Perth Glory chief executive Paul Kelly has denied the club is a shambles and said former coach Dave Mitchell was not made a scapegoat for this season’s disastrous A-League campaign.
Perth Glory chief executive Paul Kelly has denied the club is a shambles and said former coach Dave Mitchell was not made a scapegoat for this season’s disastrous A-League campaign.
Having seen the club, initially touted as a championship contender, slump to second-last on the table and barely above the now-defunct North Queensland Fury, a damning independent review of the Glory’s football department and administration recommended Mitchell’s position as football director be abolished.
Mitchell took up this role when he stepped down after nine games this season, handing the reigns to Ian Ferguson, who has been retained by the club.
Despite a handshake agreement with owner Tony Sage to continue as football director next season, Mitchell was unceremoniously sacked on Thursday night, although neither Sage nor Kelly delivered the bad news, with deputy chairman Lui Giuliani given this responsibility.
“I wouldn’t say Dave Mitchell’s been a scapegoat,” Kelly declared on Friday afternoon.
“I would say it’s inherent of the whole issues around the club.”
“I’m on record this week as saying it’s not just one issue, it could be 10, 20 issues and we’ve got to fix it.”
“I wouldn’t say the club’s a shambles and I wouldn’t even say it’s a rebuilding phase, it’s a revival stage, the fundamentals of the business are football, soccer as a sport are still there.”
“But certainly this last year has been an embarrassment to everyone involved in the club and there’s no way we can accept that continuing into next season.”
Having prepared the review, former Fremantle boss David Hatt said Mitchell’s position compromised the leadership structure of the football department as it established a rival centre of power to head coach Ferguson throughout last season.
“I found it difficult when speaking to people in the football division to establish a clear delineation of roles and therefore a clear delineation of responsibility,” Hatt said.
“I found that as an outsider to be somewhat confusing and so I thought there’s a dislocation occurring there and that needed to be addressed.”
Kelly said Mitchell wasn’t the only person to have lost their job on Friday, the chief executive saying another member of the football department and two administrative staff had also been made redundant as the club attempted to improve its ‘culture’.
“It’s not been an easy day,” Kelly said.
“It’s never easy when you have to tell people that they’re no longer required.”
“The culture at the club had to change and today’s D-Day.”
Although cultural change at a club is usually associated with a clean out of coaching staff, as was seen at Brisbane Roar last season, Kelly backed current boss Ferguson, saying his ‘keen interest’ in matters outside of football demonstrated his willingness to change the culture.
And, when asked if the people made redundant were not able to help achieve this cultural change, Kelly simply said: “That’s my belief.”
Kelly said that a more streamlined administrative structure meant that Ferguson was now completely accountable for all playing matters while he was now completely accountable for the administration of the club.
He said Ferguson was now completely responsible for player recruitment, an element of the club’s operations that Hatt savaged in his report.
Although, the report recommended that recruiting should focus on Western Australian youth, Kelly defended the recruitment of players like Dean Heffernan (30) and Travis Dodd (31) to the side, while also saying an offer was still on the table to Robbie Fowler (35).
“Yes it does (contradict the report),” admitted Kelly.
“But you need a very broad range of scope with a playing squad,” he said.
