Old Foxes man

Before my comments, some background. I have been a Foxes fan since the 1960’s, having been born in Grasmere Street. As a nipper, I regularly went to Filbert street with my notebook and football programmes to get autographs from the players arriving for training. Over the years, I have supported the Foxes through some lean times and some incredible times. Throughout this time, I have never felt as disconnected from the club as I do now. Perhaps most worrying, is the fact that I feel no connection with the players. I think the latter is because I do not sense that the players are committed to the club, and the ineptness of the leadership. We are currently in a dire situation, with very limited player assets, financial pressures, an increasingly toxic culture, and we seem to be in a downward spiral that we cannot control. I do not blame Top for this though, because I think his only ‘crime’ is to have appointed/listened to the wrong executives and managers. I think he has been gullible and naive to trust these individuals, but he has made a significant financial investment in the club and would want to leave a legacy for his father. These Executives and Managers have demonstrated extremely poor knowledge, judgement and business acumen. One only needs to look at the players signings, contracts offered, player contract management (namely allowing players to see their contracts out and leave on a ‘free’), and the ‘knee-jerk’ appointments, contracts, and exit payments for managers. I suspect that Top and his advisors have desperately wanted to appoint managers who, at interview, have said that a ‘turn around’ can be achieved in relatively quick time without significant investment in new players. This is evidently not the case; the road to recovery is long, arduous and will require strategic investment. The business performance of the club’s executives would not have been tolerated in any other industry. The club is not an attractive investment opportunity at the moment, so no new buyer is going to appear unless there is a billionaire who wants a vanity project. The club has very limited players assets, a small ground with diminishing attendance, and the associated poor ability to attract other commercial forms of income (e.g. sponsorship). Similarly, a new manager appointment is not going to fix this unless it is part of a broader strategy (see below). In terms of the solution, I would suggest that Top’s first step should be to bring in an external team of Consultants with football and business knowledge to assess the current status of the club, how it has managed to get in this position, and to recommend a recovery strategy. These external consultants should report directly to Top and with a brief that encourages an honest and realistic assessment. I think it would then be for Top to decide whether he is prepared to accept and act on the recommendations. I think the latter will involve a realistic recovery time-frame of three to five years to stabilise the descent and start the turn around (dependent on the pace of investment), a number of changes at an executive level, further investment, and the appointment of a manager with the appropriate skills to manage the required ‘rebuild’. In the meantime, they are in ‘damage-limitation’ mode and I will protect my mental health by continuing my emotional detachment for my club.