Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

How would you honestly feel if Qatar or Abu Dhabi were to buy Liverpool?


JohnnyH
 Share

Recommended Posts

We’ve seen what mega State controlled investment has done to PSG and Man City. Turning them from relegation threatened, in PSGs case, and actual relegation fodder in Man City’s case, into record breaking domestic champions and Champions League challengers. But the obvious issues of major financial cheating that is only being held back from significant bans by State pressure, and the human rights abuses within these States that make it a humanitarian horror show to have support from them, asks a lot of questions.  Indeed both clubs are mainly only ever referenced when talking about the problems with modern day football.  Man City did the Domestic Treble last year, an incredible achievement, and all they got was negative press in the main. 

 

This has resulted in Man City fans (a fanbase we are familiar with) mainly burying their heads in the sand and refusing to accept that there is any irregularity, illegality or, in humanitarian terms, abuses to answer from their ownership.  I’ve long said that I think football fans regularly demonstrate the worst and best in people from a day-to-day viewpoint.  They’ll blindly back their club or player in just about any circumstance while slaughtering a player from another club for the same thing.  The group mentality can be disgusting and the blind support terrible at times.  But the group think has also seen brilliant things like “Fans supporting foodbanks” which has been an amazing humanitarian collective initiative by football fans and has, no doubt, saved actual lives. And from a sporting viewpoint, the half time in Istanbul in 2005 is still spoken about in revered terms from the non-LFC people there.  And all reports of how sporting and supportive Liverpool and Spurs fans in Madrid were to each other both pre and post-match was great to see. So we can see and do good also.

 

But my question is regarding ownership.  If one of the Oil rich states were to take us over and start pumping hundreds of millions into us through dodgy payment schemes to bypass FFP, would you be disgusted by it and let it affect your support of the club? Or would you just massively go on the defensive and ignore it like City fans and just enjoy the stream of Cups arriving in?  Be honest with yourselves now. It’s easy to say we’d be horrified and boycott the club, or something like that, when we don’t have to deal with it.  But how do you think you’d genuinely feel as you watched a £250m, £600,000 a week, Neymar lift the longed for league title for us in front of the Kop, while about another 3,000 people died building stadiums for an illegally won World Cup bid in the country of our owners and minority groups were purged?  Would you bury the head like City fans?  Or would you take a personal stand?

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's obviously easier to state in theory rather than after being taken over, but I'd absolutely hate it.

 

We've just won the European Cup and came within a whisker of the title in the same season and have our best first XI in decades, so we don't even need that model of ownership. However, we need - and every club that isn't Manchester City or PSG - need UEFA to actually enforce FFP rules.

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Taken in isolation, I'd be okay with it. 

 

Adding it to all the shitness-of-modern-football events that have happened over the last decade or so, I wonder whether it would push me past the point of no return. And make no mistake, I have a point of no return.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I always said I would walk away, then I realised it would just put us on level pegging with the cheats. However, winning the title without financial doping would be worth far far more for me than winning it by cheating. 

 

I'd rather the premier league take some steps to stop the financial doping, they would only consider that if we got an owner with unlimited funds. So for that reason, I'm out. Let's take on the cheats and win it cleanly. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you'd asked me a couple of seasons ago when things looked pretty bad for us (last season under Rogers or further back under Hodgson) I would have got behind it, though winning stuff wouldn't feel as good as it should.  Now we are back and looking good I'd say absolutely no.  I don't know what that says about me to be honest.

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, KMD7 said:

If you'd asked me a couple of seasons ago when things looked pretty bad for us (last season under Rogers or further back under Hodgson) I would have got behind it, though winning stuff wouldn't feel as good as it should.  Now we are back and looking good I'd say absolutely no.  I don't know what that says about me to be honest.

 

It says that you're being honest.

 

I'd have said the same, but you've said it for me.

 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not for me Clive, I imagine when we lift number 19 it will feel a lot better knowing we did it the right way rather than City who have turned into a horrible club because of their self entitled outlook

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Id probably try and justify it anyway i could. I would tell myself that the inevitable inflated commercial deals are due to our long and storied history. Id tell myself that our increased spending is on the back of years of low net spend.

 

As long as we won things and the atmosphere in the ground remained good and at things like the fan parks, id tell myself that despite the money we were still doing it the right way and we were still different to the other new money teams.

 

Id basically do anything to tey and explain it away and look the other way. Some of you are better people than me.

 

For people like me though, there needs to be strong governance at the top, to take looking the other way out of the equation.

  • Like 1
  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, KMD7 said:

If you'd asked me a couple of seasons ago when things looked pretty bad for us (last season under Rogers or further back under Hodgson) I would have got behind it, though winning stuff wouldn't feel as good as it should.  Now we are back and looking good I'd say absolutely no.  I don't know what that says about me to be honest.

 

Yeah, this. It’s easy to say right now that you wouldn’t want it to happen but for a while there I definitely would have had a ‘if you can’t beat em...’ type of attitude towards it. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The thing that I love most about the club is the culture.  By that I mean the socialist mentality of our fan base and the sense of community that brings.  I genuinely do think it separates from the rest.

 

In my head I see it in a different prism to that from the cut-throat capitalist business world that football exists in despite the fact that they're intrinsically linked.  I do hate that business side of football with a passion though and it's why I'll never be a fanboy of whichever corporate entity owns the club (although I will happily acknowledge if they are running it well).  In particular, I hate the fact that there is such an uneven playing field in the finances across the leagues despite us being a beneficiary of that.  As things stand though I can ignore it enough that I enjoy the high moments and this is definitely helped by having a manager and a team that has a collective mentality.

 

If we were acquired by a Qatar or Abu Dhabi I would still continue to support the team as I have invested too much into it over my life but it would feel like a little bit more of it had died.  It's on another level than the most common type of owner that's there to milk a fanbase for profits.  I think any victories would have a hollow emptiness to them and I would much rather see us win occasional trophies by the team working hard for results than win everything funded by people dying and being imprisoned to fund us lavishly spending out on the world's best players and breaking the rules in the process.

 

There's a lack of soul at both City and PSG.  I can't comment on whether that has historically been the case in Paris but I don't think it was at City.  I'd absolutely hate for us to become that.

 

 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

If we didn't have Klopp these answers would be different methinks.

Except fr the Neymar thing -- thats a hard no.

Yep. We've got the best manager in the world who has managed to get us overachieving to the point that we can challenge anyone regardless of how much money they have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is a very good question.

 

My take on the question is in two parts: How would I feel regarding a, the regime and b, the sheer unlimited money.

 

Regarding regime, I'llbe honest and say I dont really know too much other than snippets of what Ive read in papers and seen on tv news. Different countries deal with everyday things in different ways. Can we honestly say our way is better?

 

We have poor people in this country, people having to use foodbanks(!) and people who dont seem to get the medical treatment they need. So, in respect of regime, unless there's something Im missing, Im not certain any country or regime claim they do everything better.

 

As far as the money goes, I always maintained the footballing authorities, the FA, the PL, UEFA and FIFA etc, should have stepped in when ambramovich rocked up and started throwing huge amounts of money about, inflating transfer fees, wages and also buying up both young and not so young players to stiffle their opponents ability to challenge his club.

 

People might say well, there havent been many followers of that strategy and its mainly been limited to PSG and Man City. But just how many mega rich individuals or even countries want to pour endless amounts of money into a football club and arent the two highest profiles ones, two too many?

 

There's no way Id want Liverpool to go that way and be awash with such sums of money. We've grown organically and earnt our income. City, PSG and to a lesser extent, have grown due to nothing but luck of the draw.

 

City used to be a top club in the late 60s, early 70s. Maine Road had a capacity similar to Anfield and they had European football as an additional income source as did we. For whatever reason, they turned to shit and plummeted down to Division 3. My point being they could have clawed their way back to the top by good investment and management. The way they and a few others have done it just shows if you chuck enough money at any club, you can win the league with forest green rovers and be successful.

 

But what then, on to the next vanity project?

 

So for me, it's a big no, I dont want a country to by the club and pour shitloads of money into it. It would destroy the heart and soul of the club in my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...