Stephen Bettis speaks to local Media

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S64 Blade said:
Had a listen yesterday. I think it was a really good interview. Bettis has always come across quite well, I think.

I think the issues at the club are cantered around a lack of resources, but financial and non financial.

He said that regarding transfers in, they were working hard to get them done. Which I believe, but I think the issue is probably that people at the club, like Bettis, are spread too thinly.

Interesting to hear about the club having agreed a price for some land for a training ground. Let’s hope it can materialise so that Shirecliffe can then move to a Cat A academy and we can kick the club on to the next level a little more easily. I wonder where the site of the land purchase is? I know at/around Concord was mentioned a few months ago.
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thats what ive heard but with all land deals its a long process
 

Nick Jansky said:
I would love to see a fly on the wall documentary where a couple of the “experts” here are given a budget & put in charge of United’s transfer window. It would be the comedy hit of the year!!

Not for the club, obviously, it would be left in a whole world of shit at the end of it.

But I would pay good money to watch it! 😂😂
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Our fans: Well we don't have much money but fuck it lets just plunge us into debt anyway.

Sheffield United sign Chuba Akpom on a two year deal for £50million plus addons.
 
YES Blade said:
You say that, but this is the same Burnley that dicked about with 5 bids for Berge after we’d told them our valuation after the first bid. They could’ve signed him weeks earlier, but instead waited until a day or so before the first match.

I don’t care what your budget is, clubs are always going to try and get the most out of it whether they’ve got £500m or £500k to spend.
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So they got him later than they would have if they have even more money to spend?
 
Flatulent_Bob said:
So you think there’s £100m rocking about somewhere and we just didn’t make payments last season for shits and giggles?
Seems a bit daft to have left it in the bank and not spend it though?
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I know pretty well how much money we have coming in and going out and that we didn’t have a pot to piss in last season as well as having cashflow issues caused by overspending on poor players the last time we were in the PL.

It doesn’t always mean that the same will happen again though and with the lessons learnt and the introduction of a more competent set of back room employees (recruitment, negotiation etc.) we’d be able to invest in players with a bit of confidence and a bit more urgency.

We just get told that we can’t compete and we have to accept where we are and that’s that.
 
Moan? Nope-I saw Longhorn said:
Aye
Or maybe the “excuse” is actually accurate ?

In 55 years of watching SUFC I’ve been gutted more times than enough , starting with Jones & ‘Birch’ but there’s a reason/ reasons why we have (rarely) competed both on & off the field during that half century & afore.

How / why we can’t attract the ‘right’ owner / investment has been debated to death albeit with little (self) reflection on ‘our’ own (unrealistic) expectations & finger pointing.

Have we really been so unfortunate over the last Century that we’ve appointed a succession of incompetent skint charlatans whilst overlooking obvious genius ‘coined’ messiahs?

We recently enjoyed (endured to some) the most successful period in our (not so) recent history but folk now choose to ignore &/or spout (revisionist) perjorative opinions celebrating, or at least acknowledging the achievements of a ‘middling’ football club
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It needs a huge shift in mindset to change this situation and my issue with the club is that we seem happy to continually bumble along.

I’m not advocating ‘doing a Forest’ or even ‘doing a Villa’, I believe eventually they’ll get their financial comeuppance. However I must admit that it’d be a lot more fun having an owner with a ‘devil may care’ attitude than our current one.
 
Moan? Nope-I saw Longhorn said:
Aye
Or (more accurately) they are “expected” (known to) whinge & whine & greet with the Wilder spunked billions on (always injured) dross narrative
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Yeah apologies, bit of a rush this morning getting to my lads match and rounding the other 2 up as well, used the wrong word, I’ll self flagellate later as punishment 👍🏼
 
Nick Jansky said:
I would love to see a fly on the wall documentary where a couple of the “experts” here are given a budget & put in charge of United’s transfer window. It would be the comedy hit of the year!!

Not for the club, obviously, it would be left in a whole world of shit at the end of it.

But I would pay good money to watch it! 😂😂
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So only people with direct experience of something should comment? Close the forum down, just Bladesballer screaming into the void?
 
Nick Jansky said:
I would love to see a fly on the wall documentary where a couple of the “experts” here are given a budget & put in charge of United’s transfer window. It would be the comedy hit of the year!!

Not for the club, obviously, it would be left in a whole world of shit at the end of it.

But I would pay good money to watch it! 😂😂
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But what I’d actually do is hire people with the requisite experience, in sufficient numbers so as to get maximum value from whatever my budget is.
 
Carlton Blade said:
But what I’d actually do is hire people with the requisite experience, in sufficient numbers so as to get maximum value from whatever my budget is.
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What's to say that isn't what we've got, and they are doing a good job in a weird market with a limited budget?
We've had a good window to say that isn't the case.
 
Greasy Chap Butty said:
What's to say that isn't what we've got, and they are doing a good job in a weird market with a limited budget?
We've had a good window to say that isn't the case.
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Because the number of staff involved is public knowledge? Because we have to pay UW and outsourced services to help get deals done? Because there’s a gaping chasm between Bettis and PH?
 
Nick Jansky said:
Ok, recentish example I was involved in (not the latest transfer window).

Premier League player has one year left on his contract. It won’t be renewed, he’s well out of the first team picture. Approached by a Championship club dangling a 3 year contract with a signing on fee - not an eye watering signing on fee, but certainly worth having. Pay cut, but security.

Club quite happy to pay up the last year of his contract because his attitude is stinking the place out.

Agent has one meeting with club. “Please will you pay up the last year of his contract & let him go?” Club - “Yes”.

Agent receives what would be a life changing sum of money for most of us from the EPL club for “negotiating the termination of the contract”. Really, he was pushing at a wide open door & has done fuck all.

Championship club pays agent a similar amount (mainly on behalf of the player) for negotiating the new contract. That part is fair enough.

Although they do manage to fuck up the tax treatment.

A good agent is worth his weight in gold to the player, but a lot of them just leech huge sums of money out of the game for very little.
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Thanks for that, very interesting. So in that example, is it written in the players contract with the PL club that they would have to pay the agent if the contract was to be paid up early? What would happen if they refused to pay the agent fee? Would the early termination just not happen despite the offer from the champ club?
 
derekacorah said:
I know pretty well how much money we have coming in and going out and that we didn’t have a pot to piss in last season as well as having cashflow issues caused by overspending on poor players the last time we were in the PL.

It doesn’t always mean that the same will happen again though and with the lessons learnt and the introduction of a more competent set of back room employees (recruitment, negotiation etc.) we’d be able to invest in players with a bit of confidence and a bit more urgency.

We just get told that we can’t compete and we have to accept where we are and that’s that.
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But then we spend £30m and prove the point correct. If we had more money to get deals done quicker then we would.
 
Carlton Blade said:
Because the number of staff involved is public knowledge? Because we have to pay UW and outsourced services to help get deals done? Because there’s a gaping chasm between Bettis and PH?
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Given that the transfer window is only open for 3 and a half months a year, doesn’t it makes sense to outsource certain services?

If we employed staff to perform these transfer tasks, what are these new staff members going to do for the 8 and a half months of the year when the window is closed?
 

To my mind all this frugality and penny pinching is fine if it results in selling the club to someone who can afford to run it ,if not it will just herald a gradual decline into obscurity or as its other wise known where Wednesday are now and we will look back at missed opportunities to put the club on a stronger footing
 
YES Blade said:
Given that the transfer window is only open for 3 and a half months a year, doesn’t it makes sense to outsource certain services?

If we employed staff to perform these transfer tasks, what are these new staff members going to do for the 8 and a half months of the year when the window is closed?
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There are plenty of other football administration and business related duties. There’s no academy transfer window. There are masses of preparations to make, conversations to have, pressure to take off the person managing the first team.

I’m honestly surprised how many people think having nobody between 1st team manager and a CEO not from a football background is normal practice. The gap is meant to be filled by UW (but that isn’t happening) so even the club acknowledges the need
 
Tickhill Blade said:
Thanks for that, very interesting. So in that example, is it written in the players contract with the PL club that they would have to pay the agent if the contract was to be paid up early? What would happen if they refused to pay the agent fee? Would the early termination just not happen despite the offer from the champ club?
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I didn’t become involved until after the event. The particular club had an owner who was trigger happy and cavalier in the extreme and did some extremely “irregular” and weird deals without taking proper, or any, advice, and that created a car crash. I was brought in when a new FD with good EPL experience at a couple of other clubs arrived and panicked at the state of a lot of things they quickly found. We ended up doing a deal with HMRC that could have funded a player. This isn’t unusual.

Agents fees don’t feature in a standard player’s contract, they are in a separate very short contract that also has to be lodged with the EPL (or EFL). These days there is full transparency on agents fees.

What I’m fairly sure happened is that the agent had already agreed a deal with the Championship club before he approached the EPL club regarding the termination. The EPL club were already minded to pay up the contract, so he got paid a lot of money to “negotiate” that situation. A situation that, in my view, didn’t really need an agent anywhere near it. But the agent represents the player so has to be involved.

So, I thought it was a disgraceful amount of money (although entirely legal). But there are always layers to these things. The agent was involved in a few deals for that club and it is quite possible that the club wanted/needed to keep him sweet in view of the relationship.

Not much in football is straightforward. There are huge amounts of money involved and the average fan obviously isn’t going to get to know exactly how much work has to go into some deals. I think some fans have an unrealistic view of what happens.
 
Carlton Blade said:
There are plenty of other football administration and business related duties. There’s no academy transfer window. There are masses of preparations to make, conversations to have, pressure to take off the person managing the first team.

I’m honestly surprised how many people think having nobody between 1st team manager and a CEO not from a football background is normal practice. The gap is meant to be filled by UW (but that isn’t happening) so even the club acknowledges the need
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It depends, if you’re a player, surely you want to speak to the manager of the first team? Hecky is always going to be best placed to sell the club to players.

I don’t work at the club, so it’s always going to be difficult to comment on these things. I’d like to think Bettis is fully supported and has the staff required to run the club, but I don’t know.
 
YES Blade said:
It depends, if you’re a player, surely you want to speak to the manager of the first team? Hecky is always going to be best placed to sell the club to players.

I don’t work at the club, so it’s always going to be difficult to comment on these things. I’d like to think Bettis is fully supported and has the staff required to run the club, but I don’t know.
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A player speaking to the manager should be one of the last things at the end of a long list of tasks though.
 
YES Blade said:
What tasks is Hecky performing that he shouldn’t be?

I’m genuinely interested to know
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He should be one of the main voices in the room, obviously. But it’s very difficult to be objective about the future when 1st team results govern your employment status
 
Carlton Blade said:
So only people with direct experience of something should comment? Close the forum down, just Bladesballer screaming into the void?
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Opinions are always fine. But on some occasions they are misinformed and don’t stand up to scrutiny - no fault of the poster if they didn’t previously have all the information.

On those occasions I respect the posters who don’t continue to push their agenda when the flaws in their view are pointed out. If, however, they persist then it becomes obvious that it’s just an agenda and therefore worthless.

Opinion - “McBurnie isn’t good enough”. Fine.

Agenda - “United fucked up in the transfer window”.

“OK, but have you considered what can actually happen in a transfer negotiation? And United’s budget? And these factors?”

“It doesn’t matter. It suits my agenda to say that United fucked up in the transfer window so I’ll carry on saying it”.
 
Maidenhead said:
Surely it should be one of the first conversations because if they're not "on the same page" then anything else is a waste of time and money.
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There should have been a whole load of qualification work done by people whose time is less valuable to 1st team results before he’s troubled with anything like that.
 
Carlton Blade said:
He should be one of the main voices in the room, obviously. But it’s very difficult to be objective about the future when 1st team results govern your employment status
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When Hecky was appointed I seem to recall the Prince saying that he wouldn't be judged on results.

Presumably an acknowledgement that the finances were a mess, even back then.
 
Carlton Blade said:
He should be one of the main voices in the room, obviously. But it’s very difficult to be objective about the future when 1st team results govern your employment status
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You’re saying we need to employ someone, so I thought you were saying Hecky performing tasks outside of the job description of a first team manager? I’m interested to know what those tasks are. Or have I misunderstood your point?
 
Nick Jansky said:
Opinions are always fine. But on some occasions they are misinformed and don’t stand up to scrutiny - no fault of the poster if they didn’t previously have all the information.

On those occasions I respect the posters who don’t continue to push their agenda when the flaws in their view are pointed out. If, however, they persist then it becomes obvious that it’s just an agenda and therefore worthless.

Opinion - “McBurnie isn’t good enough”. Fine.

Agenda - “United fucked up in the transfer window”.

“OK, but have you considered what can actually happen in a transfer negotiation? And United’s budget? And these factors?”

“It doesn’t matter. It suits my agenda to say that United fucked up in the transfer window so I’ll carry on saying it”.
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I don’t have an agenda. It’s football, not life or death. I’ve not said United should have spent more and, 4 games in it seems like the squad, barring a couple of glaring holes is a fair effort.

But, in my opinion, too much is left to the last minute. Too much responsibility lies with Bettis and PH. Resources we should be uniquely positioned to capitalise on (overseas loans) are regularly neglected. I’m not saying it’s easy. I am saying I don’t believe United make the most of the resources available
 
YES Blade said:
You’re saying we need to employ someone, so I thought you were saying Hecky performing tasks outside of the job description of a first team manager? I’m interested to know what those tasks are. Or have I misunderstood your point?
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Setting the target list, spending time on in depth scouting of players, regularly updating player needs based on United’s squad dynamics, daily contact with those in similar positions at other clubs, visiting other clubs to pick up ideas, attending overseas youth tournaments etc etc.
 

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