When will Alistair Mackintosh’s reign of terror end?
Written by
Drew Heatley
on
28th January 2025
Many jokes were made at the sight of Fulham CEO Alistair Mackintosh sat on the Craven Cottage balcony with FIFA supremo Gianni Infantino on Sunday night. I’d have chuckled at them more if it wasn’t a real-life ‘axis of evil’, in a footballing sense, sat there.
Spooky hours in the cottage 😯 pic.twitter.com/H3MHDP2JyG
— Fulhamish (@FulhamishPod) January 26, 2025
But it feels like the tide may be starting to turn against the man known across Premier League boardrooms as ‘Teflon’ because he’s immune to criticism.
Ticketing nadir
Though large swathes of our fanbase have become tired of the ticket price debate, and the club has been clever to create an ‘us and them’ divide between those with season tickets and those without, journalists like Dan Storey and Henry Winter have continue to keep the issue in the public eye, and neutrals are starting to take notice.
Sunday’s game against Manchester United was a bit of a seminal moment. It was widely acknowledged that the club failed to shift tickets to season ticket holders, members, and even those with previous booking history, with many seats priced at three figures. Consequently, they went on general sale, resulting in United fans peppering the home ends – many in full red regalia.
The club had the audacity to post on X that the game was sold out – but at that point the boast was as hollow as Ivan Toney’s betting defence.
Immovable
Recent reports that Everton might be interested in him heading up their new era are interesting, though Mackintosh is said to be “settled” in London. Of course he is – he has one of the cushiest jobs in football.
Mackintosh is Shahid Khan’s safe pair of hands. He’s the man Khan can trust to go forth on his own and keep the money rolling in, allowing him to be a hands-off custodian over in Jacksonville. But even Khan must now be hearing the murmurings of discontent.
An argument I often hear in defence of Mackintosh is “he’s just doing what Khan asks him to do”. But you’d be foolish to think that Shahid gets deep in the weeds of how Fulham makes money – he trusts Macintosh to figure that bit out. You don’t employ a CEO to carry out prescriptive tasks.
Rotting our club
Mackintosh – I refuse to call him ‘Ali Mac’ – is a stain on our club. Since his arrival in 2008, he has helped to erode the very fabric and identity of Fulham Football Club. Ticket prices is one, very obvious way – and who knows what damage he has already done to the next generation of Whites fans. Who knows how many kids have ended up at Loftus Road or the GTech because their parents simply couldn’t afford to pay upwards of £60 a game to take them to Craven Cottage? The full impact of this unnecessary pricing that values day-trippers over true supporters would be realised for another decade or so – and by then it’s too late.
Mackintosh is an accountant who sees the world in binary. Where there are people, he sees numbers. “Modern football is a business” I hear people cry. Perhaps, but it’s unlike any other business in the world. The fortunes of a football club are perennially fluid, and our time in the Premier League will end again – we all know that. When it does, I really fear for us under Mackintosh’s reign.
So, where do we go from here? My head says Mackintosh only leaves Craven Cottage when he is ready and willing to. But my heart hopes that the tremors of criticism become full-blown eruptions – or at the very least Infantino was at the Cottage on a recruitment mission and our CEO could be on a one-way ticket to Zürich.
As the sketch in TOOFIF magazine used to say: we can dream.
