Martin Bain, who among other things served as CEO at Glasgow Rangers, has been introduced as the new CEO of Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club
Maccabi Tel Aviv owner Mitch Goldhar announced this morning that Martin Bain has been appointed as the new CEO of Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club. Bain, a twenty-year veteran in football, marketing and business management, last served as the CEO at renowned Scottish football club Glasgow Rangers. Under his stewardship, Rangers reached the finals of the UEFA Cup and routinely appeared in the group stages of both the Champions and the Europa League. In addition to successes on the pitch, Bain was also instrumental in promoting the bonds between the club and the community, in building developmental frameworks for the youth academy, in uncovering new sources for club finance and in expanding the club's digital presence while establishing far-reaching plans for club collaborations and sponsorships.
This morning (Sunday) Maccabi Tel Aviv held a press conference at the Kiryat Shalom training ground, attended by club owner Goldhar, to announce Mr Bain's appointment. Mr Goldhar began by saying: "First of all I'd like to take a minute to thank Jack Angelides for his contribution to, what is a significant contribution to Maccabi and to where we are today. Jack, just to remind everybody, is a Greek Cypriot and he is a lawyer and was a practising lawyer in Cyprus when I called him five years ago and asked Jack to be my representative here in Israel. Jack was and is married with two children and he was in the process of actually building a new house, his dream house, when I called him. Jack agreed to commit to two years here in Israel. He moved his family, he moved away from his new home, which had not even been completed yet, and laid down some roots here in Israel and instead of two years he stayed almost five years. So I want to acknowledge Jack and thank Jack for his significant contribution to where we are today.
"At some point earlier this year Jack and myself began a search for a replacement CEO. Technically Jack was defacto acting as CEO although he was officially the owner-rep. Jack and I worked on this together, starting back sometime in the spring. Jack had decided that it was time for him and his family to move on and the search began. It was a long process and Luigi Favit, who is a Canadian and a senior member of the management team at my company in Canada SmartCentres, became involved with Jack and Maccabi to familiarise himself with our operation, and Luigi has done an excellent job in getting intimately familiar with the goings-on and the financial structure at Maccabi and I want to thank Luigi for defacto taking on the interim CEO at Maccabi on his own for the last number of months". Goldhar continued: " I would now like to present to you today Maccabi's newly appointed CEO, Martin Bain. On behalf of Maccabi Tel Aviv I would like to welcome you to Maccabi, we're very excited about your joining our club. I think you're an excellent fit for us. I would now like to turn it over to Martin".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCjxAvxfp7E&feature=youtu.be
After speaking briefly about his background, the new Maccabi CEO turned quickly to his managerial duties at the club: "As chief executive you obviously have a natural duty to look at the overall aspects of the football club. Jordi (Cruyff) is obviously a very important part of this football club and I look forward to working with him and understanding what he's doing and hopefully I can learn a lot from him and hopefully he can learn a lot from me too. I think what I need to do is sit with Jordi and understand just exactly how he sees things going forward. I'm obviously new and hopefully learning very quickly. I'm looking forward to a positive relationship with him".
He also touched upon his discussions with the owner concerning the goals of the club: "It was a very important discussion we had and I very much enjoyed Mitch's vision for the football club. There were synergies between this club and the club where I was at in terms of the history. Mitch's opinion is that this club in particular has a social responsibility, which is something I fully understand. His aspirations for the football club are to succeed, to win, and obviously to compete in Europe on a regular basis if we can do that and I can see no reason based on the discussions we've had that we can't build on the success that's already been. In the discussion we had together the word that constantly came up was stablity and I think every football club has to have stability and I hope that I can add to that at the football club and my intentions are to be here as long as it takes to be successful."
Quite naturally the new CEO was asked if he had any concerns about coming to such a volatile part of the world: "I've been fortunate that I've come to Israel when Rangers played Maccabi Haifa, Hapoel Tel Aviv and I came as far back as Beitar Jerusalem many years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience in Tel Aviv, the people. I enjoyed the football. It was obviously something you give consideration to. When I spoke to the people involved, knowing the city, I was very keen to come. Like anything you can read and you can listen and you can watch but you can never really understand until you come".
Afterwards, club owner Golhar had a word to say about Jordi Cruyff's future at the club: "It's my intention that Jordi will stay and I'm confident we'll get on well, all of us, and that Jordi will be here next year. But it's Jordi's decision and obviously we are going to have turnover here, because of the make-up of the staff, of the profile of the staff, but we have a structure that is built to withstand turnover so if Jordi were to leave we will deal with it". As for his reaction to Maccabi's failure to qualify for Europe this season, Goldhar responded: "Disappointment for sure but I look at it at this point as behind us. We need to focus massively on the domestic campaign and get ourselves back in that position so that we can learn from that experience. We're disappointed but our heads are not down. It may have been a great disappointment in some respects but on the other hand as far as I'm concerned it makes me, and I think it's true with everybody, it makes us more determined. I think we're all pretty fired up, We know we can do better than what we did and this is not a club that is going to roll up in a ball".
Asked if he still felt the same passion for the club as he did when he first took over, Goldhar replied: "I probably have in some respects more passion actually. It's obviously more directed passion. In 2010 it was early days. There were a lot of other issues to deal with back in 2010. And the passion by the way was not just expressed through what you said, building a big team but to get it right, to do it right, build something for the long term. It takes time and my feelings right now are as strong as they were, if not stronger, than in 2010".
Quite naturally the assembled press were eager to hear Goldhar's version of the events that led up to the departure of former head coach Oscar Garcia: "You know, Oscar made a personal decision. He was forthright with me. Oscar had contacted me very early on when he started to feel uncomfortable, that he was getting pressure at home. It was quite a bit before he ultimately made the decision to leave so we had had regular contact. As far as I'm concerned he dealt with it straight up, his personal decision, and he's entitled to make that decision. We are also entitled to look after ourselves and move forward when things happen, and we did and we will, always. We replaced Oscar swiftly, with somebody that I like a lot and have a lot of confidence in and I think he is very much a fit, compatible, with the values and the culture that we're trying to build here at Maccabi". He added: "And I guess it's been known now Oscar's had some health issues. Oscar is a friend of this club. I wish him well and a speedy recovery".
At the close of the conference, Goldhar summed up: "I thoroughly enjoy my time in Israel. I came here yesterday and it was really like coming home. I really miss being away from here, I miss being involved in the day to day at Maccabi, so it is in fact a bit of an unfortunate thing that I haven't been able to be here that much. It's because of my business in Canada. There are a lot of demands. There's a lot going on in my business in Canada. It's growing so I need to be there, and it's also a statement of my confidence in the people that are here. I feel that we have a basic foundation now for running the club so it's a little bit easier to do it long distance. Yes, I think Maccabi should have a modern stadium and we are exploring different possibilities and we have been. It's not just something you go and build a stadium. There are many steps to getting it right so we're at the beginning stages of that process and I hope that not just the stadium but also the training facilities, and not just training facilities for the first team but training facilities and a proper academy for the youth. So for me it is all tied together. It is very much something I'd like to see happen but it's going to have to be done in a proper process and it's going to have to be right and fit for the long term for the club. So we'll keep you posted. In the meantime, for now, for this season we're perfect".
