Hmm. It is an easy structure to implement, but I suspect harder to find the right people. Then again, neither Tan, Choo nor Dalman know the UK football market well and that explains why they keep making mistakes on coaches, players and performance.Originally Posted by North Cardiff Blue
At first I would probably appoint a short term but expensive contract to attract the finest football advisor in the land / Europe. 200-300k finders fee and temporary package for someone to hire a top DoF (Director of Football). Pay a third in advance, two thirds on completion of all appointments as a motivator.
His job will be to handle the shortlist and appointments of the above. That would be the best money ever spent. Once the DoF is in, he can appoint the rest.
Why so many clubs get it wrong? Hard to tell. But many clubs are run by former salespeople or loan sharks. People not concerned with leadership structures, processes or detail. Most of these types are short termists in character. It is notable that some owners are private equity investors. I normally reserve my wrath for these viz a viz public companies, but in football they do quite well.
Southampton and Bournemouth are examples of PE-owned clubs. Some PE owned companies in the public space are rinsed with loans or asset stripped. But some PE buy-outs also look at poor business models, systems, leadership structures, inefficiencies and business processes as a focus, rather than financial modelling. It is more analytical than financial. Oddly, football as you say, is often runs by goons so PE owners can find easy low hanging fruit.
So for private equity owners, or analytical types, the football space is a great opportunity to implement better analytics, leadership structures, recruitment process, and talent development in the academies. The guy at Brighton is a class example. Man United are the latest example with Jim Ratcliffe (private equity) on this. Watch the story carefully. I am, as I am interested in corporate turnaround and performance management. The Glazers were the “financial engineers” types that asset stripped and loan-rinsed Man Utd for dividends. Ratcliffe is taking a different tack / just making a slew of appointments around analytics, performance analysis, commercial operations, academy and recruitment, and is considering a change of head coach.
Cardiff City, although different in many ways, present the same opportunity for someone to get the above right. We may not have United’s finances, stadium nor brand. But we do suffer from poor leadership, poor performance, poor processes, weak analytics, inconsitent recruitment, wrong people in the wrong places, and an underpeforming team. If Dalman, Choo and Tan looked at this closer they would see it.
I am not saying it is easy. But it needs people in the corridors if power to:
1. See the issue and cause of issue
2. Create the structure
3. Create the budget for appointments and departments
4. Appoint the right people in the structure / departments .
Every step is an improvement in the right direction even if they don’t get it all done before season start. But it seems to me that they are not even at step 1., so how can we expect them to fix it?
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