balmain boy
Well-known member
Why?
WT Ownership, The Board & Senior Management - MEGA Thread
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cochise
Well-known member
Balmain football club has 10%
jirskyr
Well-known member
I'm pretty sure that's not true. Firstly the article you quote is 7 years old and you cannot assume the corporate governance has not changed for NRL clubs in this time.
Secondly, I am pretty sure that St George operate roughly the same as Tigers do - you need to be voted to the Leagues Club Boards first (Dragons and Steelers) before then politicking your way onto the SGeorge Illawarra Dragons Football Club board.
And for Manly, their private owners self-appoint the majority hold of the Manly board, meaning the vote-able seats available on the board are an intentional minority. In other words, you cannot over-rule the Penns, because the Penns control the board.
The other issue with what you raise is that the primary reason the Wests Tigers are not set up like some of the other Sydney clubs is because we are technically a much newer club than most of them. Clubs like Eels and Bulldogs are developed from an original Leagues Club licence with the NSWRL, same as Balmain were, so any club that has not had an internal revolution or merged is still operating under roughly the same old model.
Clubs that have had a revolution, e.g. private ownership like Souths or Knights, now have widely varied voting models.
So it's not true that WT are the only Sydney club that does not give members a say - many of the Sydney clubs are set up in such a way that if voting rights exist, they are still intentionally kept to a minority, so that the board cannot be toppled by popular vote. This is true of Dragons, Manly, Souths; I'm not sure now on the Panthers and Sharks.
Eels and Bulldogs retain the classic member-vote-board setup from the NSWRL days, and with all due respect, they are certainly some of the most dysfunctional setups going. All that Eels nonsense with Paul Osborne being sacked a few years back, then the sponsorship salary cap issue; the years-long efforts of Dennis Fitzgerald to retain his iron grip on the Eels and Leagues Club.
And then the Bulldogs, going through several board-level turnovers, and Lynn Anderson had to quietly step aside herself in recent years, despite waging a public and ultimately successful campaign to overturn the old Bulldogs Board. And that has no small part to play in the struggles the Bulldogs have experienced for the past half-decade.
So whilst I do support your notion that members should have more voting rights, it's not true that Wests are some kind of archaic or unusual outlier. It's not a democracy and most club boards are strong-armed by wealthy or powerful persons/factions.
You do officially have a mechanism to get votes onto the Wests Tigers board. You need to, same as Dragons, run for the Wests Ashfield Board (which you can do as a Wests member), then politick your way from the WA Board onto Tigers. It is possible.
balmain boy
Well-known member
As
The Panthers allow voting rights to the Panthers Football Club board for an additional $30 on top of your membership. Sharks do likewise. Souths don't let the public get a majority but allow members to purchase access to the Members Co which has 2 seats on the board. Not enough for a revolution, but it at least gives them a presence, keeps them in the loop and gives them direct access to those making the decisions.
My main gripe is that they're not accountable to anyone. Some on here seem to think they are, in that case to whom do they report to?
If we had a board with highly competent people like the Roosters do then there would be less issue, but as it stands we're a laughing stock and I think it's fair for there to be greater transparency and accountability and as a club that operates under a leagues club model there's the means to do so.
As I said, I wasn't referring to those with private ownership models.
The Panthers allow voting rights to the Panthers Football Club board for an additional $30 on top of your membership. Sharks do likewise. Souths don't let the public get a majority but allow members to purchase access to the Members Co which has 2 seats on the board. Not enough for a revolution, but it at least gives them a presence, keeps them in the loop and gives them direct access to those making the decisions.
My main gripe is that they're not accountable to anyone. Some on here seem to think they are, in that case to whom do they report to?
If we had a board with highly competent people like the Roosters do then there would be less issue, but as it stands we're a laughing stock and I think it's fair for there to be greater transparency and accountability and as a club that operates under a leagues club model there's the means to do so.
Bus 2 Terrigal
Well-known member
I see it, or hear it quite often. For example, here’s a recent tweet I stumbled across -
And I quote an old Balmain supporter Joel Helmes from the Wests Tigers podcast a few months ago when he offered -
“The Western Suburbs Magpies had a long sustained period of being unsuccessful and now they’re running the Wests Tigers, and low and behold, what have we got but a long period of being unsuccessful”.
Speaking of unnecessary paragraphs !!! 🥴
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A tweet you stumbled across 3 weeks ago - Screenshotted and saved for a day like today where you could use it to defend the black and whites?
Facts are Facts - Wests Ashfield have owned the Tigers in majority for the best part of 10 years - And we've been garbage the whole time.
Furthermore, Apart from the odd board member moving on (Or dying) Go was there under direction of the NRL and fulfilled that term, Most of the board members have also been there for the majority of the 10 years I mentioned....
And again, Without the required acumen to hold such a position - With no measureable contribution that could be seen to be beneficial to the Football Club at all.
Bang on about your Balmain dribble all you like - Explain to me How and Why the Board members of the Wests Tigers got the positions they hold.
And exactly what they offer to the Football club.
There's enough hot air in this thread to inflate a year's worth of Steedens for our new Centre of Excellence.
The board exists primarily to hire the CEO, ensure we stay in business, don't break the law and have good policies and procedures in place to make sure people aren't stealing from the tills (so to speak).
On that basis, they have succeeded. In fact, we have come a long way in the last 10 seasons from running at a loss to making a profit without a league club grant. There are plenty of other clubs in Sydney that will fold without big grants from their leagues club.
Each to their own, but I'll take this over a board who clock off after picking next week's winger.
As for accountability.... go join Wests Ashfield and get involved, vote and, heck, even push for a spot on the board if you're fair dinkum.
The board exists primarily to hire the CEO, ensure we stay in business, don't break the law and have good policies and procedures in place to make sure people aren't stealing from the tills (so to speak).
On that basis, they have succeeded. In fact, we have come a long way in the last 10 seasons from running at a loss to making a profit without a league club grant. There are plenty of other clubs in Sydney that will fold without big grants from their leagues club.
Each to their own, but I'll take this over a board who clock off after picking next week's winger.
As for accountability.... go join Wests Ashfield and get involved, vote and, heck, even push for a spot on the board if you're fair dinkum.
Bus 2 Terrigal
Well-known member
I used the tweet as an example of something jirskyr said he’d never experienced.
As for the turn over of board members - do a bit of digging and you’ll find there have been quite a few over your suggested ten year period.
I’m pulling names out of the shadows (courtesy of a quick google search) like Mick Liubinskas, John Hardgrove, Leslie Glenn, Russell Smith, Mark Crowe, Garry Leo, Rosemary Sinclair ...
Fans attack Wests Ashfield yet most of the venom is reserved for Pascoe and Lee ... neither of whom are Wests Ashfield nominees 🥴
tony soprano
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Mate, you are the king of emojis. 😆
Bus 2 Terrigal
Well-known member
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
liltiger
Well-known member
So Ashfield own 90%, then the only way to make changes on the board would be to vote them out at a members ballot.
cochise
Well-known member
No you can't vote them all out. Wests Ashfield has a 7 seat board, only 2 of those seats can be voted for by the general members of Wests Ashfield, the other 5 seats are representatives of the debenture holders, there are 20 debenture holders of Wests Ashfield.
Wests Ashfield then appoint 4 members to the Wests Tigers board, Wests football club 1, Balmain football club 1 and 2 independents.
Maybe you need to do digging.....
Those Balmain names you have lost the board positions with Balmain ownership - Or when the NRL re-appointed mandatory neutral Board members when we had to borrow all that money from them.
How is Lee not appointed By WA - He's the chair of the FC they own?
Pascoe is an employee...
Both appointments from the owners (WA)
cochise
Well-known member
Lee is one of the independent directors, which are appointed by the rest of the Wests Tigers board.
balmain boy
Well-known member
- A CEO most members have been calling to be sacked due to numerous failures, and not making finals once in his tenure. A X on this one
- We are still in business, yes. And profitable in the commercial part of the organisation. They get a tick for this one
- We got fined and had our CEO suspended for breaking the rules. Another cross.
- Have good policies and procedures in place - well we have the worst squad in our history, a lack of promising prospects in the top 3 grades, extended a coach only to sack him halfway through the next season, have had numerous players ask for a release to go to a rival (which has been granted without seeking adequate compensation). There are new (but also old) people and processes coming back to the club now, remains to be seen how effective they will be but failing to sign the coach they wanted and then hiring someone who hasn't coached in over 10 years and a rookie doesn't bring huge confidence on their due diligence. So another X based on their historical performance.
So of your 4 criteria mentioned I think it would be widely accepted that they've failed in 3/4. Again highlighting the need for change, transparency, professionalism and accountability.
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G'day Cochise...what's your opinion of what this thread is all about ie Wests Ashfield owning Wests Tigers and do we need to improve Our Board.
If so how do we go about it to satisfy a majority of members and fans.
We'll all have to be very careful how we word our posts batboy so as not to get Cochise upset
re another Balmain V Wests war on here.
As Kamahl said...be kind to each other 🙂
TSP
Well-known member
Rock and roll tigers.
I don’t care about history
( rock rock, rock & roll tigers)
Now we’ve got rubber vay and coach Benji
(rock, rock, rock and and roll Tigers)
Only God himself can vote us off
The board band and me say you can all get stuffed
Rock rock rock rock, rock and roll Tigers etc
Dink dink dink tra la la la
jirskyr
Well-known member
Mate if you are going to scour social medial and quote individuals making individual comments, then you will never get yourself out of the quagmire of Magpies vs Balmain. I think most people don't care about that any more.
Fans 23 years old or younger weren't even alive when Balmain last existed and fans younger than 28 or so won't even remember watching Balmain or Western Suburbs play.
You are in here often and this forum is a hotbed of passionate Wests Tigers supporters, but very rarely does Magpies or Balmain stuff come up any more.
And I can genuinely say this because I am an old Balmain Tiger, I love Balmain and always will as my childhood club, but I recognise that that club is in our (shared) past. I ignore anyone who says otherwise.
By the way, Magpies did suck in the 90s, but Balmain sucked more; it's just that Balmain had a little more money in 1999 and Wests had been in the finals somewhat recently. So I fail to see how any reference to management of either club 20-30 years ago has a bearing on 2022.
jirskyr
Well-known member
How about we vote for a forum representative, get that person as a Wests Ashfield member, have everyone from the forum sign up as a Wests Ashfield member, then lobby insanely hard to vote that person to the Wests Board?
I nominate myself. I am a WA member and I am a very smart dude.
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