Post by QPR Report on Apr 12, 2010 6:20:28 GMT
Non-QPR (Hopefully!) [/i]
April 12, 2010
Liverpool and United beware: there are worse owners out there
Oliver Kay, Football Correspondent
In the final episode of the first series of The Office, Tim, the company’s witty but hopelessly unambitious everyman, tries to explain why, at the age of 30, he has settled for his existence as a sales rep at Wernham Hogg, Slough’s premier paper merchant.
“If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands, may only be a three,” Tim says. “If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah, I could easily roll a six. I could also roll a one.”
That scenario keeps coming to mind when considering the supporters’ desire for a change of ownership at English football’s two most successful clubs, Liverpool and at Manchester United.
Both clubs are run by carpetbaggers for whom the clubs seem to represent no more than a licence to print money — but just suppose that the next owners have even less regard for the clubs’ future.
Right now, to use Tim’s scale, United are on a two. The debts, £715 million and counting, are horrific, but the Glazers do at least have one thing in their favour: a non-interventionist approach that stems from a lack of ego.
Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr have been calamitous at Liverpool, but at least their debts are far smaller than United’s.
So they, too, are probably on a two — with the succession of ne’er-do-wells at Portsmouth at the bottom of the scale.
It is an unnerving thought, but when the time comes to sell up — surely imminent in the case of Hicks and Gillett — the fate of the club will be in their hands. Or indeed that of the banks.
There will be no informal “fit and proper person’s test” of the type David Moores, the former Liverpool chairman, tried so unsuccessfully to apply to Hicks and Gillett. It will simply be a case of looking to maximise profit.
A “source close to Hicks” was quoted yesterday as saying that he wants a “quality long-term investor not someone trying to make a quick profit”.
Sorry, but this does not quite ring true. If Liverpool’s wellbeing was what mattered most, he would not have gone near the place.
Ditto the Glazers at Manchester United, where debts of £715 million exist simply to keep them in situ.
Are there worse owners than this lot out there? Potentially, yes.
Whatever a good owner is — and the benevolent chaps in charge of Chelsea and Manchester City are not exactly running models of economic sustainability — there are far more examples of the opposite.
Better the devil you know? Absolutely not. But just imagine that either one of them were taken over next time by someone with the ego of Hicks, the wealth of Gillett and the heart of the Glazers. Because if they exist, it is quite feasible that these owners will find them
timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2010/04/liverpool-and-united-could-end-up-with-worse-owners.html
April 12, 2010
Liverpool and United beware: there are worse owners out there
Oliver Kay, Football Correspondent
In the final episode of the first series of The Office, Tim, the company’s witty but hopelessly unambitious everyman, tries to explain why, at the age of 30, he has settled for his existence as a sales rep at Wernham Hogg, Slough’s premier paper merchant.
“If you look at life like rolling a dice, then my situation now, as it stands, may only be a three,” Tim says. “If I jack that in now, go for something bigger and better, yeah, I could easily roll a six. I could also roll a one.”
That scenario keeps coming to mind when considering the supporters’ desire for a change of ownership at English football’s two most successful clubs, Liverpool and at Manchester United.
Both clubs are run by carpetbaggers for whom the clubs seem to represent no more than a licence to print money — but just suppose that the next owners have even less regard for the clubs’ future.
Right now, to use Tim’s scale, United are on a two. The debts, £715 million and counting, are horrific, but the Glazers do at least have one thing in their favour: a non-interventionist approach that stems from a lack of ego.
Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr have been calamitous at Liverpool, but at least their debts are far smaller than United’s.
So they, too, are probably on a two — with the succession of ne’er-do-wells at Portsmouth at the bottom of the scale.
It is an unnerving thought, but when the time comes to sell up — surely imminent in the case of Hicks and Gillett — the fate of the club will be in their hands. Or indeed that of the banks.
There will be no informal “fit and proper person’s test” of the type David Moores, the former Liverpool chairman, tried so unsuccessfully to apply to Hicks and Gillett. It will simply be a case of looking to maximise profit.
A “source close to Hicks” was quoted yesterday as saying that he wants a “quality long-term investor not someone trying to make a quick profit”.
Sorry, but this does not quite ring true. If Liverpool’s wellbeing was what mattered most, he would not have gone near the place.
Ditto the Glazers at Manchester United, where debts of £715 million exist simply to keep them in situ.
Are there worse owners than this lot out there? Potentially, yes.
Whatever a good owner is — and the benevolent chaps in charge of Chelsea and Manchester City are not exactly running models of economic sustainability — there are far more examples of the opposite.
Better the devil you know? Absolutely not. But just imagine that either one of them were taken over next time by someone with the ego of Hicks, the wealth of Gillett and the heart of the Glazers. Because if they exist, it is quite feasible that these owners will find them
timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2010/04/liverpool-and-united-could-end-up-with-worse-owners.html