Mike Richards hits back at former Saints board colleague Keith Wiseman ...
1:43pm Friday 27th February 2009
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I had to read Keith Wiseman’s statement in Saturday’s Daily Echo a couple of times before I could find any reason for it.
I found its tone to be pompous and critical and there was particular irony in its reference to events towards the end of last season when he was very critical of the timing of Messrs Wilde and Lowe’s move to regain control of the club.
How can this statement benefit the club? Why now, on the day of another vital home game?
And then I found it. ‘When the history of the last few years at the club comes to be written it will not be those who dared to stand up against Rupert whose reputations will suffer……….’ Mr Wiseman is fond of talking about ‘when the history of Southampton Football Club is written’.
Perhaps he intends to write it himself?
If he does, I suspect few of those involved may recognise it.
‘Not my fault’ But it would seem he has written Saints off as doomed, is concerned about this reputation and wanted to get his own ‘not my fault’ out before anyone else.
Ego is one of the drivers of concern about reputation. In recent months I have seen the Club tearing itself apart in the press and at the AGM; all kinds of huge egos have been on display with lots of ‘not my faults’ and attempts to blame others.
Rupert blames Harry for relegation and Leon for the financial mess, Michael blames Leon, Leon and Lawrie blame Rupert for everything and Mr Wiseman seems to blame everyone except himself.
So Keith has decided this week to blame Guy Askham and myself perhaps feeling safe from response as Guy left on holiday on Friday and I rarely speak out.
The last time I issued any statement was prior to the EGM which removed me from the Board. In that statement I said, amongst other things, that ‘My involvement has never been driven by ego or a need for recognition but rather out of gratitude for the opportunity to be involved in the club and to help in whatever way I can’.
Nothing has changed so I have no concern for what ‘history’ might make of me, whether written by Keith Wiseman or anyone else.
Keith’s piece is, as usual, full of his personal opinions which he states as if they are facts. He states that ‘A positive and revived future for the club is wholly dependent upon Rupert and Michael standing down’. What he doesn’t do is tell us what his alternative is, back to the Board removed in 2008 perhaps, but in any event I am sure it will involve a return of Mr Wiseman to the Boardroom and away from that draughty old perch as Leon’s guest.
Is it just a return to the ‘anyone but Rupert’ theory which served the club so well last time? Or is it just the typical critic’s position of ‘I don’t know what we should do but I don’t want to do that’.
So who is to blame for the club being in ‘potentially its worse position in more than 50 years?’ I certainly accept my share.
Anyone who has been a Director for 16 of those years has to be in part responsible and I am sure during that period I made many mistakes. If he was here, I am sure Guy Askham would agree that, during his 35 years on the Board he also made many mistakes. Mr Wiseman may have made no mistakes, we will have to await the history to be certain, but he is very proud of his 20 years as a Director. There is a saying that ‘the man who never made a mistake never made a decision’. What was his contribution during that time?
He was certainly the first Plc director, and possibly the only director of any company, that I have met who freely admitted to me that he was not familiar with accounts or balance sheets and made no attempt, so far as I am aware, to address this during his entire period in office.
This is the man who served on the Remuneration Committee that approved significant increases in Executive Directors pay in a two-year period when revenues were tumbling, agreed termination payments to Executives totally £600,000 – including Lee Hoos, who popped up only weeks later in full time employment at Leicester and ultimately was the man who was ‘acting’ Chairman of the Plc at the AGM.
One thing I know that Guy, and to a lesser extent I, did get right, with others, during our time on the Board was maintaining the financial stability of the club although, as fans, it was often very hard to agree to sell or not to buy much needed players.
When the EGM removed us, the financial position was strong although the new Board did feel the need to change the year end with the effect of including costs for the month of June and reducing the balance sheet value of £3million.
I cannot say whether Mr Wiseman was involved in this decision as he does not claim to be familiar with these things.
From a position of reasonable financial strength in 2006 the Club has deteriorated to the equivalent of ‘a smoking hole in the ground’.
All the fault of those ‘nasty executive directors’ appointed by Michael Wilde, the previous board tell us.
Simple then, all Michael Wilde’s fault.
Well, actually, perhaps not.
No doubt he or his advisers recommended their appointment but the Board is required formally to approve all Directors appointments and the Remuneration Committee approve the contracts and recommend them to the Board.
Even if you accept that their appointment was down to Mr Wilde, and the ‘White Knight’s’ choice was not questioned at the time, their subsequent control was not.
At the time of the Executive appointments there were four Executives and six Non Executives.
Quite rightly there is a corporate governance requirement for non-executives to outnumber executives on a Plc board specifically in order to retain control.
So what went wrong? Paul Thompson, having sold his ‘family’s’ shareholdings at a profit, did not seek re-election in November 2006 at the AGM and no replacement was proposed.
First mistake.
In February 2007 Mr Wilde, no longer the White Knight, (no money being invested, lack of investors etc) was asked to resign. No replacement was proposed.
Second mistake.
This was critical in fact because it was now 4:4 with an Executive Chairman (Ken Dulieu) with a casting vote.
The position was then compounded by the appointment of one further Executive Director (Andy Oldknow) and Brian Hunt retiring with no replacement.
Executives 5 Non Executives 3.
It is ironic that their removal of the man the previous Board wish to blame for ‘the nasty executives’ taking control, was what actually handed it to them.
Even the most naïve of businessmen should not, in my opinion, have allowed this to happen.
Whatever Mr Wiseman might like to think, the drastic decline of the club’s finances in the last two years is the driver of the team we now have on the pitch.
The ‘youth policy’ was born of necessity not design and even Keith’s, in his view, relatively inexpensive alternatives are beyond us.
Does Keith really not understand the severity of the financial situation the Club is in?
Mr Wiseman says I am one of ‘the few benighted shareholders who have kept Rupert in particular in power…’.
I obviously knew it was an insult but confess I had to look up what ‘benighted’ actually meant.
‘In intellectual or moral darkness’ I think is the definition he wished to convey. I know how fond Keith is of assuming a high moral stance but wonder if it actually stands scrutiny in this case?
There is an old axion in football which Mr Wiseman has managed to overcome. That is that ‘To make a small fortune out of football you need to start with a large one’.
Keith’s original investment of £2,500 (he declined to take up any shares in the rights issue to fund the stadium) has so far yielded him over £320,000 in sales to Rupert and Michael (the very people he now wishes to stand down!).
He was also, I am led to believe, the only non-executive to vote with the executives in favour of the SISU offer, which would have relieved him of his remaining 168,000 shares.
My original investment was also £2,500 but I did invest £10,000 in the rights issue, a small amount in football terms but quite a sum to me at the time.
I have never sold a share.
I have never viewed my shareholding as an investment, considering it more akin to a valuable season ticket. I do, however, remember my surprise when, shortly after the takeover of Secure Retirement, Keith expressed concern about having ‘such a high proportion’ of his ‘net worth’ in one ‘investment’.
He seems to have addressed those concerns quite well for one who professed to me no financial expertise.
I spent a number of years as unpaid Finance Director.
So far as I am aware Mr Wiseman has never had an executive function with the club or any other business apart from his ill-fated term as Chairman of the FA during the time of the ‘votes for cash’ scandal, in which I am sure he was blameless, but which led to his resignation.
I will let others judge which of us could be said to be ‘in moral darkness’, and just who should be ‘ashamed for having allowed the present situation to be reached’.
As I said at the beginning it would seem Mr Wiseman believes Saints are doomed. The ‘anyone but Rupert’ regime has left us financially critically injured and the shock of the necessary ‘surgery’ may yet kill us.
But we’re not dead yet, so will the Coroner please wait until we are before giving his opinion on the cause of death.
I do not like make public statements but could not let Mr Wiseman’s latest missive go unchallenged.
At this particular time it is not important who is to blame for what and it can certainly be shared by us all.
Now, for Saints’ sake, can we all shut up about it and get behind what is left of our club to get us back from the brink of oblivion.
