Foreign Owners, get out of our game!

[Smoove]

Foreign Owners, get out of our game…
Let the winning commence back on the pitch, not off it!

Since Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003, the winning has transferred from on the pitch, to off it with another seven Premiership clubs being taken over by foreigners who quite simply don’t give a toss for the supporters. The minute amount of Man United fans that tore up their season tickets as the Glazer’s bought their club did, the right thing. If you aren’t happy with them, then why give them more of your money? You earn it, so don’t feel pressured on how to spend it. However, of course some ‘poorer’ clubs are happy with a billionaire buying the club to give you success, but what about the long term future of the club? Surely a ‘crew’ of Abu Dhabi businessmen can’t be in a fit state to run a football club. Your club will end up in debt, and you will end up fuming at them. It was announced not long ago that Manchester United are in around £700 million debt, which is outrageous for just ONE club…

Football is a game played on a pitch, hence the name ‘foot’ ‘ball’, or in simpler terms, a game in which you play with your feet with a ball, not a summer of spending vast amounts with a £2,000,000 weekly wage cap and £50,000 match bonuses to leave the club with a negative income, otherwise known as DEBT once the wealthy consortium back off and sell up to make a few quid. The beautiful game was extremely focused on the passion of the fans and effort of the players. Now, since the rich foreigners have taken over the game, it’s revolved around the disappointment of some fans and players wanting an ever-growing pay cheque. Personally, I think that the English game should be based around English owners, with the majority of the players being English, but it’s just not the case. If the foreign owners backed off and supported their local sides, then surely the game would be more attractive for us passionate fans? The youth of today should not rebel against the youth of the 80’s, a FA Cup final or playing for your local club should be every child’s dream, not making £100,000 a week and playing for the money, not the fans.

Victory now means something different from the past. It’s commenced in the board room before finally reaching the large green area also known as a football pitch. Or has it? I say the owners excite the fans, then go back on their own words and bite the fans in the backside leaving them in disbelief and no hope of success whilst the owner rubs the money in their faces. Victory at Liverpool is a million miles away with their American owners. So much was promised, the fans were buzzing, but as what’s happening with both American owners (Glazer and Hicks), and the Yanks are clinging on and are a swift kick away from falling. One things for sure, you won’t find a sugar daddy foreign owner who has a passion and a true love for your club, The fans must begin to keep pressure on foreigners to make them hesitate before smugly buying up an English club, eagerly anticipating their silk lined pockets to be lined. Let’s refuse to be so loyal, to buy into the illusion that they care. But will time ever tell and people actually do this, to stop them from stepping in and wrecking our game?



Thoughts? Anyone agree/disagree with much of this?

[and1GS]

Amurrica - We can mess up your country's sports, too.

[5DOM]

The only reason EPL has been considered the best league in the world last few years is BECAUSE of the money. Money did much more for EPL than what passion did, and there's really no way they are going back to being all English clubs.

And I think the failures have more to do with the poor management and bad decisions by FA than the fact that the owners are from outside the country.

[Rendezvous]

**** Chelsea.

[treiz]

It's a business, as an investor if you can't see the potential that a football club has in terms of profitability then you're just a idiot. It also helps that investing in clubs gives the club more stability and the owner more spotlight.

[Sleepy]

50+1: The Club Ownership Issue in the Bundesliga

All Bundesliga clubs are organised as eingetragener Verein (eV), which Wikipedia tells me would be similar to a Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) in Britain or a Non-Profit Corporation (NPC) in the US – to give you some orientation.
They often aren’t pure football clubs either, but can cover a variety of sports. So, if you ever fancied the idea of playing for Bayern Munich, lack the football skills but are a respectable chess player, you may try and make it in Bayern Munich’s chess team.

In 1999 the DFL (German Football League) acknowledged the growing economic relevance of football and the legal/tax issues coming with it. The clubs were allowed to spin off parts of the club, like the men’s football team, and turn them into separate corporations. With one important restriction: the original NPO has to keep 51 percent of the shares (50+1 Rule), essentially blocking potential investors from taking over and running the football team.* No other European league is that restrictive. So far 17 of the 36 clubs in the first and second Bundesliga have spun off their football teams. Some of the biggest names like Schalke, Hamburg and Stuttgart remain exclusively NPOs though.

Hanover 96’s president Martin Kind recently started an initiative to get rid of the 50+1 rule, because he thinks, that it harms his club’s economic development and prospects. All in all, according to a survey by the German newspaper Handelsblatt, 7 of the 36 clubs in the first and second Bundesliga want to see this rule gone. Which is still quite a bit short of the two-thirds majority necessary to actually get rid of it. So a lot of lobbying work is still ahead for Kind and friends.

* There are two exceptions: the company founded clubs Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg, for whom a special clause was added. Investors who had supported a club for over 20 years until 1999 were allowed to keep the majority of the shares and continue to run the clubs.

http://bundesliga.theoffside.com/number ... sliga.html

We all know about the Bundesliga’s 50+1 rule, yes? It’s not an extreme interpretation of Sepp Blatter’s 6+5, but rather a league rule ensuring that investors can not own more than 49% of any Bundesliga club. This prevents the clubs being taken over by an Abramovich, Glazer, Hicks/Gillett or Sheikh Mansour. Which most people think is a good thing, but some people think is preventing German teams from competing with their much moneyed European rivals like Real Madrid.

[...]

Maybe 50+1 isn’t perfect, but as football becomes ever more money obsessed, I see the German system as the last bastion of sanity. In the long term, it’s not impossible that we’ll see some big name teams in some very serious trouble thanks to their big money takeovers. Man Utd’s recent financial news was not encouraging, for example. I like to think of the Bundesliga as the tortoise in the race: Slow, steady, sensible, and when football’s financial meltdown comes, the Bundesliga will be in a much better position than all the hares.

http://www.theoffside.com/leagues/bunde ... gn=twitter

[treiz]

Pretty much solved the case there Sleepy.

[El Turco]

The only reason EPL has been considered the best league in the world last few years is BECAUSE of the money. Money did much more for EPL than what passion did, and there's really no way they are going back to being all English clubs.

this. let's not forget how EPL was a third tier to Liga and Serie A before its clubs became toys to billionaires.

[El Turco]

btw original post is structured way too good for a Smoove post, might wanna give credit to original author.

[Rendezvous]

btw original post is structured way too good for a Smoove post, might wanna give credit to original author.

http://www.totalfootballforums.com/foru ... -our-game/

[treiz]

[Slava]

The only reason EPL has been considered the best league in the world last few years is BECAUSE of the money. Money did much more for EPL than what passion did, and there's really no way they are going back to being all English clubs.

this. let's not forget how EPL was a third tier to Liga and Serie A before its clubs became toys to billionaires.

The money was always there and United, Arsenal and Liverpool were always one of the best marketable teams in the world right next to Madrid and Milan but the wages needed to get much higher in Britain to compensate for the higher tax for high earning players and the culture needed to open up more to attract big players despite the unfavorable weather.

Madrid is still run by the 80,000 or so socios and they are right at the top of the rich ladder. the biggest mistake that most British clubs made was to get greedy and turning into PLCs which made them vulnerable for takeovers. If it weren't for the debt saddled on by the Glazers' takeover, United have signed sponsorship deals amounting to over 300 mil pounds over the past couple of seasons alone, a majority of which would be available for transfer fees and Fergie would be throwing ridiculous money like Madrid and City too.

The success for English clubs in champions league also came with a shift in strategy to suit the continental game. More and more European managers have stepped in and thats changed the way the English game has traditionally been played.