The Club Buy Out - 10000 Hours

[Gruffalo]

Wilbur another sensible post

The CiC and the Club have to be two separate entities and such should be run as two completely businesses. If that means different people then so be it.

The Club will be accountable to the CiC and the other 48% shareholders. It needs to be run as a football club with ambition and living within it means. It will not have a sugar daddy to bail it out. But it needs to be run by football people with a football mind.

The CiC will be accountable to its members and the Regulator. It needs to be run as a community business at a profit in order to survive. It will have sugar daddies to bail it out, ie us the members. It needs to be run by people who have both business and charity experience.

[chico]

Div, I don't see how you can divorce these two Boards. With a 52% controlling interest, the CIC can pull the strings at the football club. The football club Board will have no autonomy. It will operate under the jurisdiction of, and within parameters set by, the CIC Board. Without football-minded people in charge of the CIC we are stuffed. Would you describe Richard Atkinson as a 'football person' with St Mirren FC in his blood ?

Good point but we need business minded people on the board and with the CIC to earn the dough and save cash where possible in order that its therefor the football people to use.

Ideally, both the CIC and main football club boards will have that mix.

For me it needs to be a mix.

[div]

Div, I don't see how you can divorce these two Boards. With a 52% controlling interest, the CIC can pull the strings at the football club. The football club Board will have no autonomy. It will operate under the jurisdiction of, and within parameters set by, the CIC Board. Without football-minded people in charge of the CIC we are stuffed. Would you describe Richard Atkinson as a 'football person' with St Mirren FC in his blood ?

No I wouldn't, and I think the last year has been an eye opening experience for both Richard and Chris. They have however pushed some of the "but it's always been done that way" rules and have had some successes along the way (along with some failures).

At the end of the day the football manager and the rest of the coaching staff are employed to do the football side justice, they have a budget which is mandated from the board for business reasons and it's up to them to deliver within the restrictions that the budget imposes.

Having said that it strikes me that we have a young and sometimes naive manager, and we have an operations manager who with all due respect doesn't seem to help much with the footballing side of things as far as I can see. The numerous transfer debacles over the past few seasons bear testament to that.

A director of football is maybe what is required, that always works well

Wilbur another sensible post

The CiC and the Club have to be two separate entities and such should be run as two completely businesses. If that means different people then so be it.

The Club will be accountable to the CiC and the other 48% shareholders. It needs to be run as a football club with ambition and living within it means. It will not have a sugar daddy to bail it out. But it needs to be run by football people with a football mind.

The CiC will be accountable to its members and the Regulator. It needs to be run as a community business at a profit in order to survive. It will have sugar daddies to bail it out, ie us the members. It needs to be run by people who have both business and charity experience.

Spot on, green dotted.

[bluto]

The club shouldn't rely financially on the CIC at all. It should rely financially exactly as it does under SG and the current BOD - on gate money, TV money, sponsorship money, merchandising sales, money from cup runs, money from finishing as high up the SPL as possible.

I'm also assuming these profits are over and above the current operations of the club itself.

The answer was just above your post, tsumirren. Your assumption is correct.

[Stuart Dickson]

I'm not disageeing with you Stuart -.goes without saying RA saw the operation at Greenhill Road as a great vehicle for a CIC, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered. My point is that I don't buy into the view that the CIC will not be looking at on-field success as a priority. 5 of the CIC board will be from the individual membership, and those 5 will have been elected. To be elected these 5 will have to sell themselves to the members and prove they are capable. I think it's fair to say all 5, whoever they may be, will have on-field matters as a priority. They won't stand much chance if being elected if they don't.

Maybe that would be the wrong criteria for voting for a candidate though Poz.

Look, for the sake of clarity I'll declare my hand. I have no interest in being a candidate for three reason - I have very little spare time currently, I am already heavily involved on a football committee, and my wife would kill me if I volunteered away more of the precious time I have to spend with her and the kids. I have very little interest in having a vote in who is appointed, and the thought of watching some kind of promise auction on football websites and candidates campaign for votes puts a chill down my spine. I don't regard myself as a St Mirren supporter - I haven't done for some 9 years now - and to be honest it's irrelevant to me whether St Mirren enjoy on field success or not.

The reason I am on here following the debate, and the reason I'd consider becoming an individual member and the reason I'd consider paying the £500 to register the football team I work with as a community member is that I love football and I think football should be done much better in Scotland than it is currently. Senior football clubs SHOULD be actively involved with juvenile football right across the country. They should be sharing their expertise. Their players should be cutting their teeth as coaches helping out in training sessions. There should be a cooperation between the clubs that sees kit and equipment orders collated and submitted at the same time to save everyone money. And football clubs should be tapping into those clubs and bringing the kids in those squads through the turnstyles at football grounds ensuring football has an appeal for the future generations.

Now having said I'm out what I would like to see is candidates who will strive to do the right thing for future of football in this country. The game has been f**ked here by directors following their own greedy self interests and the protectionist bullshit in the SPL has done more damage to the quality of the game in this country than anything else. I'd be hoping that the strongest candidates at St Mirren would be the very people who recognised that without focus on the off the field activities the on the field promises will never be sustainable.

Remember Fergie gave St Mirren the era of Abercrombie, Stark, Richardson, Reid, Weir, McGarvey and Fitzpatrick. The Fitzpatrick era gave St Mirren Archibald, Wishart and Manley.

Edited April 19, 2011 by Stuart Dickson

[pozbaird]

If you have no interest in putting yourself forward as a candidate, have no interest in who does, and have no interest in how those candidates 'sell thenselves' to earn a place on the CIC board, then I sincerely hope you don't come on here following any CIC deal coming to fruition to wax lyrical about it all.

Personally, I don't know if the CIC is for the best or not, but from now on I'll reserve debating the merits or otherwise of it with St Mirren fans who actually give a fcuk about the club, and who do think it's relevant if the team enjoy on-field success or not.

Thanks.

Edited April 19, 2011 by pozbaird

[Isle Of Bute Saint]

If you have no interest in putting yourself forward as a candidate, have no interest in who does, and have no interest in how those candidates 'sell thenselves' to earn a place on the CIC board, then I sincerely hope you don't come on here following any CIC deal coming to fruition to wax lyrical about it all.

Personally, I don't know if the CIC is for the best or not, but from now on I'll reserve debating the merits or otherwise of it with St Mirren fans who actually give a fcuk about the club.

Thanks.

Green dot, I really don't get Stuart

[St. Sid]

It know it must be my age but I still can't make up my mind about this CIC deal.

In life there are occasional WIN : WIN situations but more often than not for every winner there is a loser. With this deal I see the big winners being the current BOD who get their long-awaited payout, the 'community' who will gain access to new facilities and, if I understand correctly, St Mirren FC because of the stability / protected status to be gained through being owned (52%) by the CIC.

Have I got that bit right or am I already shooting off in the wrong direction ? Are there any losers in this deal ? Perhaps the current shareholders who are not part of the sell-out gang and whose clout will effectively be zero with a 52% shareholding dictating the agenda (no change from the current status I suppose). I'm just not sure if there will be a genuine commitment to driving the football club forward. Is there likely to be any footballing ambition from the new people in charge ? (Please don't use Tony Fitzpatrick's puppet involvement in this venture as a sign of any footballing ambition from the CIC). On one hand it will be marvellous if the creation of the CIC preserves St Mirren FC for future generations but I would hate to think that the football side of things could become of secondary importance to the CIC's other well-intentioned aims. Would the fans back the CIC if all they had to look forward to was a 'safe' future supporting a toothless wonder ?

No abuse please. Yes Sid, I know I'm an old plonker, but having witnessed Richard Atkinson's CIC proposal presentation more than once I still don't feel confident that this is the best way forward for St Mirren FC.

Wouldn't dream of abuseing such a good post ya plonker.

It is a good honest post and I don't it is too far off the mark for how most of us are feeling. It is a massive change in how a football club runs, and the one thing that is for certain it is complex. Poor somner9 was just about starting to formulate half decent questions when he decided to storm off in the huff. It is complex and grasping the bigger picture isn't that easy as we all have pretty solid perceptions of how a football club is traditionally run. I think the drip feed has been the right way to deal with this - dropping all the detail on everyone would have caused even greater bewilderment and angst. However, the downside is the 2 + 2 = 5 knickerwetting / scaremongering stuff - and none of them even from an alias of mine.

Your post has produced some very good responses. For me I think what we will end up with is the CIC board working with the support to define the big picture decisions. As in, how we balance the ticket prices versus the player budget.....that in itself will be a hornets nest for the CIC board to sort out. You then have the SMFC Ltd Board who would resposible for executing the decisions of the CIC Board....negotiating player contracts, setting pricing for advertising hoardings, banning SPS from the family stand, etc.

I think your point about focus on the community initiatives taking the focus of key people away from the football initiatives is well worth a response from the CIC chaps. From my view we already do a lot in the community. Gary whit his cheeks does a cracking job and wee Danny plays his part wherever he can. I know it is quite different from what you are talking about; however having someone like Danny on board as manager who sees his role as more than just managing the first team squad has made a helluva difference to the club and I don't think it has distracted from the on field activities.

St Mirren is currently all about football - a good thing as we are all about football too. However, that does narrow our opportunity. With an entire community behind us rather than the very distinct special interest football group I think we will benefit greatly. There will be more talent, more skills, more knowledge available to us. People will no longer be locked out of the club looking in and hoping for something to happen to allow us to grow and improve. We will be able to access funding streams currently unavailable to us. And if we don't like the f'k'rs on the BoD we just vote them out and replace them with someone prepared to deliver what we as supporters want. Currently we have hee-haw influence whatsoever on what happens at the club and depend on the will of the Board for something like the drop in prices at the @ccies and @berdeen games.

I don't think there will be that many nominations to go on the BoD. There will be a shedload of unpaid work to do and a entire B&WArmy of knockers moaning like f"k about everything from pie prices to standing only sections, etc. I know some people I would like to see nominated; however they have lives outside of St Mirren and I suspect they won't be interested as they won't be able to do the role justice. We all have the "when I win the lottery I'll buy the club" day dreams, but the reality of taking up a place on the BoD and taking responsibility for the hopes and dreams of a grumpy and frankly at times unhinged support might not deliver the pipe dream we expected.

Initially we will require BoD members that understand the CIC model to see us through the early stages. Following that the membership categories should deliver the right blend of talent and accountability we would like. Energy, ideas and experience from the corporate members, the community members to drive the community aspect and deliver further funding, and the supporters to make sure that it is all in the interests of what happens on the pitch.

Or to paraphrase - Aye, ah know but its f'k'n majik anyway.

Edited April 19, 2011 by St. Sid

[St. Sid]

Aye, right.

I'm out.

Always suspected.

[Stuart Dickson]

If you have no interest in putting yourself forward as a candidate, have no interest in who does, and have no interest in how those candidates 'sell thenselves' to earn a place on the CIC board, then I sincerely hope you don't come on here following any CIC deal coming to fruition to wax lyrical about it all.

Personally, I don't know if the CIC is for the best or not, but from now on I'll reserve debating the merits or otherwise of it with St Mirren fans who actually give a fcuk about the club, and who do think it's relevant if the team enjoy on-field success or not.

Thanks.

You won't get sustainable on field success without off field success - that was the point I was making. Did you not understand the last line in my post? Fitzpatrick tried to buy on field success and you landed up with Stevie Archibald, Roddy Manley and Fraser Wishart. Your club spent a fortune of players that flopped badly.

Ferguson took care of the off the pitch stuff. Scouting and contact networks were built up. He dragged people into the ground kicking and screaming and he built a young side that could put on a show. Fergie did it right. What you are calling for is for candidates to come on here promising transfer budgets and more money for the playing side. Those promises won't be sustainable unless you can sort out the off the field activities to boost the revenue coming into the club. If you can't get your head around that then there would have been no point in trying to debate with you anyway....

Like you I don't know if the CIC thing is for the best or not. What I do know is that your current board ignored the massive potential that should have been tapped long ago and that at the very least the CIC mob are talking the right language.

[Stuart Dickson]

If you have no interest in putting yourself forward as a candidate, have no interest in who does, and have no interest in how those candidates 'sell thenselves' to earn a place on the CIC board, then I sincerely hope you don't come on here following any CIC deal coming to fruition to wax lyrical about it all.

Personally, I don't know if the CIC is for the best or not, but from now on I'll reserve debating the merits or otherwise of it with St Mirren fans who actually give a fcuk about the club, and who do think it's relevant if the team enjoy on-field success or not.

Thanks.

You won't get sustainable on field success without off field success - that was the point I was making. Did you not understand the last line in my post? Fitzpatrick tried to buy on field success and you landed up with Stevie Archibald, Roddy Manley and Fraser Wishart. Your club spent a fortune of players that flopped badly.

Ferguson took care of the off the pitch stuff. Scouting and contact networks were built up. He dragged people into the ground kicking and screaming and he built a young side that could put on a show. Fergie did it right. What you are calling for is for candidates to come on here promising transfer budgets and more money for the playing side. Those promises won't be sustainable unless you can sort out the off the field activities to boost the revenue coming into the club. If you can't get your head around that then there would have been no point in trying to debate with you anyway....

Like you I don't know if the CIC thing is for the best or not. What I do know is that your current board ignored the massive potential that should have been tapped long ago and that at the very least the CIC mob are talking the right language.

[10000hours]

It know it must be my age but I still can't make up my mind about this CIC deal.

In life there are occasional WIN : WIN situations but more often than not for every winner there is a loser. With this deal I see the big winners being the current BOD who get their long-awaited payout, the 'community' who will gain access to new facilities and, if I understand correctly, St Mirren FC because of the stability / protected status to be gained through being owned (52%) by the CIC.

Have I got that bit right or am I already shooting off in the wrong direction ? Are there any losers in this deal ?

We think this is one of those rare WIN:WIN situations. But they are very rare so it is correct to be cautious.

Perhaps the current shareholders who are not part of the sell-out gang and whose clout will effectively be zero with a 52% shareholding dictating the agenda (no change from the current status I suppose).

As is noted in the document the CIC considers the 48% to be just as important a section of the community as anyone else and so will give them in fact more garanteed power than the have as a 48% just now, by the CIC (52%) shareholder garanteeing the right of the 48% to elect by simple majority amoungst the 48% at least one board member, there is certainly no garantee at all that any other form of purchase of the 52% majority will give this sort of right to the minority

I'm just not sure if there will be a genuine commitment to driving the football club forward. Is there likely to be any footballing ambition from the new people in charge ? (Please don't use Tony Fitzpatrick's puppet involvement in this venture as a sign of any footballing ambition from the CIC).

Please belive that there is massive ambition amongst those involved in the CIC, but the new people in charge will be representatives or indeed actually YOU and do you have passion? I suspect so.

Tony is in no way a puppet in the venture he has been involved in the background on a weekly and sometime daily basis for well over a year.

On one hand it will be marvellous if the creation of the CIC preserves St Mirren FC for future generations

It will

but I would hate to think that the football side of things could become of secondary importance to the CIC's other well-intentioned aims.

It wont

Would the fans back the CIC if all they had to look forward to was a 'safe' future supporting a toothless wonder ?

Fans back their team through thick and thin. The CIC is no garantee of success, but it is a garantee that if there is an issue that the fans do not like then the power will be in the hands of the fans to resolve it, something which we dont think any other traditional sort of ownership structure as seen generally throughout Scottish football would allow

No abuse please. Yes Sid, I know I'm an old plonker, but having witnessed Richard Atkinson's CIC proposal presentation more than once I still don't feel confident that this is the best way forward for St Mirren FC.

Well hopefully you will come to a third version of the presentaion and we will try again to convince you, we look forward to it.

[spirit of 77]

The suggestion that Provan Sports were ditched as the club's retail partner because they refused to back the CIC plan, while Carbrini @ JD Sports won the kit contract because they did is possibly the biggest load of old shite I've read on here in a long time.

Who said that?

[div]

You won't get sustainable on field success without off field success - that was the point I was making. Did you not understand the last line in my post? Fitzpatrick tried to buy on field success and you landed up with Stevie Archibald, Roddy Manley and Fraser Wishart. Your club spent a fortune of players that flopped badly.

In fairness the money spent on those players was offset by some hefty money coming in from the sale of playersi n the years before hand.

We scooped £850K for Ferguson, we got £300K for Ian Cameron, christ sake we even got £275K for David Winnie and the same for Brian Hamilton !

In the pre-bosman days buying and selling players was very much part and parcel of the game in Scotland at that time.

Dundee Utd were beating Barcelona home and away back then, it was a totally different era from the one we are in now.

I think you are right though, that in 2011 the game needs a very different approach and it is one we are already well ahead on the curve on IMO whether we have a CIC or not.

The club took a very difficult decision to invest heavily in Ralston when we moved stadium, and I think the fruits of that are beginning to be seen with the number of Saints players making their way into the national sides at u-16, u-17, u-19 levels.

If we can keep up that investment the fuure is bright for us on the pitch and the frankly outstanding work the club is already doing in the community means we will hopefully have a whole new generation of support within the Renfrewshire area.

I have never seen as many kids wearing St.Mirren shirts in and around town as I have done in recent years.

[Isle Of Bute Saint]

10,000 Hours,

Can I ask what percentage of loans will be taken out and how long the repayment period will be for this.

[TsuMirren]

In fairness the money spent on those players was offset by some hefty money coming in from the sale of playersi n the years before hand.

We scooped £850K for Ferguson, we got £300K for Ian Cameron, christ sake we even got £275K for David Winnie and the same for Brian Hamilton !

100K for Chalmers and the same for Keith Walker.

That said, Torfason, Stickroth, Manley and Wishart just about used up the pot if you include signing on fees. Victor and Archibald's wages took another nibble and you also had Tom Black and a few other smaller fees... 110K for Peter Weir for example, 80K or so for Kinnaird. We also offered Brian Reid the same money as r*ngers, plus went in for Keith Wright, Robert Fleck and others (Kevin McAllister for example). Can you imagine how bad it might have gotten?

There was also a vote taken where shareholders agreed to raise the overdraft for the club. (A lesson to be learned there)

[Big Fras]

100K for Chalmers and the same for Keith Walker.

That said, Torfason, Stickroth, Manley and Wishart just about used up the pot if you include signing on fees. Victor and Archibald's wages took another nibble and you also had Tom Black and a few other smaller fees... 110K for Peter Weir for example, 80K or so for Kinnaird. We also offered Brian Reid the same money as r*ngers, plus went in for Keith Wright, Robert Fleck and others (Kevin McAllister for example). Can you imagine how bad it might have gotten?

There was also a vote taken where shareholders agreed to raise the overdraft for the club. (A lesson to be learned there)

Yes, those were the days my friend (as the song said). Initially the numbers stacked up, then we just went mental - Tony's enthusiasm spellbound the BoD, and the majority of the supprt base lapped it up. It was great ! And lunacy. The wheels were already way off the lorry before H*y came and delivered the final nail in the coffin.

I think everyone has learnt the lessons of that 3 year period of mayhem, which arguably led us to Greenhill Road. Memo to RA - don't let Tony take over the transfer kitty

[Stuart Dickson]

In fairness the money spent on those players was offset by some hefty money coming in from the sale of playersi n the years before hand.

We scooped £850K for Ferguson, we got £300K for Ian Cameron, christ sake we even got £275K for David Winnie and the same for Brian Hamilton !

In the pre-bosman days buying and selling players was very much part and parcel of the game in Scotland at that time.

Dundee Utd were beating Barcelona home and away back then, it was a totally different era from the one we are in now.

I think you are right though, that in 2011 the game needs a very different approach and it is one we are already well ahead on the curve on IMO whether we have a CIC or not.

The club took a very difficult decision to invest heavily in Ralston when we moved stadium, and I think the fruits of that are beginning to be seen with the number of Saints players making their way into the national sides at u-16, u-17, u-19 levels.

If we can keep up that investment the fuure is bright for us on the pitch and the frankly outstanding work the club is already doing in the community means we will hopefully have a whole new generation of support within the Renfrewshire area.

I have never seen as many kids wearing St.Mirren shirts in and around town as I have done in recent years.

Look at that Dundee United team of 87 Div - John Holt, Maurice Malpas, David Narey, Billy Kirkwood, John Clark, Paul Sturrock, Dave Beaumont, and Kevin Gallagher were all at their first club. The only difference between then and now is that clubs today haven't worked out a way of getting young players to stay beyond the first sniff of Old Firm interest. Kids are being signed at the age of 10 and they are being sold again before they reach 14!

Div, everyone knows I'm heavily critical of the youth set up at St Mirren. That's from experience - not of Ralston itself - but of what happens out there on the playing fields across the regions. The team I'm involved with in Lanarkshire for example made the last eight of the Scottish Cup, are second in their league, and are in the Semi Final of their League Cup. That's brought scouting interest from Motherwell, Hamilton, Aberdeen, c*ltic, r*ngers, Falkirk, Stenhousemuir, Hibernian, Dundee United and Hearts. The fact that St Mirren have the best of our talents on trial there just now isn't because of the efforts of some St Mirren scout......

But then that's why I envisage the off the field stuff being so important. Scouts can be notoriously unreliable. They sleep in, they look at the bad weather and decide they aren't going out, sometimes when they get there they meet an old mate and land up not even watching the matches. So why not target the people who are watching matches week in week out. Why not work in partnership with community juvenile clubs right across Scotland and use their qualified coaches to tip you off about the best players in each league? Why not tap into the local athletics club to have their sprint coaches work with your young players? Why not use their expertise to learn about the latest warm up methods? Why not share equipment? Why not teach them your drills and share the information you've got from Sports Scientists and nutritionists? Why not help them access funds, or supply them with unique experiences that can be auctioned off to raise funds? Why not use it to identify talented coaches and give them a pathway into senior football?

Up till now St Mirren have stepped in the right direction but they are nowhere near tapping the potential. Mr Atkinson told me that was down to trust and that you need to be a CIC to change that. Perhaps he's right.

[Stuart Dickson]

Yes, those were the days my friend (as the song said). Initially the numbers stacked up, then we just went mental - Tony's enthusiasm spellbound the BoD, and the majority of the supprt base lapped it up. It was great ! And lunacy. The wheels were already way off the lorry before H*y came and delivered the final nail in the coffin.

I think everyone has learnt the lessons of that 3 year period of mayhem, which arguably led us to Greenhill Road. Memo to RA - don't let Tony take over the transfer kitty

Yep - but it was exactly the sort of thing we are going to see here over the coming months if Poz has his way. You are going to have candidates on these pages promising more money in transfer fees and more money for the playing budget to improve on field quality and fans are going to lap it up. The fact is, like Lib Dem politicians, they won't have the means to meet their pledges.

The kind of candidate St Mirren will actually need is someone who realises that a board is there to do the work off the field that generates the income, the supply of talent and the facilities that allows the manager to build the kind of team the fans want.

[TsuMirren]

If anyone wants to ask me how things worked with the MYFC/Ebbsfleet United venture, similar to this in many ways, then feel free to send me a PM.

[Isle Of Bute Saint]

If anyone wants to ask me how things worked with the MYFC/Ebbsfleet United venture, similar to this in many ways, then feel free to send me a PM.

Did you receive my pm

[Bud the Baker]

So we have nearly a million pounds worth of debt do we? Owed to who?

I don't think you can read a set of accounts.

Owed to the organizations previously listed, on the date stated.

[FTOF]

If you have no interest in putting yourself forward as a candidate, have no interest in who does, and have no interest in how those candidates 'sell thenselves' to earn a place on the CIC board, then I sincerely hope you don't come on here following any CIC deal coming to fruition to wax lyrical about it all.

Personally, I don't know if the CIC is for the best or not, but from now on I'll reserve debating the merits or otherwise of it with St Mirren fans who actually give a fcuk about the club, and who do think it's relevant if the team enjoy on-field success or not.

Thanks.

Exactly.

Posts made by anyone on this subject, who genuinely don't care about the future of the club, are both worthless and pointless.

Even more so,if they've spent years rabidly critcising the club on everything they've done.

[animal]

Just back from the public meeting. Have finally got a very large important bit of the jigsaw. The power point presentation which was mailed to us is very misleading. A whole level has been strangely omitted from the top.

Right at the very top should be something which, during the presentation from Mr. Atkinson, slipped out. There is to be an EXECUTIVE BOARD. I have not heard of this before in the hundreds of posts since I started this thread a long time ago.

It seems this body will overseen all below it. The CIC board will have to agree its budget with this board. In turn the SMFC board will, in effect, report to it. The executive board with be (as best I can understand) made up of the founders of the CIC - Mr. Atkinson, a guy from the Kibble school and the rest of the people driving this scheme.

The community (us) will be expected to fund the interest on the debt (In the region of £1,000,000) by paying in our £10 an month, but the real power will remain with the unelected Executive Board who as far as I can see ain't paying a penny. Is that why it's called a Community Interest Company - because the community pay the interest on the loans ?

I think (hard to hear sometimes) the guy from the Kibble said this is because the as yet unnamed lenders of the £1,000,000 will only have 'confidence' in these Executive Board people (and not in us lesser mortals).

[TsuMirren]

It seems this body will overseen all below it. The CIC board will have to agree its budget with this board. In turn the SMFC board will, in effect, report to it. The executive board with be (as best I can understand) made up of the founders of the CIC - Mr. Atkinson, a guy from the Kibble school and the rest of the people driving this scheme.

It wouldn't oversee all, but does provide some governance around budgets and significant contracts. That's fair enough as, Michelle, they hold the debt and it's not levered against the club or the individual, corporate or community members.