PROFILEA LIFE OFTWO HALVESSINCE RETIRING FROM PWC, ERIK SAMUELSON HAS HAD THE JOB OF HIS LIFE. LESLEY BOLTON TALKSTO THE MAN WHO, AS CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF AFC WIMBLEDON, IS LIVING HIS FOOTBALL DREAMhas been the most fantastic job.’ ErikSamuelson, 62, a retired PwC partner, oozes‘Thispassion in every sentence. Sitting in his smalloffice in the Kingsmeadow stadium in Kingston uponThames, the chief executive of AFC Wimbledon,the football club born out of a move of the formerWimbledon Dons to Milton Keynes in 2002 (see box,p14), recalls how he has capitalised on business skillslearned during 30 years in the accountancy professionto run a football club that is his second love after hisfamily.For the son of a Sunderland cabinet maker and anM&S shop assistant, Samuelson admits to beingobsessive with numbers. Following a degree inmetallurgy at Nottingham University (1967-1973), whenit came to applying for a job, Samuelson was offeredboth accountancy and Inland Revenue tax inspector.He chose the former, and began training with Deloitte& Co in 1973. ‘I felt like HG Wells’ Time Traveller – I satstill while the world changed around me,’ he says of his1230-year career in the firm, which metamorphosed fromDeloitte & Co, to Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, to DeloitteHaskins and Sells (dropping the comma was a big deal,he says), to Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte, to Coopers &Lybrand, and then to PricewaterhouseCoopers.He qualified in 1976 and later became an FCA. Butthe roles were varied: audit; a stint in the technicaldepartment; involvement in the introduction of auditautomation software; then risk management, toppedoff with HR consulting.‘One of the great things about working for a firm likethat is that you can have so many different careerswithout leaving the building. I never had the courageto actually go and set up on my own – I don’t think Ihad quite that entrepreneurial flare. But what Idiscovered when I came to Wimbledon, initially asfinance director, was that they’d talk about HR, and I’dthink, well I know a bit about that; and they’d talkabout strategy, and I’d think, well I know a bit aboutthat; or risk management, well I specialised in that.november/december 2010 <strong>londonaccountant</strong>
PROFILE‘It’s astonishing what a rounded education you getwhen you take all your opportunities.’But even back in the heady days of the late 1970s,Samuelson and his wife Eileen (whom he met while atuniversity) took time out for what must count as one ofthe pioneering ‘gap years’. ‘We did the hippy trail,taking nine months in 1978-9 to travel by bus fromStreatham to Katmandu. We kept going until we got toJapan and returned on the trans-Siberian railway.‘I was so impressed that the firm not only kept myjob open, but paid me for the bank holidays I wasentitled to while I was away.’Samuelson is grateful for the ‘enlightened’management he worked for during his career as achartered accountant. ‘Everybody I ever worked for wasdecent and enlightened, and you saw the best side ofthe firm. That’s the thing I’m most grateful for and mostappreciative of, looking back.’What he found most rewarding from those days waswhen he was a team leader and became involved incounselling and appraisals. ‘I like people generally, andyou find that in a big organisation some people don’talways get identified for the qualities they’ve got, andwhen you can take somebody and recognise thosequalities and help them develop them, it’s extremelyrewarding.’FOOTBALL CRAZYSamuelson has always loved football. ‘I’m fromSunderland, and obsessive, like football fans are,’ hesays. But having moved down south, and with twosons at local schools where you either supportedWimbledon or Chelsea, it was Wimbledon that wonthe day. ‘I took my son Pieter to his first game in 1987.The following year Wimbledon won the FA Cup, andthat is how I started taking him and then my youngerson John to most games. It’s tedious to watch a clubweek in and week out and not care – you get suckedinto it,’ he says. ‘It’s heresy to change clubs where Icome from, but Wimbledon became my team!’Samuelson’s professional involvement withWimbledon was by happenstance. Safeway, one of hisbiggest clients in the late 1990s, was trying to build asupermarket on Plough Lane, Wimbledon’s originalstadium (Wimbledon FC had decamped to SelhurstPark following the controversial sale of their ground).As a piece of PR the supermarket chain invited fans totour one of the stands and collect mementos before itwas demolished. Samuelson was one of those fans.This was just at the time it was announced thatWimbledon wanted to go to Milton Keynes. Samuelsongot to know the leaders of the protest group, who, hesays, were ‘very smart and sophisticated people in theprotests they ran’.Everybody believed that the Football Association’scommission would reject the move to Milton Keynes. Inthis event, Samuelson believed at the time that theclub would have gone into administration, and the fanswould have to try and buy their team. As a result, hewrote ‘the worst business plan ever’ for buying afootball club out of administration. Looking back, he’srelieved to say it was never tested, because, in a shock,unappealable decision, the move to Buckinghamshirewas approved. Wimbledon were renamed MK Dons,and the alternative scenario Samuelson predicted, thatthe fans would have to start a new club, became realityon 28 May 2002.continued on p14 SAMUELSON ON FOOTBALL FINANCESErik Samuelson waves his red card atfootball clubs that pay extortionatesums for players before settling theirtax bills with HM Revenue & Customs. It’s akinto cheating, he says. Football is seriouslydistorted by what’s become known as financialdoping.‘Think of it as the financial equivalent oftaking drugs to improve your athleticperformance,’ he says. ‘In our first season ever,to give you a feel for it, we got 111 points from46 games; that would normally mean youwould run away with the league, but we camethird, because there were two teams in ourleague who had rich men who pumpedmoney in and they did even better. Itcompletely distorted the league.’He continues: ‘If a club owes £100,000 in tax,and it has instead spent £100,000 on players’wages, well it ought to have paid its tax bill; inmy league that could have paid for three highqualityplayers who I didn’t buy because I paidmy tax bill. I don’t think that’s much differentfrom cheating, and this has to be changed.’And Samuelson is hoping to be instrumentalin the quest for change.He chairs the football finance workinggroup for the football Conference board,which is looking at the sustainability of clubs.‘The purpose of the group is to try and helpclubs to be more sustainable, and theConference has a number of reportingprocesses in place to try and monitor thefinancial health of clubs.’He says that with all due credit to theConference, before he took on his role it hadaleady created in its own right a set of ruleswhich say that if you as a football club in theConference competition (68 clubs in totalacross the Premier, North and Southdivisions) go into administration, then if youdon’t pay all your creditors in full by the endof the season, you’re out of the competition.‘The Conference in my opinion hasconsiderably higher-standard financialdemands of its clubs than other leagues, and Ithink quite rightly too. Basically, if you don’tpay your bills then you can’t play.‘Change is on its way at the top level too.Recently the European Football Associationintroduced rules saying that if a club wishes tocompete in the top competition, the EuropeanChampions League, then it must break evenfinancially.‘If implemented effectively this will causemassive changes in the way certain clubs arerun and, I think, such rules will eventually filtertheir way all the way down through the footballpyramid in this country. That may take time,but it will be very welcome and shouldreduce the number of clubs that go intoadministration after spending well beyondtheir means.’<strong>londonaccountant</strong> november/december 201013
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