Even in football, money can't buy you love
By Jim White
Last Updated: 2:55am GMT 16/12/2006
Comment on this story Read comments
Your View: Football fans' forum
Steven Gerrard, Liverpool's captain, is said to be mightily enthused by the prospect of his club being taken over by the oil-sozzled royals of Dubai International Capital. Gerrard has already met the principals behind the bid and says he is impressed by their enthusiasm, expertise and energy. Which, if nothing else, is an interesting new euphemism for money.
Despite Gerrard's insistence that the sheikhs display a keen interest in English football in general and his club in particular, the sudden rush by foreign owners to buy into the Premiership is nothing to do with a fondness for the league's virtues of passion, power and pace. It is more about ensuring their feet are installed under boardroom tables in time to benefit from the new television contract which kicks in next season. That is when the big money starts to flow. That is when the clubs, who have been surviving well enough under the old conditions, have the potential to become enormously profitable. That was why Eggert Magnusson acted with such dispatch to remove Alan Pardew from the dug-out at Upton Park. He hadn't bought West Ham simply to watch them blowing bubbles in the Championship. All that concerns him is protecting his investment by staying in the Premiership.
Those, like Gerrard, who are keen to hold the door open while the mega-rich arrive to take advantage of the new money-making opportunities available, should pause for a moment and listen to Arsene Wenger. It may seem a little rich for a man whose team are almost exclusively staffed from overseas to speak out this week about the foreign takeover of the boardrooms. But Wenger is right to identify the significant difference between working for someone who is committed to a club for their own sake and someone motivated solely by the opportunity to make money from them.
If Gerrard wants a warning that monied owners do not necessarily champions make, he can find one four divisions below where he plies his trade. When Firoz Kassam took over Oxford United, the club competed in what is now called the Championship. Worth an estimated £250 million, the Monte Carlo-based Kassam was reckoned by Oxford fans to be a moneybags saviour to lead them out of the dark times created by the insane chairmanship of Robert Maxwell.
advertisementIndeed, at first he fulfilled that promise, completing a new out-of-town home for the club. The trouble was, even as Kassam built all sorts of leisure facilities around his self-named stadium, profits from the surrounding hotel, bowling alley, conference centre and multiplex cinema did not find their way into team construction. As the chairman consolidated his place in the upper reaches of the rich list, the team, starved of investment, slipped down the football leagues, ending up in the Conference.
Eventually, hounded out by the few fans who remained loyal, Kassam sold up his interest in the club earlier this year. Revealing his priorities to the last, he maintained control of the stadium and surrounding properties. Intriguingly it is only since his departure that the team have started to win football matches. Moreover, the crowds have poured back – Oxford's home gates are larger than those of any club in League Two.
With no assets other than the team, the club's new board – led by manager Jim Smith and a former United youth team player called Nick Merry – have adopted a business model diametrically opposed to the previous regime. Their interest is solely in the progress of the playing staff, not the peripheral money-making opportunities.
"The chairman is the club's biggest fan," Kelvin Thomas, one of the directors, says. "Every decision is based on what is good for the team. It has to be. We own nothing but the name and the players. So the only way we can progress as a club is to get people through the turnstiles."
The directors have initiated a series of ideas to re-engage a fan base that previously felt disenfranchised. They staged everything from open days to coaching sessions for local youth teams. They also began to set their supporters challenges. For their next home league match, against Woking on Boxing Day, for instance, the fans have been given the task of breaking the Conference attendance record. Ticket sales already stand at 8,700, double the average in Kassam's last season, comfortably bringing in sight the target of 9,432 set at a game between Lincoln and Wycombe in 1988. At Oxford it is bums on seats, not the bottom line, that now matters.
And it is something Gerrard should bear in mind. When it comes to football club ownership, money alone is no guarantee. Rather than swooning at the size of his new best friends' bank account, maybe he should have been asking to see their collection of Liverpool scarves.
By Jim White
Last Updated: 2:55am GMT 16/12/2006
Comment on this story Read comments
Your View: Football fans' forum
Steven Gerrard, Liverpool's captain, is said to be mightily enthused by the prospect of his club being taken over by the oil-sozzled royals of Dubai International Capital. Gerrard has already met the principals behind the bid and says he is impressed by their enthusiasm, expertise and energy. Which, if nothing else, is an interesting new euphemism for money.
Despite Gerrard's insistence that the sheikhs display a keen interest in English football in general and his club in particular, the sudden rush by foreign owners to buy into the Premiership is nothing to do with a fondness for the league's virtues of passion, power and pace. It is more about ensuring their feet are installed under boardroom tables in time to benefit from the new television contract which kicks in next season. That is when the big money starts to flow. That is when the clubs, who have been surviving well enough under the old conditions, have the potential to become enormously profitable. That was why Eggert Magnusson acted with such dispatch to remove Alan Pardew from the dug-out at Upton Park. He hadn't bought West Ham simply to watch them blowing bubbles in the Championship. All that concerns him is protecting his investment by staying in the Premiership.
Those, like Gerrard, who are keen to hold the door open while the mega-rich arrive to take advantage of the new money-making opportunities available, should pause for a moment and listen to Arsene Wenger. It may seem a little rich for a man whose team are almost exclusively staffed from overseas to speak out this week about the foreign takeover of the boardrooms. But Wenger is right to identify the significant difference between working for someone who is committed to a club for their own sake and someone motivated solely by the opportunity to make money from them.
If Gerrard wants a warning that monied owners do not necessarily champions make, he can find one four divisions below where he plies his trade. When Firoz Kassam took over Oxford United, the club competed in what is now called the Championship. Worth an estimated £250 million, the Monte Carlo-based Kassam was reckoned by Oxford fans to be a moneybags saviour to lead them out of the dark times created by the insane chairmanship of Robert Maxwell.
advertisementIndeed, at first he fulfilled that promise, completing a new out-of-town home for the club. The trouble was, even as Kassam built all sorts of leisure facilities around his self-named stadium, profits from the surrounding hotel, bowling alley, conference centre and multiplex cinema did not find their way into team construction. As the chairman consolidated his place in the upper reaches of the rich list, the team, starved of investment, slipped down the football leagues, ending up in the Conference.
Eventually, hounded out by the few fans who remained loyal, Kassam sold up his interest in the club earlier this year. Revealing his priorities to the last, he maintained control of the stadium and surrounding properties. Intriguingly it is only since his departure that the team have started to win football matches. Moreover, the crowds have poured back – Oxford's home gates are larger than those of any club in League Two.
With no assets other than the team, the club's new board – led by manager Jim Smith and a former United youth team player called Nick Merry – have adopted a business model diametrically opposed to the previous regime. Their interest is solely in the progress of the playing staff, not the peripheral money-making opportunities.
"The chairman is the club's biggest fan," Kelvin Thomas, one of the directors, says. "Every decision is based on what is good for the team. It has to be. We own nothing but the name and the players. So the only way we can progress as a club is to get people through the turnstiles."
The directors have initiated a series of ideas to re-engage a fan base that previously felt disenfranchised. They staged everything from open days to coaching sessions for local youth teams. They also began to set their supporters challenges. For their next home league match, against Woking on Boxing Day, for instance, the fans have been given the task of breaking the Conference attendance record. Ticket sales already stand at 8,700, double the average in Kassam's last season, comfortably bringing in sight the target of 9,432 set at a game between Lincoln and Wycombe in 1988. At Oxford it is bums on seats, not the bottom line, that now matters.
And it is something Gerrard should bear in mind. When it comes to football club ownership, money alone is no guarantee. Rather than swooning at the size of his new best friends' bank account, maybe he should have been asking to see their collection of Liverpool scarves.
Comment