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Go fuck yourselves FSG


Neil G
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1 minute ago, VERBAL DIARRHEA said:

Before the next tv deal the Big 6 need to get another few clubs on board regarding negotiating their own deals. The lesser clubs are hypocrites just as much, the relegated clubs received £100m from broadcasting etc the £40m in parachute payments in the first year, £30 the second. How is that fair on the other Championship clubs? I understand money talks in the PL but you should live within your means as a lower club who are not big TV draws. It’s dog eat dog unfortunately, not good but true.

I have never understood parachute payments. It's a reward for being totally shit as far as I can tell.

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10 minutes ago, Pete said:

I have never understood parachute payments. It's a reward for being totally shit as far as I can tell.

Don’t see them moaning about them though the way they moaned about  Null and Void and no relegation. West Ham, Villa, Everton and their ilk would have jumped at a Super League invite. 

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Guest Alex_K

So this Paul Cope character is essentially suggesting forcibly seizing private, commercial assets to be put into "charitable trusts". Great work. LFC has been owned by a private individual dating back to its inception in 1892. "Business people" have always been at the heart of club ownership. They've just upped the stakes.

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6 minutes ago, Alex_K said:

So this Paul Cope character is essentially suggesting forcibly seizing private, commercial assets to be put into "charitable trusts". Great work. LFC has been owned by a private individual dating back to its inception in 1892. "Business people" have always been at the heart of club ownership. They've just upped the stakes.

I feel I should be the new Chairperson, I can bring clarity and Hobnobs.

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When we won everything in the 80s the owners put the square root of fuck all back into the club - so little so, that when the PL explosion came we still had no changing rooms at Melwood, no executive boxes and were woefully unprepared for the next decade. 

 

I realise it was a different time - and not an fair comparison, but I still feel looking back they were negligent - winning meant we as fans didn't look beyond the next trophy. 

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Guest Alex_K
2 minutes ago, VERBAL DIARRHEA said:

I feel I should be the new Chairperson, I can bring clarity and Hobnobs.

You'll probably be able to wrangle a nice £400 or £500k "golden goodbye" for you & your mates when you leave the room too. Honest pay for honest work.

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Guest Alex_K
4 minutes ago, Jockey said:

When we won everything in the 80s the owners put the square root of fuck all back into the club - so little so, that when the PL explosion came we still had no changing rooms at Melwood, no executive boxes and were woefully unprepared for the next decade. 

 

I realise it was a different time - and not an fair comparison, but I still feel looking back they were negligent - winning meant we as fans didn't look beyond the next trophy. 

Yeah its just bollocks really. From your John Houldings to your Sam Longsons to your Jack Walkers, private individuals have always ruled the roost in UK football. Some private owners did great things for their clubs, and some did terrible things. As in any walk of life.

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Football has been not for profit far longer than it has been up for sale to the highest bidder.

 

Nobody is saying business people shouldn't be involved in running the club but checks and accountability needs to be in place. As I mentioned earlier there were strict FA rules in force for the majority of Liverpool's existence see below. 

 

The FA once took a robust view that clubs were not there for owners or directors to exploit. In 1899, just as professional, commercialised football was taking off, the FA imposed rules to protect the clubs' sporting heart. These allowed clubs to form limited companies, but prohibited directors from being paid, restricted the dividends to shareholders, and protected grounds from asset-stripping.

Later codified as the FA's Rule 34, these restrictions established the culture that being a club director was a form of public service, that directors should be 'custodians', to support and look after clubs. There never was a golden age of selfless club owners, but the system of clubs as not-for-profit companies did provide the basis for their phenomenal growth. Fans were never overcharged, which helped to encourage loyalty and return visits. But it was not all good news: lack of investment led to decrepit facilities, a failure to deal with hooliganism and crumbling and unsafe grounds.

 

The FA and their rules were in need of updating as football itself changed and modernised, but instead they surrendered completely. When, in 1983, Irving Scholar's Tottenham Hotspur became the first club to announce the intention of floating on the stock market, the club's advisers asked the FA if Spurs would be free to form a holding company to evade the FA's restrictions on dividends and directors' salaries. The FA, who have never explained why, permitted Spurs to do what they wanted. Every other club that floated after that formed holding companies similarly, to bypass the FA's rules.

Football clubs became companies for sale like any others, against the 'heritage' and rules once insisted upon by their governing body. 

 

 

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I'm just running an idea up the flagpole here - but I would suggest that in 1899 they knew the square root of fuck all about business and how football could be run as a business. If your term of reference is over a 100 years old, then it has long passed into irrelevance. This may be a bit of an urban myth, but wasn't football and the development of football so that the feckless and the poor didn't spend all day Saturday getting pissed? 

 

The simple fact is that since we have all been watching football - teams have been run by individuals. The only difference is that in the 70s you could win the league with a chairman who owned a used car showroom and a few social clubs, now you can't. 

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I'm glad there has finally been a recognition that English clubs were not solely ran for profit for the majority of their existence. It's a start from the misinformed posts on the last page. 

 

If you want to stop Manchester City and future sovereign states and what happened this week. There needs to be a change. 

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I don't really want or expect FSG to sell up.

I just want them to do better, at least attempt to make the illusion that they aren't a gang of cunts. Surely it's not that difficult to just put a bit of extra thought into things, or hire some kind of advisor that will steer them away from making these mistakes, or at the least get them to wrap everything in a way that's more palatable for the fans. 

 

I also don't want or expect them to suddenly start spending their own cash on players, but I'm sick of us being sell to buy. I want them to invest the profits that the club are making on the pitch, we're getting bigger and bigger sponsorship deals, TV deals, and over a hundred million a year extra from having good runs in the champions league, why isn't that money being spent? 

 

They're cunts, but I think instead of some wanting to hound them out the club, or some thinking there great and we should suck them off for getting us out of debt and winning a few trophies, can't we just be indifferent to the people and still hold them to account for their mistakes and push them to be better next time?

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7 minutes ago, Denny Crane said:

I'm glad there has finally been a recognition that English clubs were not solely ran for profit for the majority of their existence. It's a start from the misinformed posts on the last page. 

 

If you want to stop Manchester City and future sovereign states and what happened this week. There needs to be a change. 

What were they ran for then? Because I can't remember a time they were ran for altruistic reasons? To be honest, I don't know what point you are trying to make? 

 

Are you wistfully wishing we were back in the 19th Century? 

 

As far as I have been following football, individuals (wealthy individuals) ran football clubs. 

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I know supporters feel helpless but your situation is still markedly better than the state of things here in North America. We've long since become accustomed to franchise owners making wholesale changes whenever they want regardless of fan outrage. Teams are moved from city to city most often to cash in on a free stadium or tax subsidies from the new hosts, whilst other cities are blackmailed to offer the same to keep their beloved "insert name".

 

Sometimes fan interest align with the players union or the owners and we get a bit of an ally in our corner but that's rare, usually its millionaires fighting with billionaires with the fans left to pay for it all in the end. Politicians sometimes take up the fight but more often than not they are complicit in the fleecing. 

 

It should be noted that this is not only an issue in the so-called "major leagues". The city I live in has a team in the Quebec Major-Junior hockey league, comprised mostly of high school aged boys who are heading for the pro's (the other route is the NCAA). The team is owned by the family who owns Irving Oil, the largest local corporate conglomerate. Aside from generally telling the government what to do the team's owner recently played a huge role in pressuring the city and province to build a new arena for his team (sold to the public as a convention centre). All just to keep this team of teenagers from moving to some other community that would have been more than happy to spread their legs for the chance. 

 

There is no doubt in my mind had FSG got their way with the ESL that it would have led some day to them threatening to move the team. Yet you all stopped the ESL in its tracks, which simply would have been impossible in North America if owners wanted something similar or worse. 

 

You can't get the money out of the game but you do have immense influence to curb the worst instincts of the billionaires. Supporter's groups from across Europe should form a select commission to study ways to make real practical changes to the governance of the sport that don't rely on the usual suspects from government, UEFA, and FIFA, who are all inevitably in a conflict of interest, and easily corrupted. 

 

You can't get rid of the billionaires but this is a great time to seize the initiative on reform to strengthen your position. 

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29 minutes ago, Jockey said:

What were they ran for then? Because I can't remember a time they were ran for altruistic reasons? To be honest, I don't know what point you are trying to make? 

 

Are you wistfully wishing we were back in the 19th Century? 

 

As far as I have been following football, individuals (wealthy individuals) ran football clubs. 

 

Point 1. Rule 34 existed for the majority of Liverpool's existence. 

 

Point 2. This created an environment where owners were more custodians than oligarchs, sovereign states and speculators. 

 

Point 3 . Under the current system owners will and are obligated to make as much money as possible for their investor's.

 

Point 4. This will always clash with the demands of the supporter unless there is intervention. 

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Denny Crane said:

 

Point 1. Rule 34 existed for the majority of Liverpool's existence. 

 

Point 2. This created an environment where owners were more custodians than oligarchs, sovereign states and speculators. 

 

Point 3 . Under the current system owners will and are obligated to make as much money as possible.

 

Point 4. This will always clash with the demands of the supporter unless there is intervention. 

 

 

 

 

 

I disagree, because it feels that you are ignoring a huge amount of evidence to the contrary. The fact it all changes in the 80s should give you an idea of why it changed - the world changes in the 80s, it all started in the 70s. The old order was wiped away by the likes of David Sterling, Jimmy Goldsmith et al. But I can't recall a time when clubs - all clubs ownership was with wealthy individuals - the fact that they were not billionaires is not proof of them being custodians - it is proof that the times were different. 

 

The Moores family had a tangible influence on both Everton and Liverpool! How can you say they were 'custodians' in the keeping with the criteria in place in 1899. The financial and economic climate created the environment where they were more custodians - TV and international TV rights were not in place then, so you are comparing apples and pears. For goodness sake we were the first club to have sponsors in the early 80s. The argument that the laws stopped change is disingenuous - the global economy changed football as it has done with everything else! I can remember Souness being interviewed on TV early in the 90s as Liverpool manager and he said we would never charge £20 a game like the Italians and therefore they were always going to be the richer league! 

 

We were owned by the Moores. All that has changed is that now we are owned by FSG. 

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2 hours ago, Jockey said:

I'm just running an idea up the flagpole here - but I would suggest that in 1899 they knew the square root of fuck all about business and how football could be run as a business. If your term of reference is over a 100 years old, then it has long passed into irrelevance. This may be a bit of an urban myth, but wasn't football and the development of football so that the feckless and the poor didn't spend all day Saturday getting pissed? 

 

The simple fact is that since we have all been watching football - teams have been run by individuals. The only difference is that in the 70s you could win the league with a chairman who owned a used car showroom and a few social clubs, now you can't. 

I think it could be argued that those fellas in 1899 knew exactly what the fuck they were talking about and foresaw the problems that would come to the game if it was managed by any other business. You think these cunts now are cutthroat businessmen? They were living in an era where business ruled everything. Slavery had ended less than 100 years before. We were still pillaging the entire empire in the interests of business. If those rules had not been bypassed in the 80s, the entire greed is good culture in British football that has been built from the greed is good decade, may not have happened. 

 

Like everything it becomes tough to go back, but it's not impossible. We just need legislatures who actually give a fuck - either within the game or in government. But I suspect now the Tories have had their good publicity out of this, football will become a thing for the plebs again. And as for the people who run the game, they're every bit as greedy and corrupt as those running ours and the other 11 football clubs of the ESL. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Jockey said:

 

 

We were owned by the Moores. All that has changed is that now we are owned by FSG. 

 

FSG and Moore's owning us is the not the same. One bought us solely as an investment whose loyalties are legally to it's investors. As they say agree to disagree.

 

 

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