No more hiding behind that "no comment" stance
In his latest “One Vale View” column, Rob Fielding argues that the club need to stop hiding behind their “no comment” statement on the Blue Sky International (BSI) investment and face the fans’ questions.
Fielding argues that it’s in the club’s best interests to face the fans at Thursday’s Supporters Club meeting, but he won’t be holding his breath…
There’s a Supporters Club meeting at Tommy Cheadle’s on Thursday. Does anyone want to remind Perry Deakin, Peter Miller or Mike Lloyd about it? The rumours are that no-one from the club will be in attendance and certainly recent quotes from the CEO don’t seem to suggest the club are going to attend anytime soon. Perry Deakin told the Sentinel that: “We have been dealing with the supporters’ club committee as agreed, but open meetings tend to put people off.”
But do they?
I’d argue that not furnishing fans with any information about when the investment hold-up will be resolved or indeed whether it can be resolved will be putting people off even more. I know that the club have said that they won’t comment on the BSI deal until February, but that seems to me to be a nice, convenient excuse not to address the subject and one that has already been contradicted by the club itself.
Contradicted? Yes.
Just three days after this club stated that – “No further comment will be made by the club regarding BSI investment until the issues currently being dealt with are concluded” then this comment from Perry Deakin appears in the Sentinel: “I am relatively confident we will be able to sort things out amicably. It is not anything other than contractual issues on the other side of the pond and we are trying to resolve them. I have spoken to Blue Sky and they have been bombarded. I am still hopeful there will be a positive resolution with Blue Sky, but this nonsense doesn’t help.” Now, if that’s not discussing the BSI deal while matters are being currently dealt with and a direct contradiction of the club statement, I don’t know what is.
So that decision not to comment has already been ignored yet the club continues to “hide” behind that convenient “no comment” statement.
The only way for the club to move forward is for fans to unite. One unpopular board have already been gradually despatched thanks mainly to fan pressure. If the board continue to dodge the big issues then rather than unite the fans in board support, they will be uniting the fans in their opposition to the board and reinforce suspicions that things are not good at Vale Park.
It’s therefore in the club’s best interests to face the fans. Even though I won’t be holding my breath that a club director will be in attendance on Thursday, I hope that they prove me wrong and do turn up as I’m sure there will be one or two questions for them to answer…
The Supporters Club meeting takes place at 7:30pm at Tommy Cheadle’s on Thursday. All Vale fans are welcome. Even directors.
About the author: Rob Fielding has been a Port Vale fan for thirty years. He founded the award-winning onevalefan.co.uk website in 1996. These are his personal views and he welcomes your comments on them.