Chairmen Only

The SFA core strategy for the future success of Scottish football is their flagship campaign, their Youth Initiative.

This strategy is based on encouraging more youngsters to play football to a higher standard.

Great! - Just who are these future stars going to play for?

The clubs who are lucky to survive long enough for these talents to mature?

Empty stadia because there is no longer anyone who is interested in the Scottish game?

The English Premiership? Why not if they are so talented?

This strategy does nothing to encourage the watching of football let alone match attendance at senior clubs, so is there any point in this ‘playing only’ approach?

If it’s the future survival of Scottish football that concerns you then - not really.

It is an ‘all your eggs in one basket’, a ’one trick pony’ method. A flawed strategy is a flawed strategy, and strategy, whether it is at one of the senior Scottish clubs or if it is within the Governing Bodies, is the point where Chairmen come into the grand scheme of things.

Well, if you are a Chairman and you are reading this, then stranger things have happened, so why should club Chairman bother to read this?

Because they (or you, as should be said on this page) are only human – that’s why. You cannot single handed wave a magic wand that will save your football club if you cannot manage the necessary changes.

Chairmen come and go. Every time a new one comes along, fans hop on the same old Merry Go Round of anticipation, intoxicated by thoughts of access to sums of money that their club has been hitherto starved of, only to find that whereas someone may be successful as a local businessman, it’s a whole lot different when they try to run a football club.

If you don’t believe this, then ask Sir Alan Sugar. And, ask yourself why has Sir Richard Branson never tried his hand at running a football club? Surely he, with his unrivalled track record of success, would be a cert.

Or maybe there is a reluctance to dip into your own pot of personal wealth, which some Aberdeen fans accuse Stewart Milne of, or maybe there isn’t so much of it available as the fans think. But even if you did have unlimited financial resources, would any of this wealth really buy success. Fergus McCann and David Murray, both extremely successful businessmen, yet both represented quite contrasting pictures in liquidity terms.

When it comes to money, the illusion is always the same in that just as money can’t buy happiness, it likewise cannot buy success.

Scottish football has to get away from the expectation that some Sugar Daddy Superman will miraculously appear and that success is just around the corner. Not only is this expectation unrealistic but it also sends the wrong message to existing and would be club Chairmen. This misleading message is the belief that; once you are in the position of having acquired the club, that the club is now yours.

It may be yours on paper, but is it really yours to do with as you please?

This may sound a bit harsh for in fairness, you might be acting out of obligation to your fan base and local community, you might feel that you are bringing a lifetime of experience at successfully running a business or you might simply be a passionate fan who just happens to have the money at the right time.

But the reality of most clubs is that this situation is out of the question and that most Chairmen are expected to manage without the luxury of access to funds at all, let alone any abundance of funds.

These expectations, the passionate desire to do the right thing are all relentless pressures upon you. After all, being the Head Hauncho, it’s only right that you call the shots. You own the damn club after all and isn’t that what Directors are supposed to do in any case? Well, to a certain extent it is.

Whatever the reasons, whatever the expectations or problems you face, your role is to look to the future and ensure the future survival of your club by providing an operating foundation so solid, that if you were to, God forbid, drop dead tomorrow, then your club will continue to flourish, as successfully, as if you had never been there in the first place.

One of the keys of Richard Branson’s success is the Virgin brand. It is brand that epitomises people, ownership and enjoyment in the shared involvement of success.

This is not about you. This is about the responsibility you have to the club, it’s other shareholders, it’s fans, the local community, Scottish football – the entire nation in fact. It may be beyond reach, but do you see things in this light?

It is not intended as a criticism to say, probably not. Football is like a whirlpool. It draws you in slowly, then spins you round and round until it sucks you down, deeper and deeper, till you are too close, too involved. So involved, that it becomes harder and harder for you to see with confidence what is going on, and how to get out of the difficulties that you are in.

This situation is fatal for any manager, Director or Owner of any organisation, even Sir Richard Branson, so how do you take a step back?

This site challenges individuals to ask themselves what they can do to help. This also applies to you. You are used to being a position of instructing others, listening to and approving proposals, making decisions affecting other people, but what about you?

At the end of the day, you are the only person that you have absolute control over, so start asking questions of yourself and of the influence you have over your club. Is it truly functioning in a way that gets maximum benefit from it’s available resources or are you stifling the energy that others can contribute?

• • Are you clear on what your strategy for success is and are the other board members equally as clear?

  • How was your strategy developed and what management tools did you use to construct your strategy?

  • Are these tools available to your board, and if not where are you going to find and implement them?

  • How can you be better at what you do and your board be better at what it does, in order to be a stronger influence over others regarding playing and watching football?

  • All these questions are about management and are pretty obvious questions that anyone might ask about any organisation but what about wider management responsibilities?

  • For example what about Change Management? How do you bring Change about?

  • How do you manage and extend influence over Scottish football’s Governing bodies and hold them the highest levels of Corporate Governance?

  • What can you do to ensure that your clubs strategies are in alignment with the rest of Scottish football and that those strategies are correct?

Don’t assume that you know the answer to these questions. Be honest enough to realise that if you don’t know the answers that this is not a weakness but is in fact strength.

Management of Scottish football is insular, inward thinking and ineffective. It is typical of the narrow UK vision of management that is far behind competing countries when it comes to developing effective strategy so much so that Scottish football could be said to still be in the Dark Ages.

What can you do to ensure effective strategy to lead it out of the dark and into the light?

If you don’t do it, who the Hell will?

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