http://www.football365.com/f365-features/8398658/When-Frugality-Becomes-A-Lack-Of-Ambition Makes for shocking reading - surely there's got to be a law against their board's behaviour...
Appalling treatment. Just go to shows how great a job the board are doing at the Liberty, especially when you consider how they have transformed the club in the past decade. Long may it continue as well
The guys at Blackpool are just a more honest form of crook though arnt they ? Alot of these owners at other clubs are robbing them and they dont even realise it! look at Cardiff city as a prime example, they loan the club money and charge them 7% intrest on everything then get hailed as a saviour in the process.. Ive said it before and will say it again, until we lose some big clubs in the prem/championship people will not get their house in order! there always seems to be a final repreive or a last minute deal that staves off oblivion . Fans always seem to think it wont happen to them.
Bloody hell, thats shocking reading. The Oyston's have fleeced the club, as mentioned makes your thankful that no one person owns Swansea City.
Whilst much of the Oystens behaviour is scandalous, the real biggie for me was the land to develop the travel lodge. He paid himself nearly £6m from club money to develop and sell land so he could further profit from selling to travel lodge. Surely that is fraud? How can any government body say this was good business sense and legal to boot. I really feel for the tangerines fans because they have been shafted by corrupt owners. Christ they make Petty seem half decent! and that is saying something. They will not likely get promotion again, the facilities etc are too far below par. It could have been so different for them. It goes to show how well our own board have done. We are developing training facilities, looking to increase the stadium capacity and still building a better team every season. Football needs to look at itself and remember that clubs are uniquely bound to their supporters. supporter trust ownership to some degree should be made mandatory. (Our 20% model seems to help keep feet on the ground, Barca's model is even better). The huge money from Prem football will always find it's way into players and agents pockets, and board members are entitled to fair remuneration but there should be a cap on spending where a portion of profits are kept aside soley for the benefit of ground improvements, training upgrades, academy systems and more importantly subsidised ticket prices for the one group of people in this country constantly getting the ****ty end of the stick... the fans. Rant over, I crawl back in my hole now...
Doesn't this put Olly's recent decision to walk into perspective? Seemed very strange at the time and was out of the blue but he couldn't have been happy.
Good post, Steve, and I particularly agree with your penultimate paragraph. It certainly would be nice for the fans to be shown a lot more consideration. We are the only constant factor in the game and yet the most abused.
