Vicky Kloss

[Mr HJ]

The first action that should have happened from our PR department was the complete destruction of the Portuguese hacker, unless he had physical audio of someone at the club admitting doing wrong they could have guided the media to the emails/documents being faked. They probably thought that as our own lawyers believe we have no case to answer it was best to take a softly softly approach - "we are innocent so let the cards fall where they do". Most electronic documents do have a trail but are often unsigned and could easily be faked or exaggerated by someone with the IT ability to get into our servers. As with most legal cases it is the burden of the prosecution to prove the case and by casting doubt from day one would have helped our case. I would have taken the stance of discrediting this as criminal activity and as such the documents cannot be taken as fact or trusted. Like art and document fraud it is not beyond possibility that the evidence was not real in any case. Our PR should have taken a very hardline from day one even though we have confidence we will prove our innocence. If they were real we should have told the media that they were not - being economical with the truth is classic PR and even though Vicky is competent this was a situation where a fixer should have been seconded in to assist her team.

 

[blueinsa]

I do understand where you are coming from but my own experience is different. I have worked with PR execs during peace and war and I can tell you that if they are very good at their job they can influence even the most reptilian media. Not convert them into fans but at least halt them from publishing untruths. It takes persistence and a range of behaviours from Gandhi to ghengis but it can be done.

I have met Vicky very early doors after the takeover and she seemed very professional and well liked and respected but i am not a PR expert so wont offer anymore on her competency other than to say her lasting this long in such a job and organisation suggests her bosses are happy with her performance so it for them to comment and not me.

I just think we could have had Mother Theresa doing the job and not a jot difference would it have made as we are up against a media and enemy who are seemingly hell bent on seeing us fail.

 

[chesterbells]

I have met Vicky very early doors after the takeover and she seemed very professional and well liked and respected but i am not a PR expert so wont offer anymore on her competency other than to say her lasting this long in such a job and organisation suggests her bosses are happy with her performance so it for them to comment and not me.

I just think we could have had Mother Theresa doing the job and not a jot difference would it have made as we are up against a media and enemy who are seemingly hell bent on seeing us fail.

Mother Theresa would have been an awful choice! Read Christopher Hitchens on her ;-)

 

[Saddleworth2]

I have met Vicky very early doors after the takeover and she seemed very professional and well liked and respected but i am not a PR expert so wont offer anymore on her competency other than to say her lasting this long in such a job and organisation suggests her bosses are happy with her performance so it for them to comment and not me.

I just think we could have had Mother Theresa doing the job and not a jot difference would it have made as we are up against a media and enemy who are seemingly hell bent on seeing us fail.

I’m sure she is all the things people claim. Sometimes thuggish behaviour is required and the PR professionals i have seen operate in difficult environments are not necessarily the ones you would want in steady state. My opinion is simply that we have tried to be professional and too nice and that it was clear after the Centurion season that things weren’t going to change with the scum that infest the media. All opinions mate and just as much chance you are right than me.

 

[@BluePhil8]

Been coasting and stealing a wage for years. Just need a horrible bastard for the press as that's all they will understand.

 

[Keeper!]

Mother Theresa would have been an awful choice! Read Christopher Hitchens on her ;-)

Mother Theresea is a good example of how a biased press and media can raise a person to almost angelic heights when the truth is the complete opposite.

The nationality and religion of our owners goes against them greatly when it comes to the UK press.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

If, as has has been said, the main focus of her role is to build a more harmonious relationship with the press, it has patently failed. A decade on and you just sense the press are always straining at the leash to come after us.

Banning all of them will achieve nothing, making an example of 1 or 2 might just get the others thinking. It might not, but the tactic of continued generous hospitality for these people is getting us nowhere. They must laugh at us.

One area I think we’ve shot ourselves in the foot over the years is seemingly providing no press access to senior execs. For example, Khaldoon’s annual appearance is always carefully orchestrated. It might lead the media to question the appearance of what the club presents to them versus a secretive hierarchy. If she is the means by which the club manage the media in this respect, she deserves a lot of sympathy.

Agree 100 per cent. I am not going to Judge Vicky Kloss because, in many ways, she has an impossible task. But the point about access is crucial. In a 24/7 media environment it is just not good enough for Khaldoon to produce one pre-recorded statement a year. Our senior Execs should be doing regular interviews to the media, especially the business sector, and repeating the messages we want to get across.
One example is the false "sportswashing narrative" which is repeated ad nauseum. Sheikh Mansour's investment in City has generated huge profits and made him a lot of money. That doesn't include money he has made on other investments in Manchester and the UK. It is part of a broader strategy for Abu Dhabi to diversify its economy because the oil is running out. It is nothing to do with "sportswashing." In fact you could argue the opposite because the higher your profile becomes the more people scrutinise things like human rights etc. We need to tackle this media lie head-on. We are just not proactive enough. Also Pep doesn't help himself in his press conferences. Has he had any training or will he not agree to it?

 

[mccity]

This is a difficult subject to debate because none of us really can be too sure of the work that has gone into the PR, good or bad.

Maybe our PR department could've done more. It's possible that everything everyone has criticised her for is true. But it's also entirely possible that they've already done a tonne that we don't know about. It's possible that the press would be a 1000 times worse had it not been for Kloss.

We could have had a bolshie and brash PR executive who banned every journalist that spoke out of term, pissing them all off in the process, and then we may have had to be dealing with articles calling for us to be stripped of the titles we won before any of this stuff even came to light after the email hackings.


I refuse to be sure that anyone that neither works in or close to the City PR department nor the mainstream newspaper industry could really provide a fair assessment of Vicky Kloss, good or bad.

 

[Alcatraz]

Apologies but I haven’t read the full thread....but c’mon....now is the time for leadership and direction. stop allowing anyone and everyone to walk all over us.
Time to direct publicity after all is that not she is paid for ?

 

[manimanc]

The first action that should have happened from our PR department was the complete destruction of the Portuguese hacker, unless he had physical audio of someone at the club admitting doing wrong they could have guided the media to the emails/documents being faked. They probably thought that as our own lawyers believe we have no case to answer it was best to take a softly softly approach - "we are innocent so let the cards fall where they do". Most electronic documents do have a trail but are often unsigned and could easily be faked or exaggerated by someone with the IT ability to get into our servers. As with most legal cases it is the burden of the prosecution to prove the case and by casting doubt from day one would have helped our case. I would have taken the stance of discrediting this as criminal activity and as such the documents cannot be taken as fact or trusted. Like art and document fraud it is not beyond possibility that the evidence was not real in any case. Our PR should have taken a very hardline from day one even though we have confidence we will prove our innocence. If they were real we should have told the media that they were not - being economical with the truth is classic PR and even though Vicky is competent this was a situation where a fixer should have been seconded in to assist her team.

Maybe we've been getting a whole lot of evidence together and have kept quiet as we know the ****s at uefa was trying to bring us down.
We've been deathly quiet on events which tells me we're about to unload in uefa's face big-time.