 Mae'r ganwethaff i TV a joined by John Blaine. We are going to be discussing the ESSG. It came out earlier this week that Everton Stakeholder Supporters Group, I think that's what it is, will meet with Everton CEO, Denise Barrabaxendale and other staff members to discuss proposals, put in place to put a fan on the board. Now, Patreons subscribers will know that this is something me and John did discuss probably two weeks ago Be gynnyddio wneud, a'i'r wych yn ysgrif wybodaeth heb y newid yma i mi leisio'n gael yr llunio. Rydw i chi'n wneud, hefyd, mynd i chi ei ddigon nhw, erbyn hefyd, a llunio'n gwneud. Roedd yn defnyddio i ddylau. Dan mewn dyddwyl, a'r gwis. Felly, bod yw'r hyn mae'n gweithio. Mae wedi ei gweithio'r gwaith honi arall, ac yn eich mwneud, neu'r dod yn gweithio, oherwydd chi'n sefydlu'n gwneud. Cysylltu'n gweithio. Yn gweithio, ond y bydd yn arwain y press yna yn rhan o'r cerddau. Ond oedd y GUSF General又 yma. Yn y gallwn y three principles o'r three fundamental things that came out of it where a fan of be appointed or approved, fan directe, as it was mentioned certainly by people like the echo. Yn gweithio'n gweithio'n gweithio, rydw i yn fawr, mwy. yn gyntaf. Rhyw hwn, mae'n bwysig o angen a mewn ysgrifennu Oesnod pan yw'n gweithio mi ar ei dynnu i. Dwi'n gweithio hyn o'r ffaintfane, mae'n angen i'r gweithio? Felly e'n gweithio hyn, mae'n gweithio. Felly mae'n gweithio hyn. Tadwf yw'n llunio. Tadw, mae'n angen i'r gweithio. Mae gennym yn cael ei digwydd nad yw ramwysgol iawn. Mae'r cim Luisau er i ddim yn gweithio arall a chi ei ddim yn ei gion iawn i ddim. Ie, mae gennym ni i ddim yn ddau i'r gwahanol, ac mae gennym ni wedi cael ei gwaith hwnnw. Felly, y 3 rhyfanaethau eich fan dyrectaeth sydd yn ddiddordeb, i chi'n gwneud i gadael i'r ddechrau, yw'r ddiddordeb mewn gweithretaeth, mae'n ddiddordeb i'r rhysgrifennu ac mae'r ddiddordeb eu ddiddordeb. Yn y stryd, mae'n ddiddordeb i'r ddiddordeb, ac mae'n ddiddordeb i'r ddiddordeb, ac yn ei fod yn gwneud yn fwylo'r cyfriedu ac yn cyfnodol ar gyfer cyd-ynghylch! Yn mor brydiau a'u cyfrifau ac yn cael eu cyfrifau fel y blynedd yn ei ddyfynu cynnig i'r blynedd. Yna wedi gyrwch wedi clyweddoch chi, mae'r cyfrifau gennym ni, I domestic and service system to chose to speak and it's an are you on board with it so to speak? A couple of things. There's always a couple of things. One is your drink and tea. It's really somebody can take the rail. But I really cracked it. Krapp to it three days. Shall I make myself a cup of tea or shall I get beer out? Mae'n golygu i gael gwahodd. Mae'n gilydd i'n gilydd i'r gwaith, ond mae'n gilydd i'r gwaith. Mae'r gwaith mae eich gilydd i'r gwaith gwaith drafodaeth y dyfodig. Mae'r gwaith o'r ysgogel sydd y dyfodig arall, mae ardal chi'n gilydd i'r Ssg. Felly mae'n gwybod. Rwy'n gwybod o aelod i'r gwaith, mae'n dweud ydym ni'n gwybod a gael gwaith o'r Ssg. Ond, mae'n gweithio, yn ysgrifetio, lle, yn ddau'r fanbath, yn roi'r ffordd, yn cael eu cyflog o'r rhan o'ch cymdeithas o'r ysgrifetio, ond mae'n gweithio bod yr un arwad yn gwneud bod hynny'n gwneud hynny, ond ydy'r rhan o'r rhan o'r rhan o'r ysgrifetio. Ond sawl o'r ysgrifetio o'r rhan o'r hynny. I'n deall, mae'n sasgwt gweld i fod y cwylio i'w gweld a'n dod yn teithio. Rhaid o'n wahanol gyrddio'n gweithio'n cysylltu'n roor o'r gerfod o amser. Rhaid o'n gefn nhw'n bod yn gweithio. Rwy'n gofyn yn gallu bod nhw'n bryd. Mae gennym oŵr ei wentlygyn, hynnyín amgau i chi'n gweithio, ac mae chi'n gennym. Gallu fel ten paigau, ond mae'n gweithio o'r cwylio i'r popeth. Felly Sound� will yn cael ei gweld i. I think that they can understand all the background to it by reading more, but fundamentally what the SSG has spent the time doing is producing a proposal, which is the document which is in the public domain earlier this week, to actually dissent it, I believe, to the football club last week, but then they had a meeting with the club this week, and let's not be shy here, it's not just the club they met with the chief executive. OK, and so they met with the chief executive and fundamentally said, here are our proposals about fine representation that is effective, and they only have two proposals, really dead simple. One, they want a fan on the board, but we all want that, don't we? And they want that fan on the board to be a member of and supported by a fan advisory board, which is the shadow board type thing that mean you talked about two or three weeks ago. And I can't imagine fans don't like that either. OK, so that's when you get into the problems about all the thousands of questions that people, well, how do you get on this fans board? Is it all really jobs for the boys? All those sorts of things. And so perhaps the third thing to say is all these people, whoever they turn out to be, will be fully elected through a transparent open and transparent election. That is, you know, open to all of you will. As long as you're never turning, of course. Therefore, fundamentally what the DSSG is proposing is that the Everton fan base elect 11 of their own to be a shadow board or a fan advisory board, the name doesn't really matter. And that one of them or at least one of them will also attend board meetings at the football club and that board meeting stuff at the football club would be as an equal to the other board members at the club. So your question was really, and are you up for this or you're supportive of it? Damn right I am. Having a fully elected shadow board for Everton football club, where at least one of them actually attends Everton football club board meetings, that's fan representation done large, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. It's not something our partners across, or brothers and sisters from across the park have achieved yet. I mean what the Spirit of Shantley announced a number of weeks ago, I guess is the equivalent of the fan advisory board. And I think DSSG have gone the extra yard if you like and said now we want at least one of these to be on the Everton board as well. And the chief exec was very receptive to both proposals in the meeting. Well I mean that's good. What do we say to people who still will kind of will accept this news, receive this news with the nodding, the no and I have, oh yeah it's just a pat on the head. You know it's kind of a dump for show on all of this. Because this is born, I'm writing saying John that this came about because of the super league really and obviously there's been a lot of discontent I think from football's reporters certainly over the last couple of years. Covid really I think made people step away from the game because you couldn't go and looked at everything. You looked at everything and people were like oh this is a bit robust the way they treat us and then when we actually saw the impact of on the football club of us not being there physically. We kind of started going oh they actually need us because without us the games crap. The game is empty as we saw we watched the year of football with no fans and it was pathetic. It was just weird football so I think fans then started going we are actually more important than we've been led to believe by TV and by the club and stuff and then obviously Tracy Crouch got involved and there was things like that because of the super league so has this been born out of that? I think at the very beginning the short answer would be yes. I mean it was from the fan led review. I think Denise Bachsendale, the chief executive asked the fans forum to come up with speaks to the fans and see what contribution you want to make to the fan led review from a football club's perspective. Clearly the football club put out surveys. What the fans forum did is went back to the club and said yeah we'll do this but we're going to drag in a load of other fan groups if you want to call them that. I mean that's some of the social media comment is the single individual who's not a member of anything saying no one asked me. So you can't capture everybody. Po te ia'r cof y bike rydw i'ch brante. Well yeah I think it's one of those things where perhaps you know it's always going to pass on by because at the end of the day this has all been done digitally you know so bless him that my dad was around and he was 80 odd and he would be 80 odd chasing 90 by now. He wouldn't have known about this unless I told it. So so so inevitably you're going to miss segments of the of the fan base. Yeah but I mean if you look what the SSG was it's disabled supporters. It's the fans forum shareholders Association. It's the supporters committee which is predominantly people go to away games all the time isn't it. Yeah yeah perishes society. There's three overseas people on it. You know one from North America one from Europe one from Asia pack. And then of course there's a catch all which is actually Dave Kelly and people should know Davis and Dave's not a yes man for the football club in any way shape or form. And he was capturing all those organizations who are affiliated to the football supporters Association and Davis front of it for them and that's rainbow toffees and so on. Yeah so I think you know this entity whilst it might not have covered everybody. And it needs to going forward and they know that and that you know they'll embrace you know when our place called start to use one of my favorite soundbites. I think it's it's credible. You know I'm a group I've got it in front of me. One two three four one six. Quite far reaching isn't it really. Yeah I mean a lot of groups. I didn't hear how many you froze John just when you were telling me how many it was all together. Yeah it's okay there's nine nine okay so nine with covering different areas and stuff. Yeah you know what you can if you count the international reps as individuals there's nine of them. Yeah you represent others of course. So yeah I suppose people people will always complain if no one knock on my door and ask me and all of that stuff. But we shouldn't look back. I mean you know these guys had a good meeting with the football club. Clearly the football club issued a press release which is from the football club's perspective. Yeah and ESSG put their stuff out through Twitter so you went on Twitter you didn't see it right. But fundamentally the club have embraced the idea of a fan advisory board. That's good yeah. Which is hardly surprising because it's in the Tracy Crouch report so it's gonna happen anyway. And of course you wouldn't be surprised that the chief executive can't on the Zoom call say oh yeah I'll let a fan on the board no problem. Of course yeah. You know so Denise it was very enthusiastic by the way and very receptive and used words like supportive and excited even and all those sorts of things. She's gone off to speak to the board of Edmont Football Club and presumably the largest shareholder as well and said to find out what the official reply is going to be to these two recommendations. I think it's an absolute no brainer that the advisory board will come back as a yes and let's wait and see about a fan on the board what that means. So the challenge now for the ESSG is not to rest on their laurels it's to start the process of defining what the FAB looks like defining what the timetable is to have open and transparent elections and be ready to have a fan on the board before the start of next season. Because you know the ESSG doesn't have to wait for the club's approval they can get on with it now. You can get on with it you know and elect and we the families can elect those 11 people and say we're ready. We're ready we've done all bit. And clearly I think the club will certainly recognise the fan advisory board as being a legitimate entity. And the trick now is to have the biggest election in footballing history to get the right 11 people. Yeah it's going to be interesting isn't it? It's going to be very interesting. I think again key that it's on the board by next season I think it's just looking at it from a fan perspective like I am. I think anything that I feel helps the board understand my feelings and how I feel about my football club so that can be relayed. I'm not talking single here to one single person but what I mean is we all know right now the club's struggling. We know the team is struggling. We know the fan base is really struggling with what's going on. But do we really do we you know do we have full confidence that the board understand exactly how we're feeling. I'm not asking you to answer that question right now but what I mean is anything like this moving forward. If this shadow board or if this fan director was on the board then that could be relayed in a meeting and say you know do you understand how the fan base is actually feeling about this. Subject or that subject even if they sit around the table and go oh we understand that you know we know what's what. There's going to be a conversation about that isn't it and I imagine that would be able to be fed back because there's got to be some transparency here as well. Board meetings cannot always be you know windows shut doors locked and we discuss and nothing gets out of these four walls. I accept some some points on an agenda might be like that because the football club doesn't have to share everything with everybody. But if you've got just say it was now so this is how I'm feeling and I know you always take a slightly different view or your view might be a little different to mine. But right now I'm feeling frustrated that the club has continued to recruit poorly. I feel really frustrated that we recruited a manager that a lot of the fan base didn't really want. I'm frustrated that the director of football has gone but we haven't been given really any other information other than there'll be a structural review of what goes on whatever that means. And so just right now I'm frustrated that we haven't had any money to spend and we might not have any money in January just just I'm taking this broadly of course. So if if this was right now and this shadow board was in place and say it was huge on who were the fan director you know when people would go I know it won't just say it was you in this in this example. And you said well I'm at a board meeting on Monday and I will be relaying all of this these fears that the fans have got or worries or concerns to the board. So they will know at least in that in that meeting that you the fan base is being heard and then you you feed that back. The board say right we've taken that on board we are aware but thank you John for feeding back and you come back and go I've fed it all to them. They're all aware of how frustrated we are how worried we are how concerned by a lack of communication so on so on so on. Then at least we go well it's not like they don't know and they probably do know of course they're not stupid but just having that one person on that board and this fan advisory board to feed that to him to get stuff prepared to go into that meeting. Surely that would help us as a fan base to go well we can have our voices heard because it's not waste them feeling totally like I do at the moment I feel like right now. Like we're just doesn't matter what we say things are happening and will happen regardless of how we feel that's just how I feel right now that might not necessarily be the case. It just seems that way at the moment but so be good for me. I think it'd be good to have someone who can feed those frustrations to the board. I agree with everything you were saying because we're all abat Sonians at the end of the day and therefore I share the frustrations I've probably got some of my own. Of course and of course what goes on in parallel with these sort of debates with this ESSG thing is the fans forum still exists. They meet with the football club right so fans can pile in with the fans forum and say express our views. The shareholders association still exists and shareholders who are members of the association or want to be or rider or whatever they can pile in on the shareholders association so please ask these questions. The association met with the football club and again senior execs because Denise had to cancel because she had to go to a Premier League meeting I think but we still got Grant Ingalls coming to the meeting who's a board member alongside senior execs like Richard Kenyon and we covered the questions that the association felt needed to be asked. We also covered the questions that some of our members asked as well. Because the meeting can't last forever as you know there's going to be countless questions from Evertonians we secured a commitment that ADE would answer the questions that we'd asked and the ones that we couldn't ask as we ran out of time they would tell us the structure of the organisation so that we would know who to ask the questions off. So the associations made progress in not being having to do everything through Denise or everything through Richard Kenyon or whatever and if that get embraces one to one direct relationships then that's cool and that actually in an indirect way will present the foundation for how the fan advisory board should meet should be engaged with because and this is all personal views about how things should be done rather than because I'm not. It shows this association is part of this ESSG thing but it's not me it's one of my colleagues on the executive committee right. All right it's okay yeah. Yeah and so the simple thing would be we can imagine hopefully say this time of the season next season right. So we're at Christmas the fan advisory board is up and running and one of its members regularly attend board meetings. So you can imagine our shadow board having a meeting a week before the real board meeting at the football club and saying what are we going to take to the agenda what do we want to talk about what do we want asked what do we want answered and so on. Okay and therefore the 11 members of the fan advisory board would be making sure that the views of their constituents are expressed through the board member who goes off to the meeting the week after. And so that's why it's key that people know not just that you've got 11 representatives but which one represents me. Yeah yeah. You know and that therefore is why it's going to be quite challenging and probably very interesting for the SSG to morph from being what it is to being a fully elected fan advisory board. You know and you know you've got to try and it's all in the papers isn't it. You've got to try and balance representation so you cover all the segments of the fan base. Yeah because I can't personally see I mean I could be an advocate of it but I could also argue the other way that you could just say well anyone who wants to be on the fan advisory board put your name here and we'll have a big vote and the 11 with the most votes you're in. Yeah. But if you do that and they're all blokes who are 75 years of age you never go the game. What purpose does that serve you know. Of course yeah. And if it doesn't cover minority groups whether it's disabled or you know or gender based or age based or whatever. So I think trying to keep all the people happy all of the time is going to be really difficult. Yeah definitely. But I think inevitably when the fan advisory board elections come around there has to be the potential for somebody who's not affiliated to anything to run a really good campaign and get themselves elected otherwise it's not what we want it to be is it. No. And then what you do is the fan base has to trust in those 11 people because we just voted for them. But we could quickly make analogies around how general elections are run and realise that you don't always get what you want because the first pass the post approach results in what it is. The first pass the post. So there's always going to be an element of those who campaign best. Yeah. Other ones. They may be the ones with the biggest reach on social media or whatever it was. But one thing is clear. The club won't be picking them. No and that's important. That's the most important thing. The club will not be picking these 11 people. Because what I think what would be really just will wrap it up now because obviously we've covered loads but I think what would be really good and I don't know how you do it. Will be similar to what we discussed on our titan show about the shadow board is that you'd have areas of expertise so that because you don't you don't I personally looking at it. I don't just want 11 fans with the best reach socially because while their views might be really relevant and they might be I would like areas of expertise. We discussed on the show as many of our viewers will have seen. A shadow board that had a finance fellow that was a shadow director of football. So someone who was working in the football industry who understood recruitment. You know maybe a marketing fellow who understood how evidence should be getting marketed because what we want is we want these people who are elected to be. Able to challenge our own physical board the actual official evidence board and say why aren't you doing this. Now if it was me and I went to Grant Ingalls and said all right Grant why aren't you making extra money on sponsorships or whatever. I don't know how you go about doing that so I could just be stamping my feet and he could be looking at me going. Well because this is the mark of you know this is the mark of value of our deals wherever. But if it was someone who dealt in business again I'll I'll doth my hat to you from someone who's been in business for many many years. You understand lots of nuances you understand how to drive things you understand. Workforces and everything else. Grant Ingalls tried to pull the wall not pull the wall but he tried to offer you a substandard answer. You're more likely to say no no because that isn't how it works because I'm working in it and this is how it works where I might go always that right. Oh okay then so everything can only get £2 million for a share sponsor because that's the going rate where you might go I'm going I'm working in that field and I know that X, Y and Z are getting £10 million for it. And things like that so people who can actually offer not only a point of view as a fan to say we should be doing better but actually got expertise in that field. So when they're challenging, they're challenging it from a base of knowledge rather than just stamping my feet. Go on why can't we sign up right back who's amazing and set up 15 goals a season for 300 grand because she can't because they're not in the field you know. Yeah and I think what you just said actually I thought that was a fab summary to be honest because what you've just said presents the opportunity of the fans can get behind this for an exciting future because let's compare and contrast right. Right now there are three people, forget who the people are, whether you like them or not, there's three people on the board of Everton Football Club. There is no doubt in my mind that the club or four handersherry or both are likely definitely going to do this, not just likely they're definitely going to do this hence why I say you know I've no doubt. A point two more board members, right. One of those undoubtedly will have a commercial background because it's seriously lacking at that level. And the other one will have a footballing person's view of football not just fan base and not convinced that they'll necessarily appoint another director of football but they'll have a board member who's accountable for the footballing side. When they've done that we call it a when rather than an if, there'll be five people on the board of Everton Football Club. There'll be eleven on the fan advisory board you know and it's in the document that the function of and you called it in a way the function of this one advisory board is to be a consultative body. Now the way the club interpret that is we will come to the far and say what you think of this, right. And the far will go into a huddle, speak to the fan base and go back with an answer. That's the tame version. That's a supercharged fans forum. What the fans want is one where it goes the other way round. The fan advisory board say we think you the club should be doing this. And here's our proposal, here's our proposition, here's our opinion which is founded on the fact that we've got some experts and it's what our fans want. So in other words instead of the club just pulling insight in, the fab will push insight in as well. And that's why in the exact summary and in the body of the document it talks about and you read it out before. Suzy qualified and experienced people, blah blah blah. Now to achieve that you have to have some criteria for being eligible for an election, don't you? Of course, yeah, definitely. And you know I don't know whether this seems to be provocative or not but I'll say it. I don't think it should be but the idea that you would have 11 people on a fan advisory board and none of them are disabled but they're supposed to represent the disabled elements of our fan base in my mind is completely ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've got to have some reserved positions to say well actually we've got one position reserved for a representative of the disabled fans for example. You might argue there's a position reserved for I don't know international fans or something. But you can't get carried away and end up with all 11 of them being reserved. No of course you can't. And you also can't require everyone who wants to be a candidate for election to fit into one of these segments. So I think my own personal view is if we call them reserved positions like the disabled one being an example then they should be in the minority across the 11. But they still have to go through the same robust election process as everybody else. Yeah, definitely. And go back to what you said about you don't necessarily want the one with the greatest reach on social media. I think you still have to allow for the fact that there should be candidacy which is just that. There are no criteria other than you can prove you're an Everton fan because we don't want redshites ended up on our fan advisory board do we? No of course. And if there is a fan out there who's not affiliated to anything but wants to be on the advisory board and he or she can prove they're Evertonians they should be able to go into the election. And if they're just dead good to get hundreds of thousands of people on social media to vote for them more power to their elbow because despite what you said if that person's on the fab they can tell all their followers on social media. What's going on? Yeah I just meant we don't want a situation where there's 11 of them to the top 11. I'm not saying there might be someone who's great who's got X amount of 1000 and it's like that's a good way to hit that demographic. But I just wouldn't want it where it was like the 11 most popular but the 11 of them. To a degree that's what it is the most popular isn't it? Yeah but I want the expertise involved that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. And that's where we go back to what you and I talked about whenever it was two or three weeks ago about Shadow Board. The basis of the conversation you drove which you interrogated me basically was about us matching up with the boards. That's for real so that we would have somebody who's a chair type person, someone who's a chief exec, someone who's a finance person. And if I'm right someone who's a commercial person and somebody who's a footballing person. And that's only five of the places. Exactly yeah. And our fab's going to have twice as many as that right. So you know the ambition has to be that the fab is more experienced and more knowledgeable than the Everton Board is. That's cool with that being. That's cool with that being. Oh well that's good on that. You said it before that makes it more exciting that we can drive our football club, pull our football club, drag our football club, kicking and screaming into where we hope it would go. Ideally they'd bounce off each other and we'd move forward because that's what we meant. And that's the right way that it's interaction, it's engagements. They're prepared to listen, we are prepared to stand by what they say. Because ultimately and probably legally Fahamyshirey operates as a shadow director anyway. Because what he says goes and he presumably on occasions is quite prescriptive. We seem to think he's prescriptive when it's about honing and sacking managers. And we should never forget that. It doesn't matter how powerful in quotes that the fan advisory board is. We will only have one vote at board level. Yeah of course. But at least we have our views here. That's the point. And let's pretend that means the board is sick and strong for example. There's five anyway and then there's a fan. If Fahamyshirey wants the five to vote for coffee. Oh yeah. Oh man's not going to get tea is he? Of course yeah. But it will be there and I think the challenges that will be thrown on. Not just by Everton but I think that the Premier League clubs in the round. Because they don't necessarily want independent regulation. They won't necessarily want fans on the board. Although Denise Blesser I think sounds genuine when she talks about wanting to get ahead of the curve. And you know never doing these things properly. And the challenge that she faces is trying to achieve that without being too prescriptive. Because the club are very into controlling and trying to get it designed in their own image. And I think it will take a little bit of a while time and probably behaviours on the side of the SSG to make the football club understand. That when the fans talk about independence they actually mean the football club isn't involved at all. That's the only safe way to do this right. Is to say the whole process of defining selecting maybe if you do it a bit like you would for an MP where the local community decide who's their candidate and then it goes into a big vote. The whole process has to be totally and utterly independent of the football club directly independent because clearly if you want to email everyone with a client ID the club might have to send the email. But that's all they will do send the email. The SSG will have its own website. It won't be waiting on whether ever and like what's going on their website or not and so on. And I think all of that is good for the club as well because sometimes the club has to consider its own position and therefore it can be seen to be frustrating the process. And certainly listening to Denise she doesn't want to frustrate the process. Maybe people lower down the organisation but she doesn't and therefore let's make it easy by maintaining the integrity of the fan organisation whatever it's called that is first and foremost independence. That's right I think anyway. Now that's really the good place to finish because that's exactly what it should be so let's leave it there it's really good. Well obviously it's going to be very interesting seeing how this all plays out now and seeing the processes going into it. I'm sure we'll be having more chats as it goes along John certainly on a business with playing session that we have monthly so it will be interesting. Thank you very much for taking the time out John go and enjoy the rest of your pale ale. It's nearly gone now. Well it should be so finish it off. Right big thanks to John there. Let us know what you think in the comments section below about the ESSG. Do you think it's a good thing for the football club? Can we finally start to make our voices heard more and how can this work going forward? Is it a positive or do you think it's a bit of a patty, a bit of a little pat on the head and go yeah we've done what you asked us to let us know. Let's hope it is definitely not that. Big thanks to John for joining us. We'll see you later.