And? Does that mean Cortese no longer had the right to continue doing the job Markus hired him to do?
It did when it became obvious that KL no longer wanted him to do it that way. At what stage do you imagine Markus said to Cortese: "Look, I want this club to win no matter what. If you have to, make sure to ride rough shod over my daughter. She's weak. She'll try to get you to be sensible financially. **** that. What I want you to do is put the squeeze on her. Pressure her to do it your way. If possible, just suggest you'll resign, then invite a load of journalists over and make them love you. Cos, you know, I hate that bitch."
Where is your evidence that any of this happened? Where is any evidence that he was running the club any differently to the way he did when Markus was alive?
Are you reading what I'm saying or just in the mood to argue on your own terms? I said things changed when Markus died and his daughter took over. He seemed to see her as a threat / obstacle and rather than work with her, he put the squeeze on her. If he was all about the club, he'd have worked within her limits. He wasn't. He was all about his ego.
the way he was running the club clearly did not match KL's expectation. Evidence; he is no longer there!
Again: where is your evidence for any of this? And what makes you think Katharina's expectations were the same as Markus'?
Joe, it is standard in an argument to look at what people are saying and respond to that. I never said her expectations were the same as her fathers. I said the club was hers and he treated it as if I were his. Where is the evidence that you read what I posted?
Yes, because they had different ideas of how they wanted the club to be run, or so it was told. Where does the "threat/obstacle" and "putting the squeeze on her" crap come into it?
As much as I hate to keep repeating myself...you're pulling things out of your arse again! He was the chairman. He was doing a chairman's job.
Right. So he left because he wanted to keep doing the chairman's job (running the club as the owner, KL, wants it run)? You say I'm pulling things out of my arse, but so far you've just jumped belligerently on every comment without any facts of your own. It's like talking to a teenage boy.
Where are your facts? You've stated that he was "putting the squeeze on her", that he saw her as an "obstacle", that he was treating the club as his "plaything", despite there being absolutely no evidence for any of that. I like to stick to what we actually know (which unfortunately is very little), rather than make my own stories up to fill the gaps. All we do know is that Markus hired him as chairman, and he continued to do the job of chairman until Katharina decided she didn't like how he was doing it. Markus was happy to take a backseat. Why was Katharina not? I don't know. You don't know. I'm not going to make things up to try and explain it.
never said they were. I did say that the way he was running it did not meet HER expectations, hence he was no longer there
He could never do what he promised because it wasn't his money, and he had no right to sell players on any "vision" other than the one his employers laid out for him. Cortese never sold the players on Saints as a club. He tried to sell them on Cortese. But he really had nothing to offer. It was a Ponzi scheme. You get some money from the Board to sign players. Not a lot, but just enough so that if you are clever you can make it seem like you're the man. Travel in style, buy off some reporters, act the bigshot so that players believe you when you promise them big things and assure them you are calling the shots. You then use those players and their loyalty to you as leverage against the Board to obtain more money. You then take that money and get more players. The team gets better, you become more indispensible, and eventually you are the de facto leader of the club. And maybe NC was thinking, hey if we get Champion's League football then KL makes a pile of cash, all the players make a ton of money, and the fans are happy. It all works out. But it's a big gamble going all in like that. And Cortese was gambling other people's money. Problem is, at some point the players are going to wonder what happened to all the Bugati Veyrons you promised and why the club is not pushing harder for CL when you promised them you were planning to spend 50 million on transfers every year. And the board is going to start to wonder why everyone has the perception that you are running things and that you're going to spend 50 million on transfers.
I have no disagreement with that; it's just not really what we're talking about. It's more about why did he not meet her expectations, and some mad accusations about him taking Katharina for a ride and treating the club like his plaything.
The one major flaw in this otherwise fascinating story is that he couldn't (and didn't) just keep leveraging cash injections from the board because that wouldn't comply with FFP. Transfers were paid for with money the club stood to earn.
Isn't it obvious? It was Markus's project and he entrusted Cortese to run it for him. When it became Katharina's project, and it was her money being spent, by a man she didn't trust, of course something had to give. I sympathise with your view that we shouldn't fill in gaps with speculation, but some of this stuff is pretty much undeniable.
Initially Markus would know Saints was going to be a money pit with the promise of the EPL at the end. The rapid promotion meant that Nicola had to find money to fund a season in the EPL without any EPL money due until the end. At that point, he borrowed money and set it against our Sky money...something he swore he wouldn't do, but needs must so not blaming him for that. However, we needed to do better financially in our second season. Kreuger has mentioned that we have fallen behind in the commercial side....we can all see that just by looking at the boxes...they were always full in our previous PL incarnation. Katharina wanted more control and invited Nicola to stay but with a different style management. He chose not to...didn't fancy being second fiddle, thought he had gone as far as he could, who knows the reason.
That's a far more reasonable assumption than "he was a tyrant who wanted to take her business for a joyride". Though I think those rumours about it being to do with if/when/how the club should be sold might be key.
