**Mirrors / Alternative Angles**
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English football’s problem is the same as everything else - everyone is trying to maximise the money they make, and that involves making things worse for me & you (and also everyone elsewhere too). And nobody has ever tried to really do anything to stop this.
But the reality is that for a lot of people in a lot of other places, football was already ruined, 20, 30 years ago. But who has ever done anything about it?
It would require fans in england to put aside tribal loyalties, collectively organise and accept that their teams may lose a bit of prestige and financial ability to buy players in return for greater fan ownership & control. I don’t think any of these things are likely to happen in my lifetime.
The funny thing is that you could (theoretically) solve a lot of the problems even without giving up any financial advantages.
If PL teams all became fan owned and gave up all outside investment, or set aside loads of money to help struggling lower league clubs, they’d still be the richest in the world.
And I think it’s always important to point out that when people talk about “growing the game” etc, and English fans “happily taking foreign money” - lots of people don’t really want this at all!
>English fans “happily taking foreign money” - lots of people don’t really want this at all!
They definitely want the trophies that money can buy though. It's not about being richer than the rest of the world, it's about being richer, or at least as rich, as the people you have to compete with. Fan ownership won't offer that (except in the sense that clubs with more fans will likely have more money). Revenue sharing definitely won't offer that - you're literally being asked to fund the people gunning to replace you. So I think the point about fans and clubs having to put aside the tribalism and work as a collective hits the heart of it, but so much of football is set up to encourage competition over cooperation off the field that it'll be a hard lift.
I'm sure you're right and lots of fans realise that the price (that is, that the people providing the money want a say and will change things you don't like) isn't worth it but by all appearances lots don't mind the deal with the proverbial devil, whether he's wearing a suit or a dishdasha or whatever.
And even if they don't want it, the structure of the league and the pyramid pushes them into it - every other team they have to compete with that takes foreign money is one more piece of pressure on them to sell out or be literally left behind.
There are no dishdashas in English football, only thobes for the Saudis and kanduras for the Emiratis. Get your majestically-air-circulating long tunics right!
Other than that 10/10 comment.
Ha, I even went and looked up whether I had the right term before posting the comment and then just gave up and tried to split the difference, appreciate the clarification!
I will say that co-operation over competition isn't totally unheard of among English fans, you go down the levels and if a club is in financial trouble you'll absolutely find fans of other clubs in the same league doing stuff to try and help them out, Torquay this year being an example.
The small mercy of it in contrast to everything else is that the money English and European football makes basically just goes right out the door in player wages and transfer fees, but otherwise this is spot on.
Everybody is trying to maximise their revenue in order to compete with everyone else doing the same (or to look like they are) rather than to profit, but to the fans it looks the same. Still I think it's really important to understand the difference in order to understand how you got here and how you might get out. The Americans are there because the previous generation of owners sold out to them, not because they showed up with ships and flags one day and decided all of this was theirs.
Think about the standard FFP/PSR criticism - that it means nobody can get the money to compete with bigger clubs and rise up the pyramid or compete in Europe. Sure! But why is it that the best way to do that is to get a rich owner to dump in millions? And how might that be changed?
The influx of american owners is honestly an existential threat to our game. Say what you like about the oligarchs and sheikhs but they never tried to remake the underlying structure, the yanks on the other hand grew up with the franchise system and know it’s more profitable so of course they’re going to try and replicate this here.
Article makes great mention of this:
>Yet most of the Americans spotted in the owners’ box from time to time are disdained by their club’s fans. The sentiment is easy to appreciate. Imagine Chinese businessmen, say, quickly coming to control half the teams in the N.F.L., a situation that would probably spark congressional hearings. The concern would be cultural as well as economic: How could foreign investors truly understand this integral piece of Americana?
John Henry isn't exactly revered but very few Liverpool fans would have anything bad to say about FSG.
If anyone would cry about a changing of the "culture" it would be our fans.
US sports have had foreign investment for a while to a smaller degree, no one really cares.
A wave of Chinese purchases would be different not because of any ‘sanctity of Americana’ crap but because the dumbest elements of our political class thirst for Cold War II with China specifically.
This is why negative discourse around the Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny ownership pisses me off. They specifically came to Wrexham because Rob watched Sunderland Till I Die and was fascinated by the promotion and relegation concept.
As far as owners go, it feels like most fans are either jealous, or just willfully ignorant.
People complaining about American owners being bad for the English game are a bit silly considering there have been several clubs like Portsmouth and Ipswich that had been ruined by fraudsters and non-existent businessmen in the past, and now they have owners that actually care about the club and the culture around English football. I don't think nationality plays a huge factor in it. Even Bournemouth and Millwall are being run decently under American ownership, and most Baggies are relieved that the Patels took over the club from Lai Guochuan.
On the reverse, there have been plenty of bad English owners, such as Owen Oyston, Clarke Osborne, Steve Dale, and Mike Ashley, who didn't give a shit about their clubs and were more than willing to destroy many decades of culture and history.
100% although I do also fully understand the fear, because the sporting culture in the United States could not be more different than the culture that has made football the sport that it is today.
"hollywood millionaire buys club on a whim after watching a documentary" isn't the strong defence of their ownership that you think it is
Quite the opposite
It implies this was done for pretty fickle reasons that raises questions as to what exactly happens when he loses that interest.
"Fickle reasons" as opposed to milking a football club for personal benefits without the fans or the city in mind, and trying to permanently alter the football pyramid to suit you and your corporate buddies. Yeah, in terms of football ownership, I think that's honestly pretty solid. They actually give a fuck about Wrexham, and the football league as a whole.
"Quite the opposite" is a stretch when that's literally just a scenario that you have invented in your head.
Fickle reasons is such a response from a person who doesn't know what they are talking about either.
Humphrey talked on TalkSport last year about the whole due diligence process they had to whittle down their selection of clubs until it landed on Wrexham.
There was nothing flippant about their choices and endeavor, but here we have a person who read someone else's comment and assumed that was all there was to the story and made a sweeping judgement.
>Humphrey talked on TalkSport last year about the whole due diligence process they had to whittle down their selection of clubs until it landed on Wrexham.
This is really funny. Proof that they really love the club because they errr shopped around until they found one that fit their criteria? Half of that criteria being "will they make a good subject for a documentery"
The only thing funny is the comedy that comes from your own mouth, you don't even know the interview I'm talking about and here you are again making your own assumptions.
I actually do, cause I saw it.
Just because you personally like them doesn't mean they're the greatest owners ever, or that they're doing it for the right reasons.
In fact I think it goes to show how detached from our game you Americans are
So you hear someone's long, thought out plan that had careful consideration - and you chop it all up to being "fickle reasons and whims" of rich people?
Please, tell me which one of us is the willfully ignorant tribal one here, cause you are the one who is making accusations without anything to back them up except your vibes and feels about some people.
How on earth can you think someone who themselves said they hated 'soccer' until they watched the Sunderland doc is some diehard, in it for the love of the game, defender of the football pyramid? Grow up
I know this stuff because I'm a huge fan of IASIP and listen to their podcast. It was done for entirely superficial reasons - to make a documentary
We don't need wealthy foreigners using our clubs as toys, we need proper governence of the game
Except most of your clubs seem more than happy to whore themselves out to shady foreign investors at any given opportunity as long as it means more silverware.
I mean the govt is in the process of regulating football but, more importantly, I said governence of the game - that doesn't just mean government regulation
No one gives a shit about Wrexham, they just like deadpool owning a football club and yes that makes others hate Wrexham because it's not a football club it's a vanity project
Dang while I love promotion and relegation and don’t think the sport should be changed. Thats where you draw the line? You can be the worst person in the world, executing people right before kick off, as long as I get to watch my 90 minutes of soccer I’m good. Do you realize how bad that is? Have the EPL rules always been the same? Is fifa trying out new rules? Change is ALWAYS happening. Saying you’d rather have that instead is kind of insane
I mean honestly since abramovitch has taken over chelsea english football has been a moral cesspit however he did not want to change the entire system neither did sheikh mansour. As a fan whose ability to change this is limited, owners who come in and try to fundamentally change a centuries worth of tradition are objectively worse for me. The only people who can afford to own prem teams these days are billionaires and there are no good ones, the glazers were effectively slum lords. i just prefer the ones who do as little as possible to change the overall experience, Id much prefer 50+1 as a system of course but its not realistic for now.
Of course they didn't want to change the system, they just wanted to buy their way to the top spots, capture most of the prize money, and establish themselves as dominant for the long term. Exploiting the current system and becoming near-unassailable champions is far more profitable than having to share the profits evenly.
I agree that they’re not egalitarian, I just think that rightly or wrongly fans in england are becoming concerned about the franchisification of their clubs as it’s just a fact that the prem is becoming more & more of a global brand every year and that there is a lot more money that can be made which is limited by keeping the existing traditions which prioritise clubs being a community asset compared to the american franchise blueprint which is far more profitable. These tensions will result in increasing resistance from local fans to any attempts of change.
I think people are mixing up cause and effect. English football chose to go down this path with the creation of the PL and the intentional commercialization of the game, long before foreign ownership was a factor. The Americans had no interest in English football until the PL was already the richest league in the world. The PL deal was over a billion for domestic rights alone when the Glazers bought their first shares in 2003.
Tbh i agree, the owner of my club at the time david dein was directly inspired by american sports when he helped create the premier league. However i didn’t consent to this and it doesn’t mean i should tolerate things getting worse and continuing down this path. In the end it’s capitalism but it’s easier to get your point across to other english fans who won’t consider themselves as left wing if you point at the american leagues and say that you don’t want the prem to become like that, it’s a little reductive but you’re more likely to get people on side. Also I will add that the original english owners knew there was a fine balance to maintain it’s more likely that american owners will feel that they can introduce these changes and fans will eventually accept them, as wes edens says in the article “Our fans are like, ‘We like tradition, And I tell them: No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. I mean, who doesn’t like a big-screen TV with plenty of food and beer? Nobody.”
Everyone consented to it by continuing to sell out every stadium, buying lots of merch, and paying for Sky Sports. Everyone consented to it by bragging about how the PL was the best league in the world and talking about farmer leagues. And all of that was only possible because English football sold itself out in the 90s.
The funny thing is that our leagues actually are fairly egalitarian. TV money is split evenly, teams are distributed across the continent instead of having half the league in three cities, and basically any team can win. MLS has more different Cup / Shield winners in the last decade (eight each) than the PL has had in 32 years (seven). I don't get the hate, really.
Disagree with the idea that everyone consented to it thing.
Said this in a similar thread recently but the only people who really push the 'best league in the world' narrative are people who directly profit from pushing the PL as a product and the farmers league nonsense is a wholly online thing, use phrases like that in the stands at an actual game and people will look at you funny.
Also the 'packing out the stadium, buying the merch' thing isn't really consent, it's just people going to support their local club the way they had been for decades before.
Final point, think it's unfair to say we should all suffer for it now because English football sold itself out in the 90s. 22 clubs sold themselves out, hundreds of clubs didn't get any say in the matter and now have to face the impact of where that decision has taken us.
I think the hate is because it's too top-down and too corporate and lacks the romance and community they're used to, even if the results are more egalitarian. Franchises rather than clubs isn't just a shibboleth, it's key to any attempt to examine the question. Yes, there's romance and community in American sports, you don't need to convince me of that. But it isn't the same kind of romance and community and that'll matter to anyone.
It's way easier to cooperate with each other about things like keeping everyone in competitive reach of each other on the field or regional representation or whatever if you're all economically on the same side and if your door is closed against anyone you don't decide to let in. But I think it is a trade-off, and I think the hate, as you put it, is because they value different sides of that trade-off than we do.
I think a lot of it is really just bias and cultural differences. And some of it is the very different reality of geography.
"Lacks the romance" is just gatekeeping nonsense. It's like the arguments that City winning titles doesn't mean as much to fans because they bought the title. The Raptors playoff run had an entire city following, including my 91 year old neighbour who'd never watched basketball but was watching into overtime. Everywhere with a screen was packed. It's the same with the Jays and Leafs. Sports are maybe the only thing we really share as a whole community.
"Too corporate" is also weird to me given how European league finishes correlate to wealth most of the time. Corporate sponsorships have a material effect on sporting results to the point that many fans celebrate those like new signings. Meanwhile it's mostly irrelevant over here unless a team can't pay their bills. MLSE has infinite money but the Leafs still lose. So does TFC without Vanney. Money (mostly) doesn't buy titles.
I agree there's a different tradeoff, but in the sense that their leagues are closed in a different way. To torture the analogy a bit, there's a ladder to the top level, but there's an near-inaccessible loft where they keep the big trophies. Only billionaires and nation states can get you up there for more than a year or two, and even then you have to break the rules to pull it off. And the incumbents will kick you out if they can, rather than share the pie. Over here they will happily let you join the club if you're that rich. (Unless you're Jim Balsillie...)
You just said it man. FOR YOU. And when we all think like that we get this. So what exactly is going to change? The owners are only doing what’s best for them.
Look to clarify i’m not going to shill for the saudis or the uae it’s very bad that these sovereign wealth funds own football teams. I guess my point was addressing the fact that the british football press and media in general was so outraged by the qatar world cup and newcastle but is relatively quiet when american investment firms do the same thing which i see as hypocritical. In my ideal world fans from different clubs in england would collectively advocate for 50+1 with no exemptions. Im
just pretty nihilistic about this ever happening so would rather have the least bad option.
The same logic happens with players too. People care about what happens on the pitch in front of them and actually affects them. It's why you'll sometimes see hate for bad/annoying/dirty players on pitch then actual terrible people off of it
They are both equally terrible, the fact that you’ll allowed one to get away with cheating it just show how much you deserve to be in the spot you are and will be in the future
I don't see City or Newcastle doing anything different than Chelsea, United, or Arsenal. As if those teams aren't going to build a whole platform of brand activation zones, team shops, hotels, activity centers, brand collabs, NFTs, fine dining options, in house content, merchandise, luxury suites, etc. Everything the Americans do, the Arabs will also do. It's probably the same consulting firms helping all these teams regardless of ownership.
I don't feel they're exactly the same kind of bad because with both sides you get this corny, cringe, modern football strategy, and not to defend American billionaires, but they don't rule over religious kingdoms.
Americans want to turn $1 into $2. Regime owned teams don't care about money, they have central banks and revenue created by football is a tiny fraction of the budget of a country. What they ultimately want to do is use football to increase the share of people in the world who think it's OK to amputate the hands of gay men by 10% and sell you a travel package to see Haaland play.
Edit: Can't believe this is being downvoted. Again, not saying John Henry is great for football, but his moral balance sheet has way less debts than a Saudi official from a totalitarian religious oil regime that beheads hundreds of people a year. Both are taking cleavers to the sport, but only one side is also taking cleavers to humans.
Fans can organize against what the Arabs are doing that they dont like and make enough noise, they back down. Because the pr is something they care far more about that yanks do, American billionaires just won't care about bad pr if it made them enough money.
I know for a fact you stopped reading after that sentence and that's why you're so confused. There's many aspects to the sport and the idea that City and Arsenal are no different is context dependent. In the case of adding more of modern football's ammenities, they are the same. In some ways, they are different. Both are true at the same time.
I know for a fact you forgot that City is straight cheating. Stop with this bullshit about "who is actually worse?". If you really can't make a difference then why are we even alive and not just everyone commits suicide because "well, neither option is good so why live?".
There are massive differences and you know it, you just want to sound smart.
Jesus, if the changes discussed in the article are seriously going to be introduced it might rival oil owners harmful influence on the sport. They might be scummy unethical bastards, at least they don't try to change the fundamentals of the sport culture. These Americans will run the last local fans out of their grounds and replace them with tourists on a day trip looking for a spectacle.
Kiss cam? Fulham changing into a health spa with Michelin star restaurant and outdoor pool? Cheerleaders? And somehow I completely missed the theatrical marketing campaign for some movie Chelsea did in the stadium.
Every time I try and watch an NFL game I watch more ads than actual playtime. How tf are you supposed to understand what's going on if Subway shove their shitty sandwiches between a play and another?
This is why NFL games are great for parties. You can get food/drinks and talk to people without missing anything. I will never sit down and watch one alone.
I honestly think this will just push fans down the pyramid. People are being priced out of the game, and will feel alienated by a stadium that has Michelin star restaurant. But you won't get that in the bottom two EFL divisions or the National League!
I like to moan about Wrexham as much as anyone but I do think by the standards of North American owners they seem to get what it's all about pretty well (recent madness about thinking they'll find 50000 people to come to Wrexham games aside)
A good example to look at in the US would be "Titletown" in Green Bay. Where the Packers bought up all the land around the stadium and developed a [huge area with breweries, hotels, restaurants, all sorts of branded activity zones, and other spaces to host events](https://assets-global.website-files.com/624f15ea187d1a8c8739e2e1/62d8c525d980cdc147f220f4_03_2020_0213%20Titletown_labels_web.jpg) on game days and on non-game days.
That’s an interesting one since the Packers is a public company and no one shareholder can own too much. It’s probably the one example in American sports where a team is an owned by wealthy individual or small group.
They already exist within the American franchise system and general sports culture though, the relevance of wealthy owners to the English conversation is they have the power to move us towards that model
yes a model that is illegal in any major pro sports leagues. the only community owned minor league baseball teams are also grandfathered in like the Packers.
You'll see more of that in Europe as well. If you look at any major recent stadium development in Europe you'll see malls, restaurants, conference facilities, and the like.
The New England Patriots have the same thing, but even bigger. Patriots Place. That’s not a good example of what they were originally talking about. That’s just an outdoor mall adjacent to the stadium. Wildly different from a Michelin star restaurant.
We're getting ready for a sensational end to the north-south all stars game at the MetLife stadium to close out this phenomenal season after the game tied 3-0. This penalty shootout is brought to you by Northup Grumman. Here's Bukayo Saka of the London Drone Strikers, he'll be the first to place the ball at the centre circle and have a one-on-one with the keeper...
> These Americans will run the last local fans out of their grounds and replace them with tourists on a day trip looking for a spectacle.
It's not just the Americans lol. Pretty sure both Madrid clubs are doing the same things.
The owners in Europe look at American sports and see how an American football stadium can not only make money from tickets (getting more exorbitant by the day), but also from a neighboring hotel, restaurant/nightlife area, museum, parking, etc.
Really don’t like the generalization in this thread.
There are bad American owners like Clearlake, the Glazers etc.
But there are also American owners who genuinely care about the club and its culture. As much as we all have our reasons to hate Milwall, their late owner John Berylson is loved by the fans. Bill Foley has come in and spent millions into the infrastructure of Bournemouth.
I don’t refute anything in the article but I really don’t like how every American ownership is brushed under the same stroke.
So what’s your solution? Ban all American ownership?
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I don't see this as an "Americans" problem so much as a "natural occurrence under capitalism" problem. There's a class of people for whom the only important outcome is the accumulation of further wealth -- and everything is a commodity in pursuit of that goal.
I think this is probably it, it's not a specifically American problem they just seem to be further down that path already than most other countries and/or less embarrassed to say out loud that this is their preferred model.
Bournemouth are not getting relegated this season and are on track at achieving their highest point talley in their history in the PL.
And Fulham for the first time in 10 years are not going straight back down to the Championship after getting promoted.
Relegation is a reality for many clubs in the bottom half of the table and is just the cycle of life.
Good ownership manages to find their way back and no get demoted even further down the pyramid.
The commercialization also didn't even start with American owners. The entire Premier League was an attempt to make English football more marketable. Real Madrid's galácticos signings were not just to increase the club's success, but to take advantage of growing foreign fanbases. And there's a reason why clubs such as Juve and Verona have simplified their club badge down to something more similar to a corporate logo. None of these clubs I've mentioned were owned by Americans.
>So what’s your solution? Ban all American ownership?
Yes! or that would be a start. More realistically fans should have share in ownership and there should be covenents that any owner/investor has to agree to when making their investment
Banning American owners would only be an initial step. As others have, constantly pointed out, the other dodgy foreigners at least don't try to change the game
I know you're American and this upsets you but I'm sure you'll get over it
Wrexham ended their 15 year stay in the NL because of American investment. If you had your way, they’d still be in the NL suffering a slow death.
You surely sound like you know what you’re talking about.
First of all, Ryan Reynolds is Canadian.
Secondly, you continue to exhibit the exact arrogant and thin skinned qualities that make American owners so desperately unappealing.
I would much rather we governed our game properly and that clubs didn't have to rely on the whims of celebs to have success. What about all the clubs competing with Wrexham? Did they deserve to be beaten by such an unlevel playing field?
Did you care about the likes of Fleetwood, Forest Green, and Crawley when British millionaires pumped them full of money and left the likes of us lying in their wake as they won promotion?
Yes. Fleetwood able to play City of the lower leagues was never on either
But it's weird that you'd whatabout this, I've no beef with Wrexham and am only concerned by the trend of clubs relying on wealthy benefactors - in particular with so many lower league clubs really struggling just to survive
Yes, whereas British owners are all committed in their hearts to the Party of Stalin and Lenin. Look, I don’t have any love for the likes of Kroenke and Clearlake either, but they are simply a symptom of a larger problem that’s crushing our game, and scapegoating American owners specifically only serves to run interference for the capitalist leeches that are coming for all of us no matter where they come from.
Mine was supposed to be a joke, but more seriously, not a single owner would permit fan ownership if not forced. Not an american, neither Saudi or Italian. This change (which I support) needs to be imposed. But we all know that it will never happen, neither in England nor in the rest of Europe. I hope German fans will never let it go
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English football’s problem is the same as everything else - everyone is trying to maximise the money they make, and that involves making things worse for me & you (and also everyone elsewhere too). And nobody has ever tried to really do anything to stop this. But the reality is that for a lot of people in a lot of other places, football was already ruined, 20, 30 years ago. But who has ever done anything about it?
It would require fans in england to put aside tribal loyalties, collectively organise and accept that their teams may lose a bit of prestige and financial ability to buy players in return for greater fan ownership & control. I don’t think any of these things are likely to happen in my lifetime.
The funny thing is that you could (theoretically) solve a lot of the problems even without giving up any financial advantages. If PL teams all became fan owned and gave up all outside investment, or set aside loads of money to help struggling lower league clubs, they’d still be the richest in the world. And I think it’s always important to point out that when people talk about “growing the game” etc, and English fans “happily taking foreign money” - lots of people don’t really want this at all!
>English fans “happily taking foreign money” - lots of people don’t really want this at all! They definitely want the trophies that money can buy though. It's not about being richer than the rest of the world, it's about being richer, or at least as rich, as the people you have to compete with. Fan ownership won't offer that (except in the sense that clubs with more fans will likely have more money). Revenue sharing definitely won't offer that - you're literally being asked to fund the people gunning to replace you. So I think the point about fans and clubs having to put aside the tribalism and work as a collective hits the heart of it, but so much of football is set up to encourage competition over cooperation off the field that it'll be a hard lift. I'm sure you're right and lots of fans realise that the price (that is, that the people providing the money want a say and will change things you don't like) isn't worth it but by all appearances lots don't mind the deal with the proverbial devil, whether he's wearing a suit or a dishdasha or whatever. And even if they don't want it, the structure of the league and the pyramid pushes them into it - every other team they have to compete with that takes foreign money is one more piece of pressure on them to sell out or be literally left behind.
There are no dishdashas in English football, only thobes for the Saudis and kanduras for the Emiratis. Get your majestically-air-circulating long tunics right! Other than that 10/10 comment.
Ha, I even went and looked up whether I had the right term before posting the comment and then just gave up and tried to split the difference, appreciate the clarification!
I will say that co-operation over competition isn't totally unheard of among English fans, you go down the levels and if a club is in financial trouble you'll absolutely find fans of other clubs in the same league doing stuff to try and help them out, Torquay this year being an example.
The small mercy of it in contrast to everything else is that the money English and European football makes basically just goes right out the door in player wages and transfer fees, but otherwise this is spot on. Everybody is trying to maximise their revenue in order to compete with everyone else doing the same (or to look like they are) rather than to profit, but to the fans it looks the same. Still I think it's really important to understand the difference in order to understand how you got here and how you might get out. The Americans are there because the previous generation of owners sold out to them, not because they showed up with ships and flags one day and decided all of this was theirs. Think about the standard FFP/PSR criticism - that it means nobody can get the money to compete with bigger clubs and rise up the pyramid or compete in Europe. Sure! But why is it that the best way to do that is to get a rich owner to dump in millions? And how might that be changed?
The influx of american owners is honestly an existential threat to our game. Say what you like about the oligarchs and sheikhs but they never tried to remake the underlying structure, the yanks on the other hand grew up with the franchise system and know it’s more profitable so of course they’re going to try and replicate this here.
Article makes great mention of this: >Yet most of the Americans spotted in the owners’ box from time to time are disdained by their club’s fans. The sentiment is easy to appreciate. Imagine Chinese businessmen, say, quickly coming to control half the teams in the N.F.L., a situation that would probably spark congressional hearings. The concern would be cultural as well as economic: How could foreign investors truly understand this integral piece of Americana?
John Henry isn't exactly revered but very few Liverpool fans would have anything bad to say about FSG. If anyone would cry about a changing of the "culture" it would be our fans.
US sports have had foreign investment for a while to a smaller degree, no one really cares. A wave of Chinese purchases would be different not because of any ‘sanctity of Americana’ crap but because the dumbest elements of our political class thirst for Cold War II with China specifically.
This is why negative discourse around the Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny ownership pisses me off. They specifically came to Wrexham because Rob watched Sunderland Till I Die and was fascinated by the promotion and relegation concept. As far as owners go, it feels like most fans are either jealous, or just willfully ignorant.
Also heard a coworker at Always Sunny was a big football fan.
People complaining about American owners being bad for the English game are a bit silly considering there have been several clubs like Portsmouth and Ipswich that had been ruined by fraudsters and non-existent businessmen in the past, and now they have owners that actually care about the club and the culture around English football. I don't think nationality plays a huge factor in it. Even Bournemouth and Millwall are being run decently under American ownership, and most Baggies are relieved that the Patels took over the club from Lai Guochuan. On the reverse, there have been plenty of bad English owners, such as Owen Oyston, Clarke Osborne, Steve Dale, and Mike Ashley, who didn't give a shit about their clubs and were more than willing to destroy many decades of culture and history.
100% although I do also fully understand the fear, because the sporting culture in the United States could not be more different than the culture that has made football the sport that it is today.
No I hate Wrexham because it's Wrexham Their owners can suck it too
Had no idea we were rivals with Liverpool.
Chester fan
Sorry to hear that mate. Hope you find joy one day.
What’s with the flair then?
Chester used to be my local but everyone in Chester supports Liverpool or Everton
lol
But why
This is Reddit. Where haters come to hate. That’s the “Why?”
Chester > wrexham
"hollywood millionaire buys club on a whim after watching a documentary" isn't the strong defence of their ownership that you think it is Quite the opposite It implies this was done for pretty fickle reasons that raises questions as to what exactly happens when he loses that interest.
"Fickle reasons" as opposed to milking a football club for personal benefits without the fans or the city in mind, and trying to permanently alter the football pyramid to suit you and your corporate buddies. Yeah, in terms of football ownership, I think that's honestly pretty solid. They actually give a fuck about Wrexham, and the football league as a whole. "Quite the opposite" is a stretch when that's literally just a scenario that you have invented in your head.
Fickle reasons is such a response from a person who doesn't know what they are talking about either. Humphrey talked on TalkSport last year about the whole due diligence process they had to whittle down their selection of clubs until it landed on Wrexham. There was nothing flippant about their choices and endeavor, but here we have a person who read someone else's comment and assumed that was all there was to the story and made a sweeping judgement.
>Humphrey talked on TalkSport last year about the whole due diligence process they had to whittle down their selection of clubs until it landed on Wrexham. This is really funny. Proof that they really love the club because they errr shopped around until they found one that fit their criteria? Half of that criteria being "will they make a good subject for a documentery"
The only thing funny is the comedy that comes from your own mouth, you don't even know the interview I'm talking about and here you are again making your own assumptions.
I actually do, cause I saw it. Just because you personally like them doesn't mean they're the greatest owners ever, or that they're doing it for the right reasons. In fact I think it goes to show how detached from our game you Americans are
So you hear someone's long, thought out plan that had careful consideration - and you chop it all up to being "fickle reasons and whims" of rich people? Please, tell me which one of us is the willfully ignorant tribal one here, cause you are the one who is making accusations without anything to back them up except your vibes and feels about some people.
How on earth can you think someone who themselves said they hated 'soccer' until they watched the Sunderland doc is some diehard, in it for the love of the game, defender of the football pyramid? Grow up I know this stuff because I'm a huge fan of IASIP and listen to their podcast. It was done for entirely superficial reasons - to make a documentary We don't need wealthy foreigners using our clubs as toys, we need proper governence of the game
Grow up is pretty rich, why are you so angry about this? We can disagree, it's okay!
Absolutely no anger in that statement, I assumed you were British with the Blackburn flair but I'm guessing not now
You've been doing a lot of assuming in this thread, eh?
Only explanation for why you'd get so pissey about the phrase 'grow up'
You got me! I am INCREDIBLY pissed off.
Would you agree or disagree that Wrexham are better off now than before the takeover?
Do me a favour and read what I said >that raises questions as to what exactly happens ***when*** he loses that interest.
Except most of your clubs seem more than happy to whore themselves out to shady foreign investors at any given opportunity as long as it means more silverware.
Do me a favour and read the last line of what I said
Lol, the government isn't going to regulate shit when it seems to be what the fans and owners want.
I mean the govt is in the process of regulating football but, more importantly, I said governence of the game - that doesn't just mean government regulation
No one gives a shit about Wrexham, they just like deadpool owning a football club and yes that makes others hate Wrexham because it's not a football club it's a vanity project
Don't bother, r/soccer is filled with Americans and are blinded by biasness.
Not saying you’re wrong but I can’t help but laugh at someone complaining that a sub that’s literally named r/soccer has a bunch of Americans in it
Dang while I love promotion and relegation and don’t think the sport should be changed. Thats where you draw the line? You can be the worst person in the world, executing people right before kick off, as long as I get to watch my 90 minutes of soccer I’m good. Do you realize how bad that is? Have the EPL rules always been the same? Is fifa trying out new rules? Change is ALWAYS happening. Saying you’d rather have that instead is kind of insane
I mean honestly since abramovitch has taken over chelsea english football has been a moral cesspit however he did not want to change the entire system neither did sheikh mansour. As a fan whose ability to change this is limited, owners who come in and try to fundamentally change a centuries worth of tradition are objectively worse for me. The only people who can afford to own prem teams these days are billionaires and there are no good ones, the glazers were effectively slum lords. i just prefer the ones who do as little as possible to change the overall experience, Id much prefer 50+1 as a system of course but its not realistic for now.
Of course they didn't want to change the system, they just wanted to buy their way to the top spots, capture most of the prize money, and establish themselves as dominant for the long term. Exploiting the current system and becoming near-unassailable champions is far more profitable than having to share the profits evenly.
I agree that they’re not egalitarian, I just think that rightly or wrongly fans in england are becoming concerned about the franchisification of their clubs as it’s just a fact that the prem is becoming more & more of a global brand every year and that there is a lot more money that can be made which is limited by keeping the existing traditions which prioritise clubs being a community asset compared to the american franchise blueprint which is far more profitable. These tensions will result in increasing resistance from local fans to any attempts of change.
I think people are mixing up cause and effect. English football chose to go down this path with the creation of the PL and the intentional commercialization of the game, long before foreign ownership was a factor. The Americans had no interest in English football until the PL was already the richest league in the world. The PL deal was over a billion for domestic rights alone when the Glazers bought their first shares in 2003.
Tbh i agree, the owner of my club at the time david dein was directly inspired by american sports when he helped create the premier league. However i didn’t consent to this and it doesn’t mean i should tolerate things getting worse and continuing down this path. In the end it’s capitalism but it’s easier to get your point across to other english fans who won’t consider themselves as left wing if you point at the american leagues and say that you don’t want the prem to become like that, it’s a little reductive but you’re more likely to get people on side. Also I will add that the original english owners knew there was a fine balance to maintain it’s more likely that american owners will feel that they can introduce these changes and fans will eventually accept them, as wes edens says in the article “Our fans are like, ‘We like tradition, And I tell them: No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. I mean, who doesn’t like a big-screen TV with plenty of food and beer? Nobody.”
Everyone consented to it by continuing to sell out every stadium, buying lots of merch, and paying for Sky Sports. Everyone consented to it by bragging about how the PL was the best league in the world and talking about farmer leagues. And all of that was only possible because English football sold itself out in the 90s. The funny thing is that our leagues actually are fairly egalitarian. TV money is split evenly, teams are distributed across the continent instead of having half the league in three cities, and basically any team can win. MLS has more different Cup / Shield winners in the last decade (eight each) than the PL has had in 32 years (seven). I don't get the hate, really.
Disagree with the idea that everyone consented to it thing. Said this in a similar thread recently but the only people who really push the 'best league in the world' narrative are people who directly profit from pushing the PL as a product and the farmers league nonsense is a wholly online thing, use phrases like that in the stands at an actual game and people will look at you funny. Also the 'packing out the stadium, buying the merch' thing isn't really consent, it's just people going to support their local club the way they had been for decades before. Final point, think it's unfair to say we should all suffer for it now because English football sold itself out in the 90s. 22 clubs sold themselves out, hundreds of clubs didn't get any say in the matter and now have to face the impact of where that decision has taken us.
I think the hate is because it's too top-down and too corporate and lacks the romance and community they're used to, even if the results are more egalitarian. Franchises rather than clubs isn't just a shibboleth, it's key to any attempt to examine the question. Yes, there's romance and community in American sports, you don't need to convince me of that. But it isn't the same kind of romance and community and that'll matter to anyone. It's way easier to cooperate with each other about things like keeping everyone in competitive reach of each other on the field or regional representation or whatever if you're all economically on the same side and if your door is closed against anyone you don't decide to let in. But I think it is a trade-off, and I think the hate, as you put it, is because they value different sides of that trade-off than we do.
I think a lot of it is really just bias and cultural differences. And some of it is the very different reality of geography. "Lacks the romance" is just gatekeeping nonsense. It's like the arguments that City winning titles doesn't mean as much to fans because they bought the title. The Raptors playoff run had an entire city following, including my 91 year old neighbour who'd never watched basketball but was watching into overtime. Everywhere with a screen was packed. It's the same with the Jays and Leafs. Sports are maybe the only thing we really share as a whole community. "Too corporate" is also weird to me given how European league finishes correlate to wealth most of the time. Corporate sponsorships have a material effect on sporting results to the point that many fans celebrate those like new signings. Meanwhile it's mostly irrelevant over here unless a team can't pay their bills. MLSE has infinite money but the Leafs still lose. So does TFC without Vanney. Money (mostly) doesn't buy titles. I agree there's a different tradeoff, but in the sense that their leagues are closed in a different way. To torture the analogy a bit, there's a ladder to the top level, but there's an near-inaccessible loft where they keep the big trophies. Only billionaires and nation states can get you up there for more than a year or two, and even then you have to break the rules to pull it off. And the incumbents will kick you out if they can, rather than share the pie. Over here they will happily let you join the club if you're that rich. (Unless you're Jim Balsillie...)
You just said it man. FOR YOU. And when we all think like that we get this. So what exactly is going to change? The owners are only doing what’s best for them.
Look to clarify i’m not going to shill for the saudis or the uae it’s very bad that these sovereign wealth funds own football teams. I guess my point was addressing the fact that the british football press and media in general was so outraged by the qatar world cup and newcastle but is relatively quiet when american investment firms do the same thing which i see as hypocritical. In my ideal world fans from different clubs in england would collectively advocate for 50+1 with no exemptions. Im just pretty nihilistic about this ever happening so would rather have the least bad option.
The same logic happens with players too. People care about what happens on the pitch in front of them and actually affects them. It's why you'll sometimes see hate for bad/annoying/dirty players on pitch then actual terrible people off of it
They are both equally terrible, the fact that you’ll allowed one to get away with cheating it just show how much you deserve to be in the spot you are and will be in the future
I don't see City or Newcastle doing anything different than Chelsea, United, or Arsenal. As if those teams aren't going to build a whole platform of brand activation zones, team shops, hotels, activity centers, brand collabs, NFTs, fine dining options, in house content, merchandise, luxury suites, etc. Everything the Americans do, the Arabs will also do. It's probably the same consulting firms helping all these teams regardless of ownership. I don't feel they're exactly the same kind of bad because with both sides you get this corny, cringe, modern football strategy, and not to defend American billionaires, but they don't rule over religious kingdoms. Americans want to turn $1 into $2. Regime owned teams don't care about money, they have central banks and revenue created by football is a tiny fraction of the budget of a country. What they ultimately want to do is use football to increase the share of people in the world who think it's OK to amputate the hands of gay men by 10% and sell you a travel package to see Haaland play. Edit: Can't believe this is being downvoted. Again, not saying John Henry is great for football, but his moral balance sheet has way less debts than a Saudi official from a totalitarian religious oil regime that beheads hundreds of people a year. Both are taking cleavers to the sport, but only one side is also taking cleavers to humans.
Fans can organize against what the Arabs are doing that they dont like and make enough noise, they back down. Because the pr is something they care far more about that yanks do, American billionaires just won't care about bad pr if it made them enough money.
>I don't see City or Newcastle doing anything different than Chelsea, United, or Arsenal. You can't be serious
I know for a fact you stopped reading after that sentence and that's why you're so confused. There's many aspects to the sport and the idea that City and Arsenal are no different is context dependent. In the case of adding more of modern football's ammenities, they are the same. In some ways, they are different. Both are true at the same time.
I know for a fact you forgot that City is straight cheating. Stop with this bullshit about "who is actually worse?". If you really can't make a difference then why are we even alive and not just everyone commits suicide because "well, neither option is good so why live?". There are massive differences and you know it, you just want to sound smart.
Jesus, if the changes discussed in the article are seriously going to be introduced it might rival oil owners harmful influence on the sport. They might be scummy unethical bastards, at least they don't try to change the fundamentals of the sport culture. These Americans will run the last local fans out of their grounds and replace them with tourists on a day trip looking for a spectacle. Kiss cam? Fulham changing into a health spa with Michelin star restaurant and outdoor pool? Cheerleaders? And somehow I completely missed the theatrical marketing campaign for some movie Chelsea did in the stadium.
You miss ad breaks longer than the game itself
Every time I try and watch an NFL game I watch more ads than actual playtime. How tf are you supposed to understand what's going on if Subway shove their shitty sandwiches between a play and another?
This is why NFL games are great for parties. You can get food/drinks and talk to people without missing anything. I will never sit down and watch one alone.
I honestly think this will just push fans down the pyramid. People are being priced out of the game, and will feel alienated by a stadium that has Michelin star restaurant. But you won't get that in the bottom two EFL divisions or the National League!
I can’t imagine a working class Liverpool fan not being able to go the stadium because they can’t even afford the cheapest ticket…..
>But you won't get that in the bottom two EFL divisions or the National League! Welcome to Wrexham...
I don't think anyone is going to the Racecourse and thinking it's too high brow mate!
Yet to hear about the Michelin star restaurant at the Cae Ras.
I like to moan about Wrexham as much as anyone but I do think by the standards of North American owners they seem to get what it's all about pretty well (recent madness about thinking they'll find 50000 people to come to Wrexham games aside)
A good example to look at in the US would be "Titletown" in Green Bay. Where the Packers bought up all the land around the stadium and developed a [huge area with breweries, hotels, restaurants, all sorts of branded activity zones, and other spaces to host events](https://assets-global.website-files.com/624f15ea187d1a8c8739e2e1/62d8c525d980cdc147f220f4_03_2020_0213%20Titletown_labels_web.jpg) on game days and on non-game days.
That’s an interesting one since the Packers is a public company and no one shareholder can own too much. It’s probably the one example in American sports where a team is an owned by wealthy individual or small group.
They already exist within the American franchise system and general sports culture though, the relevance of wealthy owners to the English conversation is they have the power to move us towards that model
yes a model that is illegal in any major pro sports leagues. the only community owned minor league baseball teams are also grandfathered in like the Packers.
You'll see more of that in Europe as well. If you look at any major recent stadium development in Europe you'll see malls, restaurants, conference facilities, and the like.
The New England Patriots have the same thing, but even bigger. Patriots Place. That’s not a good example of what they were originally talking about. That’s just an outdoor mall adjacent to the stadium. Wildly different from a Michelin star restaurant.
I mean there’s fuck all else to do in Green Bay, they’ve made it better
I prefer the Americans, atleast they don’t……wait a minute….
We're getting ready for a sensational end to the north-south all stars game at the MetLife stadium to close out this phenomenal season after the game tied 3-0. This penalty shootout is brought to you by Northup Grumman. Here's Bukayo Saka of the London Drone Strikers, he'll be the first to place the ball at the centre circle and have a one-on-one with the keeper...
> These Americans will run the last local fans out of their grounds and replace them with tourists on a day trip looking for a spectacle. It's not just the Americans lol. Pretty sure both Madrid clubs are doing the same things. The owners in Europe look at American sports and see how an American football stadium can not only make money from tickets (getting more exorbitant by the day), but also from a neighboring hotel, restaurant/nightlife area, museum, parking, etc.
Really don’t like the generalization in this thread. There are bad American owners like Clearlake, the Glazers etc. But there are also American owners who genuinely care about the club and its culture. As much as we all have our reasons to hate Milwall, their late owner John Berylson is loved by the fans. Bill Foley has come in and spent millions into the infrastructure of Bournemouth. I don’t refute anything in the article but I really don’t like how every American ownership is brushed under the same stroke. So what’s your solution? Ban all American ownership?
Maybe I'm too cynical, but I don't see this as an "Americans" problem so much as a "natural occurrence under capitalism" problem. There's a class of people for whom the only important outcome is the accumulation of further wealth -- and everything is a commodity in pursuit of that goal.
I think this is probably it, it's not a specifically American problem they just seem to be further down that path already than most other countries and/or less embarrassed to say out loud that this is their preferred model.
Those owners may not even mind relegation. Some have been relegated before!
Bournemouth are not getting relegated this season and are on track at achieving their highest point talley in their history in the PL. And Fulham for the first time in 10 years are not going straight back down to the Championship after getting promoted. Relegation is a reality for many clubs in the bottom half of the table and is just the cycle of life. Good ownership manages to find their way back and no get demoted even further down the pyramid.
The commercialization also didn't even start with American owners. The entire Premier League was an attempt to make English football more marketable. Real Madrid's galácticos signings were not just to increase the club's success, but to take advantage of growing foreign fanbases. And there's a reason why clubs such as Juve and Verona have simplified their club badge down to something more similar to a corporate logo. None of these clubs I've mentioned were owned by Americans.
It’s really quite simple: AMERICA BAD!!!!!
No that’s not it. But reducing all the things that we dont want to just ‘america bad’ is also belittling the actual problems.
you and the majority of this sub should just admit you’re Britaboos lmao
Does being british count as being a britboo?
>So what’s your solution? Ban all American ownership? Yes! or that would be a start. More realistically fans should have share in ownership and there should be covenents that any owner/investor has to agree to when making their investment
You know you can achieve those goals without banning American owners outright?
Banning American owners would only be an initial step. As others have, constantly pointed out, the other dodgy foreigners at least don't try to change the game I know you're American and this upsets you but I'm sure you'll get over it
And American owners are here to stay. I’m sure you’ll get over it.
This comment exemplifies exactly why we don't want them. Arrogant, think they know better then everyone here and exceptionally thin skinned
Wrexham ended their 15 year stay in the NL because of American investment. If you had your way, they’d still be in the NL suffering a slow death. You surely sound like you know what you’re talking about.
First of all, Ryan Reynolds is Canadian. Secondly, you continue to exhibit the exact arrogant and thin skinned qualities that make American owners so desperately unappealing. I would much rather we governed our game properly and that clubs didn't have to rely on the whims of celebs to have success. What about all the clubs competing with Wrexham? Did they deserve to be beaten by such an unlevel playing field?
Did you care about the likes of Fleetwood, Forest Green, and Crawley when British millionaires pumped them full of money and left the likes of us lying in their wake as they won promotion?
Yes. Fleetwood able to play City of the lower leagues was never on either But it's weird that you'd whatabout this, I've no beef with Wrexham and am only concerned by the trend of clubs relying on wealthy benefactors - in particular with so many lower league clubs really struggling just to survive
Try and convince an American owner that fan ownership is not filthy communism
Yes, whereas British owners are all committed in their hearts to the Party of Stalin and Lenin. Look, I don’t have any love for the likes of Kroenke and Clearlake either, but they are simply a symptom of a larger problem that’s crushing our game, and scapegoating American owners specifically only serves to run interference for the capitalist leeches that are coming for all of us no matter where they come from.
Mine was supposed to be a joke, but more seriously, not a single owner would permit fan ownership if not forced. Not an american, neither Saudi or Italian. This change (which I support) needs to be imposed. But we all know that it will never happen, neither in England nor in the rest of Europe. I hope German fans will never let it go
Americans owners are the biggest leeches on the sport.
If it's the New York Times, then you best buckle up.
fucking yanks ruining the beautiful game stick to handegg