Brass or silver? Take your pick!
Blogs, on most subjects, tend to be full of the writer espousing his theories on the issues of the day, and I guess that’s particularly true with football articles, where everyone has an opinion. So, this time, I thought I’d take a different track and ask a few questions instead, whilst at the same time requesting a few changes of headgear!
Firstly, here’s a question with a complicated, or perhaps more accurately, a diverse set of answers. ‘What’s more important to a football club, money or glory, profits or pots, brass or silverware?’ If you’re reading this – and I hope you are, otherwise I’m simply talking to myself – you’re probably a fan of a particular club and will have opted for the latter of the options in each of the three queries offered. Now however, just for a lark, take off your fan’s hat, and instead don the headgear of a club owner, or a CEO having to answer to an owner. To further illustrate the picture, let’s imagine the owner in question isn’t a Sheikh Mansoor or Roman Abramovich who bought clubs merely to indulge rather expensive hobbies. So, with your new hat on, let’s consider the question again. I know what you’re thinking. Winning trophies creates more wealth, therefore you can have both. Ah, you see, this is why I framed the question as I did. For clarity however, I’m going to rephrase it slightly. As an owner or a CEO having to report to an owner, would you rather have made £3million profit and won the Carling Cup, or £8million, and finished with an empty trophy cabinet? Come on, now. We all know the answer if we’re being honest don’t we?
Is money rather than glory the aspiration of the modern football club?
Birmingham City fans still singing the Blues
Being the second city’s second team is no fun for Birmingham City fans.
In a city with at least two football teams, there always seem to be one that’s dominant, and one that has a constant struggle to get out from under the shadow of it’s neighbour. On Merseyside, Liverpool have for long periods held dominance over Everton, whilst the Toffees have had only brief episodes when they could call themselves the top dogs. The usual way was Reds on top. Continue reading →
Randy Lerner’s costly lesson with Premier League football.
Lerner was apparently a fan of Aston Villa before he purchased the club.
Having Birmingham City as cross-city rivals, with all the ownership trials and tribulations they have endured over the years since jailed money-launderer Carson Yeung took over the club, it would be a task of Herculean proportions for Aston Villa to paint themselves as the crisis club of the country’s second city. The former European champions and almost the epitome of that hackneyed old phrase ‘a sleeping giant’ of a club appear however, resolutely keen to have a bash at it. Continue reading →
Can we have our game back, please?
Fronting up for the Premier League clubs has been a financially rewarding experience for Richard Scudamore
News of the television rights cash bonanza for Premier League clubs has caused tidal waves of outrage and floods of advice in fairly equal measures. £5.136billion is a lot of money in anyone’s language, and deflating that down to approximately £12million per game rather puts the price of the football’s top-notch match ticket prices somewhat into the shade – but more of that later. Continue reading →
Marko Marin – Chelsea’s forgotten man continues his loan tour of Western Europe.
Marin holding up the Anderlecht shirt that he hopes to be wearing as he seeks to resurrect his career in Belgium.
Once described as a ‘hot shot’ forward, and a player that both Manchester United and Arsenal were likely to battle over in a £15million bidding war, Serbian-born Germany international Marko Marin, eventually decided to join Chelsea instead. To say it was a move that hasn’t quite worked out well would, however, be an understatement. As the winger joins his third club on loan from Stamford Bridge, his appearances for the Blues remain stuck at a paltry half-dozen, without much prospect of that changing any time soon. A loan move to Anderlecht has now been announced. Continue reading →
Barcelona fans get shirty, as financial reality bites in Catalunya.
Carrying the UNICEF log was originally seen as an altruistic move, but was there a deeper plan?
First it was just a logo. Not a commercial one of course, and it was certainly presented as being an altruistic move. Whilst other clubs were selling their shirt space, donating yours to charity seemed a statement of intent. Perhaps. Whatever the reasoning however, it was an opening of the door. Now the name emblazoned across the famous blaugrana shirt is ‘Qatar.’ Commercial without a doubt. Continue reading →
“Glasgow belongs to me!” Ashley tightens grip on Rangers.
Ashley seems intent on taking control of Rangers.
Gauging the reaction of Newcastle United fans to the news that club owner Mike Ashley has strengthened his grip on Rangers Football Club may not be as straightforward as initially suspected. One reason for this may be that no-one other than the often truculent Ashley appreciates what the implications may be for the club. Always tight-lipped about his intentions, it will take more than a laser-sharp financial insight to appreciate just where Ashley’s aspirations are targeted. Continue reading →
TPO funds – The Pay-Day Loans of the football world?
Fifa has agreed to ban the third-party ownership (TPO) of players. It’s the practise that allows clubs to buy players wherein the transfer fee is part-funded by an investment company, which then takes a share in the commercial rights of the player, with the desire for that percentage to turn a handsome profit when the player is sold on. In essence, the fund is using the club as a finishing school for a player to gain in experience and ability, thus increasing his value in the transfer market and proportionately having the same effect on their investment. Some see such practices as reasonable, others as the inevitable and insidious continuing encroachment of financial affairs into the world of football. Continue reading →
Gary Thacker 