APN_EFC
Player Valuation: £25m
The communication of overall strategy is an ongoing disgrace at this club. We see it on display now with the managerial situation. It's been a disgrace for years and its got no better under Moshiri. The club seem to think it ticks a box by meeting up with a hand picked group of poodles called The Everton Forum and the small shareholders association every blue moon.
What has gotten worse under this new ownership regime, though, is their use of intermediaries who have little or no direct relationship with the club to dose out bits of message for them:
The stadium: the communication we "rely" on for that are an American stadium designer who may or may not get the job of designing a new stadium should it ever happen, and from a local mayor who appears just to like the sound of his own voice. The promised key principles document of a few months back? It's delayed for what reason? We dont know...they wont tell us. They wont tell us because they see no value in telling us. It just adds complication for them, so they keep us in the dark. Then they and their dwindling band of supporters wonder why many of us are sceptical about the whole project.
Now we have the managerial situation: an utter shambles from a PR point of view. The last thing we heard on the subject was a message handed to us via SSN stating basically "dont hold your breath on an announcement". Nothing from Everton. We, three weeks to the day that Koeman was sacked, have been given no further information. We're presently just shy of a relegation place and knocked out of two cups already with European qualification for next season pretty much beyond us, and we dont even know if the man they slotted in for four games is taking us on or whether a new manager is under consideration.
I doubt there's any other club that would treat its fans this way. It's a disgrace of an organisation at the top - an utter midden of a club for communication.
I think this is related to the overall business management of the club. We are unfortunately a little bit slow to embrace the reality that we have to be commercially smart, and that's why we are perhaps the only top club (ok top outside of the top 6) who don't have a proper upgraded or new stadium.
I wrote this somewhere else but I think there are other improvements I would love to see the club taking advantage of. Our unique nature - a 'family-friendly, local grassroots, 'authentic', promote our own' type of club - whatever all that means - does not have to be lost. In fact, in the new PL era where we are getting fans all the time, we can position ourselves as the only genuine authentic club, the only club who supports local british talent, has a fighting spirit, punches above its weight, has a good young squad, with some great senior pros, and yet we have these great 'relationships' with people like Arteta, Cahill, Niasse, ..all these international players who just get loved by the fans. Whatever it is, there's a lot to sell about Everton without us losing our identity.
However :
- We don't capitalise on promotional or financial opportunities enough. Whether or not he was a good goalkeeper, Tim Howard is a super popular player and loyal to Everton. We didn't capitalise on possible USA promotion enough during his time with us. Are we really promoting Rooney as a player with us - although he messed up a lot with his image
- Commercial tie ups with us seem to be with B grade companies and brands. Angry Birds is huge, though a bit weird, but SportPesa?! must be rich, but is it modern enough and responsible as a big company to tie up with a betting firm? We don't have the finger on the pulse there because it's not good for our image I think.
-Backroom staff - have we got proper technicians and coaches who are good at sports science, physio, tactics ,talent spotting. What is Steve Walsh's role?
- Line Management of football staff - who is really holding the manager to account. you could have changed Koeman with some tough line management, and direction, rather than apparently leaving the whole thing to him.
Communication yes is definitely a bit old fashioned and eccentric now, with Moshiri, and it seems as though we are not ruthless at all and this is coming through in our performance