Official Cronulla Sharks Board + Management

[slide rule]

**** the impressiveness of their cv's, give me results.

What have they done? What major achievements can they quantify in recent years?

For example: Craig Douglas is the financial toiler who turned around our finances over the past 4 years, including an 18-month period where he met WEEKLY with senior bank execs to keep them from foreclosing on our loan.

THAT is impressive.

When I start reading some verifiable examples of similar deeds by other candidates I may be impressed.

Exaclty.

I really don't like the assertion being made that the current board is financially inept.

The current board has put a load of work in to keeping this club going. We were that close to bankruptcy that it’s not funny. Zappia wanted to move the club (partially at least) when he was here, and it was almost accepted that we were going to have to. I don't think the average supporter understands the amount of work that has been put in and the financial discipline that has been displayed.They had less than NOTHING to work with and have somehow made a go of it. Anyone who is serious must acknowledge the predicament that we have fought our way out of.

I don't mind if new and even better candidates come along. If they think theycan progress the club further on the current foundations then that is great.But the assertion being made that the current board is inept and irresponsible is quite frustrating, considering where we have come in the last couple of years.

They are really rubbing me the wrong way and it shouldn't be like that when they appear to be otherwise good candidates. Just feels like a lot of opportunism based on the events of the last few weeks.

Funnily enough, going back a couple of years, the current board swept to power in a similar manner. "We aren't going to be a chook raffle club anymore"

 

[slide rule]

It's been said to death, but without those two 'experimental passionate supporters' you would not have a club right now.

 

[hamsy44]

Every member is entitled to their opinon and their vote. There is no wrong and right.

Some people will say it is time for change and there are vaild reasons for that. Changing does not mean you spit on the acheivments of the board who brought the changes in.

By the same token those who want the current board (including DI) to be re-instated have their own very good reasons.

I wont make my mind up solely by what is written on this forum but I do like seeing the differences in ideas helps to give me multiple perspectives and adds in the decsion process.

 

[Frenzy]

We need new faces to guide this club forward.

The more I think about it, the more DI cannot be involved. His slip of the tongue would be like Tim Cook saying "Samsung make better products than us".

We can't afford another Chairman who is not tried and tested in the business world. The passionate supporter experiment failed.

I'm not posting to argue with you nor to change your opinion but I want to ask, why do we need new faces? Apart from Dunphy I can't be sure any of these Unity blokes are tried or tested. All I see is a list of who they have worked for. Like Shark, I would of preferred a list of achievements.

I've actually been told one of those nominations is sitting on the board of a company that is about to go under. Don't ask me which one, I won't put the forum in jeopardy by posting the name, but it doesn't fill me with confidence.

There's another with a direct link to Rothfield.

I'm not all all comfortable with this ticket at this point in time.

Keogh is using the passionate fan thing as well. First thing he mentions is he is a long time Sharks supporter.

 

[tips]

It concerns me that they don't actually stand for anything different to the current board, this is fact in their own mission statement - so why change to an unknown director other than the couple of positions up for grabs from people retiring?

Its not like when the current board came to power on a platform of reducing debt and saving the club - which they did! These guys have nothing other than media hysteria which has been proven to be inaccurate.

They mention they will review the findings of those staff that had contracts terminated - what if they come to the same conclusion as the current board as it is the only conclusion to be reached under good corporate governance? Can we vote them out immediately??

My other concerns are that we will see a change to the business model that Bruno Cullen has approved, especially regarding the development and the safeguard of future revenues (don't want to go back to the Pierce era of spending like drunken sailors) - They have not been clear on this. They must answer the question; Will you change the business model?

I found on Google that 2 companies associated with individuals on this ticket have had previous issues with the ACCC & ICAC - that can't be a history of good corporate governance and also opens the sharks up to future media issues.

Unlike the last change of board - THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO CHANGE!

The whole premise of a "Unity" ticket is inaccurate - however there are 2 good people on this ticket (and that's why they put them up first), I reckon there is room for them with the current board.

If they truly are sharks men (which I know they are) then they will be happy to work with what's left of the current board - who have done nothing wrong!

 

[Sir Chadley]

I haven't said much on this topic as to be totally honest, I don't have a great deal of knowledge and understanding of how boards and companies are run. However, the thing that worries me most about any new ticket, and tips has mentioned it above, Bruno Cullen has come in and put together a business model, surely approved by the NRL and it would be absolute folly for that to be changed. That is my one hope. If a new board does come in, they must keep that business model or the majority of it going.

 

[Shark]

Tips you just about took the words out of my mouth.

I could live with a board chaired by Coleman, and comprising directors of the calibre of Keogh (IF he's even eligible!), Dunphy, Plus Craig Douglas, Irvine (IF he really does want to do it again), Kerr and others selected on MERIT.

Wholesale election of this Unity ticket will be bad for the Sharks, in my view.

 

[mattaus]

I'm not posting to argue with you nor to change your opinion but I want to ask, why do we need new faces? Apart from Dunphy I can't be sure any of these Unity blokes are tried or tested. All I see is a list of who they have worked for. Like Shark, I would of preferred a list of achievements.

I've actually been told one of those nominations is sitting on the board of a company that is about to go under. Don't ask me which one, I won't put the forum in jeopardy by posting the name, but it doesn't fill me with confidence.

There's another with a direct link to Rothfield.

I'm not all all comfortable with this ticket at this point in time.

Keogh is using the passionate fan thing as well. First thing he mentions is he is a long time Sharks supporter.

I have heard for years and years that the problems at the Sharks stem from the board, the culture of the club and the management structure. Sometimes that has come from trainers I know, othertimes it has been hearsay from other fans like me. Personally I just feel it is time to move forward and we need some serious operators to help us to do that.

I don't claim to know everything about the current board members, and mayby some of them should be re-elected, but I think we definately need some new faces with business credentials as well. No doubt the development was a major win for the club but for years we have had the smallest number of members, smallest crowds and cheapest sponsors. It's time for that to change.

In regards to DI, I just think his recent actions are inexcusable. Saying what he did to a reporter shows immaturely and a lack of experience. He has deepened the crisis and wright or wrongly may have opened the club to litigation from Dank, Elkin, Mooney etc etc. He needs to be kept away from the club.

As somebody else said yes Keogh is a passionate supporter as well... but he is also a successful Australian athlete and business professional. I am not saying he is 100% the man for the job, but we definately need some people with some serious clout running this club moving forward.

The time for underqualified representatives of the fanbase leading this club are over.

 

[Frenzy]

I have heard for years and years that the problems at the Sharks stem from the board, the culture of the club and the management structure. Sometimes that has come from trainers I know, othertimes it has been hearsay from other fans like me. Personally I just feel it is time to move forward and we need some serious operators to help us to do that.

I don't claim to know everything about the current board members, and mayby some of them should be re-elected, but I think we definately need some new faces with business credentials as well. No doubt the development was a major win for the club but for years we have had the smallest number of members, smallest crowds and cheapest sponsors. It's time for that to change.

In regards to DI, I just think his recent actions are inexcusable. Saying what he did to a reporter shows immaturely and a lack of experience. He has deepened the crisis and wright or wrongly may have opened the club to litigation from Dank, Elkin, Mooney etc etc. He needs to be kept away from the club.

As somebody else said yes Keogh is a passionate supporter as well... but he is also a successful Australian athlete and business professional. I am not saying he is 100% the man for the job, but we definately need some people with some serious clout running this club moving forward.

The time for underqualified representatives of the fanbase leading this club are over.

Are you concerned then that none of the bolded text has been addressed in the Unity ticket's mission statement?

I don't see too much difference between the CVs on the unity page and the information here http://www.sharks.com.au/board-information

 

[slide rule]

I have heard for years and years that the problems at the Sharks stem from the board, the culture of the club and the management structure. Sometimes that has come from trainers I know, othertimes it has been hearsay from other fans like me. Personally I just feel it is time to move forward and we need some serious operators to help us to do that.

I don't claim to know everything about the current board members, and mayby some of them should be re-elected, but I think we definately need some new faces with business credentials as well. No doubt the development was a major win for the club but for years we have had the smallest number of members, smallest crowds and cheapest sponsors. It's time for that to change.

In regards to DI, I just think his recent actions are inexcusable. Saying what he did to a reporter shows immaturely and a lack of experience. He has deepened the crisis and wright or wrongly may have opened the club to litigation from Dank, Elkin, Mooney etc etc. He needs to be kept away from the club.

As somebody else said yes Keogh is a passionate supporter as well... but he is also a successful Australian athlete and business professional. I am not saying he is 100% the man for the job, but we definately need some people with some serious clout running this club moving forward.

The time for underqualified representatives of the fanbase leading this club are over.

Do you think that the current board may have been just a little bit constrained given the financial position that the previous board left them in? You are delusional if you think that a situation like that can be turned around over night.

Anyway, we have dramatically increased our membership numbers and are well above the lowest in the NRL.

Also, while the resumes of the unity ticket look somewhat impressive, the current board aren't exactly the dimwits that people are trying to portray them as.(http://www.sharkies.com.au/htmleditor/documents/Financial Report Yr Ending 31Oct12.pdf see page 3). I believe some of these members have been replaced, but it is the most recent document I could find quickly.

 

[fitz]

To put things in to perspective.

When the Irvine Board came in the Club had an aggregated debt in the vicinity of $14.1M on a total asset of approx $9.2M with wasted expenditure compounding the issue exponentially.

In the course of their tenure, that same Board has seen this change to an approx $3.3M debt on an estimated $48.8M asset and have at the same time curtailed waste and inefficiencies.

Within that remarkable balance sheet transformation, they've also embedded on-going income streams and investment and business diversification options.

On many occasions, the Football Club operations have come out and said that no player was short-changed in terms of pay or facilities.

At the beginning of this year, prior to the whole drug issue blowing up, the vibe was good throughout the Club and many pundits were already booking the team a sport deep into the finals.

Recruitment has been extraordinarily good - there is a combination of reasons for that but mostly EVERYONE could see that this was a Club on the upswing and players flocked to the Club to be a part of history in the making.

Thrown in to the loop the Dept of Planning and PAC has heaped praise and plaudits with the way that the Board and the Joint Venture Partners managed the Development approval. It has become the benchmark of community consultation, stakeholder engagement, procedural correctness, compliance and transparency.

I'm not going to pull punches.

This "Unity Ticket" is nothing of the sort. It is an amassed group of people with De La connections who are being given the nod by Peter Gow and De La management co-committee member Phil Rothfield.

It used to be that if you wanted to get anywhere in junior Sutherland Shire Rugby League you had to play for De La or you wouldn't get a look in and that was at a time where the likes of Longmuir and Pierce and crew ran the Sharks Board.

It's no coincidence that clubs like Sutho have been killing it now that De La has had it's wings clipped.

The other great success of the Irvine Board is that it stopped the leaks. Prior Boards leaked like a sieve on even the most delicate of contract discussion or disciplinary proceedings.

If Phil Rothfield has a direct conduit to the Board you can kiss away any chance of a leak-free Board. Rothfield has for a long time resented the way the Irvine Board refused to let him in on some tasty secrets in order to make his job at the Telecrap easier.

I don't believe the hype.

 

[hamsy44]

Don't you just love politics. Once side trying to convince you the other side is horrible and vice versa.

Right now we don't know what is going to happen to the Sharks so we need to take a punt either on a board that got us out of financial trouble but whose Chairman certainly didnt do us any favours with comments to the media (not blaming him btw) and are about to be invovled in legal action or a new board who may or may not be able to do better then the last board and of whom we really dont know anything about them.

Really it is a no win situation. The media of one persuasion will love a new board while I bet the other mob will spin the opposite way, where as if the current board and DI are kept we know who will scream about that.

I would much rather have the vote delayed till the end of the year so the full facts of the matter can be seen because at the moment there are too many unanswered questions.

But I don't think that is possible so I think discretion is the better part of valour, its better the devil you know, you don't know what you have till its gone etc and stick to the current board, only replace those who have stood down.

 

[tips]

Hamsy, you're right and that is exactly what we would be doing if this drug thing never came up.. Adding a couple more players to a good team..

We all need to remember it has been reported that Elkins introduced this to the club - NOT THE BOARD.

they have done nothing wrong!!

 

[SHARKSTER]

It seems easy to me.

Unity ticket in its entirety is like electing a government you know nothing about. Stupid and dangerous.

The current Board members who intend to run again, deserve our support. We cannot judge them on this ASADA investigation as we do not have all the relevant information, nor can they tell us. Members elected them to guide this organisation and they are doing exactly that as far as I am concerned.

Judging DI on that comment is a personal choice I guess, however whilst I am sure the man himself wishes had his time over on that one, his tireless efforts for this club and the results achieved should be the primary consideration.

Return the current t guys and add specific new directors who add value to the combined experience of the Sharks Board.

 

[bjrshark]

It seems easy to me.

Unity ticket in its entirety is like electing a government you know nothing about. Stupid and dangerous.

The current Board members who intend to run again, deserve our support. We cannot judge them on this ASADA investigation as we do not have all the relevant information, nor can they tell us. Members elected them to guide this organisation and they are doing exactly that as far as I am concerned.

Judging DI on that comment is a personal choice I guess, however whilst I am sure the man himself wishes had his time over on that one, his tireless efforts for this club and the results achieved should be the primary consideration.

Return the current t guys and add specific new directors who add value to the combined experience of the Sharks Board.

Has D.I himself confirmed he said what he said in the context reported by ...Rothfield?

 

[Frenzy]

Oft times, you are better with the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

 

[fitz]

Forsooth and egads!

Bring back "Oft!"

 

[fitz]

If it wasn't for Damian Irvine, we'd still have Ricky Stuart.

Food for thought.

 

[Frenzy]

To put things in to perspective.

When the Irvine Board came in the Club had an aggregated debt in the vicinity of $14.1M on a total asset of approx $9.2M with wasted expenditure compounding the issue exponentially.

In the course of their tenure, that same Board has seen this change to an approx $3.3M debt on an estimated $48.8M asset and have at the same time curtailed waste and inefficiencies.

Within that remarkable balance sheet transformation, they've also embedded on-going income streams and investment and business diversification options.

On many occasions, the Football Club operations have come out and said that no player was short-changed in terms of pay or facilities.

At the beginning of this year, prior to the whole drug issue blowing up, the vibe was good throughout the Club and many pundits were already booking the team a sport deep into the finals.

Recruitment has been extraordinarily good - there is a combination of reasons for that but mostly EVERYONE could see that this was a Club on the upswing and players flocked to the Club to be a part of history in the making.

Thrown in to the loop the Dept of Planning and PAC has heaped praise and plaudits with the way that the Board and the Joint Venture Partners managed the Development approval. It has become the benchmark of community consultation, stakeholder engagement, procedural correctness, compliance and transparency.

I'm not going to pull punches.

This "Unity Ticket" is nothing of the sort. It is an amassed group of people with De La connections who are being given the nod by Peter Gow and De La management co-committee member Phil Rothfield.

It used to be that if you wanted to get anywhere in junior Sutherland Shire Rugby League you had to play for De La or you wouldn't get a look in and that was at a time where the likes of Longmuir and Pierce and crew ran the Sharks Board.

It's no coincidence that clubs like Sutho have been killing it now that De La has had it's wings clipped.

The other great success of the Irvine Board is that it stopped the leaks. Prior Boards leaked like a sieve on even the most delicate of contract discussion or disciplinary proceedings.

If Phil Rothfield has a direct conduit to the Board you can kiss away any chance of a leak-free Board. Rothfield has for a long time resented the way the Irvine Board refused to let him in on some tasty secrets in order to make his job at the Telecrap easier.

I don't believe the hype.

From things posted here and there and a bit of research I'm doing seems like we have, on this Unity Ticket

McConnell - President of De La from 2006-2012 and a current VP
McCarthy - ? ex Shark out of De La Salle juniors
Keough - ? kids played at De La
Airey - Talks a lot about his Engadine days but have heard he is a De La wanna be.
Dunphy - pivotal in raising the funds for the building of the De La clubhouse

In the background there is the puppeteer of the Unity ticket Mr P Rothfield who is a current De La Salle committee member

 

[WillyInBris]

If it wasn't for Damian Irvine, we'd still have Ricky Stuart.

Food for thought.

Doubt it, we just wouldn't have had a club.