Football was so much better without the billionaire owners.Smaller teams could compete.The days before silly money came into football.
I totally agree with you. But there’s also a tiny part of me that thinks… for a very brief period there, maybe
we were the billionaire owners.
For sure it was way better when an ambitious, wealthy local owner could gamble and bring in players that would shake up the elite - we’re talking millionaires not billionaires though. With the literally unlimited wealth of some owners now it’s much more of a closed shop. Or at least you’d never get a Neymar going to a newly promoted club, which is more or less what Juninho, Boksic etc was, because the owners today could blow anyone out of the water.
Probably the first team in my lifetime to buy a league title was Blackburn, then Chelsea, then City. The rest are all established top clubs and the miracle of Leicester. Chelsea was the big shift, when the money went to various shades of shady international owners and turned into billions rather than millions.
Despite all that, I don’t think there will ever be a time in English football at least where money will guarantee titles, there’s too many big dogs and it will remain too competitive to ever be a true closed shop. It’s still hilarious that Man United spend absurd sums and can barely hold down a Champion’s League place.
What’s different between now and the 90s is that a Jack Walker, or Steve Gibson, or John Hall, or Peter Ridsdale, with a bankroll of £50m, could take an unglamorous club and turn the league upside down with a not-ridiculous amount of money. I remember when Sheff Wed gambled on bringing Di Canio in and were class for a few years. Now, those same guys are playing against the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. The guys on the local level can’t hope to compete with the guys on that level.
It’s funny how it all started. Wasn’t there a headline in the Times that said Middlesbrough had “ruined football” when we signed Alf Common for £1000?