Our club: the Board, corporate structure and governance

[bloodspirit]

This is an article that contains some quotes from Richard Colless around the time of his retirement from the board: Retiring Colless signs off on another healthy profit for Swans. In it he says a couple of interesting things. First he speaks of "the club’s continuing focus on ensuring its football operations are fully resourced, providing the team with the best opportunity to consistently play finals and hence challenge for the AFL premiership and be seen as a leading and respected entity in the competition" which gives some indication of the Board's focus, at least during his time. The second interesting thing is quite strange. The article concludes with this quote: “Finally, I want to stress that ownership of this great club remains in the hands of our members and supporters who, unlike shareholders in public companies, basically invest emotion, passion and time which is the foundation upon which our culture is built.” What the heck does that mean? He seems to be literally wrong and so he must have been speaking figuratively or metaphorically. No wonder we have been confused, that's quite misleading.

[barry]

This is an article that contains some quotes from Richard Colless around the time of his retirement from the board: Retiring Colless signs off on another healthy profit for Swans. In it he says a couple of interesting things. First he speaks of "the club’s continuing focus on ensuring its football operations are fully resourced, providing the team with the best opportunity to consistently play finals and hence challenge for the AFL premiership and be seen as a leading and respected entity in the competition" which gives some indication of the Board's focus, at least during his time. The second interesting is quite curious. The article concludes with this quote: “Finally, I want to stress that ownership of this great club remains in the hands of our members and supporters who, unlike shareholders in public companies, basically invest emotion, passion and time which is the foundation upon which our culture is built.” What the heck does that mean? He seems to be literally wrong and so he must have been speaking figuratively or metaphorically. No wonder we have been confused, that's quite misleading.

He probably means "spiritual ownership" which is really quite misleading from a board member.