Foxes Trust Board comment on relegation and the message from the Club’s Chairman

[ozleicester]

Id be tempted to support an overthrow of the Foxestrust by a specialist team from FoxesTalk  

Just for shits n giggles

I imagine this is what the Foxes Trust think they might see outside their window soon 

The question is.... who gets to be this guy (obviously with a fox head not a buffalo)



We need someone on the " inside" to start dropping Qanon style info.

[Sly]

How does Foxestalk get an appointment with the club? 
 

That was be chaos 

[Daggers]

2 minutes ago, Sly said:

How does Foxestalk get an appointment with the club? 
 

That was be chaos 

300 vs 20000 - you’d a thunk they’d have paid more attention to us when we were demanding Rodgers out…rather than siding with the lobotomised whores who called us all stupid. 

[PAPA LAZAROU]

To be honest I can't understand why anyone would want to pay £10.00 to become a member of a group so small in comparison to the majority of fans and with absolutely no point in its very existence ? If anyone thinks this group or any other fan-based group could possibly have any influence on the way the club operates or appoints its ruling staff then by all means flush your £10.00 down the toilet and cut out the middle man. On that subject what is that £10.00 for and where does it go ?

[LCFCJoe96]

26 minutes ago, PAPA LAZAROU said:

To be honest I can't understand why anyone would want to pay £10.00 to become a member of a group so small in comparison to the majority of fans and with absolutely no point in its very existence ? If anyone thinks this group or any other fan-based group could possibly have any influence on the way the club operates or appoints its ruling staff then by all means flush your £10.00 down the toilet and cut out the middle man. On that subject what is that £10.00 for and where does it go ?

FoxesTrust Annual Bingo Night down Mecca

[Voll Blau]

I'll preface this by saying I'm really underwhelmed by what the Trust has become and their absolutely bizarre communications strategy, but I do feel like it's time for a few in this thread to put up or shut up.

 

It's not just a Leicester thing, it's very much an English fan culture thing, but people need to realise they're only going to get the change that they're personally willing to organise and fight for themselves.

[Daggers]

55 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

I'll preface this by saying I'm really underwhelmed by what the Trust has become and their absolutely bizarre communications strategy, but I do feel like it's time for a few in this thread to put up or shut up.

 

It's not just a Leicester thing, it's very much an English fan culture thing, but people need to realise they're only going to get the change that they're personally willing to organise and fight for themselves.

So you’re saying you are going to organise a group to join, stand for election and change the direction of the Trust?

[Guest Sideshow Faes]

9 minutes ago, Daggers said:

So you’re saying you are going to organise a group to join, stand for election and change the direction of the Trust?

Would you need to?

If foxestalk created a committee it could very easily turn itself into the most official supporters club/trust in Leicester. The weight of it's membership gives it far more legitimacy than the other versions.

[Voll Blau]

14 minutes ago, Daggers said:

So you’re saying you are going to organise a group to join, stand for election and change the direction of the Trust?

I'm already part of an organised fan group, fighting for the change I want.

 

If anybody wants advice on how to go about doing that for themselves, my DMs are open.

[The People's Hero]

2 minutes ago, Sideshow Faes said:

Would you need to?

If foxestalk created a committee it could very easily turn itself into the most official supporters club/trust in Leicester. The weight of it's membership gives it far more legitimacy than the other versions.

Are you insane? Look at the basic standard of intellect here. The Foxes Trust is (depending on day of the week) a trumped up quasi-mouth-piece of the club, a news aggregator, regurgitating stuff from the football world and jumping on trends about 4 years after they began and 3 1/2 years after they became irrelevant or chief-information disseminators in stating the bleeding obvious, but the average foxestalk poster they ain't.

 

If Mark ever put in to place my favoured approach of an IQ test on membership application and then Foxestalk Junior for those scoring poorly and Foxestalk Senior for those amongst us who aren't complete blathering idiots, then maybe you'd have a strong point here, but all the while we are dragged down by the dullards, then.... no.

 

 

[Daggers]

5 minutes ago, Sideshow Faes said:

Would you need to?

If foxestalk created a committee it could very easily turn itself into the most official supporters club/trust in Leicester. The weight of it's membership gives it far more legitimacy than the other versions.

I'm not advocating that though - either of them. Can you imagine trying to organise FT? Herding kittens springs to mind.

 

Wouldn't matter which body was organised, the club will continue to remain silent and only engage with platitudes no matter the organisation.

 

The only solution imo is individual action to deprive the club of funds - and I reckon I'm in a group of one on that score.

[Daggers]

1 minute ago, The People's Hero said:

 

If Mark ever put in to place my favoured approach of an IQ test on membership application and then Foxestalk Junior for those scoring poorly and Foxestalk Senior for those amongst us who aren't complete blathering idiots, then maybe you'd have a strong point here, but all the while we are dragged down by the dullards, then.... no.

 

There is.

 

It starts with being able to add an avatar and write your username like a proper noun.

[feked it]

12 minutes ago, Daggers said:

There is.

 

It starts with being able to add an avatar and write your username like a proper noun.

Damn.

[Lako42]

11 hours ago, Foxes_Trust said:

We will be meeting the club later this week

Filbert? 

[Chrysalis]

12 hours ago, Foxes_Trust said:

We will be meeting the club later this week, then we have a Trust board meeting next Monday when we will decide how we communicate topics covered.

 

We do have a duty to communicate with our members ahead of the wider fan base, so bear with us, information will be shared

Is there a reason you cant publish minutes of the meeting in the events when the club lies to you yet again on making a public statement?

[Sol thewall Bamba]

2 hours ago, Daggers said:

So you’re saying you are going to organise a group to join, stand for election and change the direction of the Trust?

Haha this isn't the gotcha you think it is

[KrefelderFox666]

4 hours ago, Daggers said:

So you’re saying you are going to organise a group to join, stand for election and change the direction of the Trust?

It would be beneficial if every fan that had a view on what the Foxes Trust, UFS or the club (or any existing entity) do actually joined one of those to bring their views across and push for change. Or alternatively, create a brand new fan group with a purpose and recruit like minded people. The more groups that can pressure the club the better.

 

It really doesn't get anything to change when a few people present their views on forums like these, or on social media, or in person. Only as a collective will you be able to start pushing for change and make the club listen.

 

Don't wait for someone else to get things moving. Create your own group and enlist or just join an existing one.

[Daggers]

13 minutes ago, KrefelderFox666 said:

It would be beneficial if every fan that had a view on what the Foxes Trust, UFS or the club (or any existing entity) do actually joined one of those to bring their views across and push for change. Or alternatively, create a brand new fan group with a purpose and recruit like minded people. The more groups that can pressure the club the better.

 

It really doesn't get anything to change when a few people present their views on forums like these, or on social media, or in person. Only as a collective will you be able to start pushing for change and make the club listen.

 

Don't wait for someone else to get things moving. Create your own group and enlist or just join an existing one.

I don’t take issue with any other fan group. I take the piss out of the Trust because they deserve it. 

You are in a group? Great. It’s my opinion that no number of groups or people in groups will have a significant impact on the issues I consider to matter because KPFC doesn’t care about you, KPFC cares about the contents of your bank account. 
 

There is one single way to effect change - stop giving KPFC money. That’s what I do. No ST, no matchday ticket, no merch, no concession purchases and no KPFC TV. 
 

It would be beneficial if every fan in a group or person on a forum who cares about pricing, communication, safe standing and matchday experience did the same. That is the single thing they would pay attention to. 
 

In my opinion. 

[iancognito]

11 hours ago, Voll Blau said:

I'll preface this by saying I'm really underwhelmed by what the Trust has become and their absolutely bizarre communications strategy, but I do feel like it's time for a few in this thread to put up or shut up.

 

It's not just a Leicester thing, it's very much an English fan culture thing, but people need to realise they're only going to get the change that they're personally willing to organise and fight for themselves.

Not really.

 

On several occasions last season, the Leeds Supporters Trust called out their club and in March called a vote of no confidence in them. Everton's stance around Moshiri and Kenwright led to the resignation of several board members at the end of the season and many of the club's hierarchy still don't attend games. When their clubs were in the do-do last season Wolves and Forest supporters groups were both very vocal in their criticisms in the media. Elsewhere, Liverpool have had walkouts about ticketing and you can't go to a United game without seeing some sort of Glazer protest.

 

At Leicester we have the Foxes Trust, created in our darkest hour to ensure that the governance of the club could always be questioned and ensure any wrong moves were answerable to SOMEONE. Yet here we are some 20 years later still waiting for them to take someone to account about...well anything really. I've been especially critical of them but I feel no need to either put up or shut up. It was their weak fence-sitting statement that started this debate and opened up a lot of people's eyes to what they don't do because it seems they're another part of the "well we won the title not so long back so the club's doing okay" attitude. I don't need to form an alternative because FT should be effective enough that I don't have to.

[Daggers]

Glazer protest is like a beacon of truth to me, illustrating the absolute futility in group protests.
 

When you have corporations running operations to rinse supporters of their money it really ought to be a wake up call as to how you mount opposition to couldn't-care-less company owners. 

You either bite the bullet to change the system or you are a compliant cog within it. 
 

“Oh but, Dave, others will simply buy tickets and shirts”

 

And? Have some integrity. Fvck talking shops - be the fvcking change. 

 

[urban.spaceman]

23 hours ago, Foxes_Trust said:

We will be meeting the club later this week, then we have a Trust board meeting next Monday when we will decide how we communicate topics covered.

 

We do have a duty to communicate with our members ahead of the wider fan base, so bear with us, information will be shared

PLEASE make sure to find out if they're aware of the issues in my post in the Everton legal action thread:

 

On 24/06/2023 at 00:17, urban.spaceman said:

I don't want anyone to take this personally but I feel that not enough people quite understand the ways in which we've been held back since we won the league. It's not just about Everton and Man City's antics - to add to the unlevel playing field analogy we've also quite literally had our arms tied behind our back by a system that treats the "big" with deference and everyone else with nothing but contempt, including us fans as consumers.

 

The TV deal for UK consumers is quite literally the worst in the world for non-"top 6" clubs and consumers. It's what sustains the "big" clubs and prevents smaller clubs from ever developing and breaking into the top 7 places on a long term basis.

 

If you are a British consumer and you want to access every single Premier League match, then you have absolutely no legal right or means to do so.

 

In most other countries you can.

 

In the UK you are expected to subscribe to Sky, BT and Amazon and yet you only get access to 52% of the matches. A rough estimate on my part is that this will cost you £775 per annum, although I can only find a minimum 18 month contract with Sky and 24 month contract with BT.

 

I've said this before, but for the last 6 months of our title winning season I was living in Cape Town then spent 2-3 months living in Botswana and travelling around the region. I could either pay for DSTV/Supersport at £360pa and get access to every single Premier League match, or walk in to any pub to get access to it.

 

My dad lives 8 miles away from the King Power and had absolutely absolutely no legal right or means to watch us play on tv.

 

A few weeks ago there was a gang of Brits jailed for decades for providing access to "illegal" streams for UK consumers.

 

Or to put it another way, the Premier League managed to prosecute people for making their product actually accessible to people who wanted to access it. 

 

-------

 

But here's why it's bad for clubs like us.

 

Football has had a Saturday 3pm broadcast blackout since the 60s, which is why UK based consumers can't watch the games. So matches are selected by broadcasters and moved away from the Saturday 3pm slot to get around that rule. Clubs are given "facility fees" - £1.2m per game as it stands - for every match selected for UK broadcast. They have viewers to attract, so the broadcasters pick the clubs they feel will bring in more viewers, which is what tips the eventual earnings in favour of the biggest clubs.

 

To give you an example, in 2014/15, we were selected for broadcast only 8 times.

 

In 2015/16, we were selected for broadcast 15 times (just 12 in 2016/17). Newcastle 16. Everton 18. Spurs 21. Chelsea 22. Liverpool 23. Man Utd 25. Man City 26. Arsenal 27.

 

In total prize money, we were the 5th highest earners with £93m. Spurs £95m, Man Utd £96.3m, Man City £96.8m and Arsenal £100.8m.

 

That right there is evidence of football not being a meritocracy.

 

And that's before you even get to the extra exposure for sponsors which sends their 'earnings' skyrocketing - Man City have certainly been using it as an excuse to inflate their deals, hence the constant investigations.

 

And that's just part of the issue. One of the FFP measures they brought in in 2013 was called Short Term Cost Control (STCC). It was basically, they said, designed to keep clubs spending within their means {directly controlled, see above} and not have wage bills spiralling out of control.

 

Clubs were restricted from increasing wage bills by more than 7% each season.

 

That in itself is designed to protect the bigger clubs IMO.

 

We won the league with a squad that had been promoted 2 seasons earlier and had finished 14th the previous season. So despite being the actual Champions, we were restricted from spending money {that had already been stifled} on players to compete at the top where we found ourselves.

 

We were the reigning Champions but effectively only had the spending power of 14th place club.

 

(Side note - STCC ended in 2019 which is why Newcastle were able to spend £300m in the last year despite circa £30m the previous)

 

-------

 

In summary, you've basically got a company (the Premier League) colluding with participants (the "big" clubs) and restricting access (via broadcasters) in order to restrain competition (the "other 14") and prices for consumers (us).

 

That, my friends, is the dictionary definition of a cartel:

 

cartel

noun

a group of similar independent companies who join together to control prices and limit competition

 

-------

 

Miguel Delaney did a fantastic article in The Independent in early 2020, about a month before lockdown. It begins:

 

“We don’t want too many Leicester Citys.”

These were the words spoken by a senior figure from the Premier League’s ‘big six’ clubs, in the kind of high-end London hotel you can easily imagine.

“Football history suggests fans like big teams winning,” the official continued, to the group of business people and media figures present. “A certain amount of unpredictability is good, but a more democratic league would be bad for business.”

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/champions-league-superclubs-liverpool-man-utd-barcelona-real-madrid-a9330431.html

 

That was about 9 months before Man United and Liverpool tried to bring in Project Big Picture, which involved reducing the teams to 18, giving the 9 clubs with the longest time in the league (but in reality allowing 'any six clubs' and we all know who they are) more voting power on competition issues, and especially distribution of broadcast revenues. citation

 

That was 14 months before they announced the European Super League which as we all know would have bankrupted everyone but themselves.

 

-------

 

We absolutely should not have been allowed to win the Premier League. It shouldn't have happened. They let their guard down expecting that one of the six (well, four; Liverpool hadn't won a title in 25 years and Tottenham are, well, Tottenham). They had controlled the finances and fortunes (in every sense of the word) of the competition for so long that a club ACTUALLY WINNING IT ON MERIT was utterly unthinkable.

 

As far as I'm concerned, with our relegation, they got exactly what they wanted. This is our punishment for humiliating them without buying in.

 

Clubs like Manchester City and Newcastle are so wealthy that they are unaccountable. Man City's CEO is literally on record saying he'd rather spend £50m on lawyers suing UEFA than pay a £30m fine. They refused to cooperate with UEFA for years, were allowed to appoint 2 of the 3 CAS judges who - lo and behold - declared that their rule breaks were "time barred". The Premier League spent 2 years investigating Man City before they were even allowed to report on it. Just look at the trophies they've won in just the 4 years they were being investigated.

 

Football is broken to such a level that only government action will fix it. The problem we have with that is that we don't have a functioning government, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is a vocal Man City fan who expressed disappointment after the UEFA ban.

 

Football in this country is beyond broken.

 

And it won't get 'fixed'. Because it already is.

 

-------

 

“We don’t want too many Leicester Citys.”

If you want I can rewrite it to be more concise and translatable compared to my musings.

 

I want to know that they're aware of the situation and have a plan for action.

[Voll Blau]

13 hours ago, iancognito said:

Not really.

 

On several occasions last season, the Leeds Supporters Trust called out their club and in March called a vote of no confidence in them. Everton's stance around Moshiri and Kenwright led to the resignation of several board members at the end of the season and many of the club's hierarchy still don't attend games. When their clubs were in the do-do last season Wolves and Forest supporters groups were both very vocal in their criticisms in the media. Elsewhere, Liverpool have had walkouts about ticketing and you can't go to a United game without seeing some sort of Glazer protest.

 

At Leicester we have the Foxes Trust, created in our darkest hour to ensure that the governance of the club could always be questioned and ensure any wrong moves were answerable to SOMEONE. Yet here we are some 20 years later still waiting for them to take someone to account about...well anything really. I've been especially critical of them but I feel no need to either put up or shut up. It was their weak fence-sitting statement that started this debate and opened up a lot of people's eyes to what they don't do because it seems they're another part of the "well we won the title not so long back so the club's doing okay" attitude. I don't need to form an alternative because FT should be effective enough that I don't have to.

 

On "English fan culture", I meant the idea of organising in general. People just seem to think someone else should be doing things on their behalf. I hope that's changing though, and the examples you've highlighted are obviously welcome (see also the anti-Oyston movement at Blackpool, which is probably the best example of organised support working in this country). It's still a relatively rare occurrence here compared to elsewhere, though.

 

If you want to criticise the work of the Trust then fine, I absolutely agree with everything you say about how they've acted. Just don't expect things to get any better if you're not willing to either get involved or form an alternative yourself.

[Freeman's Wharfer]

Hey @Foxes_Trust, 8 games into the new season and nearly into October, have the club given you answers to those questions you were asking about the failures of last season?

 

If not, what’s your plan to get them and by when?

[Paninistickers]

5 minutes ago, Freeman's Wharfer said:

Hey @Foxes_Trust, 8 games into the new season and nearly into October, have the club given you answers to those questions you were asking about the failures of last season?

 

If not, what’s your plan to get them and by when?

Mate, I agree that it needs chasing up. FT are presumably hoping the good starts masks their impotencey. But but, as a few posters have said on this thread, it's time to stop sniping from the side, join it and effect the change. 

 

I'm loathe to criticise anyone  - FT, parish councillors, Jehovah's Witnesses - who at least have the gumption to put themselves out there. 

[Freeman's Wharfer]

50 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Mate, I agree that it needs chasing up. FT are presumably hoping the good starts masks their impotencey. But but, as a few posters have said on this thread, it's time to stop sniping from the side, join it and effect the change. 

 

I'm loathe to criticise anyone  - FT, parish councillors, Jehovah's Witnesses - who at least have the gumption to put themselves out there. 

I have been a critic and I have praised when there’s been progress (the new board members for example).

 

I’m doing neither on this issue. I’m just shining a light on it and expecting some accountability from the club and transparency from FT when they’ve asked questions on behalf of the fan base.

 

If the club are not engaging, or kicking the can down the road, it’s something that everyone on this forum and in the fan base should have a) visibility on and b) be concerned about.

 

Some will probably contribute general criticism on this thread and if @Foxes_Trust don’t want to open up that again then they could always start a new thread with an update on just this issue.