http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/31494008 Finally a man who seems to understand the fans point of view
Bloody hell, I find myself needing to defend Allam, again. That is a decent report, with the exception of the line about Allam. It is wrong, in that Allam does support the principle of reducing ticket prices, the difference is Allam has argued a different business model for achieving it - a business model which depends on issues more locally based (the KC Stadium ) than nationally (the TV money shares). Unfortunately, as we have found out through the progression of the name-change debacle, national (and local, sadly) media find it almost impossible to focus on the truth of a matter - then again, so do some football club owners.
We also need to remember that when the name change was rejected Allam (Ehab i think) said in a TV interview that the club would now be run for the benefit of the shareholders and not the fans, so their stance on ticket prices (and the large increase this season) should come as no surprise.
I realise some of you won't want to hear this but Dr Allams plans for the extra money is investment in youth and development. A much better idea than shaving a couple of quid off a ticket. It's ****ed up when a self confessed non football fan such as our owner recognises that's a big problem in our game yet the leaders and guardians, not to mention the people who gain the most don't.
Why did you feel the need to say that? We know that, we read and listen to the same stuff you do. For what it's worth, I believe he has a decent business model, but a morally corrupt process to achieve it, which will make his lack of achievement disappointing.
Its alright him saying all that but he says in the article match day tickets are £35-£45 for Swansea games, meaning their cheapest is double the price of ours. He might be saying the right things but they are currently part of the problem.
Its essentially pissing money away, the chances of us bringing a player through the system and into the first team is miniscule, especially while we are in the premier league.
Wow, that's some forward thinking right there. It's like saying that any squad finishing 7th-16th has pissed money away by making the squad better than it needed to be, and that Mike Ashley's production line model is the correct one.
Its not though is it because each place in the league is worth more money, so essentially your investing money to make money. Our academy is so far off the others in our league, the miniscule amounts we invest will not make the slight bit of difference. It needs a radical overhaul, tens of millions and a couple of decades before its anywhere close, even then if we're in the PL the local youth won't get a chance as teams prefer foreign imports.
Continued PL membership, coupled with a robust five year business plan, would transform our academy. Every academy is constantly developing, whether the current stars are foreign or home grown, the key is to get the facilities in place, with the right pedigree of coaching to bring youth players through - certainly not decades, unless you get it very wrong.
Decades? We are just awaiting an audit for our academy to hopefully be classed as a category 2, which for a club of our stature is where we need to be at, and hopefully in years to come we can move to category 1 (Not sure what the criteria is for this). This would mean that within a year or two we should be playing against other Premier League youth teams, which would help develop our youth teams. Swansea were in our position and within 5 years they have sold the likes of Joe Allen (£15m), Ben Davies (£10m) from their academy and that has paid for all they have invested in their academy. I'm not saying it will take 5 years, however it certainly will not takes "decades", maybe 5-10 years before we see the full benefit of the investment we are/should be making.
If we want our reserves to be competing against the best, we need Cat 1 status, Cat 2 will simply get us up against Championship and better League One academies. To get to Cat 1, we need a full size indoor pitch and a commitment to spend about double what we need to spend for Cat 2.
Still better than competing against non-league youth teams like Mansfield! I find it bizarre how the likes of Middlesbrough, Wolves, Bolton, Blackburn and even Leicester have category 1 status, yet we only currently have category 3, that's appalling. It's about time Allam pulled his finger out to rectify this, we need it sorting ASAP.
To be honest,AA has already sought to rectify a problem largely created by previous ownerships...They have already upped the investment in the academy and there is more full time staff dedicated to it. I reckon Cat 1 is only a few years away,especially if the new TV deal is used to pump more funds into the youth set-up.
He is. He's already done more than any previous owner. He wants to do more. What more do you expect from him ffs?
