The 2021-2022 Football Thread

[Apple fanboy]

I will reply to the other posts I just haven’t a lot of time right this second but this post just bothers me a bit.
Stop pretending this is something which is even possible to happen. The Saudi PIF have bought the club it hasn’t been relocated to Jeddah. there’s no requirement to make up scenarios that we all know full well aren’t going to happen and couldn’t even legally in the UK.

Not seriously thinking this is what will happen. I just wish there was a better test for PL club owners. Newcastle's last owner was a douch bag. Their new owners have a lot of money. But I personally don't think too many Newcastle fans would think that the Human Rights violations are worth having a top 6 club. I certainly wouldn't.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

But I personally don't think too many Newcastle fans would think that the Human Rights violations are worth having a top 6 club. I certainly wouldn't.

To be fair to Newcastle, and to other fans, this is not a thing fans used to think about till recently. But the cat's out of the bag now. A lot of sports owners are crappy people or organizations with baggage ranging from the merely distasteful to the frankly horrifying.

As fans we must face up to the reality that we are being asked to pay a LOT of money for this product, and we are filling the pockets of these owners in doing so. We are forced to make a choice - continuing to pay is a 'yes' vote for the status quo. If you pay, you can complain, but you're not providing any incentive for change.

 

[WoodNUFC]

Anyway, @WoodNUFC: To reiterate, @Lord Blackadder's post is excellent.

...

But, as today's edition of the Guardian points out, there is dreadful and there is dreadful, and there is a bit of distinction to be drawn between differing degrees of what is defined as dreadful:

You are absolutely correct. I cannot say I am totally comfortable with the Haslams, for the simple fact that I find it impossible to be totally comfortable with anyone that wealthy. To get that rich you either have to inherit a ton of wealth you never earned, or be a shark. So far they have done well, but owners are never really off probation.

It's also worth mentioning that Dr. Pete Edwards, orthopedic surgeon, club doctor, and now Columbus Crew co-owner, also put up a substantial stake to help buy the club and Save the Crew, and nobody can really question his commitment to the club - while quite wealthy himself, he's less so than the Haslams, has put in a bigger proportion of his money and has served the club for many years in a professional capacity. So when I refer to the Crew ownership the Haslams are top dog, but Edwards also has a say, and I come as close to trusting him as I could any team owner (famous last words, I know).



Great points. I don't think this deal should be allowed to go through, and unfortunately I don't think you, as fans, can force policy changes on the Saudis. But I completely agree that, given the situation as it is, being activist is the best thing the fans can do. Do not let yourselves become the useful idiots of this regime - if they want Newcastle, they've got it now...so make sure the Saudis are reminded what your values in Newcastle are, especially in contrast to what the Saudis have been up to. Fan power remains a massively untapped (repressed?) resource.



All 'Big Six' should have been banned from the CL as punishment. Just as Man City should have been banned from CL for violating FFP. But, as we have learned time and time again, nothing more than a slap on the wrist ever gets dealt out for this sort of thing. Even the defiant clubs that never gave up - Real, Barca, Juve - escaped any meaningful punishment.

But as I said before, as long as football is self-regulated, fans will have to accept that the game is now run and regulated by offshore hedge funds, oligarchs, and undemocratic foreign nation states. I wouldn't want that mob running a hot dog stand in my town, let alone a sports team.

...and if you read about the reactions of the other 19 Premier League clubs to this news, it becomes obvious that this self-regulation is not only corrupt and self-serving, it's not even being done very well.

A lot of excellent points in both posts here @Scepticalscribe and @Lord Blackadder. I also agree with a lot of what @Apple fanboy is saying about the dire state of the PL's O&D tests.

I truly didn't mean for my last post to sound defensive, if it came across that way I'm sorry. I'm honestly trying to process my own thoughts and emotions about the situation. Do I want my club to win every trophy possible? Yes, of course. Do I want to get in bed with horrible people to do it? No!

In my ideal world teams would be fan owned and be a representation of their communities. If given the opportunity to personally invest in my teams' ownership structure I would be happy to do so, and I know a lot of people would gladly do likewise.

 

[Apple fanboy]

A lot of excellent points in both posts here @Scepticalscribe and @Lord Blackadder. I also agree with a lot of what @Apple fanboy is saying about the dire state of the PL's O&D tests.

I truly didn't mean for my last post to sound defensive, if it came across that way I'm sorry. I'm honestly trying to process my own thoughts and emotions about the situation. Do I want my club to win every trophy possible? Yes, of course. Do I want to get in bed with horrible people to do it? No!

In my ideal world teams would be fan owned and be a representation of their communities. If given the opportunity to personally invest in my teams' ownership structure I would be happy to do so, and I know a lot of people would gladly do likewise.

Fan owned clubs is the dream. Sadly, for top clubs anyway, its a pipe dream. Regulation outside of football is the best way forward at this point. But even that seems unlikely in my opinion.

I've been to St James Park many times. Never a happy hunting ground for me when I was there. Mind you this was the team that nearly won the PL. Played great football.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

A lot of excellent points in both posts here @Scepticalscribe and @Lord Blackadder. I also agree with a lot of what @Apple fanboy is saying about the dire state of the PL's O&D tests.

I truly didn't mean for my last post to sound defensive, if it came across that way I'm sorry. I'm honestly trying to process my own thoughts and emotions about the situation. Do I want my club to win every trophy possible? Yes, of course. Do I want to get in bed with horrible people to do it? No!

No, I wasn't referring to you, but rather Newcastle fans as a body. Many clearly feel like they are getting hammered over an issue that is really our collective responsibility, which is my point. A minority are being stupid about the takeover, but all of our clubs have, unfortunately, a vocally stupid minority of fans we have to deal with at times...

In my ideal world teams would be fan owned and be a representation of their communities. If given the opportunity to personally invest in my teams' ownership structure I would be happy to do so, and I know a lot of people would gladly do likewise.

I agree. I don't oppose for-profit owners either, but I think they should be prevented from ever taking controlling interests in clubs. The 50+1 model in Germany is not the solution some think it is, but the general idea behind it is the right one.

 

[danny842003]

Not seriously thinking this is what will happen. I just wish there was a better test for PL club owners. Newcastle's last owner was a douch bag. Their new owners have a lot of money. But I personally don't think too many Newcastle fans would think that the Human Rights violations are worth having a top 6 club. I certainly wouldn't.

UK law prevents it from happening so stop making yourself look silly.

 

[danny842003]

It’s an issue whenever it happens. I sympathize with Newcastle fans over Ashley, a dreadful owner and from what I can tell a terrible human being. if I were a Newcastle fan I’d be hugely relieved to see the back of Ashley, and hopeful that the club's future brings better fan-owner relationships and success on the pitch.

I don't want to make this too heavy, but football fans (in my opinion) aren't just spectators but custodians of grassroots institutions. Owners come and go, but fans remain.

And from that perspective, as David Conn points out, there are many reasons to be very suspicious and even downcast about this change in ownership. Depending on how you slice it, it's an absolute monarchy or dictatorship with a backwards and highly theocratic legal system, and an appalling human rights record. Seeing (a very few, to be fair) Newcastle fans waving Saudi Arabian flags in the streets is a very short-sighted, and frankly distasteful, sight.

Newcastle fans claim that nobody has the right to criticize them because they've had a raw deal for decades and ‘Everyone’s doing it now, why can’t we?’. But this is bigger than Newcastle. It doesn’t make the terrible ownership models that are increasingly ruining the game OK. We have to call it out every time it happens or the game is lost to this new paradigm. The raw deal part for Newcastle fans is true, but it is also true that the fans are welcoming ownership by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. If I were a Newcastle fan I would be very suspicious of this group and I would be extremely suspicious of their claims that the Saudi government will have no involvement with or control over how their club is run. The PIF and the government are inextricably linked through the persons involved in both.

We constantly hold players, managers, and owners to account. The fans have a responsibility too. I have limited my monetary outlay on Liverpool because I am suspicious of FSG. Had they gone into the Super League I would have stopped supporting the team as long as it operated under that model. I spend more on Columbus because they are a smaller club and (apart from the recent awful logo affair) I have decided to reward them for their running of the club.

If I were a Newcastle fan I would, again, be hopeful, but not optimistic, and I would not be buying merch and tickets.

We as fans need to see ourselves as in this together, regardless of club affiliation. Otherwise we can never complain when owners arbitrarily act against our interests and either run clubs into the ground, price us out of the game, or turn our sporting institutions into national propaganda tools.

I hope all my suspicions about Newcastle's new owners turn out to be wrong. I hope the Toon Army are on the verge of a new bright period in the club's history. But there are genuine reasons to be very concerned.

My thoughts are very conflicted on the whole issue and probably aren’t going to be very coherent.
I wish football hadn’t come to this but I really don’t see why Newcastle is expected to be the sacrificial lamb to the issue, although granted the saudis are the worst example.
I have made my entire living out of defence. I went to Afghanistan twice and have been told by plenty of on the left we have no business interfering with the politics of other nations. Well in the last few weeks they’ve got their wish on that front so why should Newcastle or the PL interfere if nation states shouldn’t?
Since leaving the military I work for a defence contractor and have worked on arms that Israel have used in Palestine, this is all agreed by multiple western governments. People aren’t out on the streets or up in arms about it.
We have Man City owned by a nation essentially, they’re not as bad as the Saudis in the same way COVID isn’t as bad as AIDs.
Qatar have the World Cup and PSG, migrant workers are dying as a direct result of the building project. Saudis are killing people irrespective of newcastle not because of it. There’s been some rumblings but I’ve genuinely not heard anything like the level around this deal. Next month formula 1 are literally going to be racing around the streets of Jeddah where’s the outrage that brands far bigger than Newcastle are doing this?

Again I wish the world wasn’t this way but I’m not sorry that I don’t agree the line has to be drawn at Newcastle having eternal mediocrity when so much has gone before.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

My thoughts are very conflicted on the whole issue and probably aren’t going to be very coherent.
I wish football hadn’t come to this but I really don’t see why Newcastle is expected to be the sacrificial lamb to the issue, although granted the saudis are the worst example.

We're all conflicted. All of us are implicated in the system. If the only way we can deal with this is for a person without sin to cast the first stone, then I guess nobody has a right to demand change. We might as well crack a beer, pay our TV fee, watch the game, and shut the hell up. Which is precisely what the people screwing us hope we do.

Newcastle is not being singled out as a sacrificial lamb. Every single club purchase by shadowy entities or dodgy nation states is being called out. But we need more people to help to make it harder for these people to get away with what they are doing. Independent governance, more fan activism, more transparency in who club owners are and how football is run...

... where’s the outrage that brands far bigger than Newcastle are doing this?

Everywhere. There has never been greater awareness of corporate greed and government malfeasance than today. But the 'bad guys' have most of the power and resources. So it's a hard fight to force change for the better. Their greatest ally is our own apathy.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

At the risk of shifting from a totally serious football-related discussion to a banal comment on a only mildly relevant match, USA beat a very unimpressive Jamaica 2-0 despite a flagrant first-minute-of-the-match DOGSO red card foul (0:35 in) by a Jamaica player, and a clear penalty on the half hour mark (2:30, same link) that wasn't given. CONCACAF reffing, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[danny842003]

We're all conflicted. All of us are implicated in the system. If the only way we can deal with this is for a person without sin to cast the first stone, then I guess nobody has a right to demand change. We might as well crack a beer, pay our TV fee, watch the game, and shut the hell up. Which is precisely what the people screwing us hope we do.

Newcastle is not being singled out as a sacrificial lamb. Every single club purchase by shadowy entities or dodgy nation states is being called out. But we need more people to help to make it harder for these people to get away with what they are doing. Independent governance, more fan activism, more transparency in who club owners are and how football is run...



Everywhere. There has never been greater awareness of corporate greed and government malfeasance than today. But the 'bad guys' have most of the power and resources. So it's a hard fight to force change for the better. Their greatest ally is our own apathy.

I mean other premier league clubs genuinely put pressure on the PL not to approve the deal so yes Newcastle was singled out.
that in itself is a pretty sketchy situation to be in that other clubs even have a say in these matters. Clearly the rules weren’t sufficient but you can’t change them after the fact. If they want a change to the owners and directors test then now is the time to do it.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

I mean other premier league clubs genuinely put pressure on the PL not to approve the deal so yes Newcastle was singled out.

The clubs ARE the Premier League, the Premier league are the clubs. This is the problem. It's a self-regulating cabal and there really are no rules apart from whatever the clubs collectively decide to do on any given day...when they can even agree on anything. So saying we need to let the Saudis buy Newcastle because if we didn't that wouldn't be fair or consistent is to place far too much faith in the Premier League as a just and credible institution in the first place. Which it is not. A better metaphor for the PL would be a meeting of mafia dons. They make deals and act together but there is no independent authority.

Control of the league should be taken away from the clubs and placed in the hands of an independent institution. That won't magically fix all the problems, but it will create one degree of separation between the clubs and league governance.

 

[danny842003]

The clubs ARE the Premier League, the Premier league are the clubs. This is the problem. It's a self-regulating cabal and there really are no rules apart from whatever the clubs collectively decide to do on any given day...when they can even agree on anything. So saying we need to let the Saudis buy Newcastle because if we didn't that wouldn't be fair or consistent is to place far too much faith in the Premier League as a just and credible institution in the first place. Which it is not. A better metaphor for the PL would be a meeting of mafia dons. They make deals and act together but there is no independent authority.

Control of the league should be taken away from the clubs and placed in the hands of an independent institution. That won't magically fix all the problems, but it will create one degree of separation between the clubs and league governance.

Again not in disagreement but you can’t have the clubs try to change the rules whilst a purchase is in progress. Because it appears certain clubs are purely trying to protect their position of power rather than being at all concerned about any human rights abuses.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Again not in disagreement but you can’t have the clubs try to change the rules whilst a purchase is in progress. Because it appears certain clubs are purely trying to protect their position of power rather than being at all concerned about any human rights abuses.

I agree that none of them give a damn about the Saudis as owners from a moral standpoint. They just know they are about to get a new and powerful competitor, and they don't like that. The wealthy and powerful never desire new company.

I understand the point you are making but I don't care about their rules in any case - since they don't respect them whenever they become inconvenient, why should we? I don't think they even deserve the label 'rules' since they are self-determined, inconsistently applied, and unfair.

Anyway the deal looks done. We're stuck with Saudi NUFC now for the foreseeable future. Mike Ashley's most execrable act as owner was to sell the club to a group pf people even worse than he is.

 

[danny842003]

I agree that none of them give a damn about the Saudis as owners from a moral standpoint. They just know they are about to get a new and powerful competitor, and they don't like that. The wealthy and powerful never desire new company.

I understand the point you are making but I don't care about their rules in any case - since they don't respect them whenever they become inconvenient, why should we? I don't think they even deserve the label 'rules' since they are self-determined, inconsistently applied, and unfair.

Anyway the deal looks done. We're stuck with Saudi NUFC now for the foreseeable future. Mike Ashley's most execrable act as owner was to sell the club to a group pf people even worse than he is.

Mike Ashley’s pig headed attitude made sure once the PL wouldn’t approve it last year he would make their life hell until it went through. He could have taken his £30m non refundable deposit and found another buyer but that’s not how he works.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Mike Ashley would have sold the club to the devil if they had offered him a million more.

 

[danny842003]

Mike Ashley would have sold the club to the devil if they had offered him a million more.

I actually disagree he loves money but power more. As soon as they said he couldn’t sell it to them he wasn’t going to rest until he did.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

David Goldblatt, author of The Ball is Round, has put out a piece contextualizing the NUFC deal in the broader arc of football in the contemporary world.

He has said some things better than I could - in calling out this sale I am not singling out NUFC, but recognizing that it is the latest in a long line of wrong choices governing bodies (and governments) have made that have left the game awash with capital but empty of everything else. And, as always, the fans are the ones that get screwed the most.

 

[WoodNUFC]

Mike Ashley would have sold the club to the devil if they had offered him a million more.

The Guardian are reporting that Ashley may have turned down a larger offer to sell to the consortium.(Doubtful?) He gave a few quotes to the Sun but that article wasn’t worth linking directly (it is linked in the Guardian story if one is interested.)

 

[Lord Blackadder]

The Guardian are reporting that Ashley may have turned down a larger offer to sell to the consortium.(Doubtful?) He gave a few quotes to the Sun but that article wasn’t worth linking directly (it is linked in the Guardian story if one is interested.)

I saw a headline to that effect. Clearly Ashley briefing the media on his slant. It's almost certainly either misleading chicanery or an outright lie. And anyway, even if true, turning down a bigger offer is not automatically an example of good custodianship. He's involved in a desperate and doomed attempt at revisionist history.

 

[WoodNUFC]

I saw a headline to that effect. Clearly Ashley briefing the media on his slant. It's almost certainly either misleading chicanery or an outright lie. And anyway, even if true, turning down a bigger offer is not automatically an example of good custodianship. He's involved in a desperate and doomed attempt at revisionist history.

Absolutely. In true MA fashion he’s trying to play hero. In the past he used the same rhetoric to explain why prospective buyers were rejected. You know, because Mike Ashley is deeply committed to the legacy of Newcastle United.

 

[danny842003]

Absolutely. In true MA fashion he’s trying to play hero. In the past he used the same rhetoric to explain why prospective buyers were rejected. You know, because Mike Ashley is deeply committed to the legacy of Newcastle United.

Mike Ashley is deeply committed to the legacy of Mike Ashley, what he didn’t want is to sell to someone who could potentially end up leaving the club in a worse position and he could be blamed for it.
In his mind his Newcastle is a successful business even if it’s not a successful football team.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Mike Ashley is deeply committed to the legacy of Mike Ashley, what he didn’t want is to sell to someone who could potentially end up leaving the club in a worse position and he could be blamed for it.
In his mind his Newcastle is a successful business even if it’s not a successful football team.

The legacy of Mike Ashley is, and always will be, a mean-spirited boorish moneymaker who will go down as one of the most widely hated football club owners in English history. Nothing he says or does going forward is likely to make a meaningful difference to that.

 

[Apple fanboy]

The legacy of Mike Ashley is, and always will be, a mean-spirited boorish moneymaker who will go down as one of the most widely hated football club owners in English history. Nothing he says or does going forward is likely to make a meaningful difference to that.

Agreed. Not one of the great club owners at all. When Gould and Sullivan brought my club I was less than thrilled due to the way they have made their fortune etc. However I think they have managed the club well. Securing a new stadium virtually for free and generally we are a club on the up.

 

[danny842003]

The legacy of Mike Ashley is, and always will be, a mean-spirited boorish moneymaker who will go down as one of the most widely hated football club owners in English history. Nothing he says or does going forward is likely to make a meaningful difference to that.

You can add Scotland to that list after his part in Rangers.
The thing is once he realised he couldn’t win on the pitch he just set his mind to winning as a business. On that front I guess he achieved what he set out. For all the negatives I do think his ideas had some merit, it was just he was so uncompromising with it all that it became impossible to enjoy anything.
Talk of him getting invested in Derby, given their dire situation it might not be the worst thing that could happen.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Talk of him getting invested in Derby, given their dire situation it might not be the worst thing that could happen.

Looking at what his ownership model was like at Newcastle, this is what Derby fans could expect:

1. Big Sports Direct advertising presence everywhere at the club.
2. Very little interest in 'competition', except to the extent needed to remain near the bottom of the current division
3. ...but relegation might still happen a couple times.
4. The club will never win anything.
5. An aggressive, defiant approach to owner-fan relations.
6. He could hang around a very long time.