RAG1: If they do not get champions league football this season the owners will get board and leave.
Maybe the'll buy the Glazers out who knows.
But in a strange way the Glazers would be probably more reliable than them
RAG2: nothing would please me more than you being right fella, but if you take of the pink tinted specs for a second and look at the facts I feel a McEnroe "You can't be serious" moment coming on
The Arab owners have bought City for cash, paid off all the debt, paid cash for every player that they have bought, no HP over the term of the contracts, have bought 55 acres of land by Wastelands to relocate their HQ, build state of the arts training facilities, indoors and out and an HQ for the Academy with accomodation deda deda. They are supposedly prepared to invest a billion squid to redevelop the Council's 200 acre site around wastelands with sports facilities, hotel and conference centre and put a third level on the Council House to raise capacity to over 60,000, all part of an oil funded long term investment aimed at income streams when the oil runs out in 40/60 years time.
You think that the Glazers might be more reliable than that ?
I'll never live to see it, I'll be long dead but alot of you guys might.
Let's hope they fail and fail soon. If they don't long term there can only be one outcome and it's not one we will like very much.
RAG3: The worst thing about the arab owners in is that when they invest that sort of money, they have expectations, they didn't get to that sort of rich by going 'ok give them another year to qualify for the CL' or their business equivalent, 2 years in and a bajillion £'s spent another failed season could see them pull the plug to be honest, and that my friends would be game, set match. High wages without their owners to make up their revenue differences, recipe for disaster, I live in hope.
RAG2: I think you're right and you're wrong too Chrispie. You're right that IF they were to lose interest for whatever reason and pull the plug, with a big revenue account deficit running, then who would buy it?
Most likely it would be a trading down, selling of cheaply, expensively bought players with big wages, until there was a sustainable business left, and then flogging it off for what they can get.
Where I think you are mistaken is when you write that these owners didn't get that sort of rich by going 'ok give them another year'.
Actually these owners got rich by accident of being born top dogs in an Arab wasteland which happened to sit on 8% of the Worlds known oil reserves
Arabs tend to be in things for the long term, they take a long view; they have had centuries of experience. When you live on one side of a desert and the pretty girls live on the other side and all you've got for transport is a camel, you learn patience
I'm not sure that people really understand the Council House Stadium finances. A lot of folk say what SET has said, that they don't own it. That's like saying that if you live in a flat or apartment which is leasehold rather than freehold, you don't own it. That assumption is wrong. You do own it, what you don't own is the land it stands on and you pay a nominal ground rent for that. I don't claim any special knowledge about the lease that City have, and may be quite wrong, but the way an accountant explained it to me is that the Bitters paid for the conversion (£30m or so) and handed over Maine Road (valued at £13m or so) in exchange for a 99 year lease (or maybe even longer) with the rent paid calculated by the additional capcaity that the new stadium provides. I think it's about £1.5m a year, anyway, peanuts in the scale of things. The City Council then walked off with the old stadium site plus an income stream from the new stadium and that paid back all of their investment into the Commonwealth Games, because all the rest of the stadium costs were paid by Lottery and Sports Council grants.
Good business by the City Council I'd say and a bargain for the Bitters who have got the complex in exchange for £30m and a chunk of slumland.
I think you make good points too EricA, I don't doubt their commitment to a major revenue producing sport orientated business venture, look at Dubai and Abu Dhabi and their F1 and Horse Racing, Tennis etc, big commitments. What you have to doubt is whether City can ever meet the profile that they want, that is top class world beating winners, regardless of what they spend. If the Bitters fall short they might decide not to headline the football and cut back on the funding. You might see major tennis tournaments, Americal Football, Rugby who knows; justy keep on hoping!!
[strike]WAG[/strike] RAG OF THE DAY
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