Greg Clarke arrives with vision of transparency for Football League
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/mar/12/greg-clarke-football-league1/print
• Mawhinney's successor at Football League unveiled
• Warns clubs must be wary of 'brutal' financial future
Leeds United could be obliged to make public the identity of their
offshore-registered owner before the start of next season. That will be
the outcome if the Football League's incoming chairman, Greg Clarke,
successfully implements his ambitious transparency drive.
Clarke was today revealed as the successor to Lord Mawhinney, whose
eight-year tenure expires this month. Clarke, who is 52, joins the
League after 14 years as chief executive of multinationals including
Cable & Wireless and Lend Lease, the Australian conglomerate from which
he returned to the UK this year.
He has already held a series of meetings with the league's management
team and in his first address to the media Clarke was forthright about
his belief that governance must constantly be improved. "I have a
propensity to think that transparency is a wonderful thing," he said.
"When you see countries and companies who are not transparent, terrible
things happen.
"When five to 10 clubs have serious trouble because they have not
thought through how to handle the downside it is a problem. The highest
priority is to ensure clubs are transparent and financially viable. That
will include clubs stating who owns them. I understand we won't get
there tomorrow but we should be in a position to do it as soon as possible."
Clarke's ambitions are in that respect no different from Lord
Mawhinney's. However, he comes into the role in a deteriorating
financial climate and believes fears of future hardship present an
opportunity to persuade clubs to support tighter regulation. "The
country is in for a brutal five to 10 years," said Clarke. "Most
spending on football clubs is discretionary. It would be irresponsible
of me to allow people to relax; we need people to think about what they
have to do if things go wrong. It is very important that as many clubs
as possible get through these tough five to 10 years."
Yet he is also canny enough to recognise that for certain owners,
financial difficulty will be seen as a motivation to oppose his
transparency measures. In an environment where the clubs must themselves
vote for the regulations that govern them, the key will be to win favour
among the majority, overriding the objectors.
"Some of the club owners will be bleeding £5m to £10m a year and me
preaching transparency when they could lose their house is not what they
want to hear," he said. "But it's the art of the possible. It's about
convincing people. And I'll treat all Football League chairmen with
respect for their views. People will bitterly resent oversight of their
financial affairs. But you have to convince people that it is in the
long-term interests of the clubs."
Clarke will not merely sermonise, though, and he set the example for his
plans to run clubs more openly with an honest response to the question
about what he will earn as the league chairman. "£150,000 a year for a
three-day week," he said. "But I'll be working six."
That alone may not be enough to persuade awkward chairmen to vote for
the introduction to more stringent rules. But where Clarke may have a
bridgehead in that battle is that he has himself lost money in keeping a
club afloat. Having grown up on a council estate in Leicester he became
chairman of Leicester City following their relegation in 2002. As he
restructured the insolvent club for a consortium involving Gary Lineker
and his agent, Jon Holmes, Clarke personally lost £500,000.
"We made lots of mistakes at Leicester and I have learnt from them," he
said. "I understand what people running clubs are going through. I
understand when the manager wants to play the on-loan striker but you
have to say no, because you can't afford the loan fee."
Clarke envisages that he will be in the post at Gloucester Place for the
long haul. "I'll be here as long as the league board wants me," he said.
"This is such a good job, why would I ever want to leave it?"
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