With the news that Darlington are virtually dead and seemingly a few more are to follow I ask this question. A common denominator in a lot of these potential bankruptcies are the fact the club is owned by offshore investment. If you look back at the unbelievable prices paid for players over the last few years the same common denominator pops it's ugly head up again. The unbridgeable gap between the haves and the havenots in the Football League has increased expedentially since foreign ownership became the supposed salvation of some teams. When I see two specific players costing a combined 85 million pounds between them performing like they should be playing non-league,my blood starts to boil. Send them down to the likes of Darlington to see how the real players earn their keep and they might (probably not) become more appreciative of the priviliged profession that keeps them in their Bentleys. Whatever happened to the rule about ownership being transparent and of suitable stature, both financially and morally, to even be considered as owners of repute and integrity? Am I way off track on this subject or are their others out there who wish our game could be more like it used to be in the days when British ownership ruled the waves?
Hey Mike Not sure about Darlo having foreign owners, although I'm aware of why they are in such a mess and the instigator behind it originally, and I've watched their sad decline over the past few years, but IMO it was always unsustainable up there. A 25,000 seater stadium for a club that was getting 2,500 people per game in Division 4 ? Come on ! Don't get me wrong ambition is great, but to put the cart before the horse was just really stupid. The golden days, if they really were, of all British and sometimes family (such as the Hill-Woods at Arsenal and the Cobbolds at Ipswich Town) ownership of football clubs is largely gone, with more and more super rich foreign investors thinking that British clubs are good playthings to have. I suppose that this affects mainly the Premier League when you think of Liverpool, Man City, Man U, Blackburn, Villa etc but of course we've all seen what's happened to Portsmouth and others with foreign owners in the Championship and the likes of Hearts in the Scottish Prem. It hasn't exactly always been easy. Then there's Mike Ashley at Newcastle who is a businessman made good, but doesn't support Newcastle at all (he's a Spurs fan I believe?) and has upset the fans with his determination just to make more money out of the club and trying to re-name the stadium. So my question is which is worse ? The foreign owners of Man City who are prepared to spend tens of millions to effectively buy the league championship (just like Blackburn did under Jack Walker) or Newcastle with a British owner who just wants to make more money ? However chairman and owners of British clubs a few decades ago were usually local businessmen made good and kept clubs like Hartlepool (as an example) afloat out of the kindness of their hearts but according to managers like Cloughie and Shankly knew nothing about football whatsoever. It seems to me that only the nationality of the owners has changed and the silly amounts of money that are now involved.
Would it not be fairer if only money collected through normal admission charges and legitimate fund raising should be permitted as a spend by clubs for the running costs for admin, staff and player's salaries? Foreign investment would only then be allocated to infrastucture improvements. Of course it would be fairer, but then the Premier League would lose it's status and we would no longer see world class players in English Foootball. So that will not happen! If you want to join the big boys club, foreign investment big bucks is the only course available at present. Bristol is a big City with lousy sporting teams (note I did not say clubs). We all know that the catchment for major increase in support is there. I can't see anyone putting cash into any of the present set-ups. Something radical needs to be done to capture the imagination of the media, the local punters and the attention of the foreign rich cats. Divided we will continue to underachieve. United we would at least have a chance!
It's a hard one tpo call and of course there are good and bad points of the arguement on both sides. One of my issues is that it would appear that the base of this game is being slowly eroded because the upper echelons of the league seem to pay little, or any, notice of the heritage of the game that lies below them in the pecking order. The rich get richer (maybe just on paper) and the poor just disappear (even if it's at their own hands).
Has everyone heard that Danny Welbeck of Man U is asking for £60k a week ? FFS - He's a decent player and is young, but he's hardly an establised star....! As Jim Royle would say, sixty grand a week my arse!
Thing is though Angelic with Rooney on 250k a week in his little world it doesn't seem like he is asking for much.
Agreed Bansky, but at least he is an established player at Man U, an England regular, and he is world class at times (although doesn't demonstrate it consistently s he plays so deep at times). Wages and money in general within football is now so out of touch with the real world, especially so at the moment as unemployment soars and the squeeze gets worse that it's actually sickening. Even little ol Bristol City have an annual wage bill of £16m for a team fighting relegation and that's just madness. There needs to be a serious wage cap put in place across the board but it won't happen. The FA (or FIFA?) are insisting that clubs live within their means, but aside from the owners, none of the top Premier teams are cash rich as they spend nearly all their money on wages and bonuses, and also often on below average foreign players which has contributed significantly to England problems at international level. If you're Rooney, Terry etc do you really want to take all the **** that can go with playing for England when you earn so much money every week you can just stick 2 fingers up ? I'm not sure I'd even bother.
Its the age old problem of market forces. We are never going to return to th £20 wage cap, even if they let us watch the game for 20p. Just realised after I wrote that. The entrance fee was precisely the same as the price of a gallon of petrol. So you know who is paying the extra money for the players inflated salaries
