The problem is many football clubs are awfully run. One of the reasons I welcomed Abramovich's money was because I hated Bates with a passion, and his spell at the club (albeit he did do some good) was amongst the most toxic in the club's history and sadly coincided with the far-right getting a foothold within the fanbase (I know many who didn't go to Chelsea for years because of this - hence low attendances). I suspect it's the same for NUFC in that people will not care about the morals and ethics of the new ownership because they hate the old ownership so much. Same will happen to Arsenal and Man Utd when their owners eventually sell up.
The far-right had a foothold at Chelsea a lot earlier than that, man. The Headhunters go back to the 60s, for a start. Paul Canoville has detailed his time there and that started before Bates bought the club. This is him on his debut as a late sub: "As I'm stretching and running, I hear loud individual voices through the noise: 'Sit down you black ****!, 'You ****ing wog – **** off!' Over and over again. Lots of different people. I hardly dared look around. They were right behind me. I snatched a glimpse. They were all wearing blue shirts and scarves – Chelsea fans, my side's fans, faces screwed with pure hatred and anger, all directed at me... I felt physically sick. I was absolutely terrified."
Oh definitely. But the 60s was never anywhere near as bad as the 80s or to a lesser extent 70s - that's one of the reasons why Chelsea (anecdotally speaking) have very few black supporters of the 35-50 age group but have more outside of it either side. Arsenal to their credit, sent the far-right packing and embraced Black and Irish fans. Tottenham even before that was always very inclusive - Chelsea (and West Ham + Millwall) weren't like that, has taken decades to even get the club to the point where Arsenal and Tottenham were at 20-30 years ago.
Bates was an odious ****. He had nothing but contempt for working class people and fans. He was the **** (in the 1980s) who suggested that the fences around grounds should be electrified. The only thing good about him was he was at least consistent...he hated Chelsea fans equally as much as all other fans
I try not to be overly critical because I have the benefit of hindsight but very few people understood back then that football violence and racism directly correlated to the economic circumstances of the country at the time. Bates genuinely believed fighting fire with fire was the right answer. I don't believe Chelsea fans are inherently bad people or worse than others but the North Surrey and pockets of SW London (predominantly Chelsea areas) are definitely more racist than Edmonton/Stoke Newington/Barnet and the sort of areas that Tottenham and Arsenal fans reside in.
Toon Al-mi !!! PL "FFP" is laughable, so financial doping is go. The issue on paper is supposed to come the moment they qualifiy for a UEFA tournamen (re Citeh - yeah right) .
"The Premier League has now received legally binding assurances that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will not control Newcastle United Football Club."
We best start taking the ECL very seriously now, may be our only way of achieving Europe again once Newcastle start spending in January and potentially gatecrash the top six
Tis the easiest way for a PL club to clock up those UEFA ranking pts to CL participation levels (should your club in future manage to qualify for the CL) . If you do not qualify for the CL via a PL place, then your only other option is winning the EL. Which is now also getting more difficult by the year.
That's one of the most ludicrous statements I've seen lately, which is saying something given recent history. Perhaps we should get Norway's sovereign wealth fund to buy us.....
Wonder who they'll begin targetting? I doubt they'll be able to muscle in on the Mbappe or Haaland signings just yet as despite their new wealth they won't be able to offer CL football but I think they may look for one or two top players who are perhaps not happy with their current big clubs or maybe nearing the end of a contract, plus potentially looking at the best players of clubs outside of the top six/ top four in England and elsewhere.
