Yank owners of English 'soccer' clubs...

[Baltar]

...they're pretty shit, aren't they? C&A set the bar pretty fucking high so our owners and those of Villa, Arsenal and United have got some way to go before reaching those levels of shitness but all of them are unpopular with their clubs supporters. In fact I'd say we're probably the most supportive of our American owners but they're not covering themselves in glory by any means.

Should yank businessmen stick to their own football and leave ours alone?

[s(k)aturation]

It's clearly a deep-seated psychological issue that goes back to the American War of Independence.

George Washington's fault.

And the French of course. They turned up to help.

[Newport]

It could have been worse, they could have been Norwegian.

[DAgger]

They're all certainly doing their best to fulfill that old American stereotype - being brainless fucking pricks.

[dirk grout]

They're all certainly doing their best to fulfill that old American stereotype - being brainless fucking pricks.

 

There is of course the other famous American sterotype - American businessmen know how to milk an asset for all its worth.

[xerxes]

This is primarily about motivation, not nationality, although culture does play a part.

 

FSG are first and foremost an investment club. They behave as such, nationality issues irrelevant.

 

The problem is that when you have no knowledge of the sport , country, business, club or city in which you are investing that reduces your preparedness to put more money in. It either works or it doesn’t.

 

The biggest criticism of FSG is not their lack of knowledge, it is their failure to recruit in expert knowledge to bridge that deficit.

 

FSG, via Werner should have been ideal to manage the Suarez media storm.Instead they left Ayre to stew in his own juice. Werner is an international expert on sports media, again he was ideally placed to secure a new stadium naming rights deal and appoint a top communications director- but he wasn’t interested.

 

So not only do we suffer a lack of football knowledge, we also have a wilful refusal by FS to play to the strengths they do have.

 

If you always think of FSG as an investment club, you will always be closest to the heart of the beast.

[MokTheAfflicted]

businessmen stick to their own football and leave ours alone?

 

Yes. They are very good at "friendly fire" though

 

(however an army pal of mine told me there's no such thing as "friendly" fire)

[xerxes]

(however an army pal of mine told me there's no such thing as "friendly" fire)

 

Just incompetence?

[Anubis]

I think there is a bit of a pattern emerging. Ourselves, Villa and Newcastle seem keen to follow the Arsenal model of value for money young players who can be sold on for a profit. The difficulty is, Arsenal started this while they were in the CL places but it has never won them anything and they have seen a slow but sure degredation to their squad which now looks likely to see them out of the CL places. In my humble opinion the Arsenal model is one of maximising revenue while slowly sinking into mid-table. And they are practised ar it - ourselves, Villa a d Newcastle are amateurs.