A couple of weeks ago, I paid some
attention to Aston Villa fans with their Lerner out banners and made a few
jokes about how similar their booing and demonstrations were to Arsenal fans. I
mean Arsenal are only 3rd in a league race they were ‘ORDAINED’ to
win hands down. It is not like many of these moaning Arsenal fans, the jeering
fans of other clubs (Man U, Liverpool and Chelsea fans I am looking at you) and
the pundits gave Arsenal any chance at the beginning of the season. No they
didn’t. As usual, hindsight is fantastic vision. But please quit the ‘I told
you so’. You did not ‘TOLD’ anything.
It is interesting to note that the only
fans not booing are Leicester fans and probably Spurs fans. The latter certainly
delighted to be above Arsenal and in the Champions League spot at the same
time. Its like they are the adopted son of a very rich man whose birthday falls
on Christmas day and the rich man is determined to spoil the kid rotten.
The fact that only Leicester fans are happy
with their season just goes to emphasize the fact that winning is the only
thing that matters now. If you are not winning, you are rubbish, the manager
should be sacked and the owner should invest more money. It doesn’t matter that
Leicester is now 132nd year in existence as a club and they have
never won the league and have been relegated at least twice and that it took
something exceptional for them to escape relegation last season. Also the most
expensive player in the Leicester squad cost £7m, which is less than 50% of
Wayne Rooney’s salary. And their current manager’s trophy cabinet is bare. But
never mind.
Fans are definitely not interested in these
facts. Fans who will turn their noses at a Riyad Mahrez signing or Jamie Vardy
signing a season ago are suddenly wiser to the fact that their club’s transfer
strategies is wrong. HINDSIGHT = GREAT VISION
This sort of dovetails to a few comments
about football club ownership. I am beginning to think it is a mug game. On the
surface, Randy Lerner is no mug and neither is Roman Abramovich or the Emirs in
Qatar and Abu Dhabi. But if you think that Roman and the Emirs have jointly
donated in excess of £3b to their football project in the last few years and
Roman especially has handed over close to £25m to one individual just for the
pleasure of repeating the Sir Alan Sugar’s popular TV phrase, you then must
wonder if truly he is no mug. Very
ironic when you realise that the overlords of Manchester United bought the club
for nothing and have taken out in excess of £1b. I pray that tap never runs dry
so they can continue to expend £250m every season to aspire for 5th
place. Maybe the Manchester United fans are the mugs.
Back to Randy Lerner. When he bought Villa
in 2006, he was a billionaire and had aspirations for greater things for the
club and dare I guess for his personal life too. They made a couple of attempts
to crack the champions’ league holy grail but failed. Unfortunately for him, he
suffered catastrophic losses in the global financial crisis and a fortune
draining divorce. Plus the man has lost over £250m since buying Villa for a
price just short of £70m. He has unfortunately left the billionaire’s club and
lost his wife and if his divorce is anything like we see in the papers and on
TV, his relationship with his kids and lifelong friends has probably been
impacted. Do we care? Do Villa fans care?
Not a jot. “Lerner Out”. Next mug come and
buy us” is the Universal refrain. It doesn’t matter that Mr. Lerner has been
trying to sell Villa for at least 3 seasons without a serious buyer. The last report of a buyer in sight was a
consortium led by Arsenal’s very own Tony Adams. Good luck. But still……..
“Lerner Out” I can only smile and ask but
who wants to buy? By all means, ask for Lerner to go but outline the
alternatives and if there are no alternatives, I will suggest your protests
should be a bit muted.
I’m not quite sure the average punter / fan
of a football club including Aston Villa understand the fact that the
traditional football ownership structure is gone forever. Fans / communities
don’t own the clubs anymore. Yes you are great for the atmosphere in the
stadium but you can easily be replaced by the clubs throwing the gates open to
all comers for free as TV money can effectively replace gate takings. In
addition the big money required to run even the smallest football club suggests
that the fan ownership model is busted.
Perhaps a lesson to Arsenal fans as well
with the chants of Kroenke out. Although the Kroenke chants appeared to have
petered out when Alisher Usmanov sort of poured water on them by effectively
letting fans know that he sees Arsenal football club as a business in addition
to a football club. Sad to note that fans don’t like that with many going on
record that they will rather win trophies one season and risk the club going
bankrupt. All well and good for us fans with our trophy winning memories /
pictures etc. but Mr. Muggy the club owner still has to deal with his bank
manager the day after the trophy win and explain why that overdraft should not
be pulled.
Yes, it is not all about money as Leicester
are appearing to prove. But the fact that it has never happened before in the
history of football suggests to me it will be a one off. We shall see next
season. To extend Leicester’s success as a stick to beat Arsene Wenger and
Arsenal is wrong in my opinion. Arsenal have a football and business model. Yes
fans want more (who doesn’t really) but the club has decided that its desire
for glory will be balanced with financial sustainability. I think fans
genuinely need to buy into this project. If you re not willing to, there is a
choice and given the options at the moment, I think that choice is ‘NOT KROENKE
OUT’. I don’t blame Mr. Kroenke for wanting to keep his billionaire status.
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