https://www.thetimes...scale-m866f2wxn
Orient’s fall a tale of incompetence on startling scale
Neil Warnock always insisted that he did not say it, let alone mean it, but it is there in the archives, in black and white. Asked back in 2002 what he would do if he were in charge of Sheffield Wednesday, the former Sheffield United manager was quoted as saying, jokingly, that he would “buy so many tosspots — although, come to think of it, their current squad would do — and f*** them up so badly. Then I’d retire to Cornwall and spend the rest of my life laughing my f***ing head off.”
Over the intervening years, there have been several clubs whose fans, witnessing crisis upon crisis, have been left wondering whether someone in the boardroom is taking them for the type of ride that Warnock joked about. Certainly there are owners whose initial incompetence has been compounded by resentment at the hostility their regime has attracted. There are other clubs whose owners, having failed spectacularly at every turn, appear simply to have given up. Leyton Orient? Surely even someone hellbent on destroying a club could not have caused so much damage, so quickly, as has happened under Francesco Becchetti’s calamitous ownership.
As Matt Lockwood, one of Orient’s most popular former players, remarked recently, “To kill a club in three years, how is that even possible? Even if my five-year-old daughter was in charge, she couldn’t have done it.” Barry Hearn, who sold the club to Becchetti, took a similar tone when approached by The Times yesterday. “My dog could have done a better job,” Hearn said. “It’s unbelievable, what has happened. I honestly believed this Becchetti man was exactly what the club needed in terms of enthusiasm, substance and wealth that he was willing to invest. And he has spent — he has put in another £10 million on top of the £4 million he paid for it — but I am absolutely staggered, mesmerised, by the level of incompetence on the business side of it.”
Orient had just missed out on promotion to the Championship, beaten by Rotherham United on penalties in the League One play-off final, when Becchetti, an Italian multimillionaire, bought the club from Hearn for £4 million in July 2014. Thirty-three months and eight managerial changes later, they are bottom of League Two, nine points adrift of safety with six games remaining, and looking certain to drop out of the Football League for the first time since 1905. They have lost 14 of their 17 matches since the turn of the year. Their latest manager, Omer Riza, was banished to the stands during his first match in charge, against Wycombe Wanderers last Saturday, for comments he made to the referee at half-time. Assistant manager duties were fulfilled that day by Frederico Morais, who was until recently coaching the club’s under-14 team, and Errol McKellar, a local mechanic and part-time youth coach.
Off the pitch, things are even worse. Orient were recently the subject of a winding-up petition from HM Revenue & Customs over an unpaid £250,000 tax bill. That petition was adjourned until June after the bill was paid in full, with Becchetti’s legal representatives saying he would inject £1 million into the club to cover other debts (which include £35,000 to London Borough of Waltham Forest Council and £6,000 to the club’s photographer), but alarm bells rang once more when it emerged this week that a second deadline had passed without their players and staff receiving their wages. The threat of strike action this weekend has been averted, after the Professional Footballers’ Association attempted to mediate, but a feeling of meltdown has gripped the club and, as always happens in such circumstances, the community.
“Relegation has become a secondary issue because people are so worried about the club’s existence,” Tom Davies, vice-chair of the Leyton Orient Fans’ Trust (LOFT), told The Times. “It’s a fairly small club, which is central to its community, and as fans, we all know people who work for the club, people who aren’t being paid. We have heard all the stories and it feels like the club is being destroyed. What makes it even worse is that it is so needless. We weren’t in financial difficulty when he took over. And he did splurge a lot of money initially — but so ill-advisedly.”
Hearn says Orient’s entire football budget in the 2013-14 season, when they came so close to promotion to the Championship, was £1.4 million — or £27,000 a week. The following season they made a series of expensive acquisitions, such as Andrea Dossena, Jobi McAnuff and Darius Henderson. One player was reported to be earning £9,000 a week, a mindboggling sum for a club of that size. Orient made a £4.5 million loss that year, gambling on promotion, and, with the ruinous hiring and firing under way, ended up relegated. Two years later, with bold promises replaced by silent costcutting drift, Orient are about to go down again, barring the type of miraculous late run that seems impossible for a depleted squad under a novice manager, when staff are not being paid and morale is at an all-time low.
“He expected it to be easy — ‘Throw money at it, get promoted,’ ” Hearn said. “It’s not about how much money you spent. It’s about management. They have been punished for one bad decision after another. It’s horrible and I just don’t know where it all ends.”
Whatever Becchetti’s intentions when he arrived, this is what can happen when an owner with no knowledge of the football industry bites off so much more than he can chew — and then, ego severely bruised, decides he has had enough. The chief executive, Alessandro Angelieri, has not been seen at the club for months. The chief operating officer, Vito Miceli, reassured staff last Friday that their wages would be forthcoming by Wednesday, but that deadline came and went.
“The club,” LOFT said in a statement yesterday, “is in utter disarray. The failure to pay their staff and the club’s players is a shameful breach of responsibility.”
Relegation to the National League, unimaginable when Becchetti took over amid such fanfare, is now accepted with a sense of weary resignation by supporters. There are bigger battles ahead. Competing in the National League — never mind winning promotion — is an expensive business these days, when clubs such as Forest Green Rovers, Lincoln City and Tranmere Rovers are operating with annual budgets well in excess of £1 million. How would Becchetti respond to another relegation? Judging by the sense of drift that has taken hold of the club this season, it is only natural for supporters to fear the worst. “I really do fear for the club’s future,” Hearn said.
It has unravelled at a terrifying speed. It took 19 years under Hearn’s ownership to build something that was solid enough, under Russell Slade’s management, to come so close to going up to the Championship, and it has taken three years to bring the club to their knees.
Even those other modern-day tragedies, at clubs such as Blackburn Rovers, Blackpool and Coventry City, have looked like slow-burners in comparison with the Orient debacle. And that really is saying something.
It should not be possible for a club to fall so far, so fast, amid fears that there is no safety net. It should not be permissible either, of course — and this is where, once again, English football’s authorities should be ashamed by the lack of protection afforded to clubs that are so fundamental not just to supporters but to their communities. What really is so shocking about the Orient situation, though, is the breathtaking speed of the club’s collapse. It is a story of incompetence on a staggering scale. Sooner or later, Becchetti will cut his losses, walk away and find something else to spend his fortune on. It will be left to others, those who care, to pick up the fragmented pieces that remain.
This post has been edited by freelander2: 08 April 2017 - 08:27 AM
fishini 
MDCCCLXVI, on 24 February 2017 - 12:43 PM, said:
60s 70s Spireite 
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