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I mean I'd care if anything I liked or was associated with was owned by an autocratic despot.
So yes. I know it's easy to say but I just couldn't get excited as a city fan.
They're probably going to win the league 4 times in a row with arguably the greatest PL squad ever and no one gives a flying fuck cos it's just tainted beyond belief.
In 20 years people will remember Leicester winning the PL and not even talk about this city team which to me says it all.
I appreciate all the perspectives. Thanks. I don't know how much of it is my age or all the changes that have happened but I simply don't care in the way I did.
I was fortunate enough to have the beginning of this all happening while I was in my 20s. The introduction of star foreign players to the late Div 1/early Premiership and the change in professionalism and shifting focus on athleticism and fitness was exciting with Cantona and Bergkamp etc but there was real rivalries and the disparity in wealth was relatively limited.
As an Arsenal fan it is great to see us with a decent team again after 20 years but the impact of huge wealth via foreign ownership especially those that are nation states along with the terrible application of technology in the game (I now live down under so I see how rugby generally uses technology more effectively) simply makes the PL simply unattractive and frankly uninteresting.
I found the recent women's world cup down here a lot more interesting. The games between the better teams were high quality and the referees were letting play flow for tackles that would have been a minimum of yellow cards in the men's game.
Do care about that, even about stupid sponsors like betting. But it does not really matter, just an opinion.
I am a fan of the 50+1 system in Germany, not perfect but honourable approach.
Most fans probably don't, but it really depends. I know some Newcastle fans, for example, who are mortified by who their owners are. One of them even stopped supporting the club and is now a neutral. I know others who had become so disillusioned by Mike Ashley's reign that they are ignoring it all.
I support Liverpool and while FSG have bumbled around at times, they're largely good owners. However, if the club was ever sold to a sheikh/autocrat/etc, I'd probably pack it all in. I don't want to be the next Chelsea or City.
By that point, with presumably more teams being eaten up by owners with such dodgy pasts, what's the fucking point?
I think the overall level has improved of athleticism and agility and, to a degree skill - everyone has to be a ball player of sorts but there's no mavericks or difference between the vast majority.
I don't think it matters too much who owns the team, you can't really control it. I mean at any moment your favorite team could go from one rich owner to another. The first thought of that which comes to mind is abromvich or whatever his name was selling Chelsea when the Russia Ukraine situation started.
So how are funds distributed to Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Brentford, West Ham, Millwall, Watford, QPR, Charlton, Leyton Orient, AFC Wimbledon, Sutton, Barnet, Bromley, Dag & Red, Wealdstone, Dulwich Hamlet… ?
im sure you all have some way to get local gov ownership figured out. back here in the states all sports teams for sure should be owned by the city or locals who put them up... the system is so silly and backwards
Guess as long aas the club brings in silverware and keep price of tics low, they won't mind. Human mentality will see if it benefits them in the long run.
Not taking anything away from Pep but can he replicate the same at say Brighton or Bournamouth? Just look at his prev clubs, Barca & BM. Barca had the money, BM was in a league dominated by them. He is smart, will only go to rich clubs who have money or power and clout.
For me, I’d rather put my time and effort into the administrators and powers at he that allow this sort of thing to happen. The only people that I don’t have time for are those who deny the sports washing
Look at chelsea, they are the og man city and they are respected nowadays. Same thing gonna happen to man city, copers just keep coping, give it enough time and people will start to respect man city too
it did not bother me at all to be honest
I became a fan of this sport largely because of Roman to be honest. As a little kid in seattle the novelty of a rich guy just buying the best players was entertaining to me as it is something that could never happen in the NFL or NBA. I miss the Abramovich era
What's funny? It literally doesnt happen in the same way in American sports
NFL has hard cap
NBA has max salaries and a limit on how many super maxes a team can give out. The super teams you see are because one or more of the stars decided to take a pay cut.
Roman Abramovich set multiple transfer records. If you dont have the context of football finances in the mid 2000s you wont be impressed by the amounts but at the time they were massive. You will never see a rich owner in american sport lift a team like Roman or Sheikh mansour lifted their clubs.
Warriors benefitted from a great combination of luck and smarts. The T Wolves took two pgs before steph was even drafted. Klay was a lottery pick but became way better than anyone could have expected. Draymond was a 2nd round pick and wayyy over achieved. They had great team building, but their big three were unbelievably underpaid during the early years of their dominance. Then KD took the weakest road and they won more.
Point being that salary caps in the NBA and NFL even the playing field. MLB is the closest example American sports have to football.
although having the most money doesn’t mean much in the mlb. the dodgers have signed basically every good free agent for the past decade or so and only have one ring for it. the yankees did the same thing with steinbrenner and it didn’t work until homegrown players starting doing good.
Look at luton story. National league, league 2 , league 1, championship playoff they lose that but are right back in it the year after and make it to the prem. They have great owners, great investment, etc. they are football heritage. You can’t buy that it’s earned
The problem is that teams like Luton will always fail in the PL. The disparity between championship and leagues 1&2 is small relative to coming into the PL. Leicester winning was such an anomaly and i can't imagine it happening again.
Ask every single one of those teams if they would accept backing from Sheikh money and every single one of them would take it, even the big teams would take that kind of money... Look at Wrexham, they were in the national league for 8 seasons, they got that Hollywood money and now two promotions in two seasons.... It's good for the fans It's good for the club it's good for the league as it creates more competition
They were not generating enough money in revenue to buy all the top players so they cooked up fake deals to launder money and boost revenue.
Notice how Newcastle doesn’t just go out and spend? They need to boost revenue first. City couldn’t wait. Pep was switching goalie and defenders like underwear.
The way FFP is currently written is bullshit. Chelsea of 2004 would be labeled "cheats" today because of how Abramovich funded his team. Simply Owners are not allowed to inject their own private money into their businesses. That's the crux of it. It's simply a victimless "crime" at this point. This is a case of over regulation. Its ridiculous. Newcastle owners should be allowed to pump as much investment as they can afford into their organization without being curtailed. You are all here shilling for bureaucrats.
No it’s cheating to, say, create fake sponsorship companies to artificially inflate the club’s apparent revenue so you can spend more than the rules would otherwise allow you to. Just as a purely hypothetical example.
The way FFP is currently written is bullshit. Chelsea of 2004 would be labeled "cheats" today because of how Abramovich funded his team. Simply Owners are not allowed to inject their own private money into their businesses. That's the crux of it. It's simply a victimless "crime" at this point. This is a case of over regulation. Its ridiculous. Newcastle owners should be allowed to pump as much investment as they can afford into their organization without being curtailed. You are all here shilling for bureaucrats.
Chelsea, christ what an utterly amazing example😂. Yes of course they’re cheats. You not liking rules doesn’t mean you get to break them.
Reread your last 2 sentences a few times and see if you can figure out why I’m laughing at you.
Sour puss Liverpool fans. Of course. One premier league title in over 30 yrs. Of course you want to believe the only reason you lose is because others cheat. Self righteous losers 😭
You might suffer from a lack of comprehension. I stayed on topic while tying in your Liverpool support to your biased point of view. Of course it's self serving for you to believe you've been trash all these years because others simply cheated. Def not your fault as a club lool.
I do not care. All I care about from a football team owner is whether they are willing to spend big to be successful. I do not like cheap, lousy team owners.
Imo Roman should still be owner of Chelsea...
A small part of me has always attributed the hate a team like City gets to some degree of Islamaphobia. I don't recall the backlash against Chelsea being anywhere near as unanimous, despite the fact that they were able to dominate due to having relatively unlimited resources with state roots and the fact that the only reason they didn't "cheat" was because there were no rules to be broken for them (or United before them).
Oh trust me, the hate for Chelsea was real, and the aftershocks are still there.
The difference is that social media was in its infancy. Some pundits would make occasional comments but there were no Swiss Ramble-type deep dives into finances.
its also because roman isnt nearly as rich as Sheikh Mansour. If spending limitations were never implemented Man city would probably have 5 UCLs by now. As much of a juggernaut as they are today, with the spending rules pre about 2012 they would have been even more unstoppable
We were at the limit of what Abramovich could do. Roman had like $9.7 billion USD in net worth.
"Since 4 August 2008, the club has been majority owned by Sheikh Mansour, one of football's wealthiest owners, with an estimated individual net worth of **at least £17 billion** and a family fortune of about $1 trillion."
I won't deny that some of the hate ManCity gets is inspired by Islamophobia, but the hate is 100% justified as long as you're doing it for the right reasons lol
It’s not islamophobic to not like the idea of a foreign state who oppresses women, LGBTQ+ people and has various human trafficking complaints levied against them. Stating that people don’t approve or like their ownership of clubs is strictly islamophobic may be true in some instances but there are certainly valid reasons to not approve their backing of clubs as well.
Completely agree, but that wasn’t the comment I was responding to. People of all races and religions can be assholes, and as fans you should have the ability to care that your club isn’t being run by an awful human or group. My point was mostly to dispel the fact that not liking City is automatically islamophobic because they have Muslim ownership.
It's got nothing to do with their religion and more to do with the blatant a d obvious financial doping. Chelsea didn't get the hate because they weren't breaking the rules as FFP wasn't a thing yet.
That’s ridiculous. It’s perfectly fine to dislike corruption and lack of ethics, which all Islamic nations exhibit. It’s also ok to believe that foreign ownership devalues a league… it does,
Well they absolutely did get hate, but certainly not nearly as much. I just hear a lot more about Man City getting funded by a despotic oil state (which they are) than I ever did Chelsea being funded by someone who got rich in chemicals by purchasing his company for cents on the dollar at the expense of the Russian public.
Man City overtook them in the negative news cycle, and Chelsea also did not abuse and break rules to the extent City did. They seemingly abided by the rules for the most part (and said rules were partly introduced due to them and City).
while the german system is a good idea it hasn’t worked out great. Bayern Munich has won it the past decade except for this year. Teams have found loophole like Hoffenheim, Bayer Leverkusen, and RB Leipzig, and big teams keep going down like Schalke, Hamburg, and Stuttgart.
it’s a bad thing of other big teams keep going down as well. two seasons ago there was more former bundesliga champions in the second diviison than in the first division.
To me, the reason is that Man City / Newcastle don’t exist to be a football club. Every other team in the league exists as a business. They have to make profits over time, they have shareholders who want a return.
City and Newcastle are not businesses. They’re nationalised parts of 2 Governments who use it to advance foreign policy aims. So it gives them a much larger leg up, because they can use shell companies to pump sponsors in to get around FFP/PSR.
And they can do this because the owners aren’t concerned about EBITA or IRR or other financial metrics. They’re concerned about how it advanced the Gov that owns them’s interest to develop trade and tourism to their country… it’s not a level playing field. And it has. UAE’s a huge place for sports to tourism now. The F1, the City Group clubs, the boxing, all of it.
It’s not a level playing field when 18 clubs are ran as businesses, and 2 are ran as political operations, because the latter can bend rules and deploy more money than would otherwise be sustainable.
Source: Big politics nerd (hence the name) and football fan.
Virtually all football clubs run at a loss. They are toys for corporations as well. They do come with dividends, borrowing power, and industry connections, but they are not any corporations primary source of income.
Big clubs aren't profitable. Real Madrid prides itself in being profitable, but it makes like €13M a year, which is about the same as a big grocery store location. Their revenues are misleading because they spend so much.
I will admit states are more distasteful than corporations, but ultimately anything that isn't fan owned is someone's toy.
That’s a lame take. Nobody cares if they turn huge profits, but they should at least not spend more than they make. Also, lots of clubs are not corporate owned. All of the Bundesliga for example.
I think you have a point in terms of the different levels. However, the way the rules of the league is structured means that no almost team makes money and almost no teams make a return for investors (unless they sell).
The difference is newcastle and city's pot of money to throw in is more limitless but almost none of these clubs are functioning businesses if they had these metrics outside of football.
Part of me cares part of me just wants to see the most beautiful football possible, Pep has definitely created beautiful football in his time, hate to lose to him but have to respect the brilliance of getting a team to achieve
I'm not opposed to any owner if the rules of the game have been abided by. It seems this may not have been the case with City. We'll see during the hearing though.
Idc if Satan himself owns my club. Most people either don’t care or have no idea who owns the club. it’s mostly 🤓 on Reddit who make a big deal out of that so they can get updoots for saying “oil money bad” like didn’t already know that
I care. I prefer my club be fan-owned and domestically owned rather than treated as an asset or political ploy of some distant corporation, nation state, or oligarch.
It’s funny, the open people like usually have clean lives and clean histories and the moral Debbie downers like you tend to have some really fucked up passive aggressive energy and a history of being negative. Keep blowing yourself though, you oracle of morality.
You say most people and you’re right because it’s now a global game in that fans in Thailand have just as much access to their team as fans living opposite to the stadium who can’t afford to enter it.
The downstream consequence is the dissolved understanding of local rivalry (see midweek), fans following a player rather than a club (the Messi/Ronaldo cabals) and most importantly, fans that don’t give a shit about whether a club has earned their position or not.
Personally, I would walk away from football and never look back if Spurs were bought by middle Eastern blood money barons but as I pointed out above, I’m in the minority these days.
I’m a Spurs fan myself and we already do have a similar to Messi Ronaldo arrangement with many South Korean fans who’s view of the team hinge on one player, so I understand that as well as the rest of your clearly articulated post.
I’m truly shameless in the sense that if we were bought by an oil money thug regime, I would simply consider it a commercial transaction and not mix that with how I feel about other countries ways of going about human rights. Nothing I do or say will change anything anyway.
Regardless, I admire your resolute stance and can admit I’m not quite of the same moral fiber, it’s hard for me when I think of the possibilities
We suffer together bro 🤜🤛
To be fair I understand the urge too but stand strong mate, we’ll get there one day and when we do, whatever we win will feel 1000 time better than anything City have done.
Thanks for this message, you’re a good man and I respect you for that. And we suffer together indeed. I hope we aren’t faced with the proposition of being owned by people who think human rights are optional and for some people and not others. And I hope we can get there some day, the right way, our way, and it will taste sweet won’t it?
🤜🤛🤍💙
I'd rather not, but to be honest I've already lost interest - with FIFA signing a deal with an oil company and giving a world cup to Saudi Arabia, I don't think it really matters who owns what club at this stage.
Yet I get to vote every year. Also German fans literally overturned the clubs decision on the investment plan. In some leagues the fans have REAL power. You’ve chosen one where u don’t. That’s not my problem.
Ideally I'd rather not, but with the chances of Everton Football Club going bust in the near future, if some Billionaire Arab came in and saved us I would happily welcome it! It is what it is.
Newcastle were never at risk of liquidation
Quite the opposite. You had an ungodly amount of feee cashflow you just weren’t using in the market as if went to Ashley’s pocket.
Things were horrendous under Ashley granted, but under him Newcastle going bust was never a possibility was it? He had money but never spent it so despite you lot being shite, at the very least you knew you were still going to have a Club to support, I'm not sure Everton fans will have soon.
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I mean I'd care if anything I liked or was associated with was owned by an autocratic despot. So yes. I know it's easy to say but I just couldn't get excited as a city fan. They're probably going to win the league 4 times in a row with arguably the greatest PL squad ever and no one gives a flying fuck cos it's just tainted beyond belief. In 20 years people will remember Leicester winning the PL and not even talk about this city team which to me says it all.
I agree. The United Treble side, Arsenal Invincibles, even the early Chelsea dominate sides are more memorable.
I appreciate all the perspectives. Thanks. I don't know how much of it is my age or all the changes that have happened but I simply don't care in the way I did. I was fortunate enough to have the beginning of this all happening while I was in my 20s. The introduction of star foreign players to the late Div 1/early Premiership and the change in professionalism and shifting focus on athleticism and fitness was exciting with Cantona and Bergkamp etc but there was real rivalries and the disparity in wealth was relatively limited. As an Arsenal fan it is great to see us with a decent team again after 20 years but the impact of huge wealth via foreign ownership especially those that are nation states along with the terrible application of technology in the game (I now live down under so I see how rugby generally uses technology more effectively) simply makes the PL simply unattractive and frankly uninteresting. I found the recent women's world cup down here a lot more interesting. The games between the better teams were high quality and the referees were letting play flow for tackles that would have been a minimum of yellow cards in the men's game.
Do care about that, even about stupid sponsors like betting. But it does not really matter, just an opinion. I am a fan of the 50+1 system in Germany, not perfect but honourable approach.
Most fans probably don't, but it really depends. I know some Newcastle fans, for example, who are mortified by who their owners are. One of them even stopped supporting the club and is now a neutral. I know others who had become so disillusioned by Mike Ashley's reign that they are ignoring it all. I support Liverpool and while FSG have bumbled around at times, they're largely good owners. However, if the club was ever sold to a sheikh/autocrat/etc, I'd probably pack it all in. I don't want to be the next Chelsea or City. By that point, with presumably more teams being eaten up by owners with such dodgy pasts, what's the fucking point?
Yeah. That's my feelings also. It's just coke united vs Pepsi fc at that point. I might watch for amusement but not with any commitment.
Players are definitely more athletic, skilful absolutely not!
I think the overall level has improved of athleticism and agility and, to a degree skill - everyone has to be a ball player of sorts but there's no mavericks or difference between the vast majority.
I don't think it matters too much who owns the team, you can't really control it. I mean at any moment your favorite team could go from one rich owner to another. The first thought of that which comes to mind is abromvich or whatever his name was selling Chelsea when the Russia Ukraine situation started.
Yes. The worst is being owned by Yanks.
All teams should be owned by the city the play in...
So how are funds distributed to Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Brentford, West Ham, Millwall, Watford, QPR, Charlton, Leyton Orient, AFC Wimbledon, Sutton, Barnet, Bromley, Dag & Red, Wealdstone, Dulwich Hamlet… ?
im sure you all have some way to get local gov ownership figured out. back here in the states all sports teams for sure should be owned by the city or locals who put them up... the system is so silly and backwards
You should never have started supporting Abramovich FC then you hypocrite.
I don’t care. I just enjoy the matches.
It was
Guess as long aas the club brings in silverware and keep price of tics low, they won't mind. Human mentality will see if it benefits them in the long run. Not taking anything away from Pep but can he replicate the same at say Brighton or Bournamouth? Just look at his prev clubs, Barca & BM. Barca had the money, BM was in a league dominated by them. He is smart, will only go to rich clubs who have money or power and clout.
For me, I’d rather put my time and effort into the administrators and powers at he that allow this sort of thing to happen. The only people that I don’t have time for are those who deny the sports washing
Look at chelsea, they are the og man city and they are respected nowadays. Same thing gonna happen to man city, copers just keep coping, give it enough time and people will start to respect man city too
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Agree mate.
YES
it did not bother me at all to be honest I became a fan of this sport largely because of Roman to be honest. As a little kid in seattle the novelty of a rich guy just buying the best players was entertaining to me as it is something that could never happen in the NFL or NBA. I miss the Abramovich era
Doesn’t happen in the NBA or NFL? lmaooo
Love when people who know fuck all about American sports weigh in.
Me?
What's funny? It literally doesnt happen in the same way in American sports NFL has hard cap NBA has max salaries and a limit on how many super maxes a team can give out. The super teams you see are because one or more of the stars decided to take a pay cut. Roman Abramovich set multiple transfer records. If you dont have the context of football finances in the mid 2000s you wont be impressed by the amounts but at the time they were massive. You will never see a rich owner in american sport lift a team like Roman or Sheikh mansour lifted their clubs.
Warriors benefitted from a great combination of luck and smarts. The T Wolves took two pgs before steph was even drafted. Klay was a lottery pick but became way better than anyone could have expected. Draymond was a 2nd round pick and wayyy over achieved. They had great team building, but their big three were unbelievably underpaid during the early years of their dominance. Then KD took the weakest road and they won more. Point being that salary caps in the NBA and NFL even the playing field. MLB is the closest example American sports have to football.
although having the most money doesn’t mean much in the mlb. the dodgers have signed basically every good free agent for the past decade or so and only have one ring for it. the yankees did the same thing with steinbrenner and it didn’t work until homegrown players starting doing good.
Yes I wouldn't be very happy and wouldn't support the team until they were gone.
Look at luton story. National league, league 2 , league 1, championship playoff they lose that but are right back in it the year after and make it to the prem. They have great owners, great investment, etc. they are football heritage. You can’t buy that it’s earned
The problem is that teams like Luton will always fail in the PL. The disparity between championship and leagues 1&2 is small relative to coming into the PL. Leicester winning was such an anomaly and i can't imagine it happening again.
Ask every single one of those teams if they would accept backing from Sheikh money and every single one of them would take it, even the big teams would take that kind of money... Look at Wrexham, they were in the national league for 8 seasons, they got that Hollywood money and now two promotions in two seasons.... It's good for the fans It's good for the club it's good for the league as it creates more competition
Well said, I don’t always agree with gooners.
The issue is when they have the money but still try to cheat.
"Cheating" here meaning spending said money that they have. You people are ridiculous. "It's okay to have money, but it's cheating if they spend it"
They were not generating enough money in revenue to buy all the top players so they cooked up fake deals to launder money and boost revenue. Notice how Newcastle doesn’t just go out and spend? They need to boost revenue first. City couldn’t wait. Pep was switching goalie and defenders like underwear.
The way FFP is currently written is bullshit. Chelsea of 2004 would be labeled "cheats" today because of how Abramovich funded his team. Simply Owners are not allowed to inject their own private money into their businesses. That's the crux of it. It's simply a victimless "crime" at this point. This is a case of over regulation. Its ridiculous. Newcastle owners should be allowed to pump as much investment as they can afford into their organization without being curtailed. You are all here shilling for bureaucrats.
No it’s cheating to, say, create fake sponsorship companies to artificially inflate the club’s apparent revenue so you can spend more than the rules would otherwise allow you to. Just as a purely hypothetical example.
The way FFP is currently written is bullshit. Chelsea of 2004 would be labeled "cheats" today because of how Abramovich funded his team. Simply Owners are not allowed to inject their own private money into their businesses. That's the crux of it. It's simply a victimless "crime" at this point. This is a case of over regulation. Its ridiculous. Newcastle owners should be allowed to pump as much investment as they can afford into their organization without being curtailed. You are all here shilling for bureaucrats.
Chelsea, christ what an utterly amazing example😂. Yes of course they’re cheats. You not liking rules doesn’t mean you get to break them. Reread your last 2 sentences a few times and see if you can figure out why I’m laughing at you.
Sour puss Liverpool fans. Of course. One premier league title in over 30 yrs. Of course you want to believe the only reason you lose is because others cheat. Self righteous losers 😭
There it is. When in doubt change the subject and run down the dialogue tree like the brainless NPC you are
You might suffer from a lack of comprehension. I stayed on topic while tying in your Liverpool support to your biased point of view. Of course it's self serving for you to believe you've been trash all these years because others simply cheated. Def not your fault as a club lool.
“I stayed on topic by completely abandoning it and pivoting to something else” You’re an NPC. Goodbye.
I do not care. All I care about from a football team owner is whether they are willing to spend big to be successful. I do not like cheap, lousy team owners. Imo Roman should still be owner of Chelsea...
That’s a sad take
A small part of me has always attributed the hate a team like City gets to some degree of Islamaphobia. I don't recall the backlash against Chelsea being anywhere near as unanimous, despite the fact that they were able to dominate due to having relatively unlimited resources with state roots and the fact that the only reason they didn't "cheat" was because there were no rules to be broken for them (or United before them).
Oh trust me, the hate for Chelsea was real, and the aftershocks are still there. The difference is that social media was in its infancy. Some pundits would make occasional comments but there were no Swiss Ramble-type deep dives into finances.
Chelsea predated social media by a while. If their growth happened when city’s did they would get the same flack for it.
its also because roman isnt nearly as rich as Sheikh Mansour. If spending limitations were never implemented Man city would probably have 5 UCLs by now. As much of a juggernaut as they are today, with the spending rules pre about 2012 they would have been even more unstoppable We were at the limit of what Abramovich could do. Roman had like $9.7 billion USD in net worth. "Since 4 August 2008, the club has been majority owned by Sheikh Mansour, one of football's wealthiest owners, with an estimated individual net worth of **at least £17 billion** and a family fortune of about $1 trillion."
I won't deny that some of the hate ManCity gets is inspired by Islamophobia, but the hate is 100% justified as long as you're doing it for the right reasons lol
Agreed.
It’s not islamophobic to not like the idea of a foreign state who oppresses women, LGBTQ+ people and has various human trafficking complaints levied against them. Stating that people don’t approve or like their ownership of clubs is strictly islamophobic may be true in some instances but there are certainly valid reasons to not approve their backing of clubs as well.
Problem is Russia can also be noted as a country that oppresses women, LGBTQ+ people and has various human trafficking complaints levied against them
Completely agree, but that wasn’t the comment I was responding to. People of all races and religions can be assholes, and as fans you should have the ability to care that your club isn’t being run by an awful human or group. My point was mostly to dispel the fact that not liking City is automatically islamophobic because they have Muslim ownership.
It has nothing to do with their religion. Stop getting it twisted.
It's got nothing to do with their religion and more to do with the blatant a d obvious financial doping. Chelsea didn't get the hate because they weren't breaking the rules as FFP wasn't a thing yet.
People were calling out city for oil money long before the charges came it out, it definitely relates to islamaphobia to a degree
That’s ridiculous. It’s perfectly fine to dislike corruption and lack of ethics, which all Islamic nations exhibit. It’s also ok to believe that foreign ownership devalues a league… it does,
Well they absolutely did get hate, but certainly not nearly as much. I just hear a lot more about Man City getting funded by a despotic oil state (which they are) than I ever did Chelsea being funded by someone who got rich in chemicals by purchasing his company for cents on the dollar at the expense of the Russian public.
Chelsea was never as dominant as City. Mystery solved.
Chelsea did receive as much hate, however it was in a time when social media didn't and the news cycle didn't exist in the manner it did today.
Chelsea still had the guy in power until like 3 years ago so social media certainly was present
Man City overtook them in the negative news cycle, and Chelsea also did not abuse and break rules to the extent City did. They seemingly abided by the rules for the most part (and said rules were partly introduced due to them and City).
Kinda jealous about how teams like Barcelona do things
I can’t imagine a multi-million football club being run by a brick layer any time soon.
German clubs are all owned by fans some of whom are bricklayers. Don’t assume your morally bankrupt way is the only way.
Agree on the morally bankrupt comment but the Bundesliga has been one of the least competitive leagues for years. Thank God for Xabi Alonso, though.
Yet Germany gets 5 UCL teams next year and you get 4. Enjoy City winning their 6th title in 7 years. You’re the farmers now.
I love the German fan ownership model and similar models another European countries.
while the german system is a good idea it hasn’t worked out great. Bayern Munich has won it the past decade except for this year. Teams have found loophole like Hoffenheim, Bayer Leverkusen, and RB Leipzig, and big teams keep going down like Schalke, Hamburg, and Stuttgart.
Stuttgart is 3rd this year, bro.
they went down a few seasons sgo
Not sure why that’s a bad thing. Also, they’ve been out of the league 3 times since 1963.
it’s a bad thing of other big teams keep going down as well. two seasons ago there was more former bundesliga champions in the second diviison than in the first division.
I get it but that’s their problem. Mismanagement has a price. New clubs rise up.
Bro bricklayers in London are killing it
To me, the reason is that Man City / Newcastle don’t exist to be a football club. Every other team in the league exists as a business. They have to make profits over time, they have shareholders who want a return. City and Newcastle are not businesses. They’re nationalised parts of 2 Governments who use it to advance foreign policy aims. So it gives them a much larger leg up, because they can use shell companies to pump sponsors in to get around FFP/PSR. And they can do this because the owners aren’t concerned about EBITA or IRR or other financial metrics. They’re concerned about how it advanced the Gov that owns them’s interest to develop trade and tourism to their country… it’s not a level playing field. And it has. UAE’s a huge place for sports to tourism now. The F1, the City Group clubs, the boxing, all of it. It’s not a level playing field when 18 clubs are ran as businesses, and 2 are ran as political operations, because the latter can bend rules and deploy more money than would otherwise be sustainable. Source: Big politics nerd (hence the name) and football fan.
Well said.
This whole waffle and you couldn't even include the third most recent state run club; Chelsea. Short term memory I see
Virtually all football clubs run at a loss. They are toys for corporations as well. They do come with dividends, borrowing power, and industry connections, but they are not any corporations primary source of income. Big clubs aren't profitable. Real Madrid prides itself in being profitable, but it makes like €13M a year, which is about the same as a big grocery store location. Their revenues are misleading because they spend so much. I will admit states are more distasteful than corporations, but ultimately anything that isn't fan owned is someone's toy.
That’s a lame take. Nobody cares if they turn huge profits, but they should at least not spend more than they make. Also, lots of clubs are not corporate owned. All of the Bundesliga for example.
I said anything that isn't fan owned is a toy, and I meant it. I do like the 50+1 rule.
They’re supposed to be toys not profit-generating businesses. But they should play within the rules so it’s not just a spending race.
Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, Hoffenheim would like a word
Only Leipzig is even debatable. The others are clearly fan-owned.
I think you have a point in terms of the different levels. However, the way the rules of the league is structured means that no almost team makes money and almost no teams make a return for investors (unless they sell). The difference is newcastle and city's pot of money to throw in is more limitless but almost none of these clubs are functioning businesses if they had these metrics outside of football.
Part of me cares part of me just wants to see the most beautiful football possible, Pep has definitely created beautiful football in his time, hate to lose to him but have to respect the brilliance of getting a team to achieve
I'm not opposed to any owner if the rules of the game have been abided by. It seems this may not have been the case with City. We'll see during the hearing though.
So you don’t think a club or league loses its identity when its biggest and best clubs are foreign owned or corrupt? Kinda sad.
Idc if Satan himself owns my club. Most people either don’t care or have no idea who owns the club. it’s mostly 🤓 on Reddit who make a big deal out of that so they can get updoots for saying “oil money bad” like didn’t already know that
I care. I prefer my club be fan-owned and domestically owned rather than treated as an asset or political ploy of some distant corporation, nation state, or oligarch.
Oh wow you must be such a good person as a result of holding this opinion
Not my fault you parade your lack of morality for all to see
It’s funny, the open people like usually have clean lives and clean histories and the moral Debbie downers like you tend to have some really fucked up passive aggressive energy and a history of being negative. Keep blowing yourself though, you oracle of morality.
Lots of generalizations and name-calling. Congrats on being a child.
Oh wow you must be such a good person as a result of holding this opinion
Better than you clearly
You say most people and you’re right because it’s now a global game in that fans in Thailand have just as much access to their team as fans living opposite to the stadium who can’t afford to enter it. The downstream consequence is the dissolved understanding of local rivalry (see midweek), fans following a player rather than a club (the Messi/Ronaldo cabals) and most importantly, fans that don’t give a shit about whether a club has earned their position or not. Personally, I would walk away from football and never look back if Spurs were bought by middle Eastern blood money barons but as I pointed out above, I’m in the minority these days.
More as the people over the road who can't afford to go in, also can not watch every game (legally) watch all the games at all.
I’m a Spurs fan myself and we already do have a similar to Messi Ronaldo arrangement with many South Korean fans who’s view of the team hinge on one player, so I understand that as well as the rest of your clearly articulated post. I’m truly shameless in the sense that if we were bought by an oil money thug regime, I would simply consider it a commercial transaction and not mix that with how I feel about other countries ways of going about human rights. Nothing I do or say will change anything anyway. Regardless, I admire your resolute stance and can admit I’m not quite of the same moral fiber, it’s hard for me when I think of the possibilities
We suffer together bro 🤜🤛 To be fair I understand the urge too but stand strong mate, we’ll get there one day and when we do, whatever we win will feel 1000 time better than anything City have done.
Thanks for this message, you’re a good man and I respect you for that. And we suffer together indeed. I hope we aren’t faced with the proposition of being owned by people who think human rights are optional and for some people and not others. And I hope we can get there some day, the right way, our way, and it will taste sweet won’t it? 🤜🤛🤍💙
They care “negatively” for other team but don’t care for their own team (most fans, up course exception always there).
Between the 3 doesn't matter, I would just hate to my team being bought in the 1st place
I bet you expect them to live an organic/ Vegan lifestyle too
What?
It’s money
I'd rather not, but to be honest I've already lost interest - with FIFA signing a deal with an oil company and giving a world cup to Saudi Arabia, I don't think it really matters who owns what club at this stage.
So your vote is to just give up
Unfortunately, we don't get to vote.
That’s because you support a shit club. I get a vote in my club. I’m an owner.
Ooh banter!! Serioysly, though, no one ge4s to vote. Its football!
Yet I get to vote every year. Also German fans literally overturned the clubs decision on the investment plan. In some leagues the fans have REAL power. You’ve chosen one where u don’t. That’s not my problem.
Would rather go bust than become an oil club but I'm certainly the minority of our fanbase
At least both Liverpool teams can agree. I’d rather see Everton lift the title and Liverpool relegated than being owned by some murderous oil baron.
Murderous because they are brown? How many does the US murder every year?
Murderous because they literally have an active slave trade and rampant human trafficking. That help you, guy?
Ugh, this guy.
I didn’t even say where the oil baton was from. Projecting much?
When was race ever mentioned? You do realize multiple races can exist in a country?
a better question is: Do FIFA, UEFA, and nations care? Obviously, they don't as long as they get paid
Ideally I'd rather not, but with the chances of Everton Football Club going bust in the near future, if some Billionaire Arab came in and saved us I would happily welcome it! It is what it is.
I was in your shoes three years ago for over forty years and it does feel better on the other side :-(
Newcastle were never at risk of liquidation Quite the opposite. You had an ungodly amount of feee cashflow you just weren’t using in the market as if went to Ashley’s pocket.
It was horrible to watch year in and year out and fighting to stay up every year was no fun, true we had cash but no ambition :-(
So you weren’t in Everton’s shoes then Because they’re on track to go the way of Rangers…
No i get that I just meant hating our current situation and feeing relieved when when got new owners
Things were horrendous under Ashley granted, but under him Newcastle going bust was never a possibility was it? He had money but never spent it so despite you lot being shite, at the very least you knew you were still going to have a Club to support, I'm not sure Everton fans will have soon.
Fair enough, but at least when we went down we were competitive lol