Post by QPR Report on Nov 28, 2009 3:21:55 GMT
The Times - November 28, 2009
Football's business plan must go back to the future - Patrick Barclay
Almost exactly 20 years ago, a banner appeared at Old Trafford telling Alex Ferguson it was time to go. Few thought it impatient or alarmist; there was a view of Ferguson, who had been at Manchester United for three years, as yet another manager incapable of following in Sir Matt Busby’s footsteps.
The season had begun ethereally — Michael Knighton introduced himself to the fans as the club’s new owner by donning a United strip and playing keepy-uppy from the centre circle to the Stretford End goal, into which he shot, setting the tone for a 4-1 victory over the champions, Arsenal — and turned into a nightmare.
Ferguson’s United lost to Derby County, Norwich City and Everton. Worse still, they were beaten 5-1 by Manchester City and by late November had embarked on a run of 11 league matches without a win that was to leave them fourth from bottom in early February.
They were out of the League Cup, beaten 3-0 by Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford despite Bruce and Pallister at the back, Robson and Ince in midfield, and Hughes up front. And, of course, out of Europe, like all other English clubs post-Heysel. Only the FA Cup was left and few were predicting their triumph in that.
But the directors didn’t panic. They absorbed the frustration, surveyed the 15,000 empty spaces at Old Trafford and waited for things to improve. Although it is a myth that the manager would have gone but for Mark Robins’s winner away to Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup third round, eventual success at Wembley did relieve the pressure.
It happened because United were run not by a sheikh or an American sports mogul with a chief executive spouting impenetrable gobbledegook about business models going forward. On United’s board, headed by Martin Edwards, sat Sir Bobby Charlton — and the business model was all about going backward.
Charlton, with his century of caps and his world and European medals, offered living, thinking, speaking proof that traditional methods worked: if he thought that Ferguson could reconstitute the Busby era, there was no greater wisdom likely to be found amid the disgruntled support or baying pundits.
This is not to say that the manager’s office and boardroom contained only perspicacity, for Ferguson had made some bad buys and Edwards belatedly realised the folly of his agreement with Knighton. But, because of Charlton and the lingering influence of Busby, a football club behaved as such, despite the fashionable mantra that football should be more like business — utter drivel, as we can now see.
The more football subjects itself to the spirit of entrepreneurism, the more money is frittered away, the more debt rises and a wonderful, simple, globally popular and potentially very profitable game with power to do good comes to resemble something awful at which, if you recall, we began to peer a couple of years back and which refuses to go away: the outside world.
As an example of how football goes wrong, take the Hero Global Football Fund. It was formed with the intention of funding the purchase by clubs of young players, mainly from Africa, Latin America and the Far East, and taking either a percentage of the fee if they are sold or, after three years without a sale, interest.
Advisers included Alan Hansen, David Elleray, the former referee who now sits on the FA council, and David Davies, the erstwhile FA chief executive, who explained: “Our motive is to help the clubs below the biggest to be more competitive.” A spokesman helpfully added that football remained profitable while the property market stagnated.
The idea was that people would put in $100,000 (about £60,000) each and own the registrations of the players, as in a racehorse syndicate. And what’s wrong with that? If injured players can benefit from a horse’s placenta, why can’t fit ones adopt its ownership model? The world may as well go completely mad.
Although Fifa and the FA have sanctioned the Hero Fund, stipulating only that a third party should have no influence over team affairs, the spoilsports of the Premier League, applying the lessons of the Carlos Tévez affair, will have nothing to do with it.
My understanding is that a couple of Coca-Cola Championship clubs are keen. But what do they now find? A complication in that the principal backer is the National Bank of Dubai, the scene of business’s latest catastrophic failure.
And pity the supporters of Liverpool. Just as they embrace the Europa League and pray that the worst is over, another avenue of hope is blocked. Because through all their difficulties with Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, they have been sustained by the thought of Dubai International Capital waiting in the wings, ready to step in.
No more. The game is up. Only football is left and the long, hard road on which Charlton and Ferguson stood 20 years ago. Businesses may rise and fall — and the speed of their fluctuations can be breathtaking — but football cannot live by that philosophy. Banish it. The key to the future is the best of the past.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/patrick_barclay/article6935408.ece
Football's business plan must go back to the future - Patrick Barclay
Almost exactly 20 years ago, a banner appeared at Old Trafford telling Alex Ferguson it was time to go. Few thought it impatient or alarmist; there was a view of Ferguson, who had been at Manchester United for three years, as yet another manager incapable of following in Sir Matt Busby’s footsteps.
The season had begun ethereally — Michael Knighton introduced himself to the fans as the club’s new owner by donning a United strip and playing keepy-uppy from the centre circle to the Stretford End goal, into which he shot, setting the tone for a 4-1 victory over the champions, Arsenal — and turned into a nightmare.
Ferguson’s United lost to Derby County, Norwich City and Everton. Worse still, they were beaten 5-1 by Manchester City and by late November had embarked on a run of 11 league matches without a win that was to leave them fourth from bottom in early February.
They were out of the League Cup, beaten 3-0 by Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford despite Bruce and Pallister at the back, Robson and Ince in midfield, and Hughes up front. And, of course, out of Europe, like all other English clubs post-Heysel. Only the FA Cup was left and few were predicting their triumph in that.
But the directors didn’t panic. They absorbed the frustration, surveyed the 15,000 empty spaces at Old Trafford and waited for things to improve. Although it is a myth that the manager would have gone but for Mark Robins’s winner away to Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup third round, eventual success at Wembley did relieve the pressure.
It happened because United were run not by a sheikh or an American sports mogul with a chief executive spouting impenetrable gobbledegook about business models going forward. On United’s board, headed by Martin Edwards, sat Sir Bobby Charlton — and the business model was all about going backward.
Charlton, with his century of caps and his world and European medals, offered living, thinking, speaking proof that traditional methods worked: if he thought that Ferguson could reconstitute the Busby era, there was no greater wisdom likely to be found amid the disgruntled support or baying pundits.
This is not to say that the manager’s office and boardroom contained only perspicacity, for Ferguson had made some bad buys and Edwards belatedly realised the folly of his agreement with Knighton. But, because of Charlton and the lingering influence of Busby, a football club behaved as such, despite the fashionable mantra that football should be more like business — utter drivel, as we can now see.
The more football subjects itself to the spirit of entrepreneurism, the more money is frittered away, the more debt rises and a wonderful, simple, globally popular and potentially very profitable game with power to do good comes to resemble something awful at which, if you recall, we began to peer a couple of years back and which refuses to go away: the outside world.
As an example of how football goes wrong, take the Hero Global Football Fund. It was formed with the intention of funding the purchase by clubs of young players, mainly from Africa, Latin America and the Far East, and taking either a percentage of the fee if they are sold or, after three years without a sale, interest.
Advisers included Alan Hansen, David Elleray, the former referee who now sits on the FA council, and David Davies, the erstwhile FA chief executive, who explained: “Our motive is to help the clubs below the biggest to be more competitive.” A spokesman helpfully added that football remained profitable while the property market stagnated.
The idea was that people would put in $100,000 (about £60,000) each and own the registrations of the players, as in a racehorse syndicate. And what’s wrong with that? If injured players can benefit from a horse’s placenta, why can’t fit ones adopt its ownership model? The world may as well go completely mad.
Although Fifa and the FA have sanctioned the Hero Fund, stipulating only that a third party should have no influence over team affairs, the spoilsports of the Premier League, applying the lessons of the Carlos Tévez affair, will have nothing to do with it.
My understanding is that a couple of Coca-Cola Championship clubs are keen. But what do they now find? A complication in that the principal backer is the National Bank of Dubai, the scene of business’s latest catastrophic failure.
And pity the supporters of Liverpool. Just as they embrace the Europa League and pray that the worst is over, another avenue of hope is blocked. Because through all their difficulties with Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, they have been sustained by the thought of Dubai International Capital waiting in the wings, ready to step in.
No more. The game is up. Only football is left and the long, hard road on which Charlton and Ferguson stood 20 years ago. Businesses may rise and fall — and the speed of their fluctuations can be breathtaking — but football cannot live by that philosophy. Banish it. The key to the future is the best of the past.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/patrick_barclay/article6935408.ece