So, wer have appointed Mike Rigg - a guy from the FA as our Chief Football Officer. Mr Khan explains all and expands on Huw & Alistair's roles going forward. http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2014/december/29/shahid-khan-welcomes-mike-rigg
Signed Roque Santa Cruz at City for £18m and Esteban Granero at QPR for £9m. Seems legitimate. But seriously, he seems to have decent football pedigree so can be a director of football without the danger of him wanting to play at manager. Ali Mac can then concentrate on the financial side (which is much better at), so this could be a good move. Interesting January ahead.
I would appear we now have the structure to move our beloved club on into a new era. We have some of the best around and already a grand academy. Hopefully with all this in place and the future looking more than promising we will encourage some of our great young talents to stay with the club and develop with us. I saw LVC was being touted on earlier, players such as him and the fantastic group of youngsters we have are what we need to keep. They also know they will get their opportunities as we move on. We do need a plan to replace Scotty as time is never going to be rolled backwards, and Ruiz when he leaves this January. That's what I hope we achieve in the transfer window. Oh and a full back! LOL! COYW!
Sorry, but I'm not convinced by this Pyramid building. To me it Isolates Kit's job to a 'Shop Floor role'. Who is going to dictate transfer matters the CFO, CEO or the manager. Should we start to sing Mike Rigg's Black & White Army !!!!!! Words like 'the Fulham brand', 'organisational shift', 'collaboratively', 'the optimal way', make me go cold on the future of Fulham. For me Khan just talks a lot of PR BS, he should save his jargon speeches for the Corporate partners. Maybe Alan Sugar might understand his 'Business plan'. For me Khan's leadership of our Football Club has been poor to say the least, and seems to be getting worse.
I believe we do need a Management and Business Plan to enable us to move on beyond the current 2014/15 season, rather than harboring on past thoughts of the 1900's. From what I read the selection of potential newcomers to our beloved team is a collaborative effort by Kit and the new CFO as he is looking and advising of the bigger picture. The forum has already said Kit is inexperienced in the players market, the CFO will be a positive addition. I know we all think of the club being ours but the reality is that Mr K owns the club, will finance what we need, such as the new Riverside Stand, players, managers and the tea lady (do people have tea ladies nowadays?), and will always have the final say. So we need to support his philosophy and judge him once everything is in place, probably 2 years hence. IMHO
Don’t know how Shad Khan came up with this guy’s name but he obviously wants his own man in. Hence his not giving the job to Huw Jenkins, which would have simply enhanced the current in-house clique. I only hope that Mr Rigg doesn’t upset the excellent work Huw has done with the Academy. Rigg seems to move jobs pretty frequently so I’m guessing that, while his remit may be to look at the “bigger picture”, it’s a short rather than long term appointment. And the timing immediately ahead of the transfer window opening tomorrow can’t be a coincidence. A major question is whether Khan will put up new money in this window. Or if , as seems more likely, Rigg will be tasked with raising cash through the sale of the likes of Ruiz, Mitroglou and perhaps even Hugo. We’ve also got an awful lot of players on the books who aren’t getting near the first team squad (you all know who they are), so Rigg must surely be looking to off-load them as well. Frankly handling that and trying to get performances on the pitch, I think, would have been too much for Kit (and Ali Mac appears not to have Khan‘s confidence). Also Rigg, from his past experience has, the football contacts, to make things happen quickly. From that point of view the appontment would seem a sensible move. Just on Ali Mac. On the face of it this appears to be a diminution of responsibility with him now concentrating on commercial, rather than football, matters. My first reaction was that this must be good, especially with the Riverside Development in mind. I’ve also read on the “Supporter’s Trust” site that Mackintosh has said that no date had yet been fixed or tenders invited. This not only surprised me - I thought the Buckingham Group already had the contract - but dismayed me - with only something like 5 months left before planning permission expires. Nonetheless I’ll remain positive and assume that part of the re-shuffle is to kick start the Development (or, as Jol would say, “hopefully”!) [As an aside, does anyone know if Mackintosh and Rigg overlapped in their time at Man City?]
I think having the correct structure in place to move forward is essential. In truth this is 3 years too late for me. We needed this structure to stop the decline, although I think Jol wouldn't have wanted it. Time will tell but for me this sends the opposite message, we have faith in our inexperienced manager so lets give him resources and guidance that he needs.
Although Mike Rigg will give "some input" in the interim, he won't officially join us before March. Negotitiations with the FA about his release date are ongoing. Don't therefore expect a bumper January Transfer Window.
