Personal Comment from Joe Bourke
(Joe is an independent businessman, experienced financial accountant and auditor, the treasurer and a board member of Supporters Direct, the national government backed organisation of supporters trusts, and a Bees United board member)
Communications with members.
Bees United has a standing policy of not participating in discussion threads on Internet forums for the straightforward reason that the Trust, like any organisation, needs to be able to ensure that information it puts out is an accurate reflection of Trust policy. All Trust statements go through the Trust Chairman, who is tasked with ensuring the accuracy of such information, prior to release.
Bees United has its own web site with an email inquiry service, a telephone enquiry service during business hours, conducts an annual AGM in addition to public meetings of members as required, distributes periodic newsletters by post and email to its 1300+ registered members, maintains an information point outside the ground before home matches, prepares regular programme features and occasional press releases, distributes leaflets and has board members available to answer questions before and after home games.
The December programmes will include updates on fundraising and marketing activities from Pete Johnston and Alan Fowler together with a summary of the annual accounts. In the New Year, articles covering the new stadium (Brian Burgess), Finance (Stephen Callen) and the board’s relationship with supporter groups and fans generally (John McGlashan) are scheduled.
There have been and continue to be postings on the GPG and Beesotted from Bees United board members well known to many fans including Edmundo, PJ, Stedders and John Mac. With the exception of John Mac, who cannot easily divorce his position as a Club director from his public utterances, the postings are personal views and are represented as such, as is this posting.
I am personally, wholly supportive of the Bees United communications policy and can see no justification in the Club or Bees United intervening in debates among fans in an independent forum. Where misleading information or misinformed opinion becomes current it has been the case that the club or the trust will issue a statement of fact or clarification as necessary.
To expect 1300 Bees United members never mind 4000+ fans to unanimously agree on a single strategy is probably unrealistic. Criticism of the club directors’ and the Bees United board is a wholesome and healthy activity to be encouraged. The board members are quite capable of shouldering criticism, warranted or not. The important thing for the Bees United board and members, is not to lose sight of the trusts priority i.e. keeping the club in existence and playing in Brentford.
Bees United and Brentford football club are two separate and legally distinct organisations with totally separate functions and boards. The Bees United board have nominated three of its members for appointment to the board of Brentford Football Club in accordance with the mandate given to it by members and Loan Note holders. Bees United has also supported the appointment of Doug White to the board with the specific remit to progress the Lionel Road stadium plans.
The directors of Brentford Football Club, past and present, owe a legal duty of care to the interests of shareholders. If the business becomes insolvent or potentially insolvent then their first duty is to protect the interests of creditors, both secured and unsecured. The fact that directors are nominated by Bees United does not change this legal duty of care.
Bees United is not a shareholder in Brentford FC, but we are a creditor with a foot in both camps, both secured and unsecured and more importantly have an over-riding interest in seeing the Club being well managed with it’s long term security being paramount in the minds of the board.
Bees United does have the benefit of expert advice from Insolvency practitioners with hands on experience of football club administrations and has based its loan policy around this advice. In essence, as a substantial unsecured creditor, Bees United are in a position to dictate the terms of any Creditors Voluntary Arrangement arising from an administration order.
The appointment of Bees United nominees as directors to the board of Brentford FC, serve’s to afford Bees United with access to reliable and accurate information on which to base financial projections and future strategy together with prior consultation on important strategic decisions that come before the board.
The board of Bees United has never set out to manage the Club itself directly or indirectly. That is and remains the responsibility of the appointed board of directors of the club. That board is dominated by supporter directors, with effective management control in the hands of the two executive directors.
Bees United has achieved, through it’s director nominations, considerable influence in the direction of club affairs, but this should not be misinterpreted as the outright control that a majority shareholding affords or Carte Blanche to ignore the legitimate rights and interests of shareholders, creditors, employees and other stakeholders.
The organisation of the Bees United board, its objects and activities is dealt with in some detail on the Bees United site under the following threads:
Bees United and Supporters Direct and How is Bees United Organised?
Anyway, enough about directors – I believe it was Bill Shankly who once said “A football club is the Manager, the players and the fans.
Bees United’s strategy for Brentford Football Club is clear and unambiguous. To break free of the constraints that have held it back for so long, the club would benefit from a modern stadium to attract a new generation of support and generate the increased revenues that will sustain it in the future.
The funding for this new stadium is expected to come principally from the associated commercial enabling development on the new site and residential development of Griffin Park.
Without the intervention of Bees United last season and the introduction of financial support the club would almost certainly have been placed in administration and Griffin Park likely vacated. The greatest safeguard against the early sale of Griffin Park is the veto held by Martin Lange, the former chairman. This vital protection would be lost if the Club went into administration and Martin Lange has previously stated he will not exercise the veto if there is no alternative to administration.
The restriction on development prior to acquisition of a new site/stadium contained in the supplementary S106 agreement to the planning consent is valuable but may not prove to be an insurmountable hurdle for a determined housing developer willing to commit to a significant element of affordable housing
Notts County came out of administration in the first week of December 2003, after 18 months, because the local authority relaxed the building restrictions on the council owned stadium sufficiently to attract an investor to the club interested in commercial development of the under-utilised land surrounding the stadium.
Griffin Park was valued at £2m in 2001 as a sporting ground. The restricted planning consent has brought about an increase in value, estimated by the club directors at £7m. It is considered that the ground will have a value of over £15m if the planning condition of securing a new stadium site can be met.
Bees United funding of the club buys time to continue with the efforts to secure a new stadium site and increase the value of Griffin Park. Work also continues on both increasing revenues and further reducing expenses going forward.
Negotiations with the former Chairman, Ron Noades, were undertaken last year with a view to securing the recovery of £1m compensation for tax relief surrendered by Brentford FC and an interest free loan of £2m pending completion of a contract of sale on Griffin Park, effectively eliminating interest payments on £3m of the overdraft.
These negotiations were based on Bees United’s view that the club could operate at breakeven before payment of interest. With the elimination of interest charges on £3m of the overdraft, the remaining interest charges on an approximately £1.5m overdraft could have been covered indefinitely by the funding support of Bees United until such time as the new stadium site was resolved.
Altonwood were not receptive to these proposals and argued that the club would lose between £500,000 and £700,000 this year. They were at that time, of the opinion, that regardless of interest relief the club could not carry on at Griffin Park and the only prudent course of action was to move to Kingsmeadow or administration was inevitable.
If the club does in fact operate at or near to breakeven (before interest and excluding player transfers) this season, then the argument that financial failure is inevitable at Griffin Park, regardless of any debt reduction and/or interest relief is largely removed.
While no one should expect that this will, of itself, result in a sudden recovery of funds by the club, we will have significantly strengthened the argument that the club can maintain itself at Griffin Park indefinitely, given an element of debt recovery and interest relief.
The club will also have moved somewhat closer towards having at least the prospect of a refinancing based on a BU supported mortgage, albeit still a difficult proposition and requiring probably a debt write-off, resulting in a cash recovery in the order of £1.25m together with a significant injection of private funds.
Bees United have had the benefit of legal advice on whether the minority shareholders may have a cause of action for recovery and the legal opinion supports the view of posters on the internet forums with a legal background i.e. don’t waste your money. The lawyers oft quoted mantra is “advice that costs nothing is worth nothing” While some of the legal/business advice proffered on message boards has a measure of merit in the main it is wholly speculative. Perhaps that is the nature of chat forums. When supporters assume responsibility for as serious a matter as the survival of Brentford FC they have a duty to act responsibly and with due care. That means for all of us, keeping a cool head, thinking through the consequences of actions and not basing decisions on understandably inflamed passions. I don’t want to get into a lengthy discourse on issues that have been dealt with quite adequately elsewhere. Had Bees United or the club board acted in the manner as suggested by some posters, the internet forums would quite likely become nostalgia associations debating who was worse, David Web or Ron Noades. The function of a board of directors is to manage risks to the organisation not to put it’s very survival on the line by adopting high risk strategies based on flimsy or misguided assumptions. That’s what we have had for too many years and we are now working to recover from.
When valid ideas are generated on internet forums they often seem to get buried in a round of hand wringing and hysteria. Those that do have serious proposals should not only post on forums, but contact Bees United or the club directly. Valuable advice and assistance has been provided to the Club management and Bees United board by several Bees United members in this way.
Suffice to say, that I have full confidence in the Bees United directors serving on the Brentford FC board. I have spent many years working in the business turnaround field and believe that the bulk of the overhead reduction work that can be undertaken, without undermining the ability of the club to function well, has been completed at Brentford. Increased revenue generation remains a priority and work is ongoing in this area.
While the debt restructuring remains to be dealt with, either as part of a successful acquisition of a new stadium site or a negotiated settlement, both are best undertaken under the leadership of men capable of uniting a disparate fan base with wildly divergent views.
John McGlashan is an accomplished administrator, level headed, careful and serious about the task he has set himself and his colleagues.
Stephen Callen is an experienced finance director. Interestingly, his background is almost identical to the finance director of Manchester United, both having spent a significant part of their careers with sizeable public companies engaged in the media industry.
Andrew Wainwright is an able solicitor well used to dealing with unsavoury characters. He is a good judge of both human character and when the board should seek specialised legal advice, bringing the discipline of his profession to the boardroom.
There are difficult negotiations ahead that will require all the diplomacy skills of men like the Bees United Chairman, Brian Burgess.
We may not have the ideal of a stick and a carrot at our disposal to push ahead just now, but we can all lend our wholehearted support to the aims and aspirations of the supporters trust, safe in the knowledge that those principles lie at the heart of every action taken by the Bees United board and it’s nominees on the board of Brentford Football Club.
Bees United will continue to respond to any questions directed to it at questions@beesunited.org.uk and John McGlashan is always available to callers with questions about club policy.
Another saying attributed to Shankly is “Football is a simple game made complicated by people who really should know better" Wise words from Bill that we would all do well to remember.
Joe Bourke
13 December 2003