Also, clearly the wrong mix of egos. WE have no leaders in the dressing room or on the pitch.Originally Posted by leedsandTFC
Also, clearly the wrong mix of egos. WE have no leaders in the dressing room or on the pitch.
Definitely see a deterioration in how they handle us members that have been here so long. We had events everyone was invited to. Then that changed to one per year. Now it is a raffle where most members don't get picked for anything all year long. The stadium is deteriorating too. Not sure if anyone else noticed. Almost like they are saving by trying to do bare minimum. Almost every seat around me has some sort of crack in it. I reported it to my rep with a photo and only the worst seats were replaced. Ones with a smaller crack they did not bother. No more coupons for their overpriced food which was at least something. No more free refills on the collector cup (seen a number of people mention this and I used to use it myself). So basically nothing at all. I even reached out to my rep earlier this year because my wife is palliative and doctors told us she had less than a year left. I figured there is a good chance she would not be here next season and she had never been to a box for a game and always wanted to so I asked if I can arrange that or even pay for it and they told me sorry to hear that but nope not possible. Felt it was a fairly dry response with no effort really from them to do anything for me. Thought being a season ticket holder from the start would have got me more respect for my situation from them. I was willing to pay for it even not asking for a handout or anything.
I think once we won MLS Cup they really thought job done and the memberships would just sell themselves after that so no more need to do anything for us. The honeymoon is over basically.....pretty sad.
crazy thing is- ever since they had character issues- this was the main focus-" they have to have good character and who represent TFC values"
so can I ask bringing in:
Insigne
FB
Pettreta
Hedges
Johnson
Guitterez
diomande
sapong
who out of this list had shown quality character traits?
like at this point I rather have stuck with soteldo and salcedo(at least he still is active and playing) -- all this fluff about they have to be the right fit ( i guess they wanted yes men like bradley and dunfield?)
so damn frustrating- probably passed up other talented players because of attitude or fit.
They need to check managements attitude, mightier then thou, i know better, supporters are stupid- they will still come and we can bullshit as much as we want.
This character trait seem to be detrimental and cancerous- oh ya this is the guy in charge of everything -but thinks others have attitudes that need adjusted and not his at all.
so disappointing.
Like at this point-they should let LI/FB chose the coach like they did for messi- nothing else will make this situation any better.
Sorry to hear brother- hope you find amazing memories with the time you have left- I would like to help you get her to a box suite for sure- were you planning on taking her this year or early next season?
we should make noise on social media regarding this- fucking heartless - im sure you spent easily over $10K from 2007 as well plus food, drinks and merchandise.
this is wrong on so many levels- even if you were wanting it free- they should have approached this better- was this your rep or upper management?
I only asked my rep. To be honest my wife and I don't want to make a big thing about it or get any noise made in social media as we are private people. As you can imagine it has been a hard enough year already and we are just trying to make the best of things as we can. I just had hoped given the unique situation and how long I have been a member that they might do something for us (mostly for her of course). Tickets are in my name but she does come to as many games as she can handle. Just thought I would share here since we were talking about the deterioration of fan engagement as it is just another example where they are kind of disconnected I think.
good to know- will see i get a better response when i speak to the retentions manager.
They'll offer you a beer voucher to help swallow the 20% price increase they have planned.
This is probably a stupid question, but what is their planned pricing for next year? Has it been announced?
Usually the renewal push would have happened already with an email of the stories of the year, an outline of their "vision" going forward, and their usual 10-20% price increase but since it didn't, I expect they were hoping for a bounce from Terry to justify it. Now that everything they've touched has become utter failure, they're probably rethinking how to proceed here. Any increase would not be well received.
Thanks, makes sense.
I just want to say that I hope you and your wife experience a lot of meaningful days ahead, more than anything else this year this breaks my heart. I’m so sorry our club reacted like that, even if a box wasn’t possible there are so many was to create a special day for a long time fan.
Thanks man. I agree. My rep is a nice guy and all but the speed at which he answered made me think he didn't really look into it in the least. He offered the BMO Club after a future game as his only offer, and tells me one or two players may even pop by on occasion, which just seemed like a standard offer they were told they could give to anyone who issues a complaint about anything.
That is one of those things where the expected leaders did not do it well, including the ones who stayed around from last year.
MB couldn't lead under his Dad & Oso has been a spent force since the Croatia game.
I'm not sure looking at going into this season we could have foreseen a collapse of mental capability like this - these guys are defeated as soon as the opponent pressures us - they can't handle MLS chaos.
just a reminder- a shiny new toy doesnt fix anything -as evidence since 2020 - hope we can keep this momentum going because the hiring of coach herdman doesnt even seem like this guy even tried or considered doing something different- he took the easiest path which was hiring someone who approached them.
also assuming osorio isnt going anywhere -
I don't consider this the easiest path for him. I know Herdman came to him but this is not on Bill's Roladex and not part of his usual script. His easiest, laziest signing would have been one of Arena, Marsch, or Porter. Or Vanney if sacked. People he knows well. This one came to him but it's no sure thing and is against his usual way of handing things over to pals or USMNT connects.
This does check the PR, advertising, and more renewals box though and that matters.
I was sure that Bill was hoping to make it to the off season and try to poach Vanney from LA if he was not let go.
I wonder if Manning has any self awareness how bad he is doing and in another other field of work or club would be fired.
I know he came up with the gem just beacuse we haven't been winning doesn't mean he is bad at his job...but ffs....show a bit of shame and resign.
i logged in to sell my tickets and i clicked on membership info - i found it so ironic that it says" MLS Season pass is the new home of Toronto FC-l"
imagine - 10 games scoring 2 goals in the same game and hoping this tag line would increase interest LOL SMH
what a joke of a club- this guy needs to do the right thing- since 2020 - no finals and about to win the golden spoon back to back season with the highest payroll in the league.
this is unheard of- doesnt even seem actually realistic or achievable -but here were are
paying for people to either sit at home or play for other clubs.
SMH
worse part is -manning is dipping into his revenue rolodex and putting the burden on us supporters to support his many many mis-managed mistakes/asset management.
Well the Galaxy made an announcement today that would make a lot of sense or us to follow:
Two big takeaways from today's announcement?
The soccer and business operations have (finally) been separated, a long overdue move signaling the modernization of the front office.
The elimination of the president role.
#LAGalaxy
TFC did not have a president for its first 6 seasons and then after Kevin Payne went two years without on until Manning was hired. The role and their descriptions mostly come down to the structure of the team's ownership and if a parent company is in place overseeing multiple teams etc.
Remember The Man, The Legend, The Goal 5-12-07 and All That #9 Left On The Pitch, Thanks For The Memories !!!
Most important point though considering Manning is staying would be a complete separation of business & football operations. This is where things get muddied up.
It can be. It's not why the current problems exist, quite the opposite.
Separate too much as a president and you're just letting people run their of fiefdoms, which is my impression of what actually happened.
It's one thing to be hands off, it's another to just trust them to do it right without really holding them accountable or inquiring.
That would depend on whether you think Manning has the wherewithal to actually identify problems on the footballing side in a timely fashion, as in before implosion (no evidence of that yet) or can make suggestions and sign players that help the squad (very mixed bag here but mostly bad news).
The idea whould be to hire a head of the footballing side and that hire would not be by Manning but by the higher ups and it would have to be a can't miss, proven guy that has done it before like a Lagerwey. Then that guy answers to the board directly instead of answering to a boob that is either clueless or absent or in Bill's case, both.
Let him handle money since he is apparently good at it and let someone with footballing IQ and roster building skill run the other side.
Let’s be honest here, I wouldn’t want Bill in charge of non-football operations either. Sure, it would be good to have him away from the football side but both parts (operations and football) at this club are a mess.
I wouldn't either as every aspect of the club (team, stadium, matchday experience, comms, etc.) have gotten nearly untenable since he became president. Hard to imagine such a decline honestly but the board must love him as he gets the chance to drive the franchise further and further into the grave. So if he stays at least let him ruin the operations side so at least the people watching on Apple have something to enjoy and we're not a complete embarrassment to anyone who doesn't attend matches.
It really is hard to believe how clueless the board is here.
Whatever they are paying attention to is far removed from Manning’s actual performance. Really, they themselves should have appointed more qualified individuals to oversee things. But I’m sure the temptation of being involved with this stuff looms large and they under estimate how bad their performance is. Basically, they owe Leiweke any success they’ve ever had and otherwise are just maybe syrup James Dolan (NY Knicks owner, famous for being dis functional)
This sounds bizarre. In theory, a GM or Football Director would be running the football operations, but to have them answer to the Board directly is very non typical of any corporate structure.
A normal executive structure would have a Football Director, CFO, Operations Manager (i.e. grounds keeping/stadium ops), Sales/Marketing Director & HR director all reporting to a President/CEO of the Club, who then sits on/reports to the Board of Directors.
Which is how it works now. He's a corporate executive. There are large swaths of the corporate executive world whose only real job is "oversight" and "the bottom line." I think as long as the latter was healthy, he didn't really worry about the former.
As I said, though, I've talked to him enough times that my sense is that he was ill-suited to the role initially, as he works mostly off trust relationships, and the American football scene -- and any large organization, let's be honest -- is rife with untrustworthy self-promoters.
My sense has always been that he was naive, not lazy or malicious, and that he sees fixing what he let happen as his entire remit now, basically.
He knows he fucked it all up, he's not happy, he's trying to fix it. I don't know if he can. People can assume it's solely self-protection if they want, but my sense is that he was genuinely humbled by it all -- and not just because he's actually said to several people "this is humbling. This is the worst moment in my professional life."
I think it would be easier for people to view him with less hostility if he came out and said some of this stuff publicly, instead of to a handful of people he already knows and gets along with. But I tend to be naïve about how neurotypical people will react to outreach.
His unwillingness to be open and engage is really hurting that effort. I'd put it down to bad advice, but beyond his relationship with Jason, I'm not sure he's taking any from staff anymore. It hasn't gone so well in the past, and there are -- to my eye -- large numbers of underqualified people at MLSE, including numerous essentially political appointments.
If he's more worried about the internal politics than the quality of information flow and collaboration, the value of staff and how they should be used, he's not going to make it. My sense unfortunately is that that is the case. He wants to fix it, but he's not being nearly aggressive enough in structural reform and renewal.
EDIT: And I did put the "resign out of priciple" question to him. His answer -- which people will take however they want based on existing opinion -- was "I'm the one who fucked this up, I'm the one who should fix it." It wasn't a line, it was very much in the context of "if I don't, I'm going to get fired anyway, so I might as well try."
EDIT2: And for a few people who've either asked or emailed me and said "Do you actually LIKE this person?!?" my answer would be yes, I do. I like Bill Manning as a person. Perhaps if they'd ever had a human conversation with him, they would too. That hasn't prevented me from telling him he's a fuck up who should have been fired.
Would it be good if he pulled it off and we were a good team again? Yes. Am I certain he can do it? Hell no. But I still like the guy personally, and if he pulls it off, I'm not going to emaiil and tell him to quit anyway for being such a fuck up in the past. Having fucked up many things in my life, including some pretty big, important things, I have a degree of empathy for his situation. Not a ton, but a degree.
Last edited by jloome; 09-07-2023 at 12:07 PM.
Exactly, to have a manager or senior director report directly to a Board of Directors, bypassing a CEO/President is very bizarre, definitely not the norm in corporate structures anywhere.
being nice never stopped someone being fired before!
making mistakes once or twice - is understandable to feel responsible to correct the mistake and back on track- but a third time is really becoming- amusing.
who in the right mind wouldnt want to fix past mistakes, during their lowest point of their professional career? how many in this world actually get the opportunity to actually stick round - while getting paid a shit tonne.
the saddest part is the amount of politics and people appointed who may not even have any qualifications in the soccer world.
SMH
for my understanding- the supporters are off the fire bill manning wagon because of one win and the hiring of herdman?
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