Rival watch

I think it's time we looked at that "8th Richest Club" quote that keeps doing the rounds

Let's get started with the table, which isn't even based on wealth - it's based on revenue generated, which isn't the same thing by any stretch of the imagination - but let's look at it anyway

Barca - €840m
Los Ladrones - €757m
Man Utd - €711m
Bayern - €660m
PSG - €635m
The Sheikh Mansour Team - €610m
Saltypool - €604m
Spurs - €521m
Chelsea - €513
Juventus - €459m

At a first glance you can't help but notice the significant dropoff between 5th and 8th, let alone the big drops between 1st and 2nd, 3rd and 4th...you get the idea

Secondly, however, there's one thing that statistic conspicuously ignores: the depth of the owners' pockets. The fact that directly below us is a team where Uncle Roman can cut a blank cheque whenever and wherever he likes completely dismantles the "We're the 8th richest club!!!" Narrative, because while we made €521m in one season we don't have someone with a personal fortune of €10.6bn that he's been happy to throw around for over fifteen years

Same can be said if you look a couple of places above us, where The Sheikh Mansour Team have earnings of €610m...as if the Sheikh Mansour having €18.6bn to throw around isn't the real basis of wealth, and considering how much he's spent at least £80m fiddling various naming rights and sponsorship deals to keep ahead of FFP while also casually threatening UEFA by saying he'd spend £30m to hire the 50 most vicious lawyers he can find to spend the next decade suing UEFA, I think it's safe to say we don't have the luxury of not only having the spare cash to so blatantly fiddle the system it's obscene but also don't have the luxury of being able to threaten UEFA if we get caught, that ultimately proves how meaningless saying we're the 8th richest club is because the fact of the matter is that we're not

Then you need to consider teams who aren't on that list, and how this makes the list worthless. Here's a few examples
Taurine FC Leipzig - owner worth €16.9bn
Hoffenheim - owner worth €13.8bn
The fact that Sheikh Mansour also has a stake in *deep breath* Girona, NYC FC, Yokohama F Marinos, Montevideo City Torque, Melbourne City FC, Sichuan Jiuniu, Mumbai City and Lommel
The Taurine Empire also owning *another deep breath* Laurine FC Salzburg, New Jersey York Taurine, Taurine FC Brasil, Taurine FC Bragantino, Taurine FC Ghana and FC Liefering
Various Chinese Super League teams who think the phrase "silly money" isn;t aiming high enough and are instead going for "****ing ludicrous money" instead

So while on revenue we are richer than all but one team in the Mansour Empire and the entire Taurine FC Empire...yeah, we're not actually richer than any of them, because it's not like ENIC have the capital to own multiple clubs and use them to shuttle talent around from one to the other - which is especially true with the Salzburg-to-Leipzig conveyor belt that's been blatant for a good few years by this point, but there's certainly cases of this with the Mansour Group too - and that's the key difference that you honestly have to perform some remarkable mental gymnastics to ignore

 

City told them the sponsorship was from Etihad airlines which would have been legal. The leaked emails said this was fraudulent but too late to take action. City won't have made the same mistake again.

 

Nothing stops us progressing to the other level more than the vision of the owners.

Poch had it all apart from support when it mattered, you’re all prepared to bypass the barren windows, I’m not.

Until I see the money from the stadium go into the coffers for the manager I see it as nothing more than a business venture for the owners.

They have a lot to prove when it comes to showing ambition for the team. The 5 years are up...I’m not prepared to back another cycle on false promises just for the owners to pull the rug at crunch time

rinse, repeat

ENIC Out
Levy Out

 

Perhaps the City decision should be referred to as "Trump Law!" Do what you want and get away with it.

 

Only the 2?

 

Rashford down for the other one

 

Spurlock I think it's a shame because you are destined to be disappointed unless Spurs are sold to a Sheikh putting us in a similar position to Man City. If we were by the way I wouldn't see much point in following Spurs and I would pack it in. I have no desire to follow a team that just buys cups as I see little point. I already mentally ignore City, whatever they do is of no interest to me. Only if somebody beats them do I take notice. Professional football is already severely damaged by all the money sloshing around. It wouldn't be so bad if they used it to make the game cheap for fans to see as they do in Germany but they don't. In fact it has never been so expensive to watch a team like Spurs and this excluded a lot of traditional Spurs fans who can no longer afford to go. Since ENIC have owned Spurs they have developed the infrastructure that will serve the club for years and with the high prices charged will produce a much bigger income to enable even more money to be recycled to buy players. You support a team that is one of the elite already and yet here you are complaining about not spending enough. You have to be joking Spurlock or have you just lost sight of what a million pounds represents. You talk about reaching another level. Where is this level? Is there a higher place than the Champions League Final? Is there a league above the PL? Are you so rich you think spending 100 million is peanuts? If you are that rich why don't you make an offer to the club?
I watch football, when Spurs win I smile, when they lose I don't feel so happy for half an hour and then I start enjoying the rest of my life again. We have just had a few good years with Pochettino and seen lots of Spurs winning games. Right now it's more of a chore watching them but we can still beat Arsenal. You seem to be a supporter of Mourinho so you will soon have a new season to look forward to. Jose says he doesn't need many players, if he means it we have to bow to his greater knowledge surely?
Sure we have had a poor season by Spurs recent standards but with a team containing at least 6 new faces we can maybe look forward to a different look next season. I am talking about the players who have joined this season. Then a couple more and Jose promising winning ways lots to look forward to. And all thanks to ENIC.

 

I think Levy just about deserves the benefit of the doubt for the next couple of windows. He’s definitely taken his eye off the ball in recent seasons but we did spend a good amount this season so it would suggest he’s raising the spending bar.

£55m on Tanguy.
£48m on Gio (think was initially gonna be £55m. By making the deal permanent in Jan meant we saved about £7m)
£25m plus Onomah on Sess.
£9m on Clarke.
£27m on Bergwijn.

Thats “big boy” spending and it isn’t taking into account the loan fee for Gedson and what he’ll cost if we make it permanent.

COVID will obviously impact us, as it will most clubs but I still think we’ll be bringing players in, Jose said so himself too. It’s **** too because we would’ve had the revenue from all the concerts, rugby and boxing if it weren’t for COVID. So providing the events are rescheduled, I’d imagine summer 2021 will be a big spending window for the club.

I just hope going forward we can bring in a DoF to keep Levy from the footballing decisions. Levy can focus on getting more events and sponsorship for the club in which he’s brilliant at and Jose can work with someone who has more footballing IQ to help try and build a strong side.

 

That's weird, I just stubbed my toe in the kitchen and Bruno Fernandes was awarded a penalty for it

 

They might as well get rid of the charade that is ffp and just let clubs spend what they want as that’s what several clubs do anyway

It’s not big boy spending when you go two years prior without spending a penny

Signing Jack Clarke for roughly the same amount as Dybala image rights still annoys me to this day

 

My biggest issue with Clarke is, while he looked like he could be a shrewd piece of business at the time, thanks to Leeds dicking him around for half the season he's starting to look like anything but - and at that point we start wondering why we didn't go for Daniel James, who was certainly better suited for going straight into our team, instead

 

160 million + on 5 players. I only hope they come of age next season.
1,000 quid is a lot of money to me at this time yet PL clubs are throwing money as though it's confetti at a wedding!
Not much of it is going to the lower leagues it seems.Mostly to European clubs.
If our lower leagues don't have a chance to get some of this "confetti",what will become of our football league?

 

United 2-1. They may not need a penalty.

(Southampton were leading.)

 

It was one year we didn’t spend.

And let’s forget the fact Juve pulled the plug on the deal so image rights were irrelevant. It’s always easier to stick to false agendas

 

Sorry meant 2 transfer windows, it was still well over 500 days though and as a result the club is still paying for it now

 

KWP poor for the Utd second goal, why would he show Martial the inside

 

I won’t disagree with that but ultimately last summer we were all pretty happy with the business done. Though if we had hindsight we’ll have probably done things differently.

 

The main problem with the signings from last summer is the lack of games they’ve started because of injuries and form, hopefully next season they will all play more of a part

 

Southampton have had more possession than United - but that won't be mentioned tomorrow when the United fan boys carry on with their 'how brilliant united are since the break' agenda. Funnily enough, when they played us I didn't think they were very good, and apparently we're crap.

 

Ouch. Clash of heads now. Gives the officials the opportunity not to add on the right amount of extra time (at least when United don't need it).