Why have we never been bought by billionaire?

[magicrat]

I don't see it quite like that in that the money they might individually make, or lose, is pretty insignificant to them.

 

I think we were a strategic acquisition which was unlikely to lose money, but which did give them a stake in the burgeoning football world market.

They saw a chance to get us on the cheap probably having an inside track on H&G;s troubles. They were very smart in the way they handled the legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic. There were no other White Knights at that point and we would have ended up in Administration had FSG not come in , We were all very happy with the outcome at the time but they aren't prepared or able to take us further ,   

[FanchesterCity]

City was a bit of a strange buy.... it wasn't particularly considered over a long period, it was a fire sale after Sinawatra ended up in trouble in Thailand. Somehow, he knew Mansour (or his advisors) and managed to sell to him. So, reading between the lines, an opportunity arose quickly, and I suspect the sheik made the most of it, and got us cheaply (not that we'd have been expensive in the first place, compared with bigger clubs).

 

There's more to it though, as well as the stadium, there was an absolute wasteland all around the stadium which made the proposition infinitely more attractive than most other clubs. Even a club like Arsenal with a beautiful stadium like Arsenal don't have the same wasteland around them. 

 

All things considered, I imagine the City deal was pretty convincing. They've had decent support over the years, almost new stadium, loads of spare land, and Manchester is a reasonably well heard of city. More so than say Sunderland / Newcastle / Leeds, and probably easier to explain than Everton (which doesn't tie in well with Liverpool).

 

I think Liverpool's global reach and status as a big club aren't actually that big a factor, and arguably could work against you (depending on the owners intentions). The stadium if perfectly decent, but it's hard to rebrand, and there's little opportunity for major expansion around it. (I'm talking about hotels / casinos / training complex etc rather than capacity expansion).

 

There's lots of clubs would 'seem' ripe for investment... Newcastle, Villa, Everton, Liverpool, West Ham, Spurs etc... but City simply got lucky in being for sale in a hurry, and having all the right attributes for Mansour to say 'look at how we can transform something'. Even so, I expect it's proving more difficult than most imagined it would be.

 

I agree that West Ham now look prime for a takeover, providing the owners don't get too greedy. That said, I've no idea what finer detail is regarding the finances on the stadium, and alterations, and how much scope there is for additional enterprises around the ground.

 

FFP might also put off a lot of investors. Mansour knew if he wanted to get into football, he needed to do it fast, and invest rapidly before FFP raised the drawbridge. I think City have wasted a fortune in the process of rapid investment, but FFP's forced a cavalier approach to spending (given the drawbridge being raised).

 

As I see it, Liverpool's was / is a very strong brand, and that's going to attract the sort of investor who wants to reap the rewards of a ready made brand.

City was entirely different. It allowed a brand to be associated with Abu Dhabi, and now the two are inextricably linked. When people think of Liverpool FC, they don't think of FSG, but when people think of City, Abu Dhabi comes to mind. When people think of Chelsea, they think of Abramovic (which, one assumes, was precisely what his ego required).

 

People fall into the trap of thinking a bigger club (like Liverpool) ought to be more attractive to investors. It evidently doesn't always work that way. Being lucky enough to get a mega rich owner, who isn't a total nutcase, is far more a matter of right place, right time, right flexibility than stature / size of a club.

 

And finally, I'd say whilst City were 90% plain lucky, they did make one incredible decision - to leave Maine Rd. Had they not made that decision (and they almost opted not to), they would most likely be in the same position as Leeds or worse.

[Trumo]

The Mansour/City deal is strange because from memory, it seemed to be reported the day before the transfer deadline, completed on deadline day, and within hours they were completing a deal for Robinho and trying to complete another for Berbatov (assuming the story is true that he was in Manchester to sign for City before Whiskeynose met him at the airport and gazumped City).

[Major Tom]

I think two poaters from here should go and put forward our case on Dragon's Den to sort funding.

 

Code and one other. Probably Stig.

[RoboRiise]

I imagine owners that fall into that latter category are few and far between, unless Branson finally wakes up to the fact he's not very good at building space rockets.

 

Last thing we need is that cunt in charge, he's got future Yewtree case written all over him.

[Arl arse]

FSG bought us at the perfect time, look at how much the TV revenue has increased in the past couple of years. Look at how much extra revenue they've wrung out of the commercial side of the business.

 

They won't sell their prized asset unless they get a great offer or get desperate for liquidity.

[xerxes]

FSG bought us at the perfect time, look at how much the TV revenue has increased in the past couple of years. Look at how much extra revenue they've wrung out of the commercial side of the business.

 

They won't sell their prized asset unless they get a great offer or get desperate for liquidity.

I agree they bought well, but the asset growth has come from the windfall increase in TV rights, not their skill.

 

I am not sure that we are their prized asset because ownership is spread between so many people, the growth means relatively modest gains individually. Equally, this was a pocket money investment for them meaning that there is no likelihood whatsoever of us being sold to raise cash.

 

 

In the medium term I see dissatisfaction in our support as FSG sit quite happily on a sound investment and the club wallows in financial security and playing mediocrity.

[Bobby Hundreds]

My only real issue with FSG seems to be the parameters set when identifying and buying players. It's stifles and limits our progress. Any potential profiting from a players rising value should be a byproduct of buying good players to improve the first 11. The teams improvement is far more important than the mini business opportunites every player is treated like. I think we have actually wasted more money trying to be too astute than we ever have before. It's either a totally flawed way to do things or we have rubbish people trying to implement it.

[Captain]

I'm not sure f we would have been top dogs (with DIC) but investment from the right source at that time would have been ideal, when moores sold the club. We had an excellent manager building A strong competitive team already in Rafa and would have only had chelsea and United to compete with financially. If DIC had invested and were willing to fund a new stadium plus an injection into the squad would have cemented our place towards the top end of the table and made us pretty sustainable before FFP kicked in. It may have also put off mansour off at City. Although as with others at the time I thought it would have all been a bit soulless and a shit way to win which I maintain. 

 

 

I agree. Not only were G&H disastrous as owners, the timing couldn't have been worse either. 

 

I too used to think like you regarding winning with this kind of owner. Not so anymore, simply because there are several of them. And more are likely to join.

[Mad Erik]

It is obviously a massive help to have money as no object, like these oil-rich clubs, but IMO it's not as important as it's made out to be.

 

The last decade's been pretty shit. In that time, we've nearly gone bust, 'enjoyed' Roy Hodgson as our manager and have seen the Club go through a great deal of turmoil. In that time, we spent around £600m - not a huge amount; but more than most. Without exaggeration, we've probably spent about 40% of that cash well/adequately; the rest awfully.

 

However, we've still come to within a whisker of winning two leagues in that time. All else being equal in 08-09 had say, Keane even come close to working out, those extra 10 goals he scores win us the league. Last year, again, all else being equal, Gerrard doesn't slip - we win the league. It's obviously all ifs and buts, but without stretching the imagination too far the last decade looks a lot different. And that's with the turmoil, bad decisions, etc, we've endured.

 

It's hard, but it's not impossible to compete on the budget we have - certainly domestically. Where the oil-rich clubs benefit is they can spend 60% of their cash awfully, just like us, but they can just go out and spent another £110m the next summer to rectify it. We cant. But we can compete. We just need to start spending the money we have, well.*

 

 

*And I have no confidence whatsoever that will happen any time soon.

[jamespp]

because they probably read RAWK as a reference

[old skool tom]

I've always thought it would be a bit of an empty feeling winning league with a sugar daddy but to be honest,I doubt it will ever happen without one now sadly.i know we almost pulled it off couple years ago but we wouldn't of been able to of sustained title challenges consistently

 

I'm getting far to desperate for success now that I'd accept ownership from I.S. If it means winning the league again!

[Cardie]

Sadly i don't think we will be able to compete long term without one. We are already 5th in terms of financial power in the league and with west Ham and Spurs probably ripe for the picking for another billionaire it could get worse.

 

Its possible to compete in a one off year but thats not sustainable when united can chuck 200 million at the problem.

 

We won't be able to compete short term, which is the bigger issue as anything other than short term success won't satisfy the fan base.

[ratcatcher]

I've always thought it would be a bit of an empty feeling winning league with a sugar daddy but to be honest,I doubt it will ever happen without one now sadly.i know we almost pulled it off couple years ago but we wouldn't of been able to of sustained title challenges consistently

 

I'm getting far to desperate for success now that I'd accept ownership from I.S. If it means winning the league again!

 

This is why I dont get some people not supporting the idea of FFP and think mega rich owners (not simply 'rich' owners) should be able to pump 'as much money as they want' into their club.

 

I guess it boils down to whether you think sport really is sport when 3 or 4 clubs in England, 2 in Spain, 1 in Germany are effectively uncatchable because of the money going into them.

 

If we're objective about it, last season was probably the best chance we had for the next 10 years (gulp) for winning the title.

 

I dont want a mega rich owner coming in and treating 'my' club as his personal toy. But while a handful of these people do as they want, I think you can virtually kiss goodbye any chance of us winning the title.

[an tha]

Do city and chelsea fans feel like their success isn't real or empty?

 

Do they shite and they glory rubbing our noses in it and the fact we haven't won the title for ages.

 

Fact is the game has sold it's soul to the money men and it's gone way too far now to stop, so sadly it's a case of if you can't beat them, join them....money can buy success, yes it can be done 'the right way' whatever that means now, but in a game consumed by money having the most to wave around is going to bring the titles that fans crave

[Bjornebye]

I think two poaters from here should go and put forward our case on Dragon's Den to sort funding.

 

Code and one other. Probably Stig.

Si would do a better job than you. Ive seen traffic cones with more charisma.

[xerxes]

This is why I dont get some people not supporting the idea of FFP and think mega rich owners (not simply 'rich' owners) should be able to pump 'as much money as they want' into their club.

 

I guess it boils down to whether you think sport really is sport when 3 or 4 clubs in England, 2 in Spain, 1 in Germany are effectively uncatchable because of the money going into them.

 

If we're objective about it, last season was probably the best chance we had for the next 10 years (gulp) for winning the title.

 

I dont want a mega rich owner coming in and treating 'my' club as his personal toy. But while a handful of these people do as they want, I think you can virtually kiss goodbye any chance of us winning the title.

The reason why I think rich owners should be able to inject cash into clubs, so long as the debt is underwritten by themselves not the club, is because it breaks the oligopoly that self- sustaining clubs create.

 

It is easy to forget that in the 90’s, Arsenal and Man U dominated all, both in major conurbations, both able to maximise that through stadium revenues. PL football without Abrahamovic/ Mansour would still be dominated by those two. The only person to crack it was Walker at Blackburn in a case of outrageous, but personally financed, financial doping. Football was better for it, and the fans of a small mill town were taken on a ride, and given memories, that they will never forget. I would not deny them that, nor should other fans be denied it.

 

A self-sustaining model will always favour the people at the top at that time, is that fair? Is it fair that a club that happens to be in a major conurbation should have such an advantage over rural and outpost clubs?

 

Owners like Abrahamovic and Mansour do not treat their clubs as a toy any more than Moores did, but both have done considerably more for their clubs.

 

I think the chances of us winning the title under FSG and Brendan are minimal. Success is not just about money, Walker had money, but he also appointed the best manager around to win the title, KK. FSG appointed Brendan. But Blackburn were always going to be doomed by a small stadium, a small town, and modest support. The money doesn’t last forever, and you need more than money. We have had our chances, and squandered them. We watched while Old Trafford was expanded, we watched while Arsenal first redeveloped with the Bond scheme, and then realised that it was not going to be enough and moved. A quarter of a century on we have got round to redeveloping the main stand.

 

I have watched as post KK1, successive ownerships and leaderships have faltered amidst mistakes, ineptitude and tragic-comedy. When Johnny Rotten left the stage for the final time with the Pistols in the States, he sneered ,“Ever have the feeling you’ve been conned?”

 

Yes.

[ratcatcher]

Ah, the free market economy option but with the condition of personal ownership gauranteeing they wont just fuck off.

 

How quaintly naive.

[Charlsey_95]

The economics of football is bad business unless youre Milan Mandaric, who used to snap up clubs on the cheap, take on their debt and turn them around using a half decent manager and having a decent go at promotion in the championship. 

 

Liverpool isnt a club that can be bought for cheap because there is an embedded brand value that other clubs like city dont have so that will be a barrier. Other than that, you couldnt imagine the arabs coming in and renaming Anfield to something like the Saudi Royal Stadium and rebranding the business. Too much history to be toyed with

 

FSG have done a solid job by reducing the debt by 200m.

[xerxes]

Ah, the free market economy option but with the condition of personal ownership guaranteeing (sic) they wont just fuck off.

 

How quaintly naive.

And?

 

It has underwritten the success of Man City and Chelsea, and the longevity of Blackburn and Wolves.

 

I like facts.

[FanchesterCity]

Fundamentally, I think it's wrong that the outcome of a sporting contest can be massively influenced by the size of someone's wallet. Football's not alone in this problem, and arguably most sports suffer from it.

 

Now, onto reality...

If you're a club in a major conurbation, you're generally at an advantage to a club in a sleepy town, or even a village. Arsenal can't help being in London any more than Norwich can help being stuck out in the sticks (relatively speaking). It means there's already greater opportunity for Arsenal to make money than there is for Norwich.

 

Of course, there are complicating factors... London hosts multiple clubs, and Norwich doesn't etc, but on the whole, there are compelling socio-economic reasons why most of the world's top clubs reside in capital or 2nd / 3rd cities.

 

FFP in principle is a good thing (imo), but any regulation that allows spending in proportion to what you 'earn' will likely enforce the status quo at best, and at worst widen the gulf between the 'haves' and 'have nots'.

 

As a City fan, does victory feel hollow? I'd say no, not really. That said, I can't speak for all City fans. I can say this though... I believe most City fans accept we've bought success, it's undeniable. Our gripe is that clubs like United have been doing it for years. That's our belief, you may feel otherwise.

 

That inevitably brings us back to the justification that United 'earned their money' and the likes of City didn't...

 

The 'organic growth, based on success' is a lovely soundbite, but it's a bit of a myth. Manchester United are not a powerhouse in world football because of their success, nor are Real Madrid. They are a success because of impressive investment and commercial activity or in the case of Real Madrid, stealth funding. There's no denying that United have been bloody good as a football team for a long time now. It would be churlish to think otherwise, and no matter what other fans think of Ferguson, he was clearly a capable manager with which only a handful of others could be compared. However, underpinning all of that success has been a corporation.

 

So what are we really supporting here? a bunch of corporations where whoever invests bests gains the rights to the best footballers? - in truth I believe that's exactly what we are all doing. We are actually supporting a bunch of corporations who happen to have adopted a team.

 

Arsenal chose to build a beautiful new stadium, and buy up houses in the neighbourhood too... effectively becoming a property business. They've made the most of their 'classy' image and now charge a premium to enjoy 'beautiful football in a beautiful stadium, with beautiful food and beautiful seats'. That's Arsenal. Good luck to them.

 

United have gone another route and made the most of their brand recognition. United are known the world over, not least because of the Munich Air Disaster. They've made the most of their strong brand, and attracted investors and employed clearly capable people who've turned them into a footballing giant. Arguably, they've been 'fortunate' to enjoy success just at a time when TV money escalated. Had Liverpool and United's reigns be reversed, I'm sure Liverpool would be in a similar position.

 

But no matter, it's not prize money that's making these clubs rich, it's commercial capability. They are corporations using football as a money making vehicle, even though the actual football's not where most of the money is coming from.

 

So, again, as a City fan, when some sugar daddy comes along and wants to incorporate City into his business empire, City fans will say 'have a taste of your own medicine' to the likes of United or Arsenal. I'm sure many Liverpool fans won't agree with that, but I think it's a honest appraisal of how a City fan will see things. We're buying success, but don't pretend it's not been happening for years. i'm not saying all of United's success is bought, far from it... merely that the money's helped to sustain it, and given them better opportunity than most other clubs.

 

So, something's broken, I think that's fair to say. It's also fair to say that I have no idea how to fix it.

 

If we were to ignore all the laws and regulations, and start the sport over from scratch, the only logical conclusion would be to stop clubs buying and selling. Simply rule out all money. But that's a pipe dream. Transfer caps and salary caps feel wrong, but I can't see a better way forwards really. That said, no big club will vote for it. It'd be turkeys voting for xmas. Would Liverpool or City REALLY want the same budget as Bolton or Blackburn? I very much doubt it.

 

I 'get' that Liverpool have had years of success in the past, and that's garnered them a huge following, which in turn makes their commercial activity impressive. But does that still make it ok to be able to buy the best from lesser teams? Would it be OK for Novak Djokavic to buy his way into the quarter finals of of a tournament simply because he won a tonne of prize money the previous year?

 

I just don't know what the answer is. It's wrong that money is so influential. FFP in its current guise fixes nothing though, it makes matters worse.

 

According to UEFA, FFP was designed to stop clubs going to the wall. So, they allow clubs to have very high debt levels, but balk at a club that has virtually zero debt.

They also said they wanted to put an end to spiralling transfer fees, but Real Madrid have no issue breaking the world record multiple times in recent years, nor do United in carrying out the largest spend in history in a single transfer window. It can't all be blamed on City or PSG or Chelsea.

Only these last couple of weeks we've learned that CL is to share even greater financial rewards amongst those lucky enough to be in it. Is that REALLY in line with EUFA's stated goals of FFP being for the wider good of the game? They're taking us for mugs. 

 

I'm also wary of lumping City, PSG and Chelsea into one group, as though they are the examples of evil. It's three different clubs and three different owners, all with their own motives. They are, in some respects, no different that Randy Lerner, FSG, or the Glazers, but their pockets are far deeper and thus can carry out the change necessary to turn around such clubs, whereas the likes of Lerner et al can't (easily). You could make a case to say many club owners bit off more than they can chew... thought they could make a quick buck, and discovered they couldn't.

 

I'll defend City to a point, I'm bound to, but they've literally pumped hundreds of millions into the local area, built community facilities and funded a local school. I'm not stupid, I know there's a bigger plan that goes well beyond a football club, but it's created jobs and taken a dire area and transformed it. I don't see that with Chelsea (accepting it's hard for them to do much in the local area, and it's hardly in need!). I don't know enough about PSG. But being 'nice guys' and improving the local area doesn't make everything on the sporting front 'ok'. I'm not claiming that. I AM saying that FFP could prevent another billionaire looking at Anfield and thinking 'you know what, I could transform not just that club, but the entire area, and have MY name on it all (in a good way)'. 

 

 

And finally, this....

 

If you support Liverpool, or City, or United, or anybody remotely near the top of the PL, you're lucky enough to stand a chance of winning a trophy or seeing some form of success. 

MOST fans will never see it in a lifetime. Think about that.... most fans will NEVER see a major trophy win in their lifetime. That's the actual reality of football for most fans.

Win, Draw, Lose, Win Draw, Lose - that's it, week in week out. The only hope they have is that someone comes in with enough investment to make a difference. FFP (in its current guise) kills that hope.

 

I stood with my lad when Aguero scored THAT goal. We will remember it for the rest of our lives.

I'd not want to deprive ANY other fan of that chance, just once in a lifetime, no matter who they support. 

[Paco]

Went to an u10s coaching session last week.

 

16 kids - 11 chelsea shirts, 1 united, 1 everton and the rest were local teams.

 

I reckon in 10 years time there ll be mostly west ham shirts.

[RobbieOR]

David Moores.

[FanchesterCity]

Went to an u10s coaching session last week.

 

16 kids - 11 chelsea shirts, 1 united, 1 everton and the rest were local teams.

 

I reckon in 10 years time there ll be mostly west ham shirts.

 

When I was a young lad living in Oldham in the 70s, it was roughly a three way split between United City and Liverpool. That eventually went to 80% over a 20 year period (in terms of young kids wearing shirts).

 

It's very hard to see the football world through a young kids eyes... you know too much, and have history, they don't. To them, winning CL 10 years ago is a LIFETIME. It means virtually nothing. They see whatever Sky puts in front of them.

 

There's definitely Chelsea shirts over the North West where they'd never be seen 20 years ago.

There's also a lot of young City fans now. 

 

You can't blame young kids, but it's a shock to the system how quickly this can happen. 

[FanchesterCity]

Do city and chelsea fans feel like their success isn't real or empty?

 

Do they shite and they glory rubbing our noses in it and the fact we haven't won the title for ages.

 

Fact is the game has sold it's soul to the money men and it's gone way too far now to stop, so sadly it's a case of if you can't beat them, join them....money can buy success, yes it can be done 'the right way' whatever that means now, but in a game consumed by money having the most to wave around is going to bring the titles that fans crave

 

Aside from the obvious banter between fans, and a handful of utter morons that every fan base has, I don't think City fans are rubbing noses in it. I think they're still just happy to have a taste of winning things, although it's also worrying how quickly fans get used to it, and become bitter losers too. I've noticed that myself amongst a few City fans, and guess it's just how it works with any fan base that gets a taste of winning.... it gets a lot harder to cope without it.

 

 

You're absolutely right about the state of the game though. But football wanted this! that's the irony. When the game was in a trouble for other reasons, we wanted the TV money, there was a huge squabble over which clubs deserved the lion's share of the TV money. PL was formed and it ended up being more successful (commercially) than almost anybody would have imagined. All the sponsorship we craved arrived. All the money we wanted arrived....

 

But being lousy businesses (in general), clubs tossed the money away (as they always had done) and found themselves in a much larger business pool, with much richer businessmen. They got into be with corporate culture, and now we're consumed by them.

 

We are no longer big football clubs, with a small corporate back end... we're large corporations with a small football front end.