Coventry City's newest director Ken Dulieu has spoken about his vision for the future of Coventry City and how he thinks the board of the club deserve more credit for the job they are doing, although he hints that he understands the fans frustrations.
Mr Dulieu joined the board of directors at Coventry City last month amid the furore surrounding the transfer of Conor Thomas to Liverpool and the subsequent resignation of vice chairman Gary Hoffman. Dulieu and Leonard Brody were already on the board at the time of the controversial decision, but it was not made public until later.
Mr Dulieu is the founder and chairman of his own company Capcon, which is a business consultant company that provides profit improvement programmes that manage risks. They also provide advice on how to control company cash flows and, among other services, they supply bodyguards and advice about kidnap and ransom.
With Coventry City losing around £4m a year Dulieu would appear to be a shrewd choice of board member, he also has experience of running a failing football club, he was chairman of Southampton for a while until 2007.
At the moment SISU, who own the majority of the club are subsidising the club to keep it going. They are paying the wages of the club staff while attendances continue to fall thereby further reducing the club's income.
The rent for the Ricoh Arena and staff wages means the club is losing around £80,000 a week.
It has emerged that Mr Dulieu was recruited by the Sisu appointed director Onye Igwe, but it was an appointment he was not expecting as he thought he would not be involved in football again after leaving Southampton FC.
Ken Dulieu said to the CT: "I did a Redgrave really. My wife said I would never go back into football, rather like going back into a boat, but here I am."
So why did Mr Dulieu agree to join the Coventry City board?
He explained: "I met Onye about three years ago and we got on very, very well. We then met up again around about March last year and he asked me if I would be interested in coming back into football and I was very busy at that time."
"We discussed it again in October and I suppose you could say he seduced me into saying 'yes'. He's a very persuasive man and it looked like an exciting challenge."
Mr Dulieu explained that his arrival at The Ricoh during the controversial transfer of Thomas and the subsequent board room division was coincidental.
"It has certainly been an exciting first few weeks," he admitted. "Football clubs are a bit like white water rafting and if you enjoy doing that then you'll enjoying being at a football club."
However, Mr Dulieu, in what must be described as an attempt to show unity and loyalty to the board and to the fans, he insisted, "It's absolutely vital that the board get on. You need a very strong board at a football club."
"Football can be full of emotion, as you see in the players every week and without having a strong team off the pitch I don't think you can have a strong team on the pitch."
Dulieu outlined his vision for the club's future saying: "You have got to have a very strong structure off the field as well as on the field and you don't get a successful club without having a successful commercial and management team, and hopefully I have got some qualities that I can bring to that."
"I think a successful board has got to have the skill sets that are complementary to each other, like any business. You need good financial skills, good commercial skills, good marketing skills and we have to recognise that football has become a global game so we need international skills as well."
"It is unique being involved in a football club as I think lots of chairmen and directors who get involved in football clubs up and down the country will tell you. It is like no other business. They always punch above their weight and you learn very, very fast because you have to. But I think it is more exciting than stressful, although some of the decisions can be difficult."
He continued: "The aims in the short term are trying to get the skill sets right off the field of play in the same way as trying to get the skill sets right on the field of play."
There can be little doubt that Sisu have found their work at Coventry City much harder than they thought it would be when they bought into the club. Even the most optimistic would agree that promotion is unlikely this season, so the work has started on making improvement for the next campaign, but Sisu are here to stay at Coventry for the foreseeable future.
Mr Dulieu confirmed that Sisu would not be quitting when he said: "I hope they are because that's why I am here. They believe in the club and they believe in the city and from what I have seen and I am the new boy on the block, they haven't got the credit they deserve."
"They saved this club from administration a few years ago and continue to fund the club. We are probably unique among football clubs in that they are the funders. There aren't other banks and I think they have behaved impeccably for the last few years and I hope they will continue to do so for many years to come."
Addressing the concerns of many fans about the looming spectre of administration, he admitted that he could not rule out that possibility, but stressed that the board would do their utmost to avoid administration.
He said: "Football clubs all across the country are always going to be struggling. I am here and all the directors are here to try to do our best to ensure that the club has a stable financial future and that's what we'll continue to do."
"If anyone wants to come in front of you and says there is no way this club is ever going to get into financial difficulty, you couldn't say that about any of the 92 football clubs in the United Kingdom."
Mr Dulieu also address one of the other concerns the fans have and that it the sale of the better or promising players. During his tenure at Southampton he oversaw the sale of talented players like Gareth Bale to Tottenham for £5m and Kenwynne Jones to Sunderland for £6m. It later emerged via the Saints manager at the time, George Burley,, that the players were sold to prevent the club from folding. Unfortunately the strategy failed and they went into administration just over a year later and were relegated into League One, where they have had a hard time getting back out of.
Could, or will the same thing happen at Coventry City? Will the board sell players over the head of the manager?
Several players have already been sold to help balance the books, Scot Dann and Dan Fox to name but two. Then came the Conor Thomas controversy.
Coventry City do have a few valuable assets, but they are either on short term of soon to be ended contracts. Marlon King, Keiren Westwood and Aron Gunnarsson are all out of contract in the summer, so would be worthless to the club
It is a different matter with some of the exciting Academy graduates though. Ben Turner and Nathan Cameron could be sold if the financial need arises. Dulieu is a strong believer in the academy system.
He said: "We hear the term every single day, 'Are we a selling club?'." Every club is a selling club. If you look at Manchester United, when did they have a very good year? When they actually sold their star player Ronaldo, but did that affect them off the pitch because they would have brought more money in and maybe put more money into their academy?
"So you can say, are you a buying club or selling club but it is how you develop the club. Your academy is absolutely vital, as is your scouting and all the cogs play a vital role, but it is unrealistic to say that any club isn't a selling club because they are buying and selling clubs. Successful clubs are those that buy very well and sell very well."
The big question most fans wanted to ask was would Aidy Boothroyd will get funds to strengthen the team in preparation for next season?
He said:"I think that is more a question for Sisu and for Onye but I believe they are in it for the long haul. They have put a lot of money into the club every year and continue to do so every single month by funding the club and you have to say to yourself, if they have done that for the last three-and-a-half years why would they stop now?
"So I believe and I hope they are in it for the long term. They have encouraged me and other directors to get on board and fill some skill sets that they felt they perhaps didn't have and I hope that we can enhance the club going forward."
One of the reasons why Dulieu and the other two new directors, Leonard Brody and John Clarke were appointed is to attract new investment into Coventry City and Dulieu revealed that they are in talks with a number of parties interested in investing in Coventry City.
"You are always dancing with interested parties," he said. "You only have to look at the owners of football clubs in this country to see some very interested parties, so you can assume that we are talking to interested parties, yes, but I couldn't disclose who they are."