Butts calls for transparency over Knights future
BY ROBERT DILLON
16 Apr, 2010 04:00 AM
KNIGHTS legend Tony Butterfield issued a plea to Newcastle's board of directors yesterday on behalf of the club's members: "Tell us where we're going."
Butterfield became the second former board member in as many days to query the decision by Knights management to shelve plans for privatisation.
Fellow former director Mark Fitzgibbon, the NIB chief executive, wrote yesterday in The Herald that the financially ailing NRL club needed a new business model and significant private investment to fix "fundamental fiscal problems".
Knights chairman Rob Tew said last month that the club had spoken to to "four or five" potential investors and hoped to be in a position to unveil a privatisation blueprint for members to consider at the annual general meeting on May 26.
Last week, however, Tew said those plans had been deferred, because "we don't have the time frame to have it as a formal document in terms of changing the constitution".
Knights chief executive Steve Burraston indicated privatisation, which the club had researched for at least two years, might be dropped, because "until the need is really there, we're probably never going to push ahead with it".
Butterfield, a former Knights captain, deputy chairman and life member, said constituents were confused by the surprising reversal and deserved some "transparency" from the men who administer the club.
"Under the current structure, this club is run on behalf of the members," he said.
"The members are totally confused. This appears nothing more than a backflip.
"Members were supposed to be given a heads-up [about privatisation] prior to the AGM so they could attend and be informed.
"What's going to happen now?
"Where are we going? What's our plan? What's our direction? Are we just going to continue as we are?
"As a concerned member and one that helped build the club, let us know what's going on."
Butterfield said most members would support whatever decisions the board took but deserved to be kept informed, rather than having to rely on "what we read in the papers".
"This was raised months ago and at the very least they should have prepared a couple of discussion papers and sent them out to members to say, 'Here are the options, here are the pros and cons.'
"This is not only a courtesy to the members, in many ways it's an obligation, to keep us advised of the strategic direction of the club. That's why we become members."
Burraston said yesterday that the Knights had at no point made a commitment to privatisation.
"We've never said we'll privatise," he said. "We've said we'll consider it and we may or may not take it to the AGM.
"It's our decision not to take it to this AGM. If that changes somewhere in the future, we'll do it."
Burraston said members would receive an annual report soon and would have "every opportunity to ask any question" at the AGM.
"We're very happy with what we're taking to members," he said.
Butterfield endorsed "wholeheartedly" Fitzgibbon's opinion yesterday that the Knights could not continue the subsistence existence they have led since 1988.
"Having been intimately involved with the current model, I know it doesn't work in this environment and will continue to become less effective and efficient down the track," he said. Burraston would not comment on Fitzgibbon's column, as it would "only give the story credibility".
