Chester FC chief executive Mark Maguire has outlined how the role of chairman of City Fans United (CFU) will work moving forward and how his own job at the football club will expand.
Alan Povey was last week elected as chairman of the CFU, the supporters group who own the club, replacing Simon Olorenshaw who decided to stand down earlier this month citing increasing work commitments.
And while Olorenshaw had some involvement in the day-to-day aspect of things at the Lookers Vauxhall Stadium, Maguire said the role of 33-year-old Povey, a lifelong Blues fan, will be different in a bid to ensure continuity at a football club that has had five different chairman in six years.
"Historically what has happened, in the absence of having a chief executive in place, there has been a natural effect of whoever has been the elected chairman of the CFU has taken on the dual role of figurehead of the CFU and figurehead of the football club as well," said Maguire, who joined the club in June.
"When the operations board made the recommendation to the main board some time ago to appoint a CEO was to recognise that was bringing with it, by the very nature of the model that we have, a lack of continuity.
"While we are all sorry to Simon go it does give us the opportunity to reflect and review the operation and where we are today. So the board have decided that the election of Alan as the new CFU chair is exactly that; chairing CFU meetings and being accountable of the CFU side of things."
Maguire's role at the football club looks set to expand as a result as the Blues continue to look at ways to grow the football club in order to be a competitive force in the National League whilst retaining their fan-owned, community ethos.
And Maguire believes that continuity is the key to driving the club forward.
"The fact that they have a CEO in place means that over the next few years there is some continuity to the business," he said.
"Rather than being an all-encompassing chairman in the traditional football sense it is a case of being CFU chair and then on the football club side of things you have myself and Jon McCarthy, with Laurence (Kirby) on the finance side and Jim Green on the community side of things. That will be who drives the business forward and will be accountable to the operations board who, in turn, will answer to the main board.
"This will hopefully allow us to drive the business forward effectively. We feel we have a great team of people around us who we believe can help us deliver that."
Maguire, who lives in Poynton, held roles as managing director of Stockport County and chief executive of Hull City before arriving at the Blues.
With considerable experience in the football industry behind him, he will take responsibility of overseeing transfer deals and contract negotiations alongside Chester manager Jon McCarthy, with all proposals continuing to be put to the operations board and the CFU for final approval.
"My role would be to deal with any transfer negotiations of players in and out and deal with any contract recommendations and discussions on a day-to-day basis with the management.
"What I would do would be to come to a proposal solution and put it to the board, the operations board in the first instance for approval and hope that they would back me in my recommendations.
"But I have experience of dealing in millions and millions of pounds worth of transfer deals in the past and my job is to protect the club in that regard and that I am doing the right things in protecting the club and taking on that responsibility."
