Liverpool enter talks with Saudi Arabian and Qatari consortiums over a potential £3BILLION takeover

[Anubis]

Link to that full Arab News Artice.

 

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1537031/amp

[Scott_M]

12 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

I chose to walk away from forking out 50 a home game while he continued and still watches every game online or telly. I think it’s far more nuanced than just having other commitments.

Why did you chose to walk away? 
 

There will always be natural attrition. It might be accelerated slightly due to a Middle Eastern owner, IMO, it’ll be minimal. 

[Dave D]

19 minutes ago, TD_LFC said:

Sorry I didn't account for the fuck wittery of Sky Sports, it's the internal debts between parent company and the club, external loans haven't been touched and they've not been written off they've been converted to shares.

 

Still good for Leicester's books but not quite the grand gesture Sky are reporting it as.

 

ESPN

 

Reuters

 

Express

 

The Athletic

 

Sport Business

 

Im just duped by the sensationalist Sky Sports stuff most days 

[Scott_M]

5 minutes ago, Anubis said:

Link to that full Arab News Artice.

 

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1537031/amp

Didn’t the other Arab nations around Qatar stop dealing with them a few years ago because of ongoing terrorist links? 
 

[Scott_M]

I feel some of my original points from last night have been taken somewhat out of context…

 

My point was is if we get a X% investment, is this just a short term fix and would we find ourselves in the same position again in 5 years time?

[Babb'sBurstNad]

8 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

Didn’t the other Arab nations around Qatar stop dealing with them a few years ago because of ongoing terrorist links? 
 

 

Islamic extremists are no different to FSG - both only in it for the prophet

[Scott_M]

Just now, Babb'sBurstNad said:

 

Islamic extremists are no different to FSG - both only in it for the prophet

Very good. 

[VladimirIlyich]

8 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

Why did you chose to walk away? 
 

There will always be natural attrition. It might be accelerated slightly due to a Middle Eastern owner, IMO, it’ll be minimal. 

I walked away from attending games but still watch every game on telly and online. I chose to walk away from attending because of,obviously like many others price was a consideration,but also the game has changed into something I dont recognise nor like very much. I feel no connection with the club or players and I completely expect most of them to feel similar in terms of it being a job or career with many benefits. It's obviously now stacked in favour of money clubs and is just a business from top to bottom in a way it has never been before. The forming of the PL was the beginning of the end for me. I remember the building of the all seater Kop and its original 'it will only be a tenner' headlines and look at those prices now! The game is bent and every decision is made by a marketing agency to benefit income and not by people with a true love of the game.

[JohnnyH]

1 hour ago, Scott_M said:

@Mook I’m not missing your point. I agree some will walk away, it’ll be minimal.

 

Which leads me to…

 

@JohnnyH & @coachpotato Unfortunately that’s called getting older and having other commitments. 

 

Yes and no.

 

Getting to see less games is as a result of family and getting older and not living every moment about the team.  But jibbing it totally off would be as a result of sportswashing ownership.  It'd just be a bit easier to do that if I've already lost a bit of touch.

[Scott_M]

15 minutes ago, VladimirIlyich said:

I walked away from attending games but still watch every game on telly and online. I chose to walk away from attending because of,obviously like many others price was a consideration,but also the game has changed into something I dont recognise nor like very much. I feel no connection with the club or players and I completely expect most of them to feel similar in terms of it being a job or career with many benefits. It's obviously now stacked in favour of money clubs and is just a business from top to bottom in a way it has never been before. The forming of the PL was the beginning of the end for me. I remember the building of the all seater Kop and its original 'it will only be a tenner' headlines and look at those prices now! The game is bent and every decision is made by a marketing agency to benefit income and not by people with a true love of the game.

All completely understandable. 
 

You think feelings of disconnect from the club will be accelerated by some Middle Eastern owner? 
 

I don’t disagree it’ll happen to some. I think volumes of supporters who will turn their backs is being hugely over estimated. 

[Scott_M]

2 minutes ago, JohnnyH said:

 

Yes and no.

 

Getting to see less games is as a result of family and getting older and not living every moment about the team.  But jibbing it totally off would be as a result of sportswashing ownership.  It'd just be a bit easier to do that if I've already lost a bit of touch.

Fair. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

Comes in.

 

Checks if somebody rich has bought us.

 

Leaves.

[Mook]

39 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

This isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on!

 

I still feel the people not going is being over exaggerated. 

 

Let’s see what happens. 

 

I certainly didn't exaggerate it, I merely said 'a lot of good Reds' would walk away if an oil state took over.

 

That's a very woolly statement & attempting to back it up with figures would be folly.

[No2]

50 minutes ago, Mook said:

 

Aye but a lot of these older supporters, who know what the club is/was all about will be replaced by selfie stick-type fucking whoppers. This is happening already but I think it would be accelerated by an oil state takeover.

A point you're missing is the new over lords won't want you. Off with the heads of anyone with a £77 banner, singing fuck the tories will probably be swift chop at the wrist, the s*n will be welcomed back, a cunt of a manager will be appointed. It will be Man City within 5 years, a shit atmosphere ridiculed by Fulham.

[Scott_M]

13 minutes ago, No2 said:

A point you're missing is the new over lords won't want you. Off with the heads of anyone with a £77 banner, singing fuck the tories will probably be swift chop at the wrist, the s*n will be welcomed back, a cunt of a manager will be appointed. It will be Man City within 5 years, a shit atmosphere ridiculed by Fulham.

We’re excelling in that department already.

[Jairzinho]

18 minutes ago, No2 said:

A point you're missing is the new over lords won't want you. Off with the heads of anyone with a £77 banner, singing fuck the tories will probably be swift chop at the wrist, the s*n will be welcomed back, a cunt of a manager will be appointed. It will be Man City within 5 years, a shit atmosphere ridiculed by Fulham.

 

More generally speaking, gradually the character/culture of individual football clubs will all fade into some blank nothingness regardless of where they are in the country, or their history. Obviously, the "story" of each club will still ruthlessly, and shamelessly, be exploited financially.

 

The type of owners you're describing will accelerate that process but our current lot are still playing their own role now in essentially making football utterly fucking shit.

 

Same in all sports, sadly. Test cricket will probably be dead in 10 years, and it'll all just look like the IPL with cheerleaders, people playing in cirque du soleil outfits, and players not even remembering which club they're representing.

 

It all makes it quite easy to gradually drift away, or least give considerably less of a shit.

[dockers_strike]

3 hours ago, JohnnyH said:

 

I agree with this.  It won't be 100,000s of fans turning their backs overnight, it'd be a drip drip.

 

I would never ever miss a single Liverpool match that was on telly (and with us having televised 3pm Saturday kick offs in Ireland, Liverpool were on pretty much every week) but as a result of having young kids, I now miss a lot of matches.  I'm standing on the sidelines at an under 6s GAA thing or at swimming lessons or whatever when Liverpool are playing.  And whereas a few years ago that annoyed me, now I don't care.  If we end up owned by someone like Saudi, then I'll  have no problem turning my back almost completely. I'll always check the score and will have a pang of happiness when we win or a pang of sadness when we lose, but that has significantly diminished in recent years as I see the game get more and more into the realms of the absurd, and I now don't think it'd be too difficult to leave it all behind,  A horrible state owned sportswashing circus that is throwing hundreds of millions at it just for fun would make it very easy for me to jib it off once and for all.

 

Correct. And these people will be replaced by the 'couldnt give a fuck how we win' types that you find in their thousands on social media, the day trippers and certain headgear wearers.

 

2 hours ago, TD_LFC said:

Sorry I didn't account for the fuck wittery of Sky Sports, it's the internal debts between parent company and the club, external loans haven't been touched and they've not been written off they've been converted to shares.

 

Still good for Leicester's books but not quite the grand gesture Sky are reporting it as.

 

ESPN

 

Reuters

 

Express

 

The Athletic

 

Sport Business

 

 

Sorry, have to disagree with your analysis here. This is no different to what Mansour has done at city except he's extinguished their debt as it arose rather than let it accumulate as Leicester's owners have then pay it down.

 

People can use all the semantics they want, it isnt legit and it's the same MO as city.

 

1 hour ago, Scott_M said:

This isn’t a hill I’m willing to die on!

 

I still feel the people not going is being over exaggerated. 

 

Let’s see what happens. 

 

The point you're missing is the type who will be in the ground when this happens. It will be the 'win at any cost' which you seem to have joined plus all the day trippers and tourists I see others condemning all the time on here.

 

But hey ho, be careful what we wish for.

[Scott_M]

8 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

The point you're missing is the type who will be in the ground when this happens. It will be the 'win at any cost' which you seem to have joined plus all the day trippers and tourists I see others condemning all the time on here.

 

But hey ho, be careful what we wish for.

I have agreed there will be some drop off. Some will be natural attrition, some won’t like the way the club is heading and take a stand. 
 

Personally, I think those taking a stand will be few and far between. 

 

If we win the CL or League under Qatari / whoever owners, do we seriously think there still won’t be >750k there for a parade? 
 

Again, there will be some drop off, anybody expecting it to be anything substantial are kidding themselves and the broad make up of supporters won’t change much at all. 
 

Considering how it’s been this season, it’s can’t be any worse. We won’t go down the route of Man City with free kids tickets left & right and “influencers” because we don’t have to - demand always vastly outstrips our supply. 

[dockers_strike]

18 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

I have agreed there will be some drop off. Some will be natural attrition, some won’t like the way the club is heading and take a stand. 
 

Personally, I think those taking a stand will be few and far between. 

 

If we win the CL or League under Qatari / whoever owners, do we seriously think there still won’t be >750k there for a parade? 
 

Again, there will be some drop off, anybody expecting it to be anything substantial are kidding themselves and the broad make up of supporters won’t change much at all. 
 

Considering how it’s been this season, it’s can’t be any worse. We won’t go down the route of Man City with free kids tickets left & right and “influencers” because we don’t have to - demand always vastly outstrips our supply. 

 

I dont think there will be any drop off in attendance generally. The only time there will be a drop off is when the new 'I dont care how we win, just fucking win' types find a run of poor form means the team doesnt win and those same people say 'Im not paying 50 quid to watch that shite' and avoid going the game.

 

What Im saying is the make up of the match going fans will change. The ground will be fuller with the couldnt give a fuck, win at any cost types. The ones who'll boo like fuck if they have to pay and sit through the type of results we've seen this season, the type who think YNWA only has one verse and start clapping like fuck at the end of that verse, worse than they do now, the ones who are on their phones during the game telling social media what a good \ bad time they're having, the type that leaves the ground with 15 minutes to go because they want to avoid the traffic \ get into the pub so they can order a few beers before the rest pile in.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

If the history of sport has taught us anything, it's that fans will contort their principles and any semblance of objective reality to maintain the pretence of their team - and by extension, themselves - being oh so different to others, no matter the similarities of circumstance. Especially when they're winning.

 

If we got taken over by an oil state, many of our fans who've decried City's path would fall back to "but we were already a big club with success" or suchlike to absolve us of being the same. 

 

The writing's on the wall for any club not backed by insanely wealthy owners who like throwing money away. It's just a question of time as to whether we end up becoming what we claim to hate, or slip into also-ran obscurity. The footballing landscape has changed, and financial dopers are no longer the outlier, they are the template.

 

When the choice becomes to hate our club or place the blame on the game, I wouldn't be surprised if even the most principled red went with the latter rather than cut all ties and walk away. Maybe I'm a cynic though.

[VladimirIlyich]

2 hours ago, Scott_M said:

All completely understandable. 
 

You think feelings of disconnect from the club will be accelerated by some Middle Eastern owner? 
 

I don’t disagree it’ll happen to some. I think volumes of supporters who will turn their backs is being hugely over estimated. 

I'm still a bit old fashioned and think that Liverpool FC,and what it has been through for it's fans, just has a bit more of a conscience than most others based on the city it was formed in and represents. Now I am not saying that if you were born outside the city that you don't understand,many do,but I feel that being part of the city and it's people has a special meaning and we are a bit different to most others and have a better moral compass than most. It's difficult to put into words but I am a bit of an old romantic at heart.

[stringvest]

4 hours ago, VladimirIlyich said:

I'm still a bit old fashioned and think that Liverpool FC,and what it has been through for it's fans, just has a bit more of a conscience than most others based on the city it was formed in and represents. Now I am not saying that if you were born outside the city that you don't understand,many do,but I feel that being part of the city and it's people has a special meaning and we are a bit different to most others and have a better moral compass than most. It's difficult to put into words but I am a bit of an old romantic at heart.

 

I used to think that as well.  

[an tha]

Laughs...

 

 

[Pete]

1 minute ago, an tha said:

Laughs...

 

 

John has bought a new boat?

[Anubis]

Another big exclusive for Leicester KFC Drive Thru.