I always had a secret dream of helping a small club if I won the lottery. The secret to success would be spending at the top level for that league...not going completely daft. You could then enjoy success and slowly creep up the leagues. The worst thing to do would be to throw money at the team and then abandon them. My other plan (which very few men would do as you are all such experts) would be to get in people who know what they are doing and take on a figurehead position only (bit like Markus).
If i were to win the euro millions tonight, it would be a serious thought to buy pompey. Shouldnt cost that much and it'd save them. Might be a hard pill for them to swallow having a Saints fan as owner, but then i would attempt to reduce the ridiculous hatred between the clubs. Banter sure, but none of the crazy violence. Either that or shut them down and turn Fratton into a giant free skateboard area for the locals. I can picture the archway entrance now with the words Skate Park in large metal letters
When I win the euromillions tonight (it's all about positive thinking) I'm buying Salisbury city, and doing a Crawley with them! Incidentally, when is Crawley's relentless march up the league tables going to end? They look good value to go up again this year!
If I won Euromillions, I think I might donate a few hundred thousand to Hampshire's second best team (Farnborough) but I would ring-fence the money so it could only be used for stadium improvements, improving income streams and marketing and the like. Maybe I'd give a bit for the playing budget, but most would be for the off the pitch side of the club.
Setting sarcasm aside, I seem to recall a Middlesbrough side with Ravanelli, Emerson and Juninho in it getting relegated in the mid-nineties. In today's money, their combined transfer fees were getting on for £24m. Splashing the cash (even on perceived "quality") is no guarantee of safety. Cheers LSN
Concede that point they did go down but they did buy badly , Ravanelli scored loads but the team did not gel , I accept its a gamble but it is a balancing act .
Because you keep saying "At all costs", so what is it to be? Some spending within a well managed budget (and hence some deals not being completed becasue they go to high in fee or wages), or "at all costs"? Are you unsure now?
Remember when Saints bought Bradley Wright-Phillips with money a Saints fan won for the club in a Coca-Cola contest? How did that work? Did the winner get to choose a player/transfer to sponsor (among a list of transferred players I mean, obviously they wouldn't get to force a transfer themselves) or did they just get credited for funding the next transfer in. Because I would have demanded my money back!
Don't understand the first part, but as for the second, no it is not. The worst case scenario with the more conservative approach (please remember I am not advocating no spending, just challenging your "at all cost" approach) is that we get relegated and have to start a step back without the full riches of Premier League money. We would, however, be in a stable financial postition. A spend "at all cost" approach that goes wrong, could leave the club in a place heading back to where we were three years ago. Can you see this point at all?
The point of where we were 3 years ago did not start 3 years ago did it > Would we of been in that situation if we remained in the premiership ? The reasons we went down was we were too conservative , the problems started 7 years ago .
So, by ignoring my polite question at the end of my post, I assume that you can not see that several clubs have got into trouble by spending "at all costs"? You obviously have run out of argument. However, I'll take your point. Why did the problems start 7 years ago? We were too conservative were we? I believed that when Burley came in we spent a lot of money to get promoted "at all costs" ... another example of the "at all costs" practise not working. I also believe we were relegated because we made the wrong managerial appointments.