The situation at Pompey looks very, very bleak, and it seems the damage is irreversible. This proud club's plight highlights all that is wrong with football. Greed rules today, not success. It's all about getting to the Prem and then staying there AT ALL COSTS, and this is where the problem starts. Yes, Pompey's situation has been caused by bad management, but surely football should have guidelines in place regarding spending. The Premier League and FA get so much money from Sky but use it poorly. Why give Prem clubs so much? It has created a cavernous gap to the Football League and forces club owners to make bad decisions to stay in the honey pot. Pompey tried to stay in the Prem by offering terrible contracts for the club but unbelievable ones for the players. When Pompey went down it seemed a lot of overpaid average players didn't care as they were still collecting £50k a week. It is so wrong. What makes it worse for me is that while Pompey are struggling Man Utd are spending £24m on RVP!! WTF?? Really? Sorry, I don't get it. ManU are hundreds of millions in debt and had to sell shares in NY to raise money to service their debt. How the **** can they be ALLOWED to buy players? Football in England is slowly dying thanks to the unbelievable greed. The England team is not improving, and don't for one second believe England are the third best team in the world, they would struggle against Real Madrid and Barcelona. This is caused by too many English players not playing at the highest level. Just look at the goalkeeping situation. No wonder Hodgson made his stupid comment about Terry! If football had any soul, it would rescue Pompey. How good if every Prem player gave just ten percent if their weekly wage and donated it to Pompey so the club could pay its debts, maybe have a small profit left and then be signed over to the fans' trust. Yes, I know it will never happen, but it's nice to dream.
That's a great dream idea BillysS, but when would it ever stop? I agree wit hthe premise of everythign you have said, there is something woefully wrong with the governance and the business planning in the football industry Interestingly we were in a great position financially with Bates certainly not going hell for leather for promotion. Costs were down and profits good and the team was mediocre but financially healthy. Then he got greedy. He has built up a massive cost base and no income to service it, because as his ideas have gone down the pan and he has had to sell players and hike prices to cover those costs, the fans have become more and more belligerent and he responds by claling us morons. Not a clever thing to do. And it is clear that he now has ot sell soon, as he can't service the debts (or should I say won't?). But he has greed in his eyes again, thinking he can get us through the season and when (yes, I think in his eyes he is gambling that we will get promoted) we get promoted he is able to sell the club for a lot more. But I can't see us getting promoted, so if we stay in this division, his view is he can still demand what he now asks. But I can't see that either, as the sharks will be sniffing, knowing he doesn't have the wherewithall to cover the costs. So the price will fall dramatically. I really don't understand why he got so greedy
Great points Elmo. I believe the greed came when he opened his door for investment talks and then got offered more money for a buyout. Suddenly a pile of cash looked appealing, and because of the stature of Leeds he demanded a lot more than was being offered. At least now prospective buyers of English clubs have been alerted, and its just a matter if time before a serious buyer takes Bates out.
Guys Sky money is only a part of the problem, the administrators of our game are the main culprits. Prem league do whatever they want and trample all over the FA/FL. They've recently had academy rules changed in their favour. They worked to ensure that relegated teams got parachute payments, which is totally unfair to clubs already fighting to get promoted from the lower league. Its not leeds Utd's fault, or Huddersfield's fault that the relegated team are paying big wages and need assistance to help them carry on paying big wages and keeping those players. It's the relegated clubs fault for not have a relegation clause in their contracts. Why should we try and compete against big wage players, when we can't afford it. The worst thing these dick heads have done is not enforce the fit and proper rule. bates wouldn't/shouldn't have been allowed, but look at all these owners who know nothing about football, and end up ruining clubs. Look at Villa, Birmingham, Pompy, Plymouth, Mansfield and many many more. Dick heads who see a football club as a way to launder money and take cash out, as has been the case with Birmingham and Pompy and we know at Leeds. The first bloke who bought Villa turned out to wanted on 3 continents for graft, corruption, money laundering and even murder. he then sells to a yank who's got no cash and takes the club backwards. Ever since mandric flogged Pompy to eastern europeans they've been in the crap. Where did these people get their mony, why are they here ...... look at the scam that nearly happened at Lincoln last year, where a well known con man was able to almost steal the club from the fans. look at the yank who bought the North Wales club, only to sell the ground for a supermarket development and sack the team and staff. he had no intention of doing anything with the club. Look at the nob head at gillingham who hates our club, yet has been trying to sell the ground from underneath the club for years. FIT & PROPER enforce the fooking thing. Scarp parachute payments so the league becomes a level playing field again. Stop rich owners being able to pump millions into a club and calling it sponsorship of the stand or ground, instead of what it really is. Cash to buy promotion.
If I had to guess I would say world recession and his finger in too many risky pies, LUFC has probably propped up some of his failing interests.
Elmo Bates is just such a greedy bastard because he knows no other way. He's old and has one model for doing business , and thats to try and shaft everyone as much as possible. he won't get any enjoyment out of it unless he can work a scam. Why do you really think that that this T/O has stalled. Simple really, DD threw up the odd anomoly which Bates couldn't answer fully. They didn't want any potential comeback after Bates had gone, so demanded a reduced price. Bates told them to fook off and we get stalemate unles someone blinks first. Both parties will want and need to put an end to this very quickly though. That could be deal off, or a signing of contracts soon. The longer it goes on the more costs involved for both parties, and as far as a future buyer goes, it will hurt our chances because everyone knows that DD threw up a problem which the buyers didn't like or couldn't accpet. If a deal breaks down theres always a chance that the other interested party, could do a quick deal, because the first party would sell there DD to reduce their costs, and the 2nd buyers will then only need to do a small amount of DD, as the original DD would be quite thourough. Deal collapses with nobody else on the horizon, we have a season of turmoil as bates will be even tighter, due to the costs incurred through this sale process, and his usual money syphoning exercise.
What I don't get about this Pompy situation is that Trevor Birch is still saying that the club could fold by next weekend. Yet they've been out and brought in 10 players ..... How can they, sureley they can't guarantee to complete their fixtures, so why lift the transfer embargo, why not give them another 10 points deduction for not being sorted yet. Wheres the consistency from the FL about all this. Luton were smashed with a 30 point deduction which effectivley killed them. The new owners of Luton had nothing to do with the last lot who broke all the rules, yet were kicked in the balls. I want Pompy to survive but we need some consistency from those twats in London
There will never be consistency while the law makers protect their highly paid jobs. Ultimately the only people who can stop it are the fans. A Saturday with empty grounds across the country in protest will get attention, but the glory supporters would never do it. ManU didn't care when fans broke away to form FC Utd because they know the next group of idiots are around the corner waiting to hop on the media driven bandwagon.
