwise unless a person running a club was to tell me so but I do understand your message.
As in business I am also asked to review some strategic plans before the executive board see them and provide input that will go with the plan for final review/assessment and approval/rejection. I see many that could be in the speculate to accumulate bracket plus some that are clearly designed by someone(s) to elevate themselves in the company, gain more responsibility and of course salary/prestige. Many of these are organic growth but a fair few with an acquisition as the only way they can move forward.
I do like looking at organizational limitations and the key people meant to make the strategy work, this is a difficult ask and unless you can bring new staff in to actually manage and implement change then very little will happen in reality, some are relatively easy and small incremental steps, others are huge leaps. I see football players being those key staff you bring in to make the aspirational changes work that the board/manager have deemed required, part of every club's investment in the future, you can add a new stadium, training facilities, yet those are one off and not yearly and akin to an acquisition.
We can all point to numerous clubs with a disastrous history where it played out for all to see, but some clubs have invested in players and done well, one of the bigger challenges in my opinion is culture, not enough businesses pay enough attention to this, thankfully BFC & SD does and it makes a difference. I have always held the belief in that the recruitment planning are critical to success unless you are one of the few that can throw money at things, buy, no good, sell, business tinkering, where the real risks don't have to be even considered.
I would also agree planning for a pandemic will not be a well thought out process, one that would be immediately dismissed if it was thought of, my point was more around, we buy players, what happens if when we are relegated. I think the results also show that even this simplest of thoughts around risk planning in some clubs was , being kind, not well thought out.
I think it's an interesting subject and very thankful with how BFC is run from what I know/read, could it be better, yes I think so but it's a mute point, we probably disagree totally on how far apart football clubs are run to everyday businesses but it's not a problem if are not agreeing.