From: Frank Lee on
Man U fan but he's got a point

The Barca model is the best one vs the current situation imo.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article6999047.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=796995

The banner briefly displayed at Old Trafford last weekend, before it was
confiscated and the guilty fans evicted, summed it up: "Love United, Hate
the Glazers". They could easily have shipped it to Anfield and changed the
slogan to "Love Liverpool, Hate the Yanks".

As tensions rise between traditional supporters and the new breed of
football proprietor, from Portsmouth to Newcastle, perhaps some enterprising
fans might sell a one-size-fits-almost-all version (excluding the likes of
Chelsea and Manchester City): "Love the Club, Hate the Owners".

Whose clubs are they, anyway? Do they belong to the mass of us fans who
claim moral ownership and invest not just time and money but heart and soul?
Or to the few plutocrats who hold the legal papers?

Do they exist to fulfil our dreams and generate glory? Or to make money and
meet debt repayments?

Even as a Manchester United season ticket-holder, I could share the
exasperation of the Liverpool fan ranting about George Gillett Jr and Tom
Hicks on a radio phone-in. "They don't own the club! Well, all right, they
do, but . . ."

It would be historically naive to imagine that these problems began with the
arrival of a few foreign freeloaders. It has always been Us and Them.
Off-pitch tensions between fans - and, originally, players - who wanted to
enjoy football, and owners who wanted to enjoy the rewards, are as old as
the professional game.

The railway workers' team of Newton Heath were renamed Manchester United
after they were bought by a local brewer, who paid off the club's debts and
sold beer to the crowd. The armaments workers' team of Woolwich Arsenal were
rescued from financial ruin when they were bought up by a consortium of
businessmen who moved the South London club north to a more commercial site
at Highbury. But at least those old burghers put their money into the clubs.

Over the past 30 years, what originated as a mass working-class sport in
Britain's industrial age has been taken over by new financial capitalism, in
which debt-financed buyouts, bond issues, sponsorship, brands and other
money-circulating chicanery have become almost more important than "the
product".

The FA opened the door in 1981, altering its rules to allow club directors
to be paid for the first time and shareholders to receive fat dividends.
This enabled the likes of Martin Edwards, the chief executive who turned
United from an FC into a plc, to take millions out of Old Trafford long
before the shareholders sold to the grisly Glazers.

Now, with the billions from TV contracts sloshing around the Premier League,
we have the new class of socca capitalists, borrowing money to buy and sell
clubs to which they have no more attachment than a Kraft executive has to a
bar of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut. Like the overleveraged private-equity players
in the City, they have been badly burnt in the financial crisis, leaving
clubs in peril.

No doubt some reports of imminent meltdown are scaremongering, but the scale
of the problem is clear. United ended last season - having won the Barclays
Premier League, the Club World Cup and the Carling Cup, and reached the
Champions League final - deeper in debt than ever, the Glazers keeping their
charmless heads above water thanks to the �80 million sale of Cristiano
Ronaldo.

Faced with mounting debts, rising prices, rumours of ground or player
sell-offs, what is the fan in the stand to do? Marches, meetings and
protests are being staged and there are even murmurs of solidarity between
fans of opposing clubs. Some want the United crowd to start wearing
green-and- yellow shirts - the old Newton Heath colours - to show solidarity
with the founding spirit of the working men's football club.

Whether these prove much more than token protests remains to be seen. In
practical terms, fans might be desperate to make the bad owners sell, but to
whom? There is talk at some clubs of supporters making a bid. That is
fantasy football finances. It was possible for 20-odd thousand people paying
�35 each to buy Ebbsfleet United, but a big club are out of our league.

Suppose you really could persuade, say, 5,000 fans to pay �5,000 a head -
that would give you �25 million, or not quite enough to buy Wayne Rooney's
left leg. So is the best we can hope for really to see another sheikh or
oligarch lording it over us, as at City and Chelsea, or a more
benevolent-looking billionaire, as at Aston Villa - or maybe a
local-boy-made-pornbaron, as at West Ham United?

As an old Red in political as well as football terms, my preference would be
for fans to storm the stadium gates and occupy Old Trafford as a sort of
supporters' soviet, but that option seems unlikely, in the short term at
least. For now, frustration and impotence grow as fans are reduced to
individual "customers". Worse, the customer in football is not always right.
Indeed he has no rights, because the clubs assume that supporters will
always keep coming back to be ripped off, even for an inferior product.

The ultimate sanction is to hit the owners where it hurts, with a boycott of
matches. But it is hard to stage a strike against your club and one hand
will always be tied behind your back in such a civil war. Yet the editors of
Red Issue, the United fanzine for which I write, point out that there are
already empty seats and executive boxes at many matches, and believe it
would be possible to push the Glazers over the edge, even if it meant taking
the team down with them.

Their latest issue argues for "an acceptance of short-term pain for
long-term gain" because to prosper in the future, "the club has to get rid
of these leeches". The question is, how many fans hate the Glazers - or
Gillett and Hicks, or Mike Ashley, or whoever - sufficiently to stop loving
their clubs for long enough?

Anybody not entirely blinded by nostalgia would concede that much of the
football we watch has been better in the Premier League era - but at a price
many now think too high. Short of a people's revolution, there seems no
easy, fan-friendly solution, but at least a debate is starting.

And as football fans are all dreamers, we can at least dream of all those
all-seat stadiums standing together and crying with one voice: can we have
our football back, please?


From: Frank Lee on

"Ren" <XXXXX(a)frontiernet.netXXXXX> wrote in message
news:_3t6n.668$p66.101(a)newsfe09.iad...
>
> "Frank Lee" <sfsdf(a)sccsdc.com> wrote in message
> news:4Yq6n.60176$zV2.41589(a)newsfe28.ams2...
>> Man U fan but he's got a point
>>
>> The Barca model is the best one vs the current situation >imo.
>
> You need to take a much closer look then. If corruption is part of your
> plan then so be it.
>

The Barca model is corrupt? All I know of it is that the fans have a say in
what happens with the club?


From: Ren on

"Frank Lee" <sfsdf(a)sccsdc.com> wrote in message
news:T8t6n.63$IF3.34(a)newsfe01.ams2...
>
> "Ren" <XXXXX(a)frontiernet.netXXXXX> wrote in message
> news:_3t6n.668$p66.101(a)newsfe09.iad...
>>
>> "Frank Lee" <sfsdf(a)sccsdc.com> wrote in message
>> news:4Yq6n.60176$zV2.41589(a)newsfe28.ams2...
>>> Man U fan but he's got a point
>>>
>>> The Barca model is the best one vs the current situation >imo.
>>
>> You need to take a much closer look then. If corruption is part of your
>> plan then so be it.
>>
>
> The Barca model is corrupt? All I know of it is that the fans have a say
> in what happens with the club?

Yes the Barca fans do have a say........the richer fans have a bigger say.
See where i'm coming from?

Ren


From: Frank Lee on

"Ren" <XXXXX(a)frontiernet.netXXXXX> wrote in message
news:_%t6n.1740$Fe4.1075(a)newsfe21.iad...
>
> "Frank Lee" <sfsdf(a)sccsdc.com> wrote in message
> news:T8t6n.63$IF3.34(a)newsfe01.ams2...
>>
>> "Ren" <XXXXX(a)frontiernet.netXXXXX> wrote in message
>> news:_3t6n.668$p66.101(a)newsfe09.iad...
>>>
>>> "Frank Lee" <sfsdf(a)sccsdc.com> wrote in message
>>> news:4Yq6n.60176$zV2.41589(a)newsfe28.ams2...
>>>> Man U fan but he's got a point
>>>>
>>>> The Barca model is the best one vs the current situation >imo.
>>>
>>> You need to take a much closer look then. If corruption is part of your
>>> plan then so be it.
>>>
>>
>> The Barca model is corrupt? All I know of it is that the fans have a say
>> in what happens with the club?
>
> Yes the Barca fans do have a say........the richer fans have a bigger say.
> See where i'm coming from?
>
> Ren
>

Capitalist ideological thought perhaps? ;)

Fan of football, not politics.


From: bofh on
On 22 Jan, 23:57, "Frank Lee" <sf...(a)sccsdc.com> wrote:
> Man U fan but he's got a point
>

Its all very well but United nearly got Micheal Knighton - no doubt
they would have loved him more.

I come on and rant here with the rest of you, but its a sad fact I am
slowly losing interest in the game more and more.

Traditional models are being undermined by money money money.

Liverpool are now watching Manchester City, in a stadium built for
them and given to them, get ridiculous amounts of money to go and buy
an off the shelf team, and no doubt win the league in the next couple
of years. Thats what Chelsea did, and the money is there to go out and
buy a couple of 40 million replacements as and when needed.

Manchester United made good during the last of the traditional years -
they were top dogs when the Glazers took over, have a legendary
manager, so apart from a vocal few the masses are quite happy to win
titles. Now, at the point when their manager is in his twilight years,
and the era of the super rich is here, the squad is starting to look
past its best (it is, lads, no disrespect) they make noises but are
mortgaged up to the hils and clearly dont have the ronaldo money to
spend. They look more and more like a one man team. Whats around the
corner ?

Liverpool. Well Liverpool and the fans need to decide where they sit.
I watched the match at City on Wed, saw the ground, saw the squad, and
thought yep, they will overtake us eventually in our current state.
Spurs have spent over 150 million in one go recently, but not as
conviced aabout them, or Villa for that matter. I think their managers
are limited (waits for ridicule but stands his ground...) Benitez is
streets above them, frankly.

So, if we get new owners, and 200 million to spend IN ONE GO then we
have the manager to win us the title quite easily - hes the match of
Jose and Ancelloti.

If we dont get new owners, and we have to get by spending 30 million
quid a year, as we have over the last few, then get real and get used
to being top of the rest.

Of course, its quite feasible that City will take uniteds spot, and
4th place may be a perennial battle between the two "biggest" clubs in
the country...

There is no turning back though