Yesterday, after I had posted my lengthy article on the real reasons behind the Sevco boardroom reshuffle, and after a number of other Celtic sites had questioned the “official version” of events, The Daily Record spoke to an “Ibrox insider” who attempted to explain away our concerns as “conspiracy theories”.
Now, there are different interpretations of what these changes mean; some Celtic sites are saying they are moves to limit the authority of people like Paul Murray. Others say they’ve cut Stewart Robertson out of the loop. Whatever the truth of it, the Celtic blogs and the Internet Bampots are under no illusions about these being “minor changes.”
They are anything but minor, and that much is clear to anyone who looks at them.
For myself, as a veteran of any number of political campaigns, my first thought upon seeing that Sevco had responded at all was delight. Their PR people clearly charge them a fortune, but the advice isn’t always good. There are only certain circumstances in which an organisation would respond to a story they deemed ridiculous and none of them applies here.
Their shares aren’t openly traded on the Stock Exchange, so this wasn’t a story with market-moving potential. The story doesn’t adversely affect, or go to the heart of, their legal standing. It wasn’t a story that had the ability to affect hiring or firing. It didn’t suggest criminality or interfere with their ability to carry out day-to-day operations.
Our stories yesterday didn’t even prompt the media to start investigating.
They were, I’m sorry to say, of no consequence to Sevco whatsoever.
The only other reason for responding at all was panic, and a good PR organisation would never have issued any kind of statement for that. It doesn’t matter how close to the mark our articles were; even if one of us had hit the bullseye, and was right on the money – and for the record, I reckon the one on here was near enough, and I’ll tell you why in a minute – that should not have resulted in a press statement or an off-record briefing to the media.
The best way to kill one of those stories was to deprive it of oxygen. That’s what they ought to have done. But their denial sparked a rash of new stories, and convinced me that I had to write this follow up piece. They gave it new life. They injected steroids into it.
On the one hand, whoever spoke to The Record was expressing contempt.
But the best way to have done that would have been silence. In offering “clarity” they have added more fuel to the fire. The statement itself – doubtless made through Level 5 – is a classic case of blowing it. It was supposed to clear matters up, and it has. But not the way they hoped.
The club told The Record that it would create a “distinct line between the board of TRFC which will be made up entirely of executives and whose job it will be to run the club on a day-to-day basis … But the performance of these paid employees will in turn be monitored and judged by the directors on the RIFC board.”
That’s exactly what the article on this site alleged yesterday. The “distinct line” that has been drawn clearly separates the Chief Executive and others from any overall responsibility in setting the strategy. He is the head of the commercial operation, but that job has been taken away from him and invested in the “upper board.”
“It made little sense to have non-executive directors with a foot in both camps having to judge their own performances …” the statement goes on.
But this is precisely the system they have at Celtic, and elsewhere. As I pointed out yesterday, Peter Lawwell sits on every single major committee at Celtic Park, because that is his job. He is joined there by several other key directors. The same process is repeated at the SFA, where the “main board” and the “professional game board” and others have various individuals sharing responsibility across both. In corporate terms it is perfectly normal.
“The changes, while not essential, are in the best interests of the club’s corporate governance. To suggest this is part of some kind of dramatic restructuring of the boardroom would be quite frankly absurd,” is how they chose to close out this clarification.
But plainly it isn’t absurd to suggest this at all. It’s readily apparent that in choosing to downgrade the status of the “club board” and make it subservient to the decisions made by the one above it, that this is a dramatic restructuring.
The Daily Record even provided its own “straw man” claim to be easily knocked down.
“Social media has gone into a frenzy over online and newspaper reports which wrongly claim three directors have left the club …”
Who claimed such a thing? Certainly not this blog.
A quick check of the Companies House register showed, clearly, that all three were still sitting on the RIFC board, and the initial statement itself out of Sevco made that abundantly clear.
In fact, it’s The Record’s own article which flatly contradicts the Ibrox statement and the information the club gave to Chris Jack of The Evening Times.
“The RIFC board is headed by King as chairman and also includes another five non-executive directors, Murray, Gilligan, Park and his father Douglas as well as John Bennett,” The Record said. “Ultimately, these are the men who control the last line of the club’s decision-making process and are in charge of hiring and firing.”
Actually, that board controls the first and only line of the club’s decision making process, as the Sevco statement makes plain.
But this wasn’t the case until this week, because the “hiring and firing” aspect of it was still in the hands of Stewart Robertson and Andrew Dickson who, according to Jack, were the people who interviewed and hired Caixinha, something every media report confirmed at the time.
The Record article goes on, “But Murray, Gilligan and Graeme Park also held seats on the board of the TRFC, alongside two paid executives, managing director Stewart Robertson and administrative director Andrew Dickson.”
Factually correct, and although it was never made official, Paul Murray was seen by many to be de-facto chairman of that secondary board. I cannot accentuate this point enough; that board used to be important. It used to have clear-cut influence. It no longer does.
“And it’s been recognised for some time that these dual roles did, in fact, represent a conflict of interests,” the Record states. Recognised by who? What conflict of interest? As I’ve said, those men holding dual responsibilities is perfectly reasonable and mirrors corporate governance at any number of organisations including Celtic and the SFA.
The Record then follows up with this.
“With a director of football set to be added to the TRFC board it was felt that now would be an ideal moment to draw a distinct line between the two bodies.”
Again, this is factually correct.
But it offers no analysis of what it actually means. That “distinct line” is clear enough; this board no longer has any power. It has day-to-day responsibilities but it no longer has one iota of real authority for mapping the future direction of the club.
The Daily Record has, inadvertently, verified that what this blog published yesterday is as close to the mark as it was going to get.
They have coached it in dismissive language and hit out at straw-men and “conspiracy theories” but they’ve essentially confirmed that this is a major shift in power at the club, towards the PLC board on which the CEO will not sit.
This is not an exceptional situation. A CEO doesn’t require a seat at the top table to do his job; other companies have a similar structure to this where he’s seen as a mere employee and implementer of policy. It is unusual, but it is not unique. There really is no reason for the club to try and disguise this as something else, far less to dismiss the observation that this restructuring is not as minor as they are claiming it to be.
It’s pretty clear that Robertson is being blamed for certain aspects of the Warburton situation and other affairs. It’s also clear, from King’s statements about things such as the Sports Direct affair that he sees himself as taking the lead. His comments about there perhaps not being a kit-launch again next season are the sort to fill a CEO with dread, because Robertson’s role involves liaising with Puma and others on that very issue. King is as good as telling him that he has no authority to negotiate those matters on the club’s behalf; the mandate will be handed down and his job is now limited to presenting the decision of the board.
No other club would be able to fundamentally alter the balance of power within its walls like this without proper scrutiny and hard questions.
But this is Sevco. This is Scotland.
And here, that just doesn’t happen.