American Owners Abroad

Man, I tell you, listening to those chants at Anfield last night, I wonder who they'd hate more their American owners or G. Dubya Bush. They were livid! I always have asked this though, why or how did they even let Hicks/Gillett in there the first place? Sounds to me like the old adage, all that glitters isn't gold. Maybe next time they won't make a panic move when it comes to investors in their club. Just because I like Nissan brand doesn't mean I'm going to go to the lot and buy the car without test driving AND looking under the hood, ya know? Research before making an investment.

 

On the other hand, look at the other team that played at Anfield last night. Aston Villa fans absolutely love Randy Lerner.

Daily Mail Story

 

That would be for two reasons:
One, he's done things by the book - respected the club's history, trusted the manager and let him spend, listened to the fans views.
Two, he's not Doug Ellis.

 

In regards toLerner's winning over the Villa Fans, from my own personal experiences with international cultures, by taking the time to learn about and genuinely appreciate another country and it's culture, the people of those countries have looked past me being an an American and have shown me equal often times greater respect. This seems true with Lerner.

 

Yeh, I think Lerner is showing what Hicks has to learn. Clearly the latter has completely lost the fans. Here's a nice tee-shirt btw:

http://www.tshirts365.com/sportshop/productpage/1,17576,_,00.html?productid=276036

 

It's a business. American fans have learn to deal with owners running their teams as such, the English still have this dream that it's still THEIR club. When it couldn't be further from the truth, where the owner be American or otherwise. ANYONE WHO OWNS A CLUB (especially a Premier League one), does so to MAKE MONEY.

 

Pissing off your customer base isn't a great way to make money though is it?

 

Well it is because they are the extent of the club's consumer base.

That's not true.

I think Hicks has been quite astute however because if he and Gillett do get what they want for Liverpool they'll make a nice profit on what they paid.

 

not really. Most lose money, and know they are going to lose money, and don't care that they'll lose money. They treat a club as a status symbol. A rich man's plaything to have a punt at a bit of glory.

How many chairman in the premiership are personally making more money from the club than they've put in?

It's not like the NFL, where you could appoint a basket of cabbages as chairman of a club and still make a profit. Doing so in the premier is actually quite tricky.

There are hardly any chairman at all in it to make money, and those that are, historically, have been a bit crooked.

 

Yah ticket sales and merchandise sales are just plummeting at anfield aren't they

 

They come back. They always do. True fans anyway.
As for the topic of this post; from what I can tell 80-90% of the teams in Euro Football could stand to be in a better financial standpoint. Not to mention the leagues need salary caps. Fans will be fans but fans also have to remember that sports is a business. The majority of club owners aren't billionaires like Chelsea's owner and sit at a complete disadvantage to other clubs. The fact that the new owners don't think losing money is good business sense makes plenty of sense to me especially if you're in for the long hall. If more Euro teams used American sports teams and leagues as examples then they'd see why in Amer football all of the teams are valued at so much money. Mind you 2 years ago The Saints owner turned down a $1 billion dollar offer...... This is nothing but part 2 of American buys EPL big club and the fans go crazy. Ummm I haven't heard of to many more fan protests on the Glazers as of late; AND Man U turned a profit. See what those American's can do.
Seems to me like Liverpool fans want their own version of Steinbrenner (DIC) to come in and splash cash and not care.
NOTE TO LIVERPOOL FANS...........
THAT'S WHAT ALL SOCCER FANS WANT FOR THEIR CLUBS.

 

That remains to be seen. From Gerrard's and other players' comments it's pretty obvious that the off field nonsense is affecting on-field performances. An exit in the round of 16 of the Champions League and failure to finish at least fourth in the Premier League most definitely are going to have a large negative impact on finances at Liverpool. Whichever way you want to cut it, having the kind of poisoned atmosphere that was present at Anfield on Monday night isn't a good position for Liverpool to be in.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_page_id=1779&in_article_id=509126

 

When you're allowed to operate as an effective cartel that can then blackmail local taxpayers to fund their stadia, it makes it a heck of a lot easier for owners to make money. Fortunately for the sport as a whole, such a system is unlikely ever to happen in the European Community.

 

And they're still hated by United fans. I see a thread on their forum from time to time complaining about Glazer. Lerner got the idea of what a club means to a supporter. Most Americans, owners and fans see sports as nothing more than profit and entertainment. You tell an average American that a club represents more than just a town and they won't get it.

NFL being highly valued, well what do you expect with the salary caps and using tax funds to get stadiums? Then keep in mind the TV contracts and the general size of the United States and it adds up. The Prem lacks a cap and with the addition of transfer fees and then relegation and promotion it's not exactly easy to become a rich team in a short period of time.

 

Ya got me. Funny thing though; I didn't see to much protesting when Tevez, Nani, and Anderson were aquired.

 

Typically they don't. Only a handful of British stadia are owned by other than their teams (Swansea and Doncaster are two that come to mind). And when concessions are made, they really are small potatoes compared to the largesse feasted on US pro sports teams. There really is little comparison.

Once again, check out the Heritage Foundation (and many other) economic studies on these deals. Most deals are poor value for local taxpayers and many of them are approved under the threat of a team moving elsewhere (or, of not moving to a particular locality if the deal is not approved). That's pretty much blackmail in my book. And, thankfully, something that rarely if ever happens in Europe.

 

Do all the residents of said locality have the choice of whether to finance the stadium or not? Because if they don't your comparison fails the smell test.

 

has Big Tom Hicks violated UK employment laws?

if so, what a friggin embarassment -- if you are going to buy a foreign concern, you should at least consult someone with knowledge of the local laws

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=498558&cc=5901

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article3239869.ece

 

All the residents who can vote and choose to exercise their right to vote have a choice. If you look at our publicly funded stadiums they have always been state of the art stadiums for whatever era theyve been in as well as being safe. Some of the top flight stadiums in Europe especially pre-taylor report were out right dumps. Take a look at heysel. Theres no way a super bowl in the 80s would have ever played in stadium in that condition, Not even an NFL Championship game in the 30s would have been played in that stadium. In all the stadiums built through blackmail not one collapsed stand or any other stadium disaster that resulted in major loss of life,

 

they don't have the choice of opting out of paying the sales tax, which is where your comparison failed. It's not as if the entire population of Liverpool is forced to buy a Liverpool shirt whether they want to or not.

A quarter of a cent doesn't sound a great deal, but how much does it add up to, per person, over those three years?

An $600 million stadium, being paid for by the sales tax contributions of 2 million people, for example, works out at $300 each.

 

Conditions pre-taylor really weren't that bad, not in the top flight in England anyway (with the odd exception such as Wimbledon's Plough Lane, which was crap but not dangerous). Terracing, in itself, is not an example of poor conditions. The poor conditions tended to be lower down the leagues, where safety checks were less stringent below the top two divisions.

Even at Hillsborough, there was nothing at all wrong with the structure of the stadium or the design of the terrace. It was the later addition of fences that made it unsafe.

Heysel was in a worse state than any major stadium in england, but that didn't really contribute to why people died. If the same panic-stricken stampede took place in any stadium, however modern, you'd quite possibly be looking at a similar outcome.

I'm struggling to think of any stands that have collapsed, other than those in developing/third world nations.