That’s the thing, it’s actually impossible to answer the original question as we don’t know what his remit was/is. He may actually be doing a fantastic job from their perspective.
Those two things aren’t linked in the way you’re claiming they are. Saying that making money was nothing to do with the closure of the West Stand is true to my best knowledge. We were under threat of getting the whole stadium closed, so the reallocation of stewards was to hit the security rating needed to stay open.
They're not related? One statement saying stewarding allocation was definitely not a factor and another saying it also had to do with reallocation of stewards are not linked? Im sorry but I just don't understand how they can't be linked.
You quoted something around money. Take that part out and you would either make a lot more sense and be accurate, or you’d be doing what most newspapers do and be editing a quote to suit your opinion.
I was under the impression that he was saying it was nothing to do with money when someone alleged that the stand had closed to allow stewards to move to the away end in order to increase allocation for away fans. Andrew said steward allocation was not a factor, Khaled said we had just gained a lot more stewards so it wasn't to do with that and it wasn't to do with money (ie making money from away fans by moving stewards there to increase revenue) Even if you disregard the money thing you have to concede that he was in the room when Andrew Clark stated that it was not a factor whatsoever and that what he told you and gally directly contradicts this.
You are spot on , I agree with everything you have said but you know how our fan base works, when we are struggling they have to have scapegoats both on & off the pitch instead of looking at the root cause & it is obvious that the root cause of our problems are the owners not the staff but hey ho it is open season & certain fans are lashing out of everything .
That was a joke, as I've previously explained to you and there was no brag. Given that it allowed us to be rid of Paul Conway as interim CEO earlier, it seems to me to be a price worth paying or god knows how much worse things might have been by now.
El Ahmad in his latest disappointing media round stated everything was under review. If he was honest and transparent and reviewed the things that are tangible and visible, I'd hope he'd accept he's done a poor job. I'd hope he'd accept his media performances have often caused more tensions and meant more questions were raised than answers provided. I'd hope he'd look at how he has dodged and evaded questions and maybe thought he could have shown more collective responsibility. I'd hope he'd look at some of his tubthumping statements and consider them naive and out of touch. Behind the scenes, it's extremely difficult for us to know what's changed and evolved. Certainly what the fan can see, there is no obvious demonstration of progression, but some things will be invisible to the outside world. One thing thats not mentioned very often among the fan base, despite El Ahmad regularly mentioning it, is his assertion he is creating processes that will transcend people. So whoever steps in (given our huge churn rate) will have a system to follow and potentially, or thats the intent at least, will be able to step in and at least know how things are supposedly done. I'll declare now, my early career was in business process risk and assurance and entailed documenting systems, ensuring best practice and working with SAP (and a hint of Kaizen with a handful of clients). What a good company wouldn't do is document and implement best practices based on failing systems. I'm not sure how qualified he is to do such a thing or what experience he has of doing such a complex undertaking. And given the lack of robustness and replication of consistency to simple things like communications, matchday operations and recruitment, I don't believe we're anywhere close to best practices or a basis to try and replicate frequently. I'd set his bar much lower and search for basic standards and the ability to deliver them with consistency before we get anywhere close to documenting them for any future replacement of his. I'd also suggest that if the one of the few things we're giving him credit for is the ability to speak multiple languages, then we find him a job as a translator. If he's unable to effectively communicate and get his points across with clarity and accuracy in a country of his choosing, then his value of being multilingual offers little to the job.
Could have been handled better IMHO but coming into a new club, with all the issues related to the stand, and being the one that ultimately takes the can if things go wrong, and facing the potential of games behind closed doors and points penalty that would come with it, it's easy to see how the decision was reached. I think the communication was where it really failed. Probably should never have said it but pretty sure he was repeating what the board were saying. (Maybe more clumsily?) A joke as already mentioned. Yes I'm pretty sure it was a one-man decision and the board had no input Shouldn't have taken so long to get redesigned etc but he was fixing the mess of others. I know we tried. I know the budget was an issue. Maybe his fault or maybe he just didn't have the budget due to the budget wasted by the interim CEO and he had to get some players out to make it possible. Think the comms let this one down. The way it was framed in the meeting with the club was much more like reality. There was a one-time discount last season. It was communicated as such. That explanation should have been included as it was when we met with the club. Take a step back though. Look at the offer, whether we are in the Championship or League One, and actually, it's going to be one of the cheapest tickets out there. If your boss tells you under no circumstances discuss x,y or z, you arent going to avoid getting involved especially if you weren't actually at the organisation at the time He spent 2 and a half hours answering our questions. Obviously, the ones that really needed to be answered by his boss he passed on. I get that. I'd say he's spoken to the fans more in the first 6 months than any of his predecessors with the CEO title. Mansford included. But to answer your original question, we aren't actually in the position to answer it. As @shed131 says. What is his remit? He's just doing the bidding of the board. You are blaming the wrong person here IMHO. What changes has he made behind the scene to stop what happened in the summer from happening again? What has he planned to take the club forward? How are the negotiations with the council going? How has he improved the organisation from an operational point of view? How has he dealt with all the other ***** chucked at him this season after the disaster of last summer on top of the challenge of covid. What were the budgetary challenges that were overcome to bring in Quina and Basi? How has he dealt with the exodus from Paul Conway's stint as CEO? You'll only truly get that answer by speaking to the people he works for and the people who work for him. Fans now rave about Ben Mansford because he was always on Radio Sheffield etc but I think if you asked the people he worked for or the people who worked for him who the best CEO was you'd get a very different answer. You picked and twisted a number of points but the reality is, even if they were true and valid, and as simple as you always try and make things, it's doesn't give you an answer to your question. I have no idea if he's a good CEO or a bad one and in reality, neither do you, neither do any of us. I do think he's getting a lot of criticism that really should be directed at Paul Conway though.
I miss Ben. Thought he did a great job. He had his faults and limitations but was about 56.2 million times better than anyone we have had since.
I'm not saying he was bad by the way, he was great to deal with and he certainly was the best at the whole fan engagement thing. I was just saying that if you were marking all aspects of the CEO role he might not come out on top if you were to ask his employers and employees but fans now think he was the best thing since sliced bread. They didn't think that when he was chucking out the ridiculous new Barnsley Crests though when he first arrived
BS Ben vs Honest Al Ahmad.... 2 men, leg ends in their own lifetimes. Who will come out on top in this head to head extravaganza? A battle like no other. 135 years in the making, a roast battle, followed by a lipsync battle followed by a cage fight. The winner gets to take penalties against toby tyke in the hope of winning a £50 book of vouchers worth 10p that will be gifted to a charity of nobodies choice. Tickets are £10 each*, the battle to be viewed over ifollow, with 10 lucky customers able to get £135 off if they book by yesterday. Failing to get a ticket risks the very future of our fantastic club, but if you don't get one thats fine, we'll still be competitive and we'll have an even greater chance of keeping Asbaghi and the amazing coaches. Roll up...roll up.... * tickets must not be collected, any attempt to collect will incur a charge of £40 and the mandatory requirement to buy 5 season tickets for next season. Please note the e-mail confirming your ticket will cost £80 and have the mandatory requirement to buy 10 season tickets together with a molten liquid mansfield red pie at every home game. Terms and conditions apply.
"...And a stale flatbread Caught him on the head And Bennie bit the dust. They called him Bennie Beeeeennnniiieeee And he drove the fastest bullshìt in the west."
In a customer facing file like this one is. Yes of course you need to manage internal relationships but if you are absolutely abysmal at communication or engagement as the rest have been there is very little point in being popular back stage. As I said he was by no means perfect but light years ahead of anyone since. The PR disasters of this year would have been spun away.