Norman_Conquest
Well-known member
We both agree that state owned clubs and sports washing is morally wrong and the footballing authorities have a lot to answer for. Without wanting to trivialise their disgusting behaviour, if we can park that to one side and look at the money element of the game you will see that what they are doing is no different from what Blackburn under Walker did, what Leeds tried to do and the mess Portsmouth got themselves in.How is it bollox?
The only similarity is that at briefly in our history we spent more than 'most' others were willing to spend on a few players.
How that is comparable to nation states cleaning their money and reputations by absolutely blowing the nearest competition away, breaking and manipulating the rules, lying about it and destroying the nature of competition in doing so, I have no idea.
In 2008 / 09 season the 20 PL clubs owed a staggering £3.1 billion with West Ham recording in the region of £90 million net loss. All of these teams have tried to buy success or have sold the family silver to remain the PL. This is the reason why the FFP was brought in, too many clubs living above their means. Nine of the teams are no longer in the PL and at least three of them are lucky to still be operating.
It is regularly muted on here that the Boro have a staggering amount of debt that is luckily covered by Gibson but what happens when we don't have a Steve Gibson (God forbid)?
There are not many teams that aren't guilty of trying to buy success.