31 January 2008
The Premierships New owners
There was a time when investing in an English football team was about as appealing as the Lampard/Gerrard partnership. With the fragmentation of television rights, a spiralling global audience and a product that eschews (Spanish) style and (Italian) substance for a typically English white knuckle experience, the value of even a modest Premiership team is now counted in the mid to high tens of millions. Crucially that valuation - assuming continued Premiership survival - is guaranteed to rise.
With this realisation has come a raft of foreign investment in the past couple of years. As the January transfer window closes, the new owners and their clubs are assessed in decreasing order of success.
The Glazers - Manchester United
Took charge in May 2005 saddling the worlds most valuable sports team and brand with hundreds of millions of pounds of debt. Crucially however they never questioned the importance of Sir Alex Ferguson (SAF) at the club (and surely his remaining in place was a factor in their purchase) and have fully backed him in the transfer market.
Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic and Michael Carrick were bought in during the first transfer window and subsequent closed season and helped usurp Chelsea’s dominance by winning the Premiership with an arguable weaker team (and so further precipitating the exit of Jose Mourinho, weakening one of their main rivals).
In return for such success with relatively modest resources the Glazers then backed SAF with the signing of Carlos Tevez, Anderson, Owen Hargreaves and Nani - any of whom on their own would represent major transfers for any other club comprising a player investment in the region of £100m since the new ownership.
Manchester United now have the most complete squad in the League and arguable the best in the SAF era. Whether this is turned into trophies relies on the luck needed to win the Champions League and of course domestically, Arsène Wenger’s team.
Although Manchester United are still well in debt they have never carried more financial clout with a record gross turnover of £245 million for the year set to be announced. Add to this their plans to segment their TV rights across the Asian and American markets and that is set to rise even higher.
New Owner Scores:
Support (money given): 10/10
Success (results on the pitch): 9/10
Judgement (what kind of owner are they): Wise investors who understand the template of success.
Roman Abramovich - Chelsea
It is becoming clear that the bulletproof machine of perpetual success was a manifestation of Jose Mourinho rather than the system put in place by Peter Kenyon.
Now that Avram Grant has taken over, the system that Abramovich originally had in mind has taken form; Peter Kenyon in charge of the business side to make the club large enough to rival Europe’s largest, Frank Arnesen in charge of scouting and youth development, Henk ten Caat in charge of coaching and Avram Grant in overall charge of the first team.
Since Mourinho has left, the wallet that was shut for the end of his time at Stamford Bridge has opened again with the arrivals of Nicholas Anelka and Branislav Ivanovic. Whether the highly paid players and relatively unknown coaching setup can replicate the success of Jose Mourinho remains to be seen however it is clear that Chelsea by stealing players (Robben, Mikel, Essien etc.), staff (Arnesen, Kenyon), picking fights (Barcelona) and paying more for transfers and wages are ingrained as a large team in the minds of most footballers in Europe.
While they still make sizeable (and widely irrelevant) financial losses, Chelsea are certainly on their way to cementing their place as one of Europe’s most conspicuous clubs.
New Owner Scores:
Support: 10/10
Success: 9/10
Judgement: Extravagant collector/Football Manager 2008 player.
Thaksin Shinawatra - Manchester City
Political and human rights reservations aside, Shinawatra bought a promising club with a good stadium, excellent fans a decent defence and threw money at it. First he appointed a world class manager in Sven-Göran Eriksson, then backed him with all the finances he asked for. The result was a team with a solid defence (which in fairness was mainly the work of Stuart Pearce) and a varied, exciting attack. The team who scored fewer goals at home than any other beat Manchester United and spent the early part of the season in the top four.
Since then however the results have seen a gradual down turn. They dropped out of the top six and have seen a return to their goal-shy ways of last year. They are still unbeaten at home in the league but are out of both cups and the optimism and fresh faces of early season are less prominent. £8.8m Rolando Bianchi has moved back to Italy and attacking fulcrum Elano has shown a Kanoutian dislike for the English winter (even one as mild as this).
Still, Shinawatra is bound to back Eriksson again in the transfer market in the closed season and a more permanent assault on the top reaches of the table is likely next year.
New Owner Scores:
Support: 8/10
Success: 6/10
Judgement: Laundry owner.
Randy Lerner - Aston Villa
In the light of more visible American owners, Randy Learner’s reputation as Villa’s owner seems to have blossomed. Starting from the incredibly low base bequeathed by Doug Ellis, Lerner has managed to spend little money and has not yet ruined the club. It seems that this avoidance of debt and disaster is responsible for this praise along with his keeping as quiet as his chequebook. The only major player expenditures have been the very talented Ashley Young, the very average Nigel Reo-Coker and the decidedly below average Wayne Routledge.
What Lerner did do however was inherit an excellent manager. It is Martin O’Neill’s competency at making a group of players play greater than the sum of their parts that has been responsible for Villa’s top six placement and inflated Lerner’s reputation.
Just how much the owner will be willing to invest in the team in the next season or two is uncertain. My money was on Lerner being the most mercenary of all the Americans and if so, while O’Neill continues to weave his sub-top four magic, Lerner will keep a tight rein on the purse strings and throttle their ambition.
New Owner Scores:
Support: 4/10
Success: 6/10
Judgement: Silent investor.
Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson - West Ham United
The most visible face - or rather forehead - of the Icelandic takeover of West Ham was bread and biscuit magnate, Eggert Magnusson while the majority share holder Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson became honorary life president. They took over a club in real trouble as the bizarre signings of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano unsettled an exciting team under Alan Pardew and saw them plumit into the relegation zone.
Pardew was swiftly removed and born and bred Hammer, Alan Curbishley recalled from his mysterious New Zealand exile took charge. His impact was immediate as the beat Manchester United at Upton Park however it took longer for the permanent upturn in form that ultimately kept them in the Premiership.
In the January transfer window and the following closed season they spent heavily on primarily injured and ‘past it’ players. Despite a huge number of injuries they have sat comfortably in mid table playing adventurous football.
How long this will last is uncertain however as West Ham are, like Tottenham, Newcastle and now Liverpool capable of catastrophic and thrilling implosions.
New Owner Scores:
Support: 7/10
Success: 6/10
Judgement: Long-term investor waiting for football inflation to increase the value of his asset.
Mike Ashley - Newcastle United
Of all the Premiership clubs worth buying, the first on the list would be Arsenal. The second would probably be Newcastle; guaranteed income from ticket sales, huge merchandising income and a fan base so starved of success they would hail any owner as a messiah should they bring even a modicum of silver with them.
Ashley is undoubtedly a talented business man, he is also supposedly a Tottenham Hotspur fan which makes his keenness to sit amongst the rabid Newcastle United away fans appear somewhat cynical. In doing so his ear has undoubtedly been bent on the general malaise that engulfed the club under the manager he inherited; Sam Allardyce. In what has become the standard model for dismissal, Allardyce was first undermined by the whisper campaign, then the fans, then results which fed back on itself and ultimately led to press saying his position was untenable which meant that his position was untenable.
Allardyce was given money, but his playing style and the impatience of the fans was such that he never really stood a chance of getting the time he needed to succeed.
So Ashley regressed into Newcastle history and appointed the messiah, Kevin Keegan. Initially it looked like the ‘dream ticket’ would be completed with fellow messiah Alan Shearer being appointed as his head coach but it seems that Shearer has wisely rejected that.
On the pitch the Keegan appointment has so far gleaned two shots on goal in three games. In all likelihood, the man who broke in his time as England manager never recovered and this stint as Newcastle manager will end like all his other stints as manager; sad failure. Of interest was the appointment of non-messiah Dennis Wise in some sort of overseeing role - something of a demotion from being manager at Leeds United. It is likely that we will not have to wait long to see him take over the reins at Newcastle as well.
It should be noted as well that as a player, Wise was famed for making enemies. One of who was Newcastle messiah Sir Bobby Robson who once said this about him;
“Wise is a little hubbub of a player for Chelsea, but he played so poorly for England in Euro 2000. That is what you find as England coach, there are players who don’t cope with the pressure. There are players who can handle things in their own sitting room, but can’t handle going to meet the Queen at the Palace.
You have to find out about those players because they will let you down.
They will crumble on the day. They will shirk the responsibility. They will disappear.”
Not a fan then. So should Wise take over following the widely-predicted Keegan meltdown it is unlikely that he will have long to gain messiah status.
Ashley however gave Allardyce the money he asked for and will do the same for the Keegan/Wise partnership in the closed season but it is another season devoid of hope to be followed by yet another era of frustration for a club whose mediocrity is so ingrained in its identity that seemingly no one can overcome it.
Well, maybe until the next messiah arrives.
New Owner Scores:
Support: 6/10
Success: 4/10
Judgement: Long-term investor of an unchanging club.
George Gillett and Tom Hicks - Liverpool
Welcome to the also-rans. Liverpool have now joined the illustrious ranks of Tottenham and Newcastle; large clubs stuck in never-ending, self-undermining cycles of underachievement.
When the two Americans took over they promised that they would not saddle the club with the sort of debt that the Glazers did at Manchester United. They promised to build a fantastic stadium so they could compete with their Lancastrian rivals and Arsenal.
Since then they have saddled the club with Manchester United-type debt and have seriously downgraded their plans for the stadium (thereby reducing their future earnings). They have however supported their superb European and poor Premiership manager, Rafael Benitez - at least superficially. The problem is two-fold however. First, while Benitez can spend £20m+ quite well on a single player (Fernando Torres) he has the knack of frittering away three times that amount on players who are no better than what they have (Arbeloa, Crouch, Bellamy, Zenden, Benayoun etc.) or simply much much worse (Kuyt, Leto, Leiva, Pennant, Morientes, Paletta, Josemi, Gonzalez, Mikel San Jose, Barragan, Idrizaj, Voronin, Aurelio, Kromkamp, Pellegrino, Insua, Nunez etc. - believe it or not, this list goes on and on…).
To put it succinctly, he is the worst manager in the premiership. He is however a good coach and a superb tactician which is his main appeal when Liverpool continually over-perform in the rich Champions League. However here lies the biggest, owner-induced problem; they undermined him. Gillett seems to think that meeting with a free, world renowned manager and discussing his taking over the management of the team will have no effect on the current setup. Consequently, Liverpool have plummeted out of the top four and on this form will fail to qualify for even the UEFA Cup. The league championship which every Liverpool fan will tell you is the number one priority and was within their reach at the start of the season is long gone. The combination of a poor league manager and sightless owners has ensured that Liverpool will not find their even keel until the full cycle of undermine/sack/appoint/transition has been completed.
Meanwhile, Hicks and Gillette got the vital refinancing they needed for the stadium (which led to the debt) staving off their likely withdrawal and purchase of the club by Dubai Investment. Now it seems that a wildly ambitious plan for some 100,000 Liverpool fans to buy the club has been launched.
The website has since crashed.
So have Liverpool.
New Owner Scores:
Support: 9/10
Success: 3/10
Judgement: Two men who are learning just how different world football is to American sport by slaughtering one of its most famous institutions.
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