In the second – and hopefully, final – high profile departure, Danny Kedwell is off to his boyhood club.
The fact that this has managed to be even less of a surprise than Gregs leaving yesterday is testament to something, though I’m not quite sure what. Maybe once the shock of the transfer request subsided, it seemed like the inevitable was going to happen and we prepared ourselves. In fact, after that we were more concerned that he’d end up at Crawley or even Franchise…
From his point of view, it’s the move he wanted. Going to the club you supported as probably your last big payday is always going to be a special one, and on that score nobody could blame him. One suspects that Gillingham have been after him for some time, so regardless of what division we were going to be in post-Eastlands, it was 99% certain we were going to lose him.
A three year deal at his age, with his experience, isn’t one to be sniffed at. As said more than a few times before, we may have seen the best from him – strikers have a shelf-life, and DK may be at the peak of his. We all know about his lack of League experience, and whether he was entirely at his peak physically last season is one for debate. Not to mention the odd insinuation about him having influence over Jon Main remaining at the club for as long as he did.
As ever, the question is how much we got for him. And as ever, the answer is the usual “undisclosed fee”. Though like Bournemouth with Gregory, it appears (if the club is to be believed) that the opposition wanted it undisclosed. Which may suggest we did rather well out of both of them after all.
Yes, they’re annoying. But they are, sadly, a part of footballing life. There’s a better explanation here than I gave yesterday on why they happen, whether you agree with such secrecy or not. Yes, football is a murky enough industry as it is without finding out explicitly what you’ve had given to you, or paid out. No wonder suspicion in football is so high.
This hasn’t stopped some people thinking that because they “own” the club, they should be told what the fees are. The thing is, they don’t “own” it to that extent.
Anyone who “owns” AFCW basically pays £25 per year which allows them to vote for the DT Board – which is effectively like a “traditional” board of football club directors these days – and able to raise motions in meetings for said board to discuss.
To my knowledge, it has never had the authority to interfere with what our CEO, manager, secretary etc does – all paid positions, and all very highly responsible jobs – and nor has it ever interfered with transfer dealings or contracts. And nor should it, IMO. While you may get the odd zealot who thinks “the fans” should be allowed that level of access, the majority accept and indeed welcome that.
Remember that Erik has to deal with not only transfer dealings but the fallout from them too. That’s what his job entails, and that’s why we’re very lucky we get to pay him one guinea a year. People demanding confidential information to be divulged as a right need to remember just what a difficult position that would put our CEO, or manager, or any other interested party in.
Imagine future dealings with Bournemouth, or Gillingham, if we were to break their request of confidentiality. We’d be lucky to have the phone answered, especially if we found a player we wanted who just so happened to play for one of those two clubs…
Whether our top brass want to play the games of the football industry is beside the point – they have to. If you notice in our recent OS updates, we’ve made a point of saying how “professional” and “excellent spirit” it all was. It’s called buttering up people we may rely on in future.
That’s the way it goes in professional football, and not disclosing fees is just simply part of that. Yes, the DT board may get to find out what the fee is, much in the same way a traditional football boardroom would. But as such info would be supplied on condition of trust (no pun intended), they are under no obligation to tell anyone. In fact, they’ve probably been asked not to say anything, so don’t go around bribing/threatening/seducing/asking them nicely.
People must realise at AFCW that they won’t be told everything, especially in areas which they have no direct involvement with anyway. You don’t have a “right” to find out transfer fees if confidentiality has been asked for. Yes, it would be nice if we were told, but one day we may want to keep quiet about the £250,000 we paid for Drewe Broughton.
Undisclosed fees are not an AFCW problem, they’re a football problem. If people are so intent on finding out fees as a right, they should push for AFC Wimbledon to be floated on the Stock Exchange, where it’s apparently mandatory to divulge that info…
All that aside, it does leave us with the more important task of replacing DK. A startling article earlier today in the Wimbledon Guardian suggested that we weren’t going to make any more signings, although if you read it properly TB says no such thing. It would be a bizzare thing to say, especially after making such a play about it earlier.
A more believable article in the Surrey Herald tells us more though about not rushing to sign a striker for the sake of it. So presumably that list of seven we were informed about last week hasn’t come to fruition. Of course, there may be another list of seven (or more) floating about, and with pre-season starting today TB might get a better idea of who to bring in who will link up with our squad.
We do have money to spend now, unless there’s a financial black hole that we’re not told about. I doubt if every single striker who could do the proverbial job for us will be signed up come Monday, so there’s still enough time to get something nailed on. It will after all be one of the most important signings of the AFCW era.
And who knows, it may even be Jason Euell….