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Interesting Mike O'Leary quotes
at 10:23 3 Mar 2021

I tried to find out a bit more about Mike O'Leary, but there doesn't seem to be much about him online. However, I did find these promising quotes from a couple of years ago pertaining to the importance of frequent and clear communication between owners/board and fans (in the context of West Brom's struggles at the time):

'Mike O’Leary was Baggies chief executive between 2002 and 2004 when Jeremy Peace first became chairman.

“People’s opinions do get regularly affected by results,” he told the Express & Star. “People can make a right Horlicks of governing but if you win six games you’re a god.

“Or you can be doing a great job, but if you lose six games they want to kill you.

“Every single fan has the right to an opinion. If you’re a member of the board you can’t keep them all happy.

“But you want to make decisions that people can trust, understand, and support.

“I do think they’ve made some wrong decisions over the last 12 months.”

O’Leary, who worked for free under Peace, believes the key is holding your nerve, but also keeping supporters informed.

“You’ve got to be able to be level headed when people are screaming at you,” he added. “I was lucky, most of the time I was there, we were doing well and fans were supportive.

“The communication we had with supporters was very good, we were talking with them all the time, we made a lot of effort to do that.

"I think the current board could be a lot better in that respect. Fans don’t understand what’s going on, that makes it worse.

"If you understand the difficulties, it’s easier to be more supportive. If you’re left in a vacuum you’ll draw your own conclusions.

"Who knows why Lai made the investment in the first place, who knows what he really wants out of it?"'

[Post edited 3 Mar 2021 10:24]

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