"Someone like Chansiri" - Burnley FC owner Alan Pace praised for key trait | OneFootball

FLW's Clarets fan pundit has his say on the level of transparency shown by the club's owner Alan Pace.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Burnley FC owner Alan Pace has received plenty of praise over the last few seasons for the way he has run the club during his time in charge at Turf Moor.

The American businessman has now been at the helm of the Lancashire outfit for over four years, a spell which has seen the Clarets bounce back and forth between the Championship and the Premier League, but perhaps just as crucially, make several improvements off the field.

A 1-1 home draw with West Brom prevented Scott Parker’s side from moving top of the Championship table last night.

However, that point did extend their recent unbeaten league run to a remarkable 24 games. With that in mind, there is still plenty of positivity around Turf Moor at the minute amid hopes that a Premier League return could be on the cards.

Burnley owner Alan Pace has been praised for his transparency

It’s fair to say that the air of positivity around the club at the minute can also be partially attributed to the fanbase having the utmost confidence in the owner.

Although there are many differences between the EFL and the American MLS, Pace had prior experience of working in football before he took over at Burnley. He was previously CEO and president of Real Salt Lake on the other side of the Atlantic.

While Pace is understandably still constantly learning about the English game, you’d be hard-pressed to find much to criticise about the way he has gone about things so far. Boss Parker has been well backed in recent transfer windows and Pace and the rest of the club hierarchy continue to make themselves visible and engaged with the project.

With that in mind, we spoke to FLW’s Clarets fan pundit, Will Lancaster, to find out whether the fans are happy with the level of transparency shown by Pace and the fellow hierarchy.

Will said: “Yes definitely, the owners are easily transparent enough. There are supporters' club meetings that they have with a fan advisory board, they’re always vocal on social media, they’re vocal in matchday programmes, and they’re quite transparent in terms of why we do things the way we do.

“The stadium has rapidly improved, even since they took over, it’s become quite a modern stadium.

“There are a lot of social media campaigns, the transfer announcements that we do have gone viral plenty of times and I feel like, for some owners, compare it to Blackburn down the road, who have Venky’s – they barely go to games.

“I think Alan Pace is there pretty much every game, we’ve got JJ Watt who was there at the weekend, it’s light and day the difference. And that’s just from the team down the road, there’s plenty of those in the EFL. If you compare to someone like Chansiri at Sheffield Wednesday, then definitely ALK Capital and Alan Pace himself are transparent enough with the fanbase.”

Pace’s ownership should be an example to others

Over the course of Pace’s tenure at Burnley so far, he has firmly established himself as a good example of how to handle running an English football club.

In a world where fans are so used to owners of clubs being shady and elusive figures, Pace has made it clear right from the beginning of his time in charge that he will never shy away from responsibility.

While naturally, the American has got some decisions wrong, the rationale behind them is always well-thought out and easy to understand for the fans.

An owner who is extremely active on social media could easily sound the alarm bells for several fanbases, but Pace has so far used his official channels very sensibly and his level of engagement and care for how the team performs is clear to see.

With the Championship promotion race looking like it will go to the wire, the Clarets find themselves firmly in the fight to finish in one of the two automatic spots. If they could get over the line and get themselves back in the Premier League, it would surely open up even more doors for Pace and the rest of the club hierarchy to make further improvements on and off the pitch.