Parma's Tactics Masterclass 15

[westcoastcanary 0]

@PurpleThe duty of a board of directors to a company''s shareholders does not necessarily require "keeping the business going". It may be in the interests of shareholders to wind the company up, or otherwise dispose of it. There is no contradiction between a board of directors recommending such a course of action to shareholders while at the same time fulfilling all their statutory duties as directors. Which leaves your original claim dependent on there being "a moral duty" on owners to keep a business going. I''ve no doubt our majority shareholders do consider themselves to have such a duty and that they have that in common with many in football, not least a large number of fans. But clearly there are already owners who don''t subscribe to that set of values and the "fans versus customers" debate shows that football is not impervious to change.

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

[quote user="westcoastcanary"]@PurpleThe duty of a board of directors to a company''s shareholders does not necessarily require "keeping the business going". It may be in the interests of shareholders to wind the company up, or otherwise dispose of it. There is no contradiction between a board of directors recommending such a course of action to shareholders while at the same time fulfilling all their statutory duties as directors. Which leaves your original claim dependent on there being "a moral duty" on owners to keep a business going. I''ve no doubt our majority shareholders do consider themselves to have such a duty and that they have that in common with many in football, not least a large number of fans. But clearly there are already owners who don''t subscribe to that set of values and the "fans versus customers" debate shows that football is not impervious to change. [/quote]Perhaps I lack imagination but I really cannot conceive of circumstances in the real world under which it would be in the interests of anyone connected to a football club, be it shareholders, staff or fans, for it to go out of existence.Secondly, you seem with that reference to Smith and Jones and values to be falling into the trap of over-assuming what I mean by keeping a business (in this case NCFC) going being the over-riding duty for the owners/directors - that I see keeping a business going as the only aim. Of course it isn''t. Any business should always aim for success. But you can only do that if the business exists. Hence the paramountcy of the "existence" duty. Nor does fulfilling that prime-directive duty mean the owners need not be open to change, up to and including takeover offers. But again their over-riding duty would be to ensure  as far as humanly possible, with written safeguards, for example, that any sale would not threaten (as many others have done) the club''s existence.

[Parma Ham's gone mouldy 2,219]

Predicting The problems to come for the belated new model. April 2017.

Parma