Supporters, not customers!

FAN: I was completely underwhelmed by your appointment Steve. Can I please give you one piece of advice, please don’t call me a customer, I am a supporter of this club. I sincerely wish you all the best. There’s still plenty of points available. But there’s a transfer window currently open and we need a striker and goalkeeper, Are we just chucking the towel in or are we going to try and do something to give us a chance to survive?



STEVE HOLLIS: My apologies for using the word ‘customer’. It was directed at previous businesses who have never actually had supporters. If you look at where this club has spent large amounts of money, it hasn’t actually generated success.It’s not a pretty picture. In the last ten years Randy has spent the third most amount of money. This club has spent £60m in the summer. Last summer it spent £60m on players.

It’s faced relegation for the last five seasons. You have to put yourself in the position, as a new board, is it credible to go to the shareholder and say let’s spend a ton of money again, even though it hasn’t actually achieved the long-term success? It’s not tackling the major issue of bringing in players and getting the best out of them. We are looking at a number of players in strategic positions. Where the deal is right, let’s see what happens. It would be reckless to put the chequebook away completely, but also it would be irresponsible to throw huge sums of money into a situation that is not working so well.



transfers

TOM FOX: We are active. The manager has been very honest about what he needs. We’re having conversations in several areas. The difficult is we are in the most difficult position in the Premier League to attract players. To attract the players of the quality that Remi Garde wants is a) expensive and b) difficult to convince them knowing that if we are relegated the wage structure needs to change. One of the things we did in the summer was writing reductions into player’s contracts so we are able to keep the squad together. We are trying in the market. We are scouting and recruiting. We are not the most desirable team.

“For the past ten years there are only two clubs where the owner has put more of their own cash in than Aston Villa - Roman Abrahmovic and Abu Dhabi. Randy ranks in the last ten years, third. The issue isn’t that he doesn’t spend, it’s that the decisions aren’t right. He’s been pumping money in for years.

FAN: What was the net spend in the summer?



TOM FOX: The owner put his hand in his pocket for over £23 million this summer.

FAN: This club has a great history and heritage. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the world. If we’re a business how are we going to market it compared to everybody else? We see clubs like Liverpool who haven’t been that successful for 20 years but their players are all over the TV on adverts. How are you going to say that you’re doing the great things to make Aston Villa successful as a business and eventually make us successful on the pitch?

TOM FOX: As I’ve said before those two things are related. You have to decide which audience you are targeting. If we’re sitting bottom of the table there’s very little marketing we can do. We will try to get things better on the pitch. In terms of the global market we’ve actually spent quite a bit of time in the past 14/15 months on this area.

The challenge now is, whatever we have done commercially, to develop our capability and find international sponsors who can create a bigger audience for us by talking to other people about us. It helps if you’re in the Premier League rather than the Championship.

We need an organisation who can take advantage of our success but unfortunately we’re not having much success. The commercial capability of the club before was non-existent. Our revenues have changed which is one of the reasons why we find ourselves in the position we are in today.

The owner spent a lot of money, we finished sixth for three years on the bounce, we should have been tracking larger shirt sponsors at that point and building more fans on a global basis and generating more revenue. Now, we have completely revamped the commercial department and the sales team and we signed a deal with a shirt sponsor that was worth double the previous year. It’s with a company based in California and that company has marketed us to their employees and a global base across the world.

That’s the type of marketing that we must continue to do. We have a new kit manufacturer coming in next season , who, even if we don’t stay up this season, already has agreed to talk about Aston Villa, the history, the heritage. We are in a better position today to generate more revenue to then spend on the squad. We are struggling right now because the results are making that difficult for us.



"get a hero on the board!"

FAN:This is as bad as the sixties when we went down. We are not shareholders but we do care about this club. I know the last five years there has been a lack of leadership from the owner and involvement with the supporters. You say Randy is the third highest spender, clearly his investments have been poorly managed. The other thing that’s quite obvious is the recruitment policy hasn’t worked. The board is the epitome of that problem because there isn’t enough football people.

HOLLIS: “One thing I said was that I’m not a football person and I’m learning all the time. I’ve spent a lot of time at Bodymoor Heath and I have seen the depth and quality of the football experience. We could bring a ‘name’ in onto the board, someone who is known as a football person. How does that actually enhance the position that we have between the supporters the club and any other stakeholders? What we need to look at is what is the best way, improve the communication between the club and the board.

‘Get a hero on the board’, yelled one fan.

HOLLIS: “So if we promote a well-known football personality onto the board would that change what Tom has alluded to?

FAN You are making mistakes over and over again. I take three kids to the games each week, It’s like child abuse. We need someone on our board who understands football and understands how to make the key decisions. We’re going nowhere at the moment and eventually the younger generation will give up on the club.

