But that’s enough of the past, now what? As we stand at time of writing, we know the following. We know that Koppout is a liar, and not a very good one at that. We know that the Football League have told him to fuck off – twice. We know that Merton Council are on the fans side. But what we don’t know is what’s going to happen next. Read on…
As we all know, Koppout has been told by the FL to force an EGM to discuss this in full. To do this, he needs to find no less than 7 other chairmen to second him. And this is where the fun starts. Apart from possibly Jordan (who’s in enough shit with Palace anyway) and Uncle Ron (Brentford to Woking? And he’ll quit as soon as he can), Koppout could find it very difficult to find many more people wishing to call a meeting in the first place. Anyone who does join him will immediately be asked why, especially by the fans of the respective clubs.
The Football League have actually caused the most damage to MK by calling this EGM anyway – in doing so, Koppout’s other main options (more on them in a minute) have been blown out of the water, because any other action will be preceded by a “so why haven’t you called an EGM as you were advised to?”. Koppout is thereby handcuffed – and I don’t doubt that there will be pressure put on quite a few chairmen if an EGM does take place…..
So, what are these other mooted options? The first one is the FA, and I subsequently presume the PL as well. Their own opinions on this are publically unknown, privately however they would probably back the FL in this. Why? Well, ever heard of a conflict of interest? Thinking about what would happen if the FL said no and the FA said yes, you would have quite a bit of friction. In fact you would have a lot of friction. Almost an unworkable amount of friction. I don’t doubt that the FA know what’s going on re: the FL reasoning, and if they don’t I’m sure they’ll know soon enough.
The other option is of course the much threatened legal action. This IMO is what Koppout wants to do – he’s a lawyer by trade anyway, and doubtless he feels he can lie his way to victory (hell, he can’t tell the truth to save his life, that’s a sure mark). All money for the fund will come out of WFC coffers, and his case is foolproof, right? Er, wrong.
Firstly, if he ignores the EGM he’ll be asked why he ignored the advice given to him. If he takes an EGM and loses, he would find his case evaporate very quickly, because obviously he took his governing body to task and lost. But hold on – isn’t this “restraint of trade”? Not exactly – the FL immediately pre-empted that particular threat by saying that WFC were still trading.
And even if that bit isn’t true, consider this : there was a clause in the FL rules that state “under exceptional circumstances”. So, if the case that Koppout made was deemed exceptional enough, then WFC could move. Hardly restraint of trade is it? As far as I can make out, it’s not as though WFC are barred from ever moving – it appears that it’s not some sort of prohibitive legal thing that is preventing WFC from selling out, it’s the fact that the reasonings behind MK is a load of bollocks.
Speaking of bollocks, it appears that all is not well in the MK camp anyway. The main MK perpetrator, one Peter “I managed Fuzzbox” Winkelmann is actually not that rich. And more importantly, he can’t seem to get much funding for MK anyway. This in itself is majorly damaging to Koppel’s wet dream – if the main reason for Koppel’s attempted murder is lack of funds, then being totally unable to get funding for a totally new entity is hardly an improvement on the current situation. Indeed, things may be even worse in that camp than first thought – when the FL originally knocked back MK, Wanklemann came out and claimed that his main aim is to bring professional football to MK. Not necessarily WFC..
There is another reason for the current life-support status of the MK move and it’s down to Koppout himself. Club Killer himself is not a particularly pleasant or likeable individual. The way he conducts himself hardly endears himself anyway – his arrogance and conceitedness is all too apparent, but his general diction works against him every time. We all know how the original letter to announce the move was made much worse by the way it was written.
But even his statement when he was going to appeal managed to rub plenty of people up the wrong way, not just WFC fans. You know, it went something like “I have instructed the FL to reconsider and allow the move to go ahead”. Now, if somebody challenged you in that way, would you even give them a second thought? No you wouldn’t, and the FL clearly didn’t. The MK move would have been hard enough to justify as it is, and Koppel’s appaling attempt at managing the situation made it go so gloriously pear shaped.
In fact, the Koppout empire seems to suffer from the problem of over-inflated opinion, under-inflated talent. To “sell” the move to MK, Koppout bought in Brunswick (the PR people) at great expense. Brunswick however, are very expensive and very shite at what they do. They handle(d) Railtrack, British Airways, Marks and Spencer and BT Cellnet’s conversion to O2.
One company gets slaughtered for its handling of Hatfield, one company gets slaughtered for its handling of plane liveries, one company gets slaughtered for its fast declining sales and image, and the other sends out its information using a rival’s network. See any pattern forming yet? Worse, Koppout’s minions are the out-of-depth Graham Thorley and Reg Davis. Nuff said. Whilst this whole episode did have the unusually positive side-effect of getting shot of Sharon Sillicow, it does suggest that anything Koppout does turns to shit.
“But hold on” you say “what about our Norwegian owners, surely Koppout is just a puppet?”. Well, yes and no. Koppout is indeed working on behalf of R&G, and it can be said that CK is being “pressured” into MK to an extent. However, it is believed that the main mover behind MK is indeed, the South African twat. I think the relationship works like this – Koppout gets a free(ish) run at WFC, his main task is to stop the club losing money. In return, he gets money as and where necessary, plus a nice tidy bonus for his, ahem, good work.
What if Koppout goes, won’t another goon come in and carry on as before? Maybe, but consider this – Koppout was probably selected by R&G because he was the most capable for the task in hand. He’s based in England, good (supposedly) at signing contracts etc, and as football relies on contracts most of the time, employing him seems likliest. And he’s probably a “mate” as well of R&G. Remove the guy who the owners most trust to run their entity, and almost immediately the interest of the entity falls sharply. Remember that the reason R&G got shot of the Lebanese Ground Flogger was because he fucked about with their money. Will they want a repeat performance?
So, if WFC have been poo-pooed over MK, then what? The good old “asset-stripping” term comes into play. Trouble is, what sort of asset stripping? Only the players and PGPF – WFC have only put down £1m thus far for PGPF, hardly a substancial return. Which leaves the playing staff – do I find it more than co-incidence that about three days after MK broke TB said that WFC “don’t need to sell any more players”? I doubt if TB is happy at all over this – his season has almost been destroyed by one man.
Was his comment the most telling of the whole 4 weeks? If you thought that the FL’s pre-emption clause was significant, then perhaps TB (who knows more or less what the finances are at WFC) has destroyed in a stroke Koppout’s other moneymaking scam. If major sellings go on despite TB’s comments, the FL will start getting suspicious. Remember, they did similar things to the Doncaster chairman when he tried something similar.
The one remaining side-effect in all this is we finally found out who our friends are. Merton Council are our friends (yes, I know they’re desperate but still…), private off-record comments from the Mayor give me some hope. Real legends like Dicky Guy, Wally Downes, Chris Perry, Lurch and Wisey amongst others have supported us. Even long time nemises Patrick Collins has backed us.
On the flip side, people like Vinny Jones, Fashanu and Robbie Earle have shown their true colours. REMBE in fact has probably the most blood on his hands – after the story broke, he was spotted going into a Kingston solicitors firm with …. wait for it ….. Koppout. Of course, we have to put up with chronic disinformation and downright lies, from Mark Lawrenson to David Mellor (though Mellor’s attempts to be Mr Controversial are falling the same way as his legal and political careers), but the speed and accuracy (and indeed comprehensive coverage) of WISA press releases has meant that we’ve outmanoevered obscenely expensive PR companies to the point of embarrasment. After all, who got all the plaudits after Brum and Naarwich? It certainly weren’t Koppout
This whole saga will run a little bit longer, Koppout will try and hold on at all costs, but the pressure is clearly getting to him. Then what? Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?