QuoteApart from the 'stepped back' suggestion, all of the above seem to be about a shortage of finance.Originally Posted by exiled_gufc_fan
Is he the sole cause of this?
Does the problem go away if Leeson goes?
Leeson HAS to go. There are numerous reasons for this but simply put, he has alienated the supporters, business community and football community of Galway through his actions and inaction. He was employed as CEO so the board members have a responsibility to sack him.
Leeson OUT
If YOU are not part of the solution,
YOU ARE part of the problem
Apart from the 'stepped back' suggestion, all of the above seem to be about a shortage of finance.
Is he the sole cause of this?
Does the problem go away if Leeson goes?
When are licenses issued/ application deadlines?
If, as suggested above, he's alienated supporters and business community alike, it probably ins't too much of a stretch to say his departure could help alleviate some short term problems. I'd imagine it'd need a strong enough person to get the city/county back on side but if they make the first positive step, who knows...
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
Many businesses and organisations, not to mention a large number of supporters will have no dealings with the club as long as Leeson is there.
As an example, the Galway FA refused to negotiate a plan to service the debt built up by non-payment of rent on the stadium, as any agreement they were likely to come to would almost certainly, in my view and evidently in theirs also, have been reneged upon.
For further evidence of the dire state of affairs I refer you to a post I made the other night on galwayunitedfc.net
I made a further post last night.This 100% my belief also.geezer, on 08 January 2011 - 09:52 PM, said:I hope he stays because we could win trophys with this man im convinced but he needs a decent budget
I see no evidence of the artist formerly known as the former CEO or the board of directors taking any action to prevent Sean Connor from leaving. A number of people are of the opinion that this has been among their primary goals, along with the intention to implement an amateur playing squad.
The original budget being peddled by Leeson was eventually negotiated up by GUST to something that was realistic and at times, extremely conservative.... something that would give Connor a fighting chance. With a licence possibly now in sight and the prospect of some cash on the gate to begin covering loans, which is the single focus of the directors, Leeson's bull**** tactics will have succeeded once again.
The board of Galway United have absolutely no interest in the well-being of the club. I have said this on a number of occasions in the past season, however... what is baffling to me is that, if I wanted to kill Galway United and leave the directors on the hook for the loans they themselves racked up, I couldn't do a better job than they are doing themselves. Their continued refusal to remove Leeson as an employee from the position of CEO is ludicrous. The only explanation that seems to hold any water for me, and this is just speculation, is that Leeson has them by the short and curlies over some issue that has yet to surface publicly.
As has been pointed out to me, and I wholeheartedly agree with it... Leeson does not understand football. If he thinks anybody will go to Terryland if we field, for all intents an purposes, an amateur team put together by some clown that's friendly with Nick and the FAI who is willing to tow the party line, he is hugely mistaken. We will get hockeyed every other week and possibly set a record low points total. I will not be seen in Terryland if this happens.
Everything I've seen so far is the same old delaying tactics. "Lets get to the end of the season... " etc, etc. And the cycle begins again when a little untraceable cash flows through the turnstiles.
Another ludicrous "opinion" either put forward verbally or heavily implied by the club, is that the Trust would be incapable of running the club. It was never the intention of the trust to take over the club at the outset of the current reinvigoration the fan-base, but a number of factors have meant that in order to save the club, this move would be prudent.
GUST have some extremely skilled people among their ranks, I wouldn't even count myself among them. I'm talking accountants, public servants, business people with decades of experience, many people with masses of actual football knowledge, people with nothing but the well-being of the club at heart. When hard questions are asked of them, they don't pretend to have more important things to do abroad and get spotted around town scratching their holes. People drawing a wage should not **** off abroad at a moments notice and become un-contactable for upwards of 3 to 4 weeks in the middle of the season in the run up to the biggest fundraiser of the year, returning in time to see it make an alleged loss, including a €5,000 "administrative error". Multinational corporations with millions in monthly revenues would have a full-scale investigation over that amount of money (Barings Bank being a notable exception), not a shrug of the shoulders and "oh well...".
I have had informal conversations with a few business owners who are firm in their belief that they themselves and many others would never do business with Galway United with the status quo remaining.
Who gave bus companies cheques when they refused to leave without payment?
Who paid player insurance administered centrally by the FAI, when no game could possibly take place in its absence?
Who made arrangements to have the players fed before the matches when the reputation of the club was so tarnished that nobody in their right mind would accommodate them?
Who put a roof over the heads of a number of players made homeless by reckless behaviour and ensured that both them and their manager were not left without an income.
Who made contact with Galway FA and made an agreement with them, as they (correctly, in my view) would not deal with the club and possibly could have terminated the lease?
Who made out cheques to various creditors in order to keep the show on the road?
Who made payments to the revenue in an attempt to clean up the mess left by frankly ridiculous agreements made to pay back large amounts during periods when there were no home games to cover wages, never mind anything else?
Who were the ones responsible for what we thought at the time to be a successful friendly with Liverpool? The activities of the trust should have contributed to eliminating the clubs money problems for the rest of 2010, but activities of others scuppered any hope of that.
Who is there week-in week-out to take the criticisms of angry and baffled punters who do not understand the relationship, or lack thereof, between the trust and the club.
Who are taking a pro-active approach to redeveloping Galway United as a community club?
Who wrote, designed, printed and sold the Galway United match programme at no cost to the club and handed over the proceeds, less the cost of servicing a large debt run up with the printers before the trust took over the administration of it?
Who spend days selling season tickets on their own time since November?
Who took calls and visits in person from creditors directed to contact GUST when trying to collect payment for good or services provided to Galway United?
This last point is quite interesting as it marks extraordinary turnaround from the earlier policy of directing certain persons not to deal with GUST in any capacity. However, when creditors were looking to get paid, they were delighted to "cooperate" with the supporters.
Nick himself said that he pulled back from the day-to-day running of the club after the season finished. He must have been absolutely delighted to do so, as the club hadn't two euro coins to rub together.
I have one more thing to add (It ended up being a few things).
I didn't want to undermine the current progress that has been made as regards the appointment of two supporters to the board, but the cold hard truth of the matter is that they are still outnumbered. I may not have expressed this view openly before, but the notion that somehow this time, the board will work for the good of the club baffles me. Assuming the previously existing directors stick together as they have done, anything they wish to do cannot be voted down.
I know there is a sense that great things can be done with the the lads on the board. Minutes will be kept of the meetings, possibly for the first time. This may well be a first for some of the directors. Either that or a case of severe selective amnesia has been uniquely afflicting them at so called board meetings over the years. A cup of tea and chat and "Jesus things are bad lads" does not constitute a board meeting. I have never run a business but I am familiar with business practices such as this.
I could go on a rant about the directors and their ability to run a business, but the truth is that if any of them behaved as they do with Galway United in their personal business dealings and ventures they wouldn't have been able to afford a pot to **** in before long.
Nearly everyone's anger is directed at Nick Leeson, but the others are just as culpable for allowing the situation to develop.
Just this minute, a supporter told me that his father regretted having bought a season ticket. He is not alone. I bought a season ticket for someone, but have not bought my own yet. I have done my best to support other initiatives when I can, which admittedly has not been too often of late, but I will not be buying one for myself. At least not from the club. I would not encourage anyone to buy a season ticket from the club. Make sure you get it from GUST.
And just in addition to my rant last night, it's time that people realised just how bad the situation is.
Some may be unhappy with certain things that I've said, but if I have made any comment that someone finds objectionable I won't reject the suggestion out of hand if they feel it wasn't appropriate.
The weirdest part of that is that some of your fans were talking about winning trophies...
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
God forbid anyone would have a bit of ambition.
The league is a much more level playing field that it has been in recent years. I am firmly of the belief that with a reasonable budget, Sean Connor could put us in Europe and give the cups a right lash. I don't think he's the messiah or something, but the loyalty he seems to bring out in players and his eye for a player are something we can't afford to lose.
Monaghan made the league cup final last season. They were a very good team, but First Division all the same.
Bizarre to say the least.
If I was in Galways situation the height of my ambition would be to keep the club alive, not even considering keeping them in the top flight.
And you don't see the juxtapostion of that and the fact you could be extinct within a month?
Ambition indeed
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
---
New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
When's the final D-Day regarding getting licensing sorted?
By the half time interval of the first home league game
That soon?
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
When Nick annouced that he would resign in a matter of days, back in November, it caused a huge surge of season ticket sales, allied with the €99 season ticket offer.
Of course Nick didn't follow through on that promise, just as he habitually fails to do so with other matters.
Anybody could do a better job. I've never run a club or a business, but it would have been an achievement for me to make more of a mess of things.
The aim of the board since the end of last season seems to have been to run with a plan to have Galway United with an amateur playing staff in 2011, while Nick would pay himself 1k a week. Nick is now allegedly given himself a 30% pay-rise.
There is absolutely no need for a CEO. The mediation agreement reached stipulated that the position be abolished.
My opinion is that they thought they could more or less take whatever revenue taken in by the club to pay off the bank loans they were the cause of and are liable for.
The "fight" between the board, including Nick and the supporters has not been one simply to do with fans having notions of what we should be spending on players, without regard for what we can afford. The most active members of GUST are highly intelligent, financially prudent, can and are taken for their word and do not have any personal interests in conflict with the well-being of the club.
Nick going would have a huge effect. Many businesses, big and small, refuse to deal with the club while he is there. GUST helped broker and agreement whereby the debt to them would be paid off over a realistic amount of time. Nick has not made any of those payments, despite having been given the money to do so.
Currently reading an interesting book on gambling by the former cricketer Mike Atherton. Called "gambling", a good take on the history of the vice.
On Nick Leeson (trading is a form of gambling) -
----"His first trade lost him £40,000. By the end of August his loses had amounted to £320,000. In September they amounted to £3million, a figure which climbed to £4.5million in october. A year later , by the end of 1993, his losses stood at £24.39 million
By December 2004 his losses stood at £200 million
All told , Leeson gambled away£869 million" ----
I know its rehashing old stuff but Jesus what the hell were Galway hiring him in the first place for!!!! That's the kind of thinking that has bankrupt this country - bizarre
The good news is GUFC have signed a player, enda Curran from Mervue, are beginning pre season on saturday and Sean Connor is speaking with a lot of players today and next few days about re signing for the season. 17k now will go along way to bridging the licence financial regulations over the next 3 weeks and a lot of this is thanks to GUST out selling tickets, holding fundraisers and signing members up to Maroon Army ensuring all GUFC Players that finished the season & the manager have been paid up to date. Of course Seamus Conneely transfer to Sheffield Utd has helped as well. We all wish him well.
The 2 reps attended their first official full board meeting today and have been authorised access to every document.
Relations are business like but focused on the important issues, getting licence and having a team
We are probably very similiar to Brays team last season in terms of players, experience & budget & expectation but there is scope for improvement on this.
We are still in the game and nudging closer to being okay although still some issues around bank debts to be sorted.
The 2 trust members will be ambitious to change the whole culture of the club into something that the community can be proud of. Roll on february
Last edited by geezer; 12/01/2011 at 8:31 PM.
Financial crisis means Galway United must shop at home
January 13, 2011 - 7:00am
Gloom deepens as O’Donnell and Sheppard become the latest players to depart the club
Keith Kelly
GALWAY United are scrambling to put a squad together for the 2011 Premier Division campaign – less than seven weeks away – with only one player having put pen to paper at the time of going to press.
United have lured Enda Curran from Mervue United, and while talks have been held with a number of other players, Curran is the only one to have officially signed ahead of the start of pre-season training this weekend as United begin preparations for a fifth consecutive season in the top flight.
The majority of United’s more experienced players from last season have left the club, prompting concerns amongst supporters that the squad faces into yet another season-long battle against relegation, which has been the case for the last three campaigns.
Six of the side that started in the relegation play-off victory against Bray Wanderers in November have left the Terryland Park-based club, and there are real fears that filleting the squad of its more experienced players, and trying to replace them on a playing budget of less than €2,000 a week, means United are facing into a season which could see them record their worst finish in the top flight since the 1995/96 season, when they finished bottom of the table, nine points adrift of Drogheda United.
The defence has taken the biggest hammering with Barry Ryan, Seamus Conneely, Jamie McKenzie and Rhys Meynell having all left the club. Goalkeeper Ryan, who was United’s captain last season, has ended a two-season stint with the club by moving to Limerick FC, with the other three having all moved to clubs outside of Ireland.
Conneely has signed an 18-month contract with Sheffield United, who are just one place above the relegation zone in the English Championship; Meynell has returned to Stalybridge Celtic – where he played for the 2008/09 season – in the Conference North, the sixth tier of English football; while McKenzie has returned to Cyprus, where he also played during the 08/09 season.
The other two from the starting XI against Bray that have left United are midfielder Stephen O’Donnell and striker Karl Sheppard, who have both signed one-year deals with newly crowned League champions Shamrock Rovers.
Philip Reilly has also left the club, having emigrated to Australia; Ciaran Foley has undergone surgery on an ankle injury and has been ruled out of action for the next couple of months; while at least one other player has said he won’t sign for the “insult” offer of €75 a week which was put to him last week.
There could be one saving grace for United this season if rumours about how the expansion of the Premier Division in 2012 will come into effect prove to be accurate, with stories circulating that there will not be an automatic relegation from the Premier Division at the end of the 2011 season.
The suggestion is that instead, the top two teams in the First Division will be promoted at the end of the season, with the team that finishes third facing a play-off against the bottom-placed Premier Division club for the right to play in the expanded 12-team Premier Division in 2012.
While that scenario offers a crumb of comfort if it proves correct, when put alongside a budget what will be the lowest in the Premier Division, it is hardly the kind of bargaining power that will give United manager Sean Connor a strong hand when he tries to build his squad.
For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.
That is pretty insulting for a Premier Division player.
While Leeson allegedly pays himself 1,300 a week when there is no need for a professional admin setup. There are dozens of volunteers with a range of skills that could actually run the club properly if given the chance.That is pretty insulting for a Premier Division player.
Galway United isn't a big operation.
Last edited by gufcfan; 14/01/2011 at 2:34 PM.
I think you ought to edit your post there or you're leaving foot.ie open to a lashback. 2 days and a few posts ago you alleged he got a 30% pay rise on top of his 1,000 a week (if this amount is correct). So is it confirmed he was on 1,000 a week and now is on 1,300 a week?
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