Chaos at FC Esbjerg

Chaos at FC Esbjerg caused by Conway
The American owners are pulling a trail of destruction after themselves in Esbjerg fB, and now the acting head coach has reported sick

By Klaus Egelund • Thomas N. Andersen
The American owners are pulling a trail of destruction after themselves in Esbjerg fB, and now the acting head coach has reported sick

Steffen Ernemann will now be the fourth head coach in just ten months in the faded big club Esbjerg fB.

Chaos that can only be attributed to the club's American owners and their misunderstood view of management.

According to Ekstra Bladet's information, Michael Kryger has reportedly become ill - directly caused by the maelstrom of a management style that EfB's American owners are exposing.

Kryger is unlikely to return this season. Or the next ...

For a long time, it has been buzzing with corridor talk about heavy interference from the owners' side right down to the details around the team selection.

Thus, in the run-up to the match against Jammerbugt FC, Ekstra Bladet was informed that the player squad was aware of three dictated replacements, which were to be made during the break of the match.

Michael Kryger was at that time still in the lead for the team, and even though the break lead to Jammerbugt at 2-0 in itself screamed for changes, it stands out that Esbjerg after the break had exactly three new men in action.

Michael Kryger has tried to balance his coaching style with the direct orders that were put out by the American owners, while trying to maintain a kind of respect from the player squad.

It turned out impossible. How should a player squad respect a head coach who does not even make the crucial decisions about starting lineup, substitutions or playing style?

If the situation sounds insane and totally cross-border, then such orders are no further away from the owners than that Chairman of the Board Michael Kalt has already once acknowledged that type of interference.

- I have mixed myself once - it was when I told Roland (Vrabec. Red) that I did not understand that he did not use Yacine Bourhane from the start in the first two matches. Otherwise we will not interfere, he said a month ago in a major interview with Jyske Vestkysten.

Ekstra Bladet has tried to get Roland Vrabec to talk about his firing in Esbjerg and the American owners' involvement in the German's work.

Vrabec has rejected Ekstra Bladet's request on the grounds that he cannot comment due to contractual obligations.

Yacine Bourhane is described internally in the squad as a player who can barely run straight. And Bourhane was among the starters in the defeat to Jammerbugt.

In other words, it's more about positioning players and selling them than winning football matches. Something that is about to be catastrophic for EfB ...

It paints a very good picture of the reality that emerges under American supremacy at Blue Water Arena in Esbjerg.

The unrest is well described, and although Peter Hybala's insanity regime was second to none, the problems have not diminished significantly since then, although they have become less apparent to the outside world.

The interference in Roland Vrabec's work was marked. And now it has broken the replacement Michael Kryger, who was already absent when Esbjerg met Vendsyssel FF at Easter.

The West Jutlanders won a point under Steffen Ernemann's leadership, and the team selection for that match was devoid of investor interference.

However, the order to Ernemann and co. Was that 'one would rather lose the match against Vendsyssel than deviate from the style of play with high pressure'.

Something of an announcement with Esbjerg's placement in the table in mind ...

At the same time, it pulls up to storm in the backdrop of the club towards next season, where the American owners still insist that the bet on press football should be managed by a coach with a German education.

Director Jens Hammer Sørensen has already positioned himself in the exact opposite ditch.

- I really want a Danish coach who understands the Danish 1st division, who understands the Danish Superliga, and who knows the actions that are in a Danish football club.

- Because if you hire - and it is not a bad word about German coaches - a German coach, he says in his own head, ‘How long does a coach sit in the two best ranks in Denmark? He sits for 12-14 months, 'said Jens Hammer Sørensen the other day in Købmændenes Klub on Discovery +.

Thus, the next major conflict in Esbjerg is already taking shape ...

Ekstra Bladet has tried to get a comment from Paul Conway and Michael Kalt, but Esbjerg fB states that it is Jens Hammer Sørensen who speaks on behalf of the club in this case.

Why has Michael Kryger reported sick in EfB?

- I can not comment on that, as there are some GDPR rules we must comply with - and most importantly for the sake of our employees. In addition, we never mention staff cases about illness in the media, and we never do.

- To what extent does it have something to do with the management style that the American owners are displaying?

- I will not comment on the specific case according to what I have just said.

- If I now say that it is, among other things, about the owners' involvement in the starting line-up, substitutions and tactics?

- Then I say that NOBODY other than the current head coach of EfB decides how the team is set. Board members have the right to express opinions on why a left-footed player does not play left-back or why the coach uses one striker over another.

- This is how it is today, and this is how it was 5, 10 and 20 years ago. But it is solely the head coach who sets the team. There is never, to my knowledge, anything that has been dictated. This is how you run a football club.

Before the match, Ekstra Bladet could name the three substitutions that would come against Jammerbugt. How do you explain that?

- It is no secret that we in the club and around the team have worked to bring more fresh energy into the matches earlier. Specifically, the plan was for us to replace three attackers, but that did not happen.

- But it has been part of the tactics for the match to get fresh players in with fresh strength to put pressure in the second half. Kryger was open and honest about this and also told it to Jydske Vestkysten in the days leading up to the match. So it was no secret.

- Ekstra Bladet is aware that the American owners are still looking for a head coach for the German coaching school. Do you fear that it conflicts with your wishes for a Danish head coach.

- No I do not. I have stated that I prefer a coach who knows the 1st division. This is still the model we are working on in EfB.

 

Worrying.
Do this lot have the first clue what they're doing?

 

Wow!!!!

 

We’ve no chance of getting a decent coach with this lot in charge if this is true. They certainly interfered with the style of play this season.

 

I'm so glad that I'm no longer part of this. It's not the game I played, watched and loved. What on earth have these people done to it?

 

All of a sudden our plight doesn't look so bad. Thank goodness we haven't got owners like that. Oh, hang on a minute...

 

Sounds all too familiar!

 

That's an incredible find. I hope Doug and or Radio Sheffield can link with the Danish journalist who wrote it and if they're confident the information is reputable, spread it far and wide.

I've been very angry many times about this ownership group but this might just cap it all.

 

And as Morrissey would say, there's also panic on the streets of s'-Hertogenbosch:-

Irritation about attitude of American shareholders at FC Den Bosch: 'They are conspicuous by their absence'

The American shareholders of FC Den Bosch hardly show themselves in stadium De Vliert. However, investments are being made in other European football clubs. This causes dissatisfaction among regional shareholders.

Jan Martens 16-04-22, 10:00 Source: BD (Brabants Dagblad)

What do the Pacific Media Group (PMG) and its partners want with FC Den Bosch? That is what the regional shareholders of the club are increasingly asking themselves. Since the American investor collective acquired a majority stake in FC Den Bosch last year, the transatlantic lenders have hardly shown themselves in stadium De Vliert. Yes, there was a meeting with PMG CEO Paul Conway and champagne flowed immediately after the acquisition, but that was it.

Eight months later, there has still been no official meeting between the American and regional shareholders of the football club. As a reminder: FC Den Bosch has been 53 percent American-owned since last summer. To be precise: owned by PMG, Chien Lee, Partners Path Capital, Krishen Sud and Randy Frankel. The remaining 47 percent of the shares belong to Forza FC Den Bosch, in which a group of regional shareholders participates.

"The Americans are especially conspicuous by their absence," says Jan-Hein Schouten, former chairman of FC Den Bosch, who with his family is still one of the shareholders of Forza. "Conway is the only one who is here regularly, but what do he and his partners want with the club? They don't speak out about that."

The wait-and-see attitude of the Americans causes irritation within Forza. "Last week there was an online meeting where we would finally see each other, but only three out of five Americans turned out to be present. And then Chien Lee also had his image and microphone off for an hour and a half. Only Paul Conway and Michael Kalt (of Partners Path Capital, ed.) spoke," says shareholder Maarten de Gruyter, who, like Schouten, is former chairman of FC Den Bosch.

At Forza, they would prefer to see the Americans increase their investments next season to give FC Den Bosch a boost. You have to want to go deep into the top ten next year. Get four or five experienced players to build a strong team with our young talents. But then the Americans, as major shareholders, must take the lead. And we don't hear anything about that," says Schouten.

"I would like to know what the end goal of the Americans is. But they don't comment on that", De Gruyter is surprised. He thinks he knows that himself. "Usually the end goal is an exit (resale of the club, ed.), but it seems as if they are afraid to say that. Although of course there is nothing wrong with that. Because in order to sell the club, you will first have to take it to a higher level. So FC Den Bosch and we also benefit from that. But then make that clear," says De Gruyter.

The members of Forza can see how PMG and its partners are active at other European clubs. For example, a ten percent stake was recently taken in the former German top club Kaiserslautern. "Apparently we are hanging on the back", Schouten fears.

Yet it is also messing around at many other PMG clubs. At the English Barnsley and Nancy in France there were recent protests because both clubs are on relegation and the Americans do not show themselves there either.

 

This is what a Danish journalist says about him……


Of all the quacks I have seen in Danish football over a lifetime, Paul Conway is a candidate for a top seed.
The incompetence is resounding, and when you then listen to the man - listen to Boardroom on The Athletic - he spices it up with a blatant arrogance.
A nicely striking cocktail

 

They've come into clubs like a wrecking ball. It's more like a Molotov cocktail.

 

It needs to be a main headline on Sky Sports news, let the wider football community see what these people are doing to so many clubs

 

Going some way to back up most concerns this is.

They are completely out of their depth.

 

I really don't understand what their goals are. Nothing they do makes any kind of sense.

Their ownership style is utterly irrational.

 

I suspect they are '5th columnists' intent on wrecking World Soccer, starting in Europe to make way for USA dominance in Gridiron and baseball

 

It's ok. There's absolutely nothing to worry about here at Barnsley. The CEO is 99.9% in charge of things.

 

Haha wow. At least we were one of their early clubs - you’d feel pretty silly if you’d just been taken over by them!

 

That would be a massive NO.
When the league does a ‘fit and proper test’ they ought to expand it from finances to include a test for idiocy!