clint van damme
Well-Known Member
Decent article. We get the obligatory mention. Didn't know the stuff about Billy Davies cousin at Forest:
Football clubs suffering as owners experiment with chaos theory
If we are going to be generous, it is fair to assume Diego Lemos must have a few stories that have been passed down through the family. His father, Luisinho Tombo, was the leading scorer in the Rio State League of Brazil on two separate occasions, the most prolific striker in the history of his first club, America, with 311 goals, and played alongside Zico at Flamengo. One uncle, Caio Cambalhota, was at Flamengo and another, César Maluco, was part of Brazil’s 1974 World Cup squad because of his performances for Palmeiras.
Whether that makes Lemos someone you would want at your football club is another matter. Lemos, having been working as a football agent in Qatar, took over at Morecambe in September, talking about climbing the leagues and arriving to a fanfare that included the chairman, Peter McGuigan, acclaiming the deal as one that will “secure the long-term financial viability of the club”.
The alarm bells started ringing when the players and staff did not get their wages in October and the club were bailed out by the Professional Footballers’ Association. Lemos, 35, left the country on 17 November and has not been back since. Two directors have subsequently resigned and in a statement on the club website – the club, lest it be forgotten, Lemos owns – one talked about Morecambe and himself being “seriously misled”. As family trees go, it turns out Lemos was the sap. It is still not clear where he is, or what his intentions are, other than the club confirming that communication has “continued to be difficult”. Lemos, a bit like the town’s piers, has disappeared.
It is the kind of imbroglio that would have had a lot more publicity had it been a bigger club but the story of English football’s first Brazilian owner still deserves to be told when, more and more, the people running our clubs seem to operate by the theory of chaos.
The north-west appears to have suffered in particular given the financial meltdowns that have threatened to bring Bolton Wanderers to their knees over recent years, the winding-up orders Bury have dodged and, for anyone who remembers better times at Stockport County, the fact the most recent game at Edgeley Park came against Harrogate Town in the Conference North. Blackpool, under the Oyston regime, have been a basket case for longer than they will care to remember and, likewise, it is difficult to know where to start with the tragicomedy of Blackburn Rovers.
Not that it is confined to just one part of the country when Coventry City, Charlton Athletic and various others have their own horror stories and it did compel me to get in touch with the Football League recently to explore whether it was fully satisfied with its owners and directors’ test or if more could be done to beef it up.
It is a common complaint but, equally, it does feel sometimes as if it is too easy to blame the authorities. Anyone wishing to buy a 30% stake, or higher, in a football club has to provide financial guarantees, as well as evidence about where the money comes from. Nobody is allowed to take a directorial position if he or she has criminal convictions for fraud, or is serving a suspension from another profession. Beyond that, however, it is not entirely easy to know what more the league can do – especially, as in the Morecambe case, when the directors, the local media and the supporters all seem happy with the new arrangement.
All that can really be said is that just because someone appears to have wealth does not automatically make them competent and that it is a relief, finally, that two of the clubs who have suffered from dysfunctional owners in recent years might now be returning to a position where they can hope the worst is behind them.
Leeds United are never going to be a club that attract universal sympathy and it is probably futile expecting everyone to wish them well when so many opinions have been shaped by the kind of infamy that once led Stuart Maconie, the broadcaster and writer, to recall his formative years watching Don Revie’s team as like being in the trance of “11 JR Ewings – duplicitous, untrustworthy, conniving and, as in when they taunted a beaten Southampton with those 32 passes on Match of the Day, heartlessly smug”. Massimo Cellino, serving an 18-month ban for flouting the rules about agent payments, ticks a few of those boxes himself but hopefully Andrea Radrizzani, with his newly acquired 50% stake, will actually mean what he says about being a “fitting custodian” in a way his new business partner rarely has.
Advertisement
Nottingham Forest also deserve a break now John Jay Moores, the former owner of the Major League Baseball franchise San Diego Padres, and his business partner, Charles Noell, are about to take control at a club where, to sum up the level of expertise, questions were asked internally at one stage about why they were spending so much on footballs – the argument being that you could get one for a fiver at the local Asda.
Fawaz al-Hasawi’s bewildering reign has been accompanied by a series of winding-up orders, wages and debts repeatedly being paid late, a transfer embargo for breaching financial fair-play regulations, all sorts of eccentric decision-making and the embarrassment of starting the season with a reduced capacity because the ground did not have a safety-certificate holder. He did at least apologise a few months back, acknowledging that the next owner would be “more professional” and should probably be grateful Forest no longer attract the publicity of old, sparing him too much scrutiny. Suffice to say, however, it will be a blessed relief when the end credits of Carry on Kuwait roll.
This, however, is actually a good example about where the league’s checks – formerly known as the fit-and-proper-person test – can be vulnerable given that Hasawi employed Jim Price, the cousin of the manager, Billy Davies, to help run the club even though he would not have passed the relevant regulations for a directorial role.
Price, previously a solicitor, had been suspended by the Law Society of Scotland because of an investigation, still continuing, into alleged financial irregularities at the Glasgow law firm Ross Harper, which was shut down in April 2012, owing £2.6m to clients and creditors. He was able to start a new career in football with the title of general manager, rather than as a director.
In August 2013, during an era of drastic over-spending for which the club is still suffering, Price dismissed financial fair-play as “illegal and unworkable”. Then, in December 2014, eight months after Price and Davies were removed, Forest were given a transfer embargo, lasting a year and a half, because of their accounts from the 2013-14 season, when he had been prominently involved.
Advertisement
It is just a pity so many owners do not take better care and, back in Morecambe, seven places off the bottom of League Two with the lowest attendances of any club in the top four divisions, the supporters probably deserve a full explanation about what checks the people who ushered in Lemos made themselves. One of the club’s directors, Abdulrahman al-Hashemi, resigned in November, eight days after Lemos’s disappearing act, and only a few weeks after joining the board. Another, Nigel Adams, followed him out just before Christmas and cannot be feeling any better now Lemos’s company, PMG Holdings, formerly owned by McGuigan, has gone into administration.
“What is saddest about this sorry saga is that Morecambe FC has always prided itself on doing things the right way, and had a deserved reputation for doing so,” Greg Lambert, of the Visitor newspaper, has written. “Morecambe was a small-town family club built on traditional values. Now it’s beset by problems.” It all feels depressingly familiar and, as a raft of other clubs can testify, it might get worse before it gets better.
Football clubs suffering as owners experiment with chaos theory
If we are going to be generous, it is fair to assume Diego Lemos must have a few stories that have been passed down through the family. His father, Luisinho Tombo, was the leading scorer in the Rio State League of Brazil on two separate occasions, the most prolific striker in the history of his first club, America, with 311 goals, and played alongside Zico at Flamengo. One uncle, Caio Cambalhota, was at Flamengo and another, César Maluco, was part of Brazil’s 1974 World Cup squad because of his performances for Palmeiras.
Whether that makes Lemos someone you would want at your football club is another matter. Lemos, having been working as a football agent in Qatar, took over at Morecambe in September, talking about climbing the leagues and arriving to a fanfare that included the chairman, Peter McGuigan, acclaiming the deal as one that will “secure the long-term financial viability of the club”.
The alarm bells started ringing when the players and staff did not get their wages in October and the club were bailed out by the Professional Footballers’ Association. Lemos, 35, left the country on 17 November and has not been back since. Two directors have subsequently resigned and in a statement on the club website – the club, lest it be forgotten, Lemos owns – one talked about Morecambe and himself being “seriously misled”. As family trees go, it turns out Lemos was the sap. It is still not clear where he is, or what his intentions are, other than the club confirming that communication has “continued to be difficult”. Lemos, a bit like the town’s piers, has disappeared.
It is the kind of imbroglio that would have had a lot more publicity had it been a bigger club but the story of English football’s first Brazilian owner still deserves to be told when, more and more, the people running our clubs seem to operate by the theory of chaos.
The north-west appears to have suffered in particular given the financial meltdowns that have threatened to bring Bolton Wanderers to their knees over recent years, the winding-up orders Bury have dodged and, for anyone who remembers better times at Stockport County, the fact the most recent game at Edgeley Park came against Harrogate Town in the Conference North. Blackpool, under the Oyston regime, have been a basket case for longer than they will care to remember and, likewise, it is difficult to know where to start with the tragicomedy of Blackburn Rovers.
Not that it is confined to just one part of the country when Coventry City, Charlton Athletic and various others have their own horror stories and it did compel me to get in touch with the Football League recently to explore whether it was fully satisfied with its owners and directors’ test or if more could be done to beef it up.
It is a common complaint but, equally, it does feel sometimes as if it is too easy to blame the authorities. Anyone wishing to buy a 30% stake, or higher, in a football club has to provide financial guarantees, as well as evidence about where the money comes from. Nobody is allowed to take a directorial position if he or she has criminal convictions for fraud, or is serving a suspension from another profession. Beyond that, however, it is not entirely easy to know what more the league can do – especially, as in the Morecambe case, when the directors, the local media and the supporters all seem happy with the new arrangement.
All that can really be said is that just because someone appears to have wealth does not automatically make them competent and that it is a relief, finally, that two of the clubs who have suffered from dysfunctional owners in recent years might now be returning to a position where they can hope the worst is behind them.
Leeds United are never going to be a club that attract universal sympathy and it is probably futile expecting everyone to wish them well when so many opinions have been shaped by the kind of infamy that once led Stuart Maconie, the broadcaster and writer, to recall his formative years watching Don Revie’s team as like being in the trance of “11 JR Ewings – duplicitous, untrustworthy, conniving and, as in when they taunted a beaten Southampton with those 32 passes on Match of the Day, heartlessly smug”. Massimo Cellino, serving an 18-month ban for flouting the rules about agent payments, ticks a few of those boxes himself but hopefully Andrea Radrizzani, with his newly acquired 50% stake, will actually mean what he says about being a “fitting custodian” in a way his new business partner rarely has.
Advertisement
Nottingham Forest also deserve a break now John Jay Moores, the former owner of the Major League Baseball franchise San Diego Padres, and his business partner, Charles Noell, are about to take control at a club where, to sum up the level of expertise, questions were asked internally at one stage about why they were spending so much on footballs – the argument being that you could get one for a fiver at the local Asda.
Fawaz al-Hasawi’s bewildering reign has been accompanied by a series of winding-up orders, wages and debts repeatedly being paid late, a transfer embargo for breaching financial fair-play regulations, all sorts of eccentric decision-making and the embarrassment of starting the season with a reduced capacity because the ground did not have a safety-certificate holder. He did at least apologise a few months back, acknowledging that the next owner would be “more professional” and should probably be grateful Forest no longer attract the publicity of old, sparing him too much scrutiny. Suffice to say, however, it will be a blessed relief when the end credits of Carry on Kuwait roll.
This, however, is actually a good example about where the league’s checks – formerly known as the fit-and-proper-person test – can be vulnerable given that Hasawi employed Jim Price, the cousin of the manager, Billy Davies, to help run the club even though he would not have passed the relevant regulations for a directorial role.
Price, previously a solicitor, had been suspended by the Law Society of Scotland because of an investigation, still continuing, into alleged financial irregularities at the Glasgow law firm Ross Harper, which was shut down in April 2012, owing £2.6m to clients and creditors. He was able to start a new career in football with the title of general manager, rather than as a director.
In August 2013, during an era of drastic over-spending for which the club is still suffering, Price dismissed financial fair-play as “illegal and unworkable”. Then, in December 2014, eight months after Price and Davies were removed, Forest were given a transfer embargo, lasting a year and a half, because of their accounts from the 2013-14 season, when he had been prominently involved.
Advertisement
It is just a pity so many owners do not take better care and, back in Morecambe, seven places off the bottom of League Two with the lowest attendances of any club in the top four divisions, the supporters probably deserve a full explanation about what checks the people who ushered in Lemos made themselves. One of the club’s directors, Abdulrahman al-Hashemi, resigned in November, eight days after Lemos’s disappearing act, and only a few weeks after joining the board. Another, Nigel Adams, followed him out just before Christmas and cannot be feeling any better now Lemos’s company, PMG Holdings, formerly owned by McGuigan, has gone into administration.
“What is saddest about this sorry saga is that Morecambe FC has always prided itself on doing things the right way, and had a deserved reputation for doing so,” Greg Lambert, of the Visitor newspaper, has written. “Morecambe was a small-town family club built on traditional values. Now it’s beset by problems.” It all feels depressingly familiar and, as a raft of other clubs can testify, it might get worse before it gets better.
