Thetownend.com

Multiple people have said they've heard from people that work at the club some is coming. Ryan Whelan also reported big things that never came.

If anyone knows what it is, fucking god knows we could use some right now. This is about as depressing as it gets being a fan.

Maybe want to revisit your post CWIG?

Sandro off
C. Austin staying

Know or guessing?

He also said things will become clearer over the next week. Dunno if good or bad

Can’t be worse.

90% sure

Hasn't he been saying this for weeks though, after he was pretty poor with his sources during the manager hunt I tend to take it all with a pinch of salt these days.

We do seem to take weeks to do anything as a club though.

if that is the news, it's meh.  It removes one of very many problems without providing even a solution to that problem.

I still think his man on the inside is Sandro (or someone close to him) that’s why he dismissed the Morris speculation as Sandro didn’t want him

Sandra may have been right on that appointment

Agreed, the more important thing is what is the plan next to fix the current ineptitude throughout the whole club

If indeed there are a couple of announcements

Then they would have to be blockbusters to even appease the shitshow of a season...

10p off bovril and lids can be kept on drinks bottles

You get the feeling the club could collapse like a pack of cards if the owner isn't careful.

As I was understand it, the senior management know full well that we are in the shit and things need to change.

Action is being taken behind the scenes to rectify things. Due to confidentiality, nothing can be announced at present.

This has no source at all and pure speculation, however… my theory is that Sandro is somehow connected financially to the agency Pro sports management that a few of our players are attached to (Hutton, Wakeling to name 2). He’s clearly the leak to Ryan Wheelan, who coincidentally is breaking news about players interest from other clubs (Hutton League One interest for example). Sandro isn’t in it for STFC and is in it for the money - if we can part ways then excellent, really needs someone with their black book to draw upon and football experience. We’re missing Chorley immensely

But leaked with caveats?

The suspense is killing me🤣

Does this mean Morris is being axed?

Not necessarily so.

What are the alternative possibilities that are being mooted?

Someone else comes in , Morris reverts to Coach

Not a chance that happens imo

I probably wouldn’t be opposed to that if we are not going to sack him. Not sure if we can afford to keep him in addition to a manager. Artell would be my pick for boss. I’m not sure Morris’ ego would take well to being relegated to second fiddle though. I’m also not convinced that Morris is even a good coach.

Never in a million years would Morris stay and coach league 2 players with a manager above him.

Sandro unfortunately is the ineptitude throughout the club day to day. He trys to run literally every area of the business. My understanding is Clem has a hold on things now and he knows how wrong they have got it this season

Lampard is only at Chelsea to see this season out. There’s no long term position for him or Morris. If he gets another gig somewhere maybe he’ll call on Morris again.

My worry is that if we bin Morris the club would still be looking for a similar replacement - unproven Academy type.

They have split as a partnership. That won't happen. Joe Edwards is now FL's number 2 going forward.

Not officially he isn't..... https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/21986797/frank-lampard-chelsea-ashley-cole-todd-boehly/

Hence the word ‘maybe’.

I know there are outside influencers but surely stopping him operating outside his remit would be something Clem and Angus should be able to do instantly and never have been allowed to happen.

He did but just meant he was in the country for 4 months longer than he should have been. Hopefully that shouldn't be much more of an issue

What kind of things has he been doing that would be outside of his remit? His actual job is quite broad by definition isn’t it?

Don’t blame Clem for being abroad - he was up front pre takeover his preferred leadership style was hands off. Rob Angus should be his eyes/ears on the ground and keeping people in line really, shouldn’t he?

This is where my heads at. Technical Director covers everything football related, unless he was trying to influence CEO related endeavours.

I assume that if Clem has been signing players and appointing managers without the agreement of the DoF the relationship must be pretty shitty anyway, add into the equation the suggestions that Sandro is Kiely's man and that Kiely has some cash tied up it all looks a sodding great big mess.

Whatever is happening it seems like Morris has lost a lot, someone within the club is briefing against him, relationship with Austin seems to be on shaky ground at best...

It's this surely - Kiely is either more heavily involved (cash tied up) than we want or he has managed to convince Clem. Nothing about the Sandro appointment has made sense or worked, the next few months to see if he goes will be a strong indicator of how much ownership Clem holds on the club.

Think you are right Joe. I personally think Clem has trusted a few and given them the benefit of the doubt and like you say, where he goes from here shows his intentions. For me personally i would like to see model tweeked and the management and recruitment level changed. I would like to see Charlie Austin stay on in a player coach role of some sort but also changes in the day to day running of the club. Better comms, a social media manager who doesn't refer to the club as them  instead of us and ignores people on twitter unless its to argue

I think ultimutely the fans want to hear that is going to happen from Clem and he acknowledges fans concerns

Was having a brief moment to reflect on this last night and just found it funny thinking back to under Power where we had a skeleton football side set up that we all agreed wasn’t fit for purpose but on reflection probably actually had more competent football people in football roles than we do now.

Yeah think you are right. Still think they were all linked to eachother though. Power Jewell Wellens Sheridan etc. A shitty horrible clique who knew what they were doing and what was going on

I think it's Kiely's data system we use and I think Sandro is Kiely's 'man'. I've no clue of the Clem - Kiely - Sandro link but I assume we've got some kind of 'deal' for the data we are using.

Hope it's a try before you buy basis and we can get out of any 'contract' easily.

Any warm & fuzzy remembrances of the Power era should be avoided at all costs.

The whole basis / logic behind that period of ownership was rotten to the core even with some scant success on the pitch.

I don't buy in the idea that Clem Morfuni has allowed this situation to happen without external pressures.
From what I have heard CM is a hard working professional hands on businessman.
Therefore, I would be very surprised if he would allow an inexperienced non footballing person like the present DoF take over the basic running of STFC.  

Except if CM is being pushed into doing this due to third parties having considerable stake holding in the club.

Just hope I am very wrong.  
 

It’s not easy, though. If one of us won the lottery and foolishly decided to buy Clem out, would any of us have the faintest how to and who to appoint ‘football’ people in positions to run the club?

You’d have to rely on someone giving you advice - and hope you’re not being taken for a ride.

Somebody with more than 6 months experience within football would be a good start

You may not choose a friend of the previous owner, one who you determine to have been a bit of a crook, especially when that person has a conviction for Drugs and Money Laundering.  Even if you did, once he got beaten-up as a result of his past dealings (recent past), you may think twice?

The Wrexham doc is a fairly decent example of what you are describing in terms of 'clueless millionaires invest in football club'. The first thing they did was hire Shaun Harvey as advisor to the Board. He'd been Chief Exec of the Football League, CEO of Leeds United and MD at Bradford City.

Clem hired a two-bit bagman with a criminal record.

I think most people would back themselves to do better than that...

That’s a good point actually, I remember back at the start we were meant to feel sorry for him whilst he was recovering from injuries after getting beaten up. In reality we probably should have asked what was the motive behind the attack on him as at first glance it would suggest he isn’t quite as squeaky clean these days as is made out.

My thoughts exactly

Yep, I posted this before. Clearly Reynolds and the guy from the Philadelphia adverts had no idea about football and got Harvey in. Almost certainly one of the most important things they did.

Exactly. But they would have had no idea who he was and taken advice from someone. It’s the ‘someone’ who is important in this scenario.

Even if I went it alone, I'd back myself with Google and LinkedIn to do better than an ex-con with zero background in football.

I have completely lost track of where things got to, was it this story that led to the drug and money laundering suggestions and was it ever actually confirmed by another source? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4714579.stm

Let's not forget, Clem had been around the club since 2018. It isn't as if he wouldn't have met football people during that time.

It’s blurry. If you Google him, or at least that name, it comes up with a director of TES Group, from Bromley (which is where he hails from) but his age doesn’t match that of the Zav Austin who was arrested and jailed.

The ex con, according to that report, is now 41. The other Zav Austin was born in 1970, making him 53.

Now, what’s the chances of 2 people with a rather unique name both coming from Bromley.

Didnt Clem even say on one of those supporters club things, Zav went to prison and has rebuilt his life etc

One minor thing which is strange. The fella convicted was Zaver Austin, yet our man goes by Zavier Austin.

TBH that's what I was querying, he looks 53 if he is 41 he had one hell of a paper round!

Actually to avoid wasting bandwidth, seems to have already been debated to death here https://thetownend.com/index.php?topic=58890.660

This definitely isn't the rumoured good news!

https://twitter.com/LowerLeagueLook/status/1645732605222846464

This made me laugh

The story I just found from 2005 said he was 34, which would put him at roughly 52/53 now which ties up with 1970.
https://courtnewsuk.co.uk/a-fall-guy-who-helped-run-a-pnds-stlg-12-5-milli/

Austin is 100% the convicted money launderer, the BBC just got his age wrong.

I met him about 12 months ago, he is a blabber mouth. Thinking about it now I wouldn't be surprised if he is Ryan Whelan's source.

Devils advocate here, what if it was the only way You would get your money back that you have been owed. A large amount of money too we are not talking £50 are we. We seen in court exactly how much money Power tried to con Clem out of.

He did. At risk of sticking up for Austin and Hart which i am not doing, i think anyone with those pasts should not be allowed near football clubs i do think it isn't unbelievable to think that is how Clem was thinking. I think we need to be careful that we don't fall into the trap of accusing people because of their pasts because i don't know about anyone else but i have not seen any evidence of anything criminal from them apart from how they are running the club day to day.

I am all for rehabilitation - I don't have anything to suggest either Zav or Hart (who I know much less about and care less about as he is working under a contract I assume) are doing anything criminal.  Even the Karachi thing looks like an entirely legal way of milking money from the Visa process - something I've had first hand exposure to (the money that can be made by people helping Visa applications - my own Visa's cost the company tens of thousands of $'s just in legal fees).

The issue with such characters now is that they don't seem to bring much to the table in terms of the footballing knowledge and business acumen we so clearly lack.  I was much softer on them 18 months ago - the evidence now supports them being next to no use to our club (don't really care about Clem being whole).

I do now think that the crime itself, although in the past, is probably a good enough reason to not have someone on board.  Especially if you want to try and bring a certain image to the club.