Ok then, I'll ask you this. If Roman or the Arabs bought your club and gave you the means to go out and buy players that you could only dream about bidding for, would you turn it down?
If I could make that decision, looking at City and Chelsea, I would say no everytime. Cant speak for every fan, depends how desperate for success they are. Chelsea didnt really need Roman, they just needed someone to sort the clubs finances out. I would say if the Chelsea thing never happened, there would be more teams genuinely fighting for the title, Chelsea included and a much more level playing field for everyone else. Forget about our clubs for a second and think about the effect on smaller clubs. They basically have no say in the market now, no control over their players. They have suffered badly in this and it will continue. Say Chelsea had never got Roman but had got someone in who took the club off bates, cleared the debts and you carried on as you were before Roman. I think you would of won the league in that time, had similar CL success and domestic cups would of been fairly common. If you looked at City now, and lets fast forward 5 years and imagine they have completely cornered the market off, all other clubs, Chelsea, United, Wigan, Burnley whoever are literally fighting for scraps, exactly like La Liga. Would you want to be like City, or would you prefer it was stopped and the playing field evened out again so that clubs had to earn the right.
I see your point and in an ideal world everybody would be equal. Football never has and never will be equal.
I'm not too bothered about Chelsea and City spending money. Like I said on another thread, it keeps it interesting and without the two of you splashing the cash we'd currently be strolling to our 7th title in a row and 17 points clear of 2nd place. I do object to the "Utd got to the top by spending money so why can't we" argument tho, cos it is basically bollox. Chelsea spent the same or more as us for the first decade of the PL, and City actually spent more than us right up until they got relegated in 96. My only concern is that, as UIR says, the demand for instant success is damaging the game. Not only the smaller clubs who basically now have to accept that they will lose their best players on an annual basis. Look at players like Scott Parker who was excellent at Charlton and is doing great at Spurs. Had Chelsea not bought him and stuck him in the reserves for two years then flogged him when they got a bigger name he could've been awesome. Ditto Duff, SWP, Glen Johnson, Scott Sinclair, Steve Sidwell and all the other talent snapped up and them dumped as soon as the next manager came through the revolving door and decided they'd rather have someone else. And let's be honest, like UIR said, would Chelsea really be in a worse position than they are now had Abramovich not come along?
If Roman hadn't come along we would have been out of business. See your point but as I said to UIR, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Doubt you would've actually gone out of business. IIRC Bates sold you for £60 million making profit of around £20 million. So you could easily have found a buyer to pay £40 million if the situation got really dire, particularly with an additional £20 million plus CL revenues coming in the following season. Hard to be sure what would have happened, but I can definitely see why you guys were happy to take the oil money in the situation you were in there. But personally there would be no way I'd welcome that type of 'investment' at Utd where the long term stability and security of the club can be put at risk by the owner's desire to win a single trophy.
A lot of good points made on this thread, for those of us that are old enough to remember, once TV (SKY) the EPL and the ECL came about football was never going to be the same again, is it better or worse is all a matter of opinion but I'm afraid from now on money is always going to have a major impact on how teams fare! I don't love City any more now than I did in 1963 the first of a few times I saw them relegated so I guess I'll just continue to enjoy the ride, after all isn't that what supporting a club is all about, unfortunately the people running the game will never understand this.
