CEO QUESTIONS & ANSWERS...NIGHT

No questions were asked about our loan players as far as I recall. Hearts are loving Toby Sibbick too, doesn't appear he has much of an attitude problem there and gets to play European football next season.

 

If the Crynes win the legal case, and the 80%ers decide to fund the payment by taking out a loan from BFC and subsequently writing it off, what power would the CEO have to block that?

 

Think he said something in the media rounds earlier in the week that they would be reporting in for pre-season training, but then what happened then would still need to be decided. I'd expect the club to try to loan one or two out again, and if a bid came in for Kane, it would be difficult to turn down.

 

Whilst understanding that, we have fans overseas and from around the country who are unable to attend who would find it invaluable to view those meetings if not being able to put a question or reply live.
Questions could be put in advance, time allowing, or could be put by someone attending the meeting on the viewers behalf.

 

If he has 99.9% autonomy in how the club is run, as he states, then quite a lot.

Additionally, both he and Rob Zuk are registered directors of the company and, as such, have a fiduciary duty to act in its best interests at all times. Based on what we know currently, the £750k payment and subsequent loan write-off doesn't stand up to scrutiny on this basis (albeit this pre-dates Khaled's appointment so he's not directly associated with those transactions). However, he would be accountable for any future transactions of this nature, along with the other directors. Ultimately, any sanction would be with regard to preventing him from being a director of any company for a period of time, and the legislation is used so infrequently as to be virtually useless, but it's still not something I'd choose to be associated with as a company director.

 

Thanks for that, as somebody that has never run a business, and doesn't do accounts, a lot of this can fly over my head. And to be honest, I'm quite happy for it to the vast majority of the time.

I didn't attend the Q&A, so don't know if he said he had 99.9% autonomy in how the club is run, or he made 99.9% of the decisions, but I can see a difference between the two. My first question on seeing it was "what falls into the 0.1%, because that could be important"

But there are two things that I still struggle with, and sympathise a bit with Khaled on, which are;

1) How come Dane Murphy didn't have as much anger directed at him, or as much questioning from the press about it when the accounts came out? Particularly given what you've just posted. (This isn't a question about your specific reaction at the time. But I don't recall DM being given too much of a hard time about it in general)
2) If Conway, Lee and whoever, decide that the football club is going to loan money to the parent company and write it off, would the CEO have any legal powers to block it? I remember when Wigan went into admin, their CEO tried to block it, because it wasn't necessary. But the owners brought in another director and forced it through.

 

The question asked was how much autonomy did he have and the answer was 99.9%.

 

As I say, these meetings are regularly uploaded to club channels online some time after the event.

In a previous meeting, that due to COVID restrictions was held via Zoom, we did invite questions to be sent in. This was attacked and described as the club 'vetting' questions.

Like I say, it's trying to find the right balance. And I believe we do.

Free event held at Oakwell. Scheduled for two hours, lasted over three, no pre-planned questions, CEO happy to answer everything he could, bought those in attendance a drink, video to go on club channels a few days afterwards, followed by a typed up summary.

 

So apparently El-Ahmad spoke about his background and history before joining the club, did he at all address this…

https://www.expressen.se/sport/fotboll/allsvenskan/bluffades-nu-kan-dif-bryta-med-al-shaheen-9/

NOTE: You will have to change the language of the article to English or translate via Google etc.

Also any word on the meeting that took place in Albania?

 

1) I don't think anyone realistically viewed Dane as an autonomous CEO until pretty much the time he was about to leave Oakwell. He grew into the role to an extent, but in his first season he was pretty much anonymous, and I doubt anyone saw him as an independent voice from that of the ownership. In hindsight, I think a lot of the better footballing decisions made last season were attributable to him, particularly with regard to finding players who hit the ground running and immediately improved the team (e.g. Helik, Brittain, Morris and Dike) but I never particularly viewed him as a true CEO on the non-footballing side of the business. This is probably down to him being an ex-pro player, so I viewed his appointment as being very much focused on the footballing side of the operation, unlike that of GG, Ben Mansford, etc who were very obviously from a business background. IIRC, Rob Zuk's role had changed to be Finance and Operations Director at some point, so I assumed he was doing the bulk of the business facing aspects, and he's the one I most closely associate with the £750k payment who isn't part of the ownership group. To date, he's remained resolutely silent about it, which I find unusual as someone who's held a number of FD roles myself. In that situation, I'd be doing everything possible to address the negative scrutiny and the fact that this hasn't happened suggests to me that there's no way it can be 'spun' in a positive light. I'm still waiting for my viewpoint to be changed on this, and that's something only he or Khaled could do by providing absolute clarity and transparency on the matter.

As for the immediate reaction, the issue was largely missed at the time the accounts were first published. It was referenced at the time, I think by Archerfield, but the original thread didn't pick up any obvious traction. The accounts are normally something that I'd read as soon as they were available, but didn't on that particular occasion. I only became aware of the £750k issue when someone raised it in a thread in the early part of this season, which is when I checked them and read the detail for myself. However, I'd have reacted to it in exactly the same way if I'd spotted it sooner. I wish this had been the case, to be honest, as its given those with an 'its only an issue when we're doing badly' agenda a bit of ammunition but, in my case at least, it was a case of a delay in actually reading the club's accounts.

2) With regard to legal powers, the issue sits with how the governance of the company is set up. Essentially, what the club does is determined by what the board decides, under whatever system they operate to make these decisions. In theory, a company's board operates independently of its shareholders (hence why anyone with shares in a big plc doesn't get a decision on day to day operations). The shareholders have the power to remove directors via an AGM or EGM, but that's the extent of things. In a limited company the board members and shareholders are far more closely aligned, but the board votes won't necessarily be based on individual shareholdings. However, it's much easier for shareholders to remove board members in this scenario so in reality if there was a proper impasse on doing something like this, then it would ultimately be a case of the CEO/FD choosing to act on principle in the knowledge that their jobs would be at risk from doing so. I've been in that exact situation previously, and chose the option that maintained my professional integrity, knowing that I'd be looking for another job as a consequence.

 

Thank you. Very clear and thorough.

Every day’s a school day!

 

Isn't a bit of this due to the accounts in question coming out on 25th May 2021 and therefore only a couple of weeks before Murphy disappeared? Seem to remember reports of his resignation in mid-June. As Sheriff has outlined, I'd expect Robert Zuk to have been willing and the most able to explain the £750k - particularly given he was a director of the Crynes' Oakwell Holdings Company at the time of the sale!

 

Why would it be difficult to turn it down ? we are in division one next season & currently Kane is one of the best players in the division , surely he should be one of the key components if we want to get back to the championship , last season Mowatt was not sold & we got to the play offs which suggests if you want to do well firstly you hang on to your better players & secondly if you have to sell then do not sell to a rival which of course Oxford will be .

 

Because the less money you have, the more difficult bids become to turn down.

And we're potless.

 

Murphy was still masquerading as our CEO for a few weeks after the accounts came out, but never seemed to be brought up in the numerous interviews he did with the press in that time. He was too busy bs'ing us about how he thinks Mowatt will re-sign and Ismael would be sticking around.

 

I'm not sure Kane's heart is with Barnsley FC

 

I would have thought the money Oxford will offer will not cure our financial woes , I would have thought the sensible way would be to accept bids for the two or 3 players that are championship class & stick out for the going rate , where as your division one quality players we have will be the base for our squad , no one expects Styles, Anderson , Helick , Morris & Woodrow to be here although we all would love them to be & that is where we have bring in the brass but your Wolf"s , Kanes , Aitchisons etc who are potentially decent division one players are the ones we need to keep , we cannot sell every player for a pittance if we want to compete & we have to assemble a decent squad , why not use the better ones we have paid for instead of having to recruit which will result in expenditure we can ill afford.

 

We don't know what we'll fetch for those players. Fees we'll have to accept would likely be set in their contracts on relegation. Might have to sell those five players and then some to bring in enough money to clear the deficit for next season.

Plus, the offer for Kane wouldn't necessarily be from Oxford. Plenty of money being spent in League 1.

 

Maybe there is a bit of a bounceback in the summer with fans back in grounds and the opportunity of more certainty, but the question will be, which clubs are active in the transfer market and have the means and desire to throw money at transfer fees?

We've traded away our ability to be bullish waiting for good transfer fees.

We'll have to wait and see what the market does, but the last few have been extremely suppressed and fees haven't been like previous years.

 

Can't ask for much more than this.