Still bitter that that Blackburn beat his Man Utd to the title It's not even comfortable, it's chalk and cheese
every Manchester playing the whataboutery game in defense of city and Newcastle are merely playing the game. they think Qatar will come in and win the bid so what to be able to justify with club doing the same. deeply cynical.
We've spoken quite a bit about respect recently and the one thing that I do respect utd for - probably the only thing - is how they built up the club and got their success the right way. It wasn't quick and it wasn't easy but they did it *quickly go to wash my mouth out * I will be disappointed if they choose to go with the Qataris.
The various entities at the top pushed at the right times, floated the company to stock market, made a lot of money and were then able to exploit it. in the 1980s utd were fairly rubbish, lets face it they were but they had 56,000 at games in the pre allseater world. ONce the laws changed for obvious reasons they were down to 44k. in the 19080s there was about 36k or so in anfield. maybe a little more when squeezed in. Man utd went 58k in 1996, 68k in 2000 and up to 76k in 2006. It now really shows its age but at the time is was by far the biggest stadium in england and drove thier superior poistion. by 2006 Anfield capacity was 43k. That was centenary stand adding 4500 but looking big, the kop redevelopment that didn't add any and the and field road end cantilever stand added 4500 33,000 fans every single week, year on year until it no longer actually really mattered with TV money. Utd then built a global commercial brand that takes in massive revenues. When FSG arrived in 2010 our turn over was 225mil. 52 mil form match day, 97.1 for tv and 75.8 from commercial. in 2022 commerical revenue was 247mil, tv was 261mil and matchday was 86mil think about that. 34million extra per year form the match days, including more fans, more costs, more matches. 12 years and 200million spend on stadium (more actually) to generate 34mil. Its all about the commercial business. When "small" clubs whinge about FFP holding them back IMO they fundamentally miss this point. Its not about big clubs holding you back, its about thier own sustainability. Everton make 175mil. 120 comes from TV what are they doing commerically to make that little? LFC have worked for 12 years to get 247million in commercial income to pay the wages. Newcastle and city magic it from thin air in state sponsored gifts that have nothing to do with any business return for those sponsorships. When a small club whinges that they canot win anything cos big clubs hold them back but gloat that city and Newcastle upset the big clubs just remind them that Newcastle and city are eating thier pie just as much if not more. WHEN (NOT IF) man utd go the qatari way and justify thier 1billion new bowl stadium and 2billion on players and start whataboutery as their club sponsor on the shirt becomes some saudi oil giant they will merely be jumping the queue and doping just the same. As a final point on this; the single biggest issue the football authorites have to deal with is this kinds of antics. If they approve the sponsorships by brass plaque entities (as was proven with city btw) then they are enabling financial doping. The european governments may have to put a tax on these kinds of deals where companies giving sponsorships have to prove their business case or be destroyed in tax. If suadis want to give 500mil to newcastle with absolutely 0 return then just slap a 100% tax on them for the priviledge and at least make the dopers pay through the nose to go do it.
england squad Goalkeepers: (imo bang average) Sam Johnstone (Crystal Palace), Jordan Pickford (Everton), Aaron Ramsdale (Arsenal) Defenders: (a lot of meh defender there) Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Lewis Dunk (Brighton & Hove Albion), Marc Guehi (Crystal Palace), Harry Maguire (Manchester United), Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), John Stones (Manchester City), Kieran Trippier (Newcastle United), Kyle Walker (Manchester City) Midfielders: (sigh, two obviously good, what's Phillips done to merit this call) Jude Bellingham (Borussia Dortmund), Eberechi Eze (Crystal Palace), Conor Gallagher (Chelsea), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Kalvin Phillips (Manchester City), Declan Rice (West Ham United) Forwards: (3 of these are not forwards ffs) Phil Foden (Manchester City), Jack Grealish (Manchester City), Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur), James Maddison (Leicester City), Marcus Rashford (Manchester United), Bukayo Saka (Arsenal), Callum Wilson (Newcastle United) it's it me or is the golden generation past it?
GK is a real issue with no standout. Cb is a huge issue as no quality there really. Stones is in good form but doesn’t have a decent partner. LB and RB is ok if James and chilwell can get fit bit trippier Walker past it. Shaw is hit and miss. TAA is obviously something that needs to be dealt with as too good a player not to be there but won’t be trusted in a traditional RB slot. Midfield should be decent. Rice Bellingham mount foden Maddison is a very good youthful midfield 3 to pick from. Problem is Southgate wants 2 holders so it’s rice and Phillips with Bellingham. Wide players in rashford Grealish Eze Saka is good and exciting. Then Kane up top is a gimmie Overal still a making a of a good team there with core of players. It’s just the defence and GK need sorting and gareth to pick an actual decent midfield
as you say, 3 of the so called forwards are midfielders so really the line up ought to be fairly obvious. Pope (clearly outstanding current candidate but injured) James (again very much a crook now) stones (not a great man in a pair but better than rest) struggle to pick lcb. Chilwell but again a **** lb, more lwb. rice Bellingham Foden rashord lw kane saka the thing absolutely picks itself, the defence and gk are a total mess. England should win this piss easy group if they have anything at all about them. they won the only game that was marginal already.
And this is how they get around it. I told you they won't give a fck about FFP bcos they look across at City and think who cares about any indictments bcos we'll win a **** load of trophies in the meantime and probably only get a hefty fine at the end. please log in to view this image
Guess who owns Sela This isn't even hidden behind other members of the same family or related companies. Sela is actually owned by Newcastle's ownership PIF. They would be sponsoring themselves, I'm sure there are rules against that.
The problem we have is that whichever way we go it's not great. The Glazers are pure leeches. Of course all things being equal, all United fans would prefer we go for Radcliffe/Ineos. But they're not equal, if we go with Radcliffe he only takes 51% of the club, no mention of the debt being paid off or how much investment towards infrastructure AND the Glazers keep 20% stake. On the other side we have the Qataris buying 100% outright, pledging to pay off the debt and invest in the infrastructure and then have it self-sustaining, but of course the downside is there are question marks about the financial motives of the qataris. In an ideal world we'd have the Qatari offer from Radcliffe but that's not going to happen.
Yeh it's quite clearly blatant. That's kind of my point. They don't care bcos there's no teeth to FFP and they've weighed things up and are hedging their bets that there never will be. And they'll probably be correct bcos FFP is a joke.
This is a crucial time for the future of football. If nothing is done to rein in these fake sponsorship deals then they might as well just officially throw in the towel and say carry on and do what you like.
I think that crucial time is what happens with City. Guaranteed they get a hefty fine nothing more. Anyone who thinks they get any silverware taken back is absolutely kidding themselves. Newcastle wouldn't have the balls to do what they're doing if that wasn't the case, so in effect, we're already at the point where clubs like Newcastle are thinking "do what you like".
I was referring to that, and the Newkie situation. I said a few days ago I suspect there might be clandestine political pressure put on the PL to refrain from any Draconian punishment of City because our government don't want to upset people that invest here. I fear political pragmatism will take precedence over any considerations of sporting integrity.
That was hilarious. I'm trying to think of their names, oh yeh Venkys? As long as it's not the turkey farmer, Bernard.
