Post by QPR Report on Mar 17, 2010 6:57:53 GMT
The Times Blog/George Caulkin
March 16, 2010
Maverick Hall says football must remain local to survive
We are, Sir John Hall said, in the third age of football club ownership. The driving force behind the construction of the MetroCentre in the 1980s, who moved into football before the bubble was inflated and who took his leave when ... well, at precisely the moment that Mike Ashley waved a cheery, unsuspecting hello, knows a thing or two about timing. He views the game in its present form to be unsustainable.
Hall polarises opinion amongst Newcastle United supporters; he can even encourage schizophrenia. On the one hand, it was his Magpie Group which, after a bitter takeover battle, hauled the club away from possible extinction and it was him who, in tandem with Kevin Keegan, dared fans to dream again. He oversaw the redevelopment of St James’ Park and talked in visionary terms about the "Geordie Nation".
On the other, the £55 million that Hall and his family banked when they sold out to Ashley is not a source of huge goodwill. Some point to Sunderland and the painstaking nature of Bob Murray’s negotiations with Niall Quinn and his backers; the Murray era is not recalled with overwhelming pleasure, but at least it ended with a typically exhaustive examination of what was to follow.
Hall, of course, did not even meet Ashley, whose purchase of 41.6 per cent of Newcastle’s shares meant that Freddy Shepherd, then the club’s chairman and the other leading shareholder (who was recovering from illness), was effectively unable to resist. Ashley had not even undertaken due diligence on his £134 million business and it has been argued that Hall had not undertaken due diligence on him.
Yet he remains a figure of interest, a life president at Newcastle, and a man with acute senses when it comes to the flow of money. Routinely described as a Thatcherite and a tea guest of a Prime Minister who remains deeply unloved within the region, Hall was also a passionate advocate of an elected North East assembly. “I like to be referred to as a capitalist with a social conscience,” he once said.
With Portsmouth in administration, with West Ham United, amongst others, heavily in debt, with Liverpool and Manchester United wrestling with issues of ownership, with Sunderland one of the clubs coming to terms with a foreign benefactor and with Newcastle in recovery, it feels like an appropriate juncture to canvas his views. As with his politics, there is an element of the maverick about Hall.
Put simply, he believes that change is both necessary and inevitable, that Something Must Be Done to put brakes on a system that generates huge amounts of wealth and immediately fritters it away. More interestingly, perhaps, he is adamant that the inherently parochial nature of the sport (Newcastle the club originates from Newcastle upon Tyne the city), must be protected and renewed.
Asked whether the present business model of the Barclays Premier League could continue, his response was vehement. “It’s not a business model,” he said. “Anybody can throw money at the game. I’m not against globalisation because we live in a free market and the Premier League has done very well out of it through the television deals and so on. But football in the UK belongs to towns and communities.
“Clubs grew out of entrepreneurs, small businessmen and shopkeepers and clubs were set up to take the minds of people off revolution. The first wave were those old families and then the second wave came in - people like me at Newcastle and Jack Walker at Blackburn Rovers. There was more money, but we still felt for our regions, we still had a love for our clubs and the area. That’s what motivated us. It was a good thing.”
As with the likes of Manchester United, Newcastle went down the route of flotation, something that prompted discomfort from Keegan and which, in time, showcased difficulties; the very instability that makes football so glorious was a difficult arena for sound business practices. But as the television cash rolled in, wages exploded, agents thrived and outsiders viewed an opportunity.
“We were starting to get hassle; there was too much money going out in wages,” Hall said. “There had been an unwritten rule in the Premier League that you spent within your means, that clubs were run as proper businesses. Suddenly, Roman Abramovich came in at Chelsea and it changed the whole thing. That’s when I decided to get out.
“There was no regional basis behind his interest, no limit to what he could spend and suddenly you were competing with oligarchs who were coming in with their own interests. It was about personal aggrandisement and the football industry giving them a global seat. I said at the time there was no way we could compete with him and I got grief because of that, but getting out was the right thing to do. There was no way we could compete.
“Football deserves local recognition. It might be great for clubs and supporters in the short term, but how long will it last when they don’t have that in-built passion for the club? I don’t think it will. In the North East we’ve seen American and Korean money come in to the region and then leave and we’ve been left to pick up the pieces. I think the game will come back to the people in the regions and we have to get some control back.
“Agents have tried to blackmail clubs and we’ve let the game run away from us. There’s a danger it could implode. There needs to be some sensible running of clubs as businesses, because clubs are making all this money and yet all of it is flowing out. Some needs to be put back. We have to try to make clubs live within their means and that’s something Fifa must be looking at it.”
While he described supporters’ trusts as “non-viable", he highlighted the presence of David Sullivan and David Gold at Upton Park - both East Enders - as evidence of his local/regional theory coming to fruition. Their first task at West Ham has been to slash at costs. “I’m a free marketeer, but sometimes there’s a need for control,” Hall said. “Look at what happened with the bankers. There should be a balance to the business.”
Hall can only harbour disappointment about events at Newcastle following Ashley’s arrival, although he insisted that the sportswear retailer’s instincts were correct. “Mike Ashley came in for the right reasons,” he said. “Newcastle gave him a brand name for his business abroad.
“But Ashley took bad advice from his mates. He didn’t know the game, so he went to his friends. I had a long debate with him about the concept of having a director of football and a manager and how difficult that would be. He wanted a strong director of football and we all saw what happened ...”
In the chase for points and prize-money, Europe and self-preservation, everything about football is hand-to-mouth and blinkered, but according to Hall somebody, somewhere, should be looking long term. “We need to take a step back and ask where we’re going,” he said. “The Premier League should be asking what’s going to happen over the next 20 years. This is a game rooted in the people and in the regions. The owners of football clubs are just custodians. We’ve got to learn the lessons of the banking system.”
timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2010/03/maverick-hall-says-football-must-remain-local-to-survive.html
March 16, 2010
Maverick Hall says football must remain local to survive
We are, Sir John Hall said, in the third age of football club ownership. The driving force behind the construction of the MetroCentre in the 1980s, who moved into football before the bubble was inflated and who took his leave when ... well, at precisely the moment that Mike Ashley waved a cheery, unsuspecting hello, knows a thing or two about timing. He views the game in its present form to be unsustainable.
Hall polarises opinion amongst Newcastle United supporters; he can even encourage schizophrenia. On the one hand, it was his Magpie Group which, after a bitter takeover battle, hauled the club away from possible extinction and it was him who, in tandem with Kevin Keegan, dared fans to dream again. He oversaw the redevelopment of St James’ Park and talked in visionary terms about the "Geordie Nation".
On the other, the £55 million that Hall and his family banked when they sold out to Ashley is not a source of huge goodwill. Some point to Sunderland and the painstaking nature of Bob Murray’s negotiations with Niall Quinn and his backers; the Murray era is not recalled with overwhelming pleasure, but at least it ended with a typically exhaustive examination of what was to follow.
Hall, of course, did not even meet Ashley, whose purchase of 41.6 per cent of Newcastle’s shares meant that Freddy Shepherd, then the club’s chairman and the other leading shareholder (who was recovering from illness), was effectively unable to resist. Ashley had not even undertaken due diligence on his £134 million business and it has been argued that Hall had not undertaken due diligence on him.
Yet he remains a figure of interest, a life president at Newcastle, and a man with acute senses when it comes to the flow of money. Routinely described as a Thatcherite and a tea guest of a Prime Minister who remains deeply unloved within the region, Hall was also a passionate advocate of an elected North East assembly. “I like to be referred to as a capitalist with a social conscience,” he once said.
With Portsmouth in administration, with West Ham United, amongst others, heavily in debt, with Liverpool and Manchester United wrestling with issues of ownership, with Sunderland one of the clubs coming to terms with a foreign benefactor and with Newcastle in recovery, it feels like an appropriate juncture to canvas his views. As with his politics, there is an element of the maverick about Hall.
Put simply, he believes that change is both necessary and inevitable, that Something Must Be Done to put brakes on a system that generates huge amounts of wealth and immediately fritters it away. More interestingly, perhaps, he is adamant that the inherently parochial nature of the sport (Newcastle the club originates from Newcastle upon Tyne the city), must be protected and renewed.
Asked whether the present business model of the Barclays Premier League could continue, his response was vehement. “It’s not a business model,” he said. “Anybody can throw money at the game. I’m not against globalisation because we live in a free market and the Premier League has done very well out of it through the television deals and so on. But football in the UK belongs to towns and communities.
“Clubs grew out of entrepreneurs, small businessmen and shopkeepers and clubs were set up to take the minds of people off revolution. The first wave were those old families and then the second wave came in - people like me at Newcastle and Jack Walker at Blackburn Rovers. There was more money, but we still felt for our regions, we still had a love for our clubs and the area. That’s what motivated us. It was a good thing.”
As with the likes of Manchester United, Newcastle went down the route of flotation, something that prompted discomfort from Keegan and which, in time, showcased difficulties; the very instability that makes football so glorious was a difficult arena for sound business practices. But as the television cash rolled in, wages exploded, agents thrived and outsiders viewed an opportunity.
“We were starting to get hassle; there was too much money going out in wages,” Hall said. “There had been an unwritten rule in the Premier League that you spent within your means, that clubs were run as proper businesses. Suddenly, Roman Abramovich came in at Chelsea and it changed the whole thing. That’s when I decided to get out.
“There was no regional basis behind his interest, no limit to what he could spend and suddenly you were competing with oligarchs who were coming in with their own interests. It was about personal aggrandisement and the football industry giving them a global seat. I said at the time there was no way we could compete with him and I got grief because of that, but getting out was the right thing to do. There was no way we could compete.
“Football deserves local recognition. It might be great for clubs and supporters in the short term, but how long will it last when they don’t have that in-built passion for the club? I don’t think it will. In the North East we’ve seen American and Korean money come in to the region and then leave and we’ve been left to pick up the pieces. I think the game will come back to the people in the regions and we have to get some control back.
“Agents have tried to blackmail clubs and we’ve let the game run away from us. There’s a danger it could implode. There needs to be some sensible running of clubs as businesses, because clubs are making all this money and yet all of it is flowing out. Some needs to be put back. We have to try to make clubs live within their means and that’s something Fifa must be looking at it.”
While he described supporters’ trusts as “non-viable", he highlighted the presence of David Sullivan and David Gold at Upton Park - both East Enders - as evidence of his local/regional theory coming to fruition. Their first task at West Ham has been to slash at costs. “I’m a free marketeer, but sometimes there’s a need for control,” Hall said. “Look at what happened with the bankers. There should be a balance to the business.”
Hall can only harbour disappointment about events at Newcastle following Ashley’s arrival, although he insisted that the sportswear retailer’s instincts were correct. “Mike Ashley came in for the right reasons,” he said. “Newcastle gave him a brand name for his business abroad.
“But Ashley took bad advice from his mates. He didn’t know the game, so he went to his friends. I had a long debate with him about the concept of having a director of football and a manager and how difficult that would be. He wanted a strong director of football and we all saw what happened ...”
In the chase for points and prize-money, Europe and self-preservation, everything about football is hand-to-mouth and blinkered, but according to Hall somebody, somewhere, should be looking long term. “We need to take a step back and ask where we’re going,” he said. “The Premier League should be asking what’s going to happen over the next 20 years. This is a game rooted in the people and in the regions. The owners of football clubs are just custodians. We’ve got to learn the lessons of the banking system.”
timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2010/03/maverick-hall-says-football-must-remain-local-to-survive.html
- wasn't a factory, any more than Ipswich Town FC was a town, or Manchester City - another asset-stripped outfit, lucky old them - was a city.
