Would you want your club to be bought?

yop

Trying to get away from the common topic of the week!

I noticed that a US business man has bought more United shares taking his shares to 3% of the PLC.
He is work 1 billion and owns the dodgers in the US. Taking it from a United point of view there is a lot of speculation about the club been bought, Villa were also mentioned.

So the question is would you like your club to be bought. If Yes, why, and if No why not.

Personally I would not mind United to be bought, it is amazing to see what has happened at the bridge and would love to see us having that financial power to throw over 100 million at new players in the summer.

And keep it to the clubs you support

cournioni

I would not want one man to own Man Utd, although the money would be very good for spending. What will happen when he decides not to put any more money into the club. It has happened with Fulham this year. Al Fayed didn't want to spend any money at all on them. What will happen if Abramovich decides that he is bored with Chelsea. He'll leave them with huge wages and they will end up like Leeds.

KdjaCL

No way would i like to see my club taken over like that ,its wrong on so many levels.
Atm we have a squad of players under 25 all bought or taken from smaller clubs or brought thru the youth system.
We have a few players who have been transfered in but not a lot, we sign young talent and then if they make the step up we sell them on.
If we were bought and then started to buy everyone, we would lose that little piece of locality that makes us the club we are.

For instance if i go to see the team i can name every player and the team we got them from ,they dont get paid much but they play simply because they can.

When a team starts buying everyone it cant be good and only the bandwagon supporters like it.

If i was a Man Utd (from manchester) fan i would be glad to see that the hub of the team is mainly local lads, if i was Pool same thing there, same thing at most clubs except Chelsea they dont have the area they are from in their team anymore and thats going against the whole Club thing.

Kdjac

Ping Chow Chi

Yes, its painfull watching my club sell their best, brightest young stars simply to survive

yop

They are very good points alright. Fulham is a good example.

I can see where you are coming from alright with the local lads, there is not one player in the Chelsea squad that I can remember who has come from the youth ranks?

It maybe a case of Champion Manager again where u get pis**d off with the team you are managing and go and move to another leaving the team in the lurch.

Look at Kenyon, was supposidly a "lifelong United supporter" but once the money came in he was not long going

Thanx 4 The Fish

Originally posted by yop
They are very good points alright. Fulham is a good example.

I can see where you are coming from alright with the local lads, there is not one player in the Chelsea squad that I can remember who has come from the youth ranks?

John Terry.
Joe Keenan.
Alexis Nicolas

As far as I know, all came through the youths at Chelsea. Keenan is injured at the moment I think.
Haven't heard much of Nicolas but as you no doubt know Terry is playing a stormer.

JohnnyBravo

from rivals.net


There seems to be a never-ending stream of people who are prepared to shoot their mouth off in an ill-advised and ignorant fashion against Chelsea. This time it's European football's top bureaucrat, UEFA's chief executive Gerhard Aigner. We tear his arguments to pieces.


We should start - before letting the Blue-shirted dogs on him - by citing the words that Aigner spouted. There are unconfirmed reports that Gerhard's pronouncements came out with a lot of difficulty as his mouth was filled with both of his feet at the same time.

"We can now have a world select team and nobody can do anything about it," Aigner said, shaking his head from side to side slowly and spreading his dandruff. "Somebody can buy a team and suddenly they can be a candidate to win the Champions League. I don't think football should be about that." What should it be about, then, Gerhard? Surely not the expensive spectacle that it has now become (and to which Chelsea have made a very handsome contribution) that keeps the revenue nicely flowing into UEFA's coffers?

"At the moment potentially successful youngsters are bought to sit on the substitutes' bench or not played at all. If major clubs have them, others do not and competition is reduced", lamented Aigner. "Remember the teams of Moenchengladbach, Malmo, Ipswich and others who emerged because they had a good school and others loved to play for them? That has been lost and it is severely damaging for football in the long run". Aigner paused on the rostrum to pull out a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away a tear in memory of Malmo's school of football.

"The biggest damage is not really being observed by those who make the decisions today. But it will destroy grass roots in the end", Aigner warned.

ENOUGH!

How much more merde de bull do we have to take from people who confuse having a strong opinion with having a valid opinion - or an interesting one? Or, in this case, merely having one which is factually incorrect.

Gerhard Aigner has taken a pop at Chelsea. What many people will not understand is why Chelsea are worthy of this honour which has failed to escape other teams in the past. When Real Madrid buy the most expensive player in the world 3 years out of four, did UEFA raise its pontificating hands and warn, darkly, that such practices were pricing out somewhat more modest clubs (i.e. everyone else)? Worried about clubs buying a whole team of new players, did Aigner issue stark remonstrations to Lazio and to Inter in 1999 when they went on spending sprees the likes of which the world had never seen (until this summer)? And when, until this year, Manchester United outspent everyone in England, where was Aigner to champion the rights of football development?

It may come as a surprise to you (and remember: Aigner is Chief Executive of UEFA so he has no idea about these things), Gerhard, but every team that does well in the Champions' League does so by virtue of the fact that they have spent lorryloads of cash. Those that spend more cash tend to do better - that is a law of football. Spending cash is not a guarantee of success, of course. But it certainly helps. Manchester United, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Milan, Inter, Barcelona: these are the teams that usually end up in the closing stages of the Champions' League. They are also their respective league's biggest spenders. This year, the only difference is that there is a new club to add to the list - Chelsea. Is that what is troubling you, Gerhard, that there is a new face on the block?

An additional factor this year (which has put Chelsea in the news) is that Chelsea have spent whilst other teams haven't. That other teams can't spend any money (or have had to reduce their transfer sprees) is not the fault of Chelsea. It is due to a general downturn of world club football - the responsibility for which, many could say, partly lies in the offices of its governing bodies such as UEFA who were guilty of over-selling it in the past. Chelsea, as we know, have immuned themselves from this general trend. That is not the fault of Chelsea - on the contrary, we deserve praise for that. Really we do. Chelsea have done nothing wrong, broken no rules or UEFA edict. They have done, in fact, nothing different (albeit on a slightly larger scale) than what all the big clubs have done over the past 10 years.

Apparently Chelsea's spending spree is damaging for grass-roots football. I strongly disagree, and I'm sure that I'm not alone. Ask, for instance, West Ham, who avoided going into liquidation because of Chelsea's purchases. Ask Millwall - who received £2,5 million (a huge sum for them) by selling Steven Reid to Blackburn as a result of Chelsea buying Damien Duff for a sum that Blackburn Rovers never thought possible. Ask Brentford, Portsmouth, Birmingham, Middlesbrough or Charlton, who benefit from loans of our excellently-trained players (many of them youth players) who, incidentally, are not languishing on the bench (contrary to your sloppy assertion, Gerhard).

In fact, ask English football which benefited from Chelsea's direct purchase but also the trickle-down of revenue as a consequent result of Chelsea purchases: our game is healthier because of Chelsea. The fact is that over half of the transfer market in England was due to Chelsea's activities. Now Gerhard, you might consider that this is an unfair advantage for Chelsea, but the alternative (i.e. a stagnant market) would be far worse for football and I can promise you, considerably worse for UEFA.

Indeed, a championship where we knew in advance that the winner would be Manchester United or Arsenal is not good for football. We have the most open championship in ages - that has to be good for the game. It is no surprise that fans of teams other than ManUre, Arsenal and ourselves have therefore welcomed our irruption into the title race.

And now we come to the point about Chelsea's youth policy. That old chestnut. We could cite John Terry (One of England's centrebacks), but he would no doubt reply that Terry is actually an exception (although John has always been full of praise for Claudio Ranieri's youth policy). Is Robert Huth an exception too, Gerhard? Or are Alexis Nicolas, Joe Keenan, Sebastian Kneissl, Mikkael Forssell or Carlton Cole also exceptions? Leeds might not consider Jody Morris an exception either.

As for Glen Johnson, well, West Ham certainly has a great youth academy but (and I say this with no disrespect to our neighbours who have fallen on hard times) Frank Lampard and Glen Johnson (and, we expect, Joe Cole) have improved greatly since making the trip to SW17. What's the point of training players if they are languishing in a team that can't take their game to the top? Because that's exactly what Chelsea have done with Frank, and are already doing with Glen.

Why take a pop at Chelsea for, allegedly, destroying grass-roots football? Why criticise the team that has done the most in the past year for English football (including the England team)? Why are we the subject of opprobrium whereas those other premiership sides (Bolton, for instance) regularly field players that were all bought from other clubs and none of whom are English? I'm not criticising Bolton for that - I'm just pointing out that taking a pop at Chelsea, in those circumstances, is a bit rich.

Far be it for me to suggest Gerhard that you merely took a pop at Chelsea as you knew that that would get you into the news. But could we ask that you consider - seriously - whether football would be better without Roman Abramovich, who has invested £300 million into European clubs? If you had thought about it (and clearly you didn't Gerhard, as your remarks display a stunning amount of ignorance and small-mindedness, if not downright populistic playing to the gallery with an ill-thought out litany of arguments that really don't stand up) you might have not had anything to say and not got into the news. And we wouldn't have wanted that, would we, you otherwise anonymous and overweight suit from Nyon?

yop

John Terry.

That's right! Fine player and only in his 20's,

Cannot see the other 2 getting through, but you never know. It is only a good think that Charlton got Cole, at least he is developing by playing in the Premiership and getting first team football

A lot of them points are spot on alright Jonny, bit early to be taken pops at chelsea for ruining grass roots, time will tell but the money they have left at Westham, Blackburn, United, Southampton can only but help the game

Eron

I am an Arse!nal supporter, so if they were bought out, just to have the money for a couple of years I would be really happy... but I doubt it will happen, unless I inherit Bill Gates finances when he dies... I would love to personaly own Arsenal, but I doubt on my pocket money I could.

Villain

Anything that gets rid of Ellis is a good thing, plus Villa's wage structure is a joke.

Bring on the Billionaire

AngelofFire

definately i agree with irish1 how are villa gonna be able to compete with the big boys if we have an £18000 pw salary limit on new players coming into the club. i mean who is that going to attract. We could of gotten to the champions league at the end of the 2001/2002 season had ellis given gregory sufficent financial backing to build on our table topping start. Gregory resigned as a result and was replaced by the defunct Graham taylor whos mess is still being cleaned up by David O leary. DOL still has to live with the limitations of Ellis`regieme.

Ellis should quit while hes ahead and retire and enjoy his fortune. We could use an Investor who will have enough faith in our team to give us sufficent financial backing when nessecary. we could use another central defender or perhaps even another midfielder. Theres Great potential at Villa park that is yet to be exploited.

Zaph

I'm a Leeds fan and the club has been brought to its knees by being run by one man. In his defence, Peter Ridsdale has always been a Leeds fan and he did what I would probably do in the same situation, spend loads of money to try to buy the best for my team. He just got carried away and forgot when to stop. His judgement left a lot to be desired on occasions (£7m for Seth Johnson?) but he definitely believed that what he was doing was for the good of the club. Unfortunately he used money raised from a bond issue which was meant to be used to build a new stadium to finance O'Leary's purchases and has saddled the club with a large long-term debt. Now it seems that the only way the club can ever get itself out of the mess it's in is for an Abramovich-type billionaire to buy them, so I'm definitely in favour, although I'll admit that if it were under different circumstances I'd be a bit less certain.

Seaneh

I have no desire for a change of president at Milan, they are already owned by a man with over twice the personal wealth of Mr. Chelskiman.
He also owns most of the news papers on mainland europe and several TV stations.

p.pete

If Liverpool went to the wall I suppose I would want them bought to keep them afloat. Also it's good to have sleeping giants like Newcastle back in the top flight thanks to having a change in personnel at the top.

In general though I would not want Liverpool to be bought. Their popularity in the city grew out of escapism and I suppose that would still be there if all of a sudden we had an owner who could buy several 20m players in just 2 or 3 months. They have other values though like community and traditions that go to make the club what it is, the club that I support.

There is usually a few lads in the club that come from the local area, obviously this would mean a lot more to me if I was an actual Liverpudlian but it's still something that I appreciate. Also they try to get involved a lot with developing the local community which unfortunately is one of the poorest in England. Also the way they treat their players (in general, obviously there are exceptions) is something that would probably be altered if there was a more financially stringent person pulling the strings. An example is Jamie Carragher about to be offered a new contract despite being just after starting a long term injury. An even better recent example is Rob Jones who was kept on as a player for years despite having spinal injuries that would realisticly dictate that he would never play again.

mike65

Going in the opposite direction Jack Hayward is looking to give away Wolves having spent 40 million, so its going to be interesting to see who ownership transferes too. He wants to give Wolves fans 25% of the club and to give the rest to a local business consortium. I cant help but wonder if thats not a receipe for disaster. It might be better if the City of Wolverhampton toke control and ran it through a community trust.

Mike.

Eron

I think we have to see if Chelski last more than 5 seasons.... and what they make as far as returns on investments go (can they win cups/leagues....)