So, Alan Curbishley has resigned as West Ham manager. Kevin Keegan has resigned as Newcastle manager, both claiming to have been forced out by the board.
So much has been said about foreign investors owning premiership clubs over the past few years – a discussion recently that was re-sparked by the sale of Man City – about how Jonny foreigner is only interested in money, expects instant success, and doesn’t care about the fans.
However, is this confined solely to foreign owners? And is it even true?
In short, the answer is that all chairmen want to bring success to there clubs. And also, all chairmen want to be able to earn money from their investments – certainly not loose money! So is it really unreasonable that ticket prices are going up, and that more and more, games are being moved to put them on the TV? However the answer to the first question is a resounding no. All chairmen – no matter what there nationality, or how much they support there club, will still not want to loose millions of pounds – Mike Ashley is the obvious example. Rather than taking steps to avoid Newcastle’s “king” leaving, he limited Keegan in the transfer window, placed restrictions on him, and then sold Miller.
At Pompey, we are lucky. Yes, our owner is foreign. However he does let Harry do what he likes with the squad, without interfering – Harry summed this up very well when talking about the West Ham vacancy saying “I have one big advantage over a lot of Premier League bosses these days: I’ve got an owner who lets the manager manage.” He (Gaydamak) has done wonders to make Pompey far more professional – although as this summer proved; we still have a long way to go in that respect! Yes, our first ever appearance in the UEFA cup may have been moved to 6:00 to allow for a TV audience, and more money, but Peter Storrie makes a good point, the UEFA cup is not a bag of money, and travelling out to Portugal is not
free, and must be funded somehow.
The fact that over the summer our apparent net spend was only £300 000 – which does not take into account tax, of which there will be a great deal (who will forget the Kaboul debate, when it turned out we may have to miss out on him, because we could not afford the £1.2million tax!) – has been a cause for concern for many people, thinking that Sascha is not providing what he promised, however we can not expect miracles (or millions) from a man who is not made of money.
So when we look at the premiership in the future, and gasp at the number of foreign owners (8), and complain that it is them forcing the manager merry-go-round into full swing, it is probably better to consider the fact that who-ever the owners of top premiership teams are, they all want to be successful. And just because they are English, it doesn’t mean they won’t want to stick their hand in the team selection.
Written by pompeycarpet.
The views within this article are the views of the individual who wrote and submitted this piece, sometimes solely theirs. They are not necessarily shared by the Vital Pompey Site Journalists.
