Chelsea Thread
- Thread starter Sulph
- Start date
gerd
Retired Footballer
I apologize for the personal attacks, that was a mistake.
bebo
Looking for a Manager
Who remember Shawn wright Phillip ...average player bought for £20m . Arsenal's highest transfer was and still is £17m. It's Arsenal part of the problem haha rich . Mutd won the league on 3rd gear w peanuts. While City n Chelsea spend more than most countries around the globe . What's with the clubs that start with the letter 'C' doing. Bunch of Chelunt ! A club has its past but I see Mutd of today changing and being run w/ dignity n integrity. I don't even hate City they cleared most of our debt . I'm thinking Sagna could go for 15m or Ramsey 20m. No Arsenal fan should complain about our money debt clearing Arab owner.
Godotelli
Stroking Silva's Hair
SWP was far from average. Arsenal were desperate to sign him but wanted him cheap. Shame really because his game was much more suited to Arsenal's than Mourinho's.
And Arsenal were buying 15m players in the late 90's which amounts to far more these days.
As for Utd being in '3rd gear with peanuts', this is just silly.
And Arsenal were buying 15m players in the late 90's which amounts to far more these days.
As for Utd being in '3rd gear with peanuts', this is just silly.
Rantboy
International
- 27 December 2002
- Fluminense FC / Arsenal
Not quite true, Bergkamp came for about £8m if I'm not mistaken, Henry came for like £6m and around the year 2000 Wiltord was a record breaking transfer for about £13m. And Reyes too was around that mark.
It took a while for Arsenal to reach the £15m mark with Arshavin in 2009.
bebo
Looking for a Manager
jonneymendoza
Legend
- 1 January 2004
- Arsenal
What the hell you chatting about. Arsenal were bankrolled by tv advertising and me a fan just like most clubs are run. We spent the money we got from me spending loads on arsenal related items and tickets plus the tv money.
Godotelli
Stroking Silva's Hair
So much silliness.
1. Henry cost more than 10m. Anyway, 13m or 15m in the late 90's/early 00's doesn't make much difference, the point remains
2.Not sure what the point is of posting City and Chelsea's summer spending when Utd spent pretty much the same as City in the summer. They bought better. If 3rd gear is spot on then I guess they were in 4th gear last year, which obviously isn't true.
3. In the mid 90's Arsenal got huge external investment from a rich bloke. That's how you bought all those players. Just because I can't remember his name changes nothing. You're the Arsenal fan, why can't you remember it?
1. Henry cost more than 10m. Anyway, 13m or 15m in the late 90's/early 00's doesn't make much difference, the point remains
2.Not sure what the point is of posting City and Chelsea's summer spending when Utd spent pretty much the same as City in the summer. They bought better. If 3rd gear is spot on then I guess they were in 4th gear last year, which obviously isn't true.
3. In the mid 90's Arsenal got huge external investment from a rich bloke. That's how you bought all those players. Just because I can't remember his name changes nothing. You're the Arsenal fan, why can't you remember it?
jonneymendoza
Legend
- 1 January 2004
- Arsenal
Because its bullshit on point 3. I supported arsenal way before the wenger era.
Do you really not understand why an Arsenal fan would resent the sugar-daddy excess?
Their club has worked hard and been super responsible - securing and building a new stadium, selling off assets and successfully carrying out a 15 year plan to ensure they'd be able to compete at the top of world football. They've ensured they'll have a nice 30m or so a season to spend on players to augment their squad. Enough to win it all after a couple seasons of building.
Then an Abramovich or a Mansour comes along, and the whole thing is ruined. Suddenly to win the league you have to either spend 100s of millions of pounds you don't have or be managed by Sir Alex Ferguson.
I can totally see why that is a little annoying. It's like working every summer when you're a kid to get a nice bike, then along comes a new rich kid whose dad buys him one that is twice as expensive.
Their club has worked hard and been super responsible - securing and building a new stadium, selling off assets and successfully carrying out a 15 year plan to ensure they'd be able to compete at the top of world football. They've ensured they'll have a nice 30m or so a season to spend on players to augment their squad. Enough to win it all after a couple seasons of building.
Then an Abramovich or a Mansour comes along, and the whole thing is ruined. Suddenly to win the league you have to either spend 100s of millions of pounds you don't have or be managed by Sir Alex Ferguson.
I can totally see why that is a little annoying. It's like working every summer when you're a kid to get a nice bike, then along comes a new rich kid whose dad buys him one that is twice as expensive.
jonneymendoza
Legend
- 1 January 2004
- Arsenal
Quality post
bebo
Looking for a Manager
Henry ?! We did sell Anelka for £22m to RM ('99)
so yes Henry came in to replace him.You see at the Arsenal selling players more then market value are ways to earn and buy 
What`s City`s highest selling player Mario ,bought for €22m and sold for €20m to Milan? or Robinho bought for £32m and sold to Milan for £15m ?-------------------------------------------
What would you call 3rd gear when they sat on the top so long and led 12pt gap, for most of the 2nd half. They won and received the guard of honour they did almost what Barca,Juve and Bayern this season cruised to the top. Last year was a different story epic win to Manchester City
this year not so 
I'd appreciate some clarification - is the Liverpool(R) and the Chelsea(B) in your profile to remind you what color they're wearing?
And how on God's green Earth can you support both of those teams?
Well, I just did and I'm doing right now. Just love both clubs because my favorite player play(ed) there.
Godotelli
Stroking Silva's Hair
It must be disappointing for you that I know more about your club than you do.
External money built Arsenal's most recent successful period. The boom wore off and now you pretend that your recent financial setup has always been so. It's amusing but boring at the same time.
So, I may have missed it, but in the past 25 years or so I can't recall Arsenal being bankrolled on anywhere near the scale that Chelsea have been. I mean, maybe someone came in with their own wealth but it certainly didn't result in them posting losses for 5 seasons in a row. Not in my memory anyway.
External money most certainly did not build Arsenal's current success. Buying great cheap players and selling them for 10x the price, while also building a new stadium in one of the most affluent parts of London while also selling off the original property during a housing boom - that is why Arsenal are loaded.
If they had a Mansour-esque sugar daddy, why on Earth would they have taken out huge debt to build the stadium? The sugar daddy could just snap his fingers and make it so (see your training facility, to produce all those youth players in the City squad, like Micah, or um, hrm)
gerd
Retired Footballer
Beach, why don't you google Arsenal-Beveren or Guillou and you will see that Arsenal are far from an exemplary club...
Arsenal cannibalized a good Belgian club that won Belgian titles and even went to the semi-final in a Euro Cup (i think it was the Cup winners cup where they eliminated both Barcelona and Inter Milan).
At the time Guillou (a close associate and friend of Wenger) took over Beveren, Beveren where virtually bankrupt because in the 90's the G14 changed the football world. Every club outside the G14 had not a chance to compete with them so clubs went searching for other solutions.
You Always criticize Chelsea and Manchester City, but frankly i prefer by far what Mansour and Abramovich are doing than what Guillou and Wenger did with Beveren. Beveren became a feeder club for Arsenal. Guillou inported Ivorian players from his academy in Abidjan (Asec Mimosa) and put them in Beveren. Afterwards the best players went to Arsenal (it's tragic that only Eboué went to Arsenal) and the other were sold to other clubs, the profits going to Arsenal. Players who passed through Beveren: Yaya Touré, Yapi Yapo, Gervinho, Boka, Romaric, Arsène Né, Copa, Dissa,...
You can arguably say that only Yaya Touré, Eboué and Gervinho really made it, but the dozens of other Ivorian players generated lots of money. Arsenal literally sucked Beveren dry. Nobody in England cares because Beveren seems a litle club from your point of view. Here in Belgium it is seen as a tradition club...
I Always loved Arsenal's football under Wenger, but i'm not blind for the negative things. Are Arsenal villains ? No they aren't that is the way football is: dog eats dog. But please don't portray them as an example as well led club...you only have to read Arsènal to know they aren't (and in that book Beveren isn't even mentioned).
There is much hyphocrisy or bias on this forum...
Arsenal cannibalized a good Belgian club that won Belgian titles and even went to the semi-final in a Euro Cup (i think it was the Cup winners cup where they eliminated both Barcelona and Inter Milan).
At the time Guillou (a close associate and friend of Wenger) took over Beveren, Beveren where virtually bankrupt because in the 90's the G14 changed the football world. Every club outside the G14 had not a chance to compete with them so clubs went searching for other solutions.
You Always criticize Chelsea and Manchester City, but frankly i prefer by far what Mansour and Abramovich are doing than what Guillou and Wenger did with Beveren. Beveren became a feeder club for Arsenal. Guillou inported Ivorian players from his academy in Abidjan (Asec Mimosa) and put them in Beveren. Afterwards the best players went to Arsenal (it's tragic that only Eboué went to Arsenal) and the other were sold to other clubs, the profits going to Arsenal. Players who passed through Beveren: Yaya Touré, Yapi Yapo, Gervinho, Boka, Romaric, Arsène Né, Copa, Dissa,...
You can arguably say that only Yaya Touré, Eboué and Gervinho really made it, but the dozens of other Ivorian players generated lots of money. Arsenal literally sucked Beveren dry. Nobody in England cares because Beveren seems a litle club from your point of view. Here in Belgium it is seen as a tradition club...
I Always loved Arsenal's football under Wenger, but i'm not blind for the negative things. Are Arsenal villains ? No they aren't that is the way football is: dog eats dog. But please don't portray them as an example as well led club...you only have to read Arsènal to know they aren't (and in that book Beveren isn't even mentioned).
There is much hyphocrisy or bias on this forum...
gerd
Retired Footballer
Here is an article by David Conn about another 'traditional and well led' football club: Liverpool. This is about the impact football clubs can have on the neigbourhood where they reside... The more i read about 'well led" football clubs, the more i like the sugar daady clubs. Those clubs are aware of their negative image and actually have a tendency to care more about the community surrounding football.
Liverpool's desperation to expand Anfield to compete with Manchester United has made victims of many of their own fans.
In the blighted streets around Liverpool's Anfield stadium, residents are packing up and leaving their family homes, so the football club can have them demolished and expand their Main Stand. In the six months since the club scrapped their decade-long plan to build a new stadium on Stanley Park, and reverted to expanding Anfield instead, Liverpool city council has been seeking to buy these neighbours' homes, backed by the legal threat of compulsory purchase.
People's farewells are bitter, filled with anger and heartbreak at the area's dreadful decline and at the club for deepening the blight by buying up houses since the mid-1990s then leaving them empty. A few residents are refusing to move, holding out against the council, which begins negotiations with low offers. These homeowners believe they should be paid enough not only to buy a new house but to compensate for the years of dereliction, stagnation and decline, and crime, fires, vandalism, even murders which have despoiled the area. Their resentment is compounded by the fact that they are being forced to move so that Liverpool, and their relatively new US owner, Fenway Sports Group, can make more money.
On Lothair Road, which backs on to the Anfield Main Stand, one man who lived next door to a house Liverpool own and have left empty, shuttered – "tinned up" as the locals call it – shook his head. "I'm not moving out," he told the Guardian, "I've been driven out."
Residents' bitterness derives from when the club started buying houses in Lothair Road, without saying they were doing so or making their intentions clear. The club used an agency to approach some residents, while some houses were bought by third parties then sold on quickly to the club. That left residents with the belief, which has endured ever since, that Liverpool were buying up houses by stealth, to keep prices low.
The club have never publicly explained in detail what they did, and declined to answer the Guardian's questions about their historic behaviour and current plans. Neighbours, many of whom have lived in Anfield for decades, remembering a vibrant, flourishing area, believe Liverpool bought and left houses empty to deliberately blight the area, intending it would prompt people to leave and drive house prices down.
Howard Macpherson, now 52, was the first to sell his house on Lothair Road to the club, in 1996. He had lived there, at No 39, a four-bedroom end terrace, for 10 years. Macpherson says it was a fine home, which he had spent money refurbishing, but after Liverpool bought it they always left it empty – now for 17 years.
"Anfield was a good area, all the houses occupied, nothing like it is today," says Macpherson, who runs a garage, Aintree Motors. "The area started to decline in the early 1990s with the city's economic problems. But Liverpool football club accelerated the decline, by leaving good houses empty and boarded up. It wasn't a natural decline; it was engineered."
The involvement in the process of a notorious solicitor, Kevin Dooley, acting for the club, did not encourage confidence. Dooley, who acted for several Liverpool players and the convicted drug baron Curtis Warren as well as the club before he died in 2004, was struck off by the Law Society in 2002 after it found him guilty of being involved in fraudulent purported bank schemes.
Liverpool were motivated to buy neighbouring houses by a fear of losing pre-eminence in English football after their mighty playing success and financial dominance of the 1970s and 80s. The club felt bruised by having been delayed in building the new Centenary Stand because of two elderly sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, who refused to leave their house at No 26 Kemlyn Road, until November 1990. Manchester United entered the super-commercialised Premier League era by floating on the stock market in 1991, raising £6.7m to seat the Stretford End, and with Old Trafford's ceaseless, lucrative expansion and Sir Alex Ferguson's team-building, Liverpool fell behind United's money-making capacity.
The club turned their attention to expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, although they did not announce this intention or discuss it openly with residents. The Main Stand backs tightly on to the terraced row of odd numbers on Lothair Road. Liverpool began buying houses in 1996, mostly leaving them empty. Land Registry records reveal that between January 1996 and March 2000, Liverpool bought 10 houses on Lothair Road.
Most were on the odd side, closest to the Main Stand: Nos 1, 3, 7, 9, 15, 33, 35 and Macpherson's No 39. In March 1999 Liverpool made their first purchase across the road, on the even side, No 16. That row is not needed for a bigger Main Stand itself, but the residents, and those in the row behind on Alroy Road, would have their right to light blocked by it, a major obstacle to planning permission. In March 2000 Liverpool bought No 10 Lothair Road. That house, like most Liverpool bought, was never again occupied, has been empty for 13 years and is "tinned up".
Liverpool also bought houses on Anfield Road: grander Victorian piles with front gardens, backing on to Stanley Park; almost the whole row opposite the stand, Shankly gates and Hillsborough memorial: 51, 53, 55, 61, 63, 69 and 71. These houses were also left mostly empty and allowed to fall into disrepair.
With houses empty and demand for them falling in a city struggling to recover from its 1980s economic decimation, the Anfield area collapsed into dramatic decline. Alongside Liverpool football club, family homes and private landlords, the main other property owner was Your Housing, a large group of housing associations, then called Arena. It also began to leave properties "tinned up" – 265 were empty in the wider Anfield area by 2011. Residents complain that as the area was blighted, problem tenants moved in, bringing crime and antisocial behaviour.
Liverpool's secret plan to get houses knocked down and expand the stadium, which the residents had suspected from the beginning, was exposed by a local free newspaper in September 1999. The club, with the council and Arena, had produced Anfield Plus, a plan to demolish both rows of houses on Lothair Road, the one on Alroy Road backing on to Lothair, and those on Anfield Road, for two enlarged stands. In the wider area, 1,800 properties were designated for demolition. A food, drink and retail area was planned on a cleared corner across from the Kop and Centenary Stand. New social housing, shops, a supermarket and community centre were also envisaged.
Shock at such a plan being conceived without discussion with residents produced an outcry. The council did not support the plan with compulsory purchase threats but instead embarked on a consultation process. Rick Parry, Liverpool's then chief executive, acknowledged the club were seeking a bigger Anfield to compete financially with Manchester United, but said nevertheless: "I believe we can also work much better with the community, be a good neighbour."
In the intense, often fraught discussions with residents, some progress was slowly made. New homes were built or renovated, including the Skerries Road terrace, behind Kemlyn Road, which Liverpool had previously bought up and left blighted. Two health centres have been built and the new Four Oaks primary school and North Liverpool Academy. Yet Lothair Road, Alroy and Anfield Road, on which the club had set their sights, were left to rot.
While the Premier League, its club owners, players, managers and agents were growing rich on pay-TV millions, right around one of its most revered clubs there was squalor and horror. The many empty houses were vandalised, robbed, stripped, set on fire. People living next door to Liverpool's tinned-up houses told the club they feared waking up in the night to find them ablaze. Still, the club did not put tenants in them. Some people began to move out, their houses' value having tumbled, but many good people stayed, determined not to be forced out.
Liverpool's switch to a plan for a wholly new stadium on Stanley Park came partly out of the post-Anfield Plus community consultation. In one meeting, Parry looked at a map and was struck by how hemmed in by houses the ground would still be, even if expanded. Yet even as the plans developed over years, many residents did not believe Liverpool would ever build a new stadium. Partly this was because even after all the outcry over Anfield Plus, Liverpool still bought houses on Lothair Road, including No10.
In October 1999, 33 Lothair Road, owned by Liverpool and unoccupied, was set on fire, filling the house of the elderly couple who lived next door with smoke and soot. Residents say that three people were killed, set alight, in a horrific incident, in a house further along Lothair Road. A woman reported to be renting on Lothair Road who worked as a prostitute was murdered, in 2001.
A Lothair Road resident, who did not want to be named because he is in negotiations with the council to finally leave, recalled his elderly father going out to fill a coal bucket from the old-fashioned scuttle under the front steps. Two tenants who had moved in across the road threw a brick at his father's head. The resident went across the road, banged on both doors, and roared at them to come out, which they did not.
"These are some of the drastic things we've had to do," he said, talking on his doorstep. "I brought three children up here. If Liverpool had been honest from the beginning, said they wanted our houses to expand their ground, we're realistic, we know they're a huge football club, most of us support them, deals could have been done. Instead they were underhand, blighted the area and we've had to live like this for years."
The sorry saga of how the new stadium plans turned to dust was played out in public, while residents suffered stagnation and wreckage. The club had continued to buy houses on Anfield Road: No 65 in 2001, 47, 49 and 67 in 2007. Parry and the then majority shareholder, David Moores, believed they needed rich owners to stand behind the borrowing required for a new stadium, which could have been built in the early 2000s for perhaps £140m. It took years before finally in 2007 they sold the club for £179m to the Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Moores personally made £89m.
Hicks famously promised "a spade in the ground" and work to begin on the new stadium in 60 days, but he and Gillett had borrowed the money to buy the club and were planning to borrow for the stadium too, then could not. Under pressure from Royal Bank of Scotland, in October 2010 Hicks and Gillett were forced by court order to sell the club, John Henry's FSG paying the £200m price of the RBS debt.
FSG, which renovated the Boston Red Sox stadium, Fenway Park, rather than build a new one, suggested from the beginning it might scrap the new stadium plan as too expensive. In October, Liverpool's managing director, Ian Ayre, confirmed that, describing the intention to go back to expanding Anfield as "a great leap forward".
FSG's current plan envisages expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, with both sides of Lothair Road, and one side of Alroy Road, demolished. A hotel is proposed behind the enlarged Main Stand on the footprint of Lothair Road's even side and Alroy, because a commercial property does not have the same right to light as homes. A development, probably bars and restaurants, with training promised for young people, is proposed opposite the corner of the Kop and Centenary Stand. With Liverpool having purchased a whole row on Anfield Road, they have already knocked those houses down, so there is no obstacle to enlarging that stand.
This FSG plan, then, is strikingly similar to Anfield Plus, which was worked up in 1999, then put on hold for 13 years in favour of the new stadium proposal.
Ruth Little, of the Anfield and Breckfield community council, says: "After people suffered so much, from the football club and Your Housing leaving properties empty and blighting the area, when they went back to the original plan I did wonder what the last 12 years of consultation have been for.
"A lot of good work has been done, though, much of it by local people volunteering. At least we have some certainty now, and we have to make sure that the people who are left are treated with respect."
Reports on that are mixed. While many homeowners have sold their houses over the years for little, the council's final offers now are more generous. Some residents have settled for around £80,000, more than the houses would have fetched on the market in such blighted conditions, and the council is also providing interest-free loans. This enables those who own their own homes to buy another similar house without taking on a new mortgage.
However, several people accuse the council, which is negotiating via agents, of starting with low offers, forcing people in difficult circumstances to negotiate hard or be seriously disadvantaged.
Bill Higham, who owns 25 Alroy Road, says he was offered £55,000, which he refused outright, for a house he has had to refurbish twice after it was seriously vandalised.
"I find it disgraceful," he says. "After the way the area has been run down, I'm being forced out and they want the properties for a song. They could pay everybody up, properly, for less than one Liverpool player's wage."
Bill McGarry, vice-chair of the Anfield Rockfield Triangle residents' association, a qualified town planner, has helped some residents negotiate with the council. Patrick Duggan, chair of Artra, is an ardent critic of the club, whom he vehemently accuses of running the area down. Duggan runs Epstein House, a refurbished hotel in the old Anfield Road family home of the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein. Duggan bought it for £450,000, partly, he says, because Liverpool were building a new stadium which would regenerate the area. He has been shocked instead to find the area's degradation, then felt betrayed when FSG scrapped the new stadium plan.
"I have always been a Liverpool fan," says Duggan, who has mounted a campaign targeting Ayre. "They play 'You'll Never Walk Alone' but they have left their neighbours to walk alone for years."
Paddy McKay, 58, a builder who has lived for 37 years on Walton Breck Road, is refusing to accept the council's offer. He and his wife Carol brought up three daughters there; he has paid his mortgage off in full and argues that, if he is forced to move, he should be paid enough to buy a similar house somewhere decent and compensation for the years of blight. Even now, antisocial behaviour is continuing on those streets, including house fires.
"Liverpool FC have said they want to be good neighbours? They're the world's worst neighbours; they couldn't care less," McKay says. "After all the damage they have done to the area, they should do the decent thing by the residents."
James McKenna, chair of the Spirit of Shankly supporters' union, says the fans have sympathy for the club's neighbours. "The stadium expansion is all about the club making more money, and fans will have to pay more for tickets," McKenna says. "To do that, Liverpool have played a part in derelict houses, streets boarded up. It's a blot on LFC's record."
A council spokesman declined to discuss details of the house-buying process. "Since last autumn we have been developing a robust set of plans for the area which are absolutely on track," he said. "This will include working with the local community on a blueprint for the wider regeneration of Anfield."
Brian Cronin, chief executive of Your Housing, defended his organisation's property stewardship in the area and said the group has invested more than £23m in refurbishments or new homes around Anfield since 2009. Your Housing has 22 properties on Lothair, Alroy and Sybil Roads behind the Main Stand, of which 12 "are long-term vacant". Cronin said: "We are currently working very closely with Liverpool city council and other partners in Anfield to establish the best long-term future for these properties as part of the wider regeneration of the area."
Liverpool declined to comment but last month Ayre updated the Liverpool Daily Post, saying: "To extend Anfield, we need to acquire a bunch of privately owned property around the stadium. We're making really good progress with that. We said some months back it would take several months to improve that property acquisition situation. We're definitely on target so far."
Once the properties are bought, Ayre said, the club will apply for planning permission. After that, the third challenge is to "build the thing".
He told the Guardian in October that an expanded Anfield with a 60,000 capacity will not allow cheaper tickets; its aim is to make more money. Liverpool have employed PricewaterhouseCoopers to survey fans, and corporate customers, to help plan price brackets for the new facilities.
Some fans wonder if FSG, which is quite remote as owner, with Henry hardly in Liverpool and progress slow and costly, may sell the club, particularly once planning permission has been secured. FSG and Henry have not said that is a possibility. The stated plan is to expand the ground and enable Liverpool to compete again by making more money, so attracting better players by offering them huge wages on a par with the other top clubs.
Liverpool's remaining neighbours, suffering some of Britain's worst living conditions, are grappling with hardball offers, to have their houses knocked down and make way for it all. In the Premier League of the 21st century, this is Anfield.
I'm not specifically targeting Liverpool or any other club. I just want to prove that it is nonsense to consider football clubs as "good" or "bad".
Liverpool's desperation to expand Anfield to compete with Manchester United has made victims of many of their own fans.
In the blighted streets around Liverpool's Anfield stadium, residents are packing up and leaving their family homes, so the football club can have them demolished and expand their Main Stand. In the six months since the club scrapped their decade-long plan to build a new stadium on Stanley Park, and reverted to expanding Anfield instead, Liverpool city council has been seeking to buy these neighbours' homes, backed by the legal threat of compulsory purchase.
People's farewells are bitter, filled with anger and heartbreak at the area's dreadful decline and at the club for deepening the blight by buying up houses since the mid-1990s then leaving them empty. A few residents are refusing to move, holding out against the council, which begins negotiations with low offers. These homeowners believe they should be paid enough not only to buy a new house but to compensate for the years of dereliction, stagnation and decline, and crime, fires, vandalism, even murders which have despoiled the area. Their resentment is compounded by the fact that they are being forced to move so that Liverpool, and their relatively new US owner, Fenway Sports Group, can make more money.
On Lothair Road, which backs on to the Anfield Main Stand, one man who lived next door to a house Liverpool own and have left empty, shuttered – "tinned up" as the locals call it – shook his head. "I'm not moving out," he told the Guardian, "I've been driven out."
Residents' bitterness derives from when the club started buying houses in Lothair Road, without saying they were doing so or making their intentions clear. The club used an agency to approach some residents, while some houses were bought by third parties then sold on quickly to the club. That left residents with the belief, which has endured ever since, that Liverpool were buying up houses by stealth, to keep prices low.
The club have never publicly explained in detail what they did, and declined to answer the Guardian's questions about their historic behaviour and current plans. Neighbours, many of whom have lived in Anfield for decades, remembering a vibrant, flourishing area, believe Liverpool bought and left houses empty to deliberately blight the area, intending it would prompt people to leave and drive house prices down.
Howard Macpherson, now 52, was the first to sell his house on Lothair Road to the club, in 1996. He had lived there, at No 39, a four-bedroom end terrace, for 10 years. Macpherson says it was a fine home, which he had spent money refurbishing, but after Liverpool bought it they always left it empty – now for 17 years.
"Anfield was a good area, all the houses occupied, nothing like it is today," says Macpherson, who runs a garage, Aintree Motors. "The area started to decline in the early 1990s with the city's economic problems. But Liverpool football club accelerated the decline, by leaving good houses empty and boarded up. It wasn't a natural decline; it was engineered."
The involvement in the process of a notorious solicitor, Kevin Dooley, acting for the club, did not encourage confidence. Dooley, who acted for several Liverpool players and the convicted drug baron Curtis Warren as well as the club before he died in 2004, was struck off by the Law Society in 2002 after it found him guilty of being involved in fraudulent purported bank schemes.
Liverpool were motivated to buy neighbouring houses by a fear of losing pre-eminence in English football after their mighty playing success and financial dominance of the 1970s and 80s. The club felt bruised by having been delayed in building the new Centenary Stand because of two elderly sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, who refused to leave their house at No 26 Kemlyn Road, until November 1990. Manchester United entered the super-commercialised Premier League era by floating on the stock market in 1991, raising £6.7m to seat the Stretford End, and with Old Trafford's ceaseless, lucrative expansion and Sir Alex Ferguson's team-building, Liverpool fell behind United's money-making capacity.
The club turned their attention to expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, although they did not announce this intention or discuss it openly with residents. The Main Stand backs tightly on to the terraced row of odd numbers on Lothair Road. Liverpool began buying houses in 1996, mostly leaving them empty. Land Registry records reveal that between January 1996 and March 2000, Liverpool bought 10 houses on Lothair Road.
Most were on the odd side, closest to the Main Stand: Nos 1, 3, 7, 9, 15, 33, 35 and Macpherson's No 39. In March 1999 Liverpool made their first purchase across the road, on the even side, No 16. That row is not needed for a bigger Main Stand itself, but the residents, and those in the row behind on Alroy Road, would have their right to light blocked by it, a major obstacle to planning permission. In March 2000 Liverpool bought No 10 Lothair Road. That house, like most Liverpool bought, was never again occupied, has been empty for 13 years and is "tinned up".
Liverpool also bought houses on Anfield Road: grander Victorian piles with front gardens, backing on to Stanley Park; almost the whole row opposite the stand, Shankly gates and Hillsborough memorial: 51, 53, 55, 61, 63, 69 and 71. These houses were also left mostly empty and allowed to fall into disrepair.
With houses empty and demand for them falling in a city struggling to recover from its 1980s economic decimation, the Anfield area collapsed into dramatic decline. Alongside Liverpool football club, family homes and private landlords, the main other property owner was Your Housing, a large group of housing associations, then called Arena. It also began to leave properties "tinned up" – 265 were empty in the wider Anfield area by 2011. Residents complain that as the area was blighted, problem tenants moved in, bringing crime and antisocial behaviour.
Liverpool's secret plan to get houses knocked down and expand the stadium, which the residents had suspected from the beginning, was exposed by a local free newspaper in September 1999. The club, with the council and Arena, had produced Anfield Plus, a plan to demolish both rows of houses on Lothair Road, the one on Alroy Road backing on to Lothair, and those on Anfield Road, for two enlarged stands. In the wider area, 1,800 properties were designated for demolition. A food, drink and retail area was planned on a cleared corner across from the Kop and Centenary Stand. New social housing, shops, a supermarket and community centre were also envisaged.
Shock at such a plan being conceived without discussion with residents produced an outcry. The council did not support the plan with compulsory purchase threats but instead embarked on a consultation process. Rick Parry, Liverpool's then chief executive, acknowledged the club were seeking a bigger Anfield to compete financially with Manchester United, but said nevertheless: "I believe we can also work much better with the community, be a good neighbour."
In the intense, often fraught discussions with residents, some progress was slowly made. New homes were built or renovated, including the Skerries Road terrace, behind Kemlyn Road, which Liverpool had previously bought up and left blighted. Two health centres have been built and the new Four Oaks primary school and North Liverpool Academy. Yet Lothair Road, Alroy and Anfield Road, on which the club had set their sights, were left to rot.
While the Premier League, its club owners, players, managers and agents were growing rich on pay-TV millions, right around one of its most revered clubs there was squalor and horror. The many empty houses were vandalised, robbed, stripped, set on fire. People living next door to Liverpool's tinned-up houses told the club they feared waking up in the night to find them ablaze. Still, the club did not put tenants in them. Some people began to move out, their houses' value having tumbled, but many good people stayed, determined not to be forced out.
Liverpool's switch to a plan for a wholly new stadium on Stanley Park came partly out of the post-Anfield Plus community consultation. In one meeting, Parry looked at a map and was struck by how hemmed in by houses the ground would still be, even if expanded. Yet even as the plans developed over years, many residents did not believe Liverpool would ever build a new stadium. Partly this was because even after all the outcry over Anfield Plus, Liverpool still bought houses on Lothair Road, including No10.
In October 1999, 33 Lothair Road, owned by Liverpool and unoccupied, was set on fire, filling the house of the elderly couple who lived next door with smoke and soot. Residents say that three people were killed, set alight, in a horrific incident, in a house further along Lothair Road. A woman reported to be renting on Lothair Road who worked as a prostitute was murdered, in 2001.
A Lothair Road resident, who did not want to be named because he is in negotiations with the council to finally leave, recalled his elderly father going out to fill a coal bucket from the old-fashioned scuttle under the front steps. Two tenants who had moved in across the road threw a brick at his father's head. The resident went across the road, banged on both doors, and roared at them to come out, which they did not.
"These are some of the drastic things we've had to do," he said, talking on his doorstep. "I brought three children up here. If Liverpool had been honest from the beginning, said they wanted our houses to expand their ground, we're realistic, we know they're a huge football club, most of us support them, deals could have been done. Instead they were underhand, blighted the area and we've had to live like this for years."
The sorry saga of how the new stadium plans turned to dust was played out in public, while residents suffered stagnation and wreckage. The club had continued to buy houses on Anfield Road: No 65 in 2001, 47, 49 and 67 in 2007. Parry and the then majority shareholder, David Moores, believed they needed rich owners to stand behind the borrowing required for a new stadium, which could have been built in the early 2000s for perhaps £140m. It took years before finally in 2007 they sold the club for £179m to the Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Moores personally made £89m.
Hicks famously promised "a spade in the ground" and work to begin on the new stadium in 60 days, but he and Gillett had borrowed the money to buy the club and were planning to borrow for the stadium too, then could not. Under pressure from Royal Bank of Scotland, in October 2010 Hicks and Gillett were forced by court order to sell the club, John Henry's FSG paying the £200m price of the RBS debt.
FSG, which renovated the Boston Red Sox stadium, Fenway Park, rather than build a new one, suggested from the beginning it might scrap the new stadium plan as too expensive. In October, Liverpool's managing director, Ian Ayre, confirmed that, describing the intention to go back to expanding Anfield as "a great leap forward".
FSG's current plan envisages expanding the Main and Anfield Road stands, with both sides of Lothair Road, and one side of Alroy Road, demolished. A hotel is proposed behind the enlarged Main Stand on the footprint of Lothair Road's even side and Alroy, because a commercial property does not have the same right to light as homes. A development, probably bars and restaurants, with training promised for young people, is proposed opposite the corner of the Kop and Centenary Stand. With Liverpool having purchased a whole row on Anfield Road, they have already knocked those houses down, so there is no obstacle to enlarging that stand.
This FSG plan, then, is strikingly similar to Anfield Plus, which was worked up in 1999, then put on hold for 13 years in favour of the new stadium proposal.
Ruth Little, of the Anfield and Breckfield community council, says: "After people suffered so much, from the football club and Your Housing leaving properties empty and blighting the area, when they went back to the original plan I did wonder what the last 12 years of consultation have been for.
"A lot of good work has been done, though, much of it by local people volunteering. At least we have some certainty now, and we have to make sure that the people who are left are treated with respect."
Reports on that are mixed. While many homeowners have sold their houses over the years for little, the council's final offers now are more generous. Some residents have settled for around £80,000, more than the houses would have fetched on the market in such blighted conditions, and the council is also providing interest-free loans. This enables those who own their own homes to buy another similar house without taking on a new mortgage.
However, several people accuse the council, which is negotiating via agents, of starting with low offers, forcing people in difficult circumstances to negotiate hard or be seriously disadvantaged.
Bill Higham, who owns 25 Alroy Road, says he was offered £55,000, which he refused outright, for a house he has had to refurbish twice after it was seriously vandalised.
"I find it disgraceful," he says. "After the way the area has been run down, I'm being forced out and they want the properties for a song. They could pay everybody up, properly, for less than one Liverpool player's wage."
Bill McGarry, vice-chair of the Anfield Rockfield Triangle residents' association, a qualified town planner, has helped some residents negotiate with the council. Patrick Duggan, chair of Artra, is an ardent critic of the club, whom he vehemently accuses of running the area down. Duggan runs Epstein House, a refurbished hotel in the old Anfield Road family home of the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein. Duggan bought it for £450,000, partly, he says, because Liverpool were building a new stadium which would regenerate the area. He has been shocked instead to find the area's degradation, then felt betrayed when FSG scrapped the new stadium plan.
"I have always been a Liverpool fan," says Duggan, who has mounted a campaign targeting Ayre. "They play 'You'll Never Walk Alone' but they have left their neighbours to walk alone for years."
Paddy McKay, 58, a builder who has lived for 37 years on Walton Breck Road, is refusing to accept the council's offer. He and his wife Carol brought up three daughters there; he has paid his mortgage off in full and argues that, if he is forced to move, he should be paid enough to buy a similar house somewhere decent and compensation for the years of blight. Even now, antisocial behaviour is continuing on those streets, including house fires.
"Liverpool FC have said they want to be good neighbours? They're the world's worst neighbours; they couldn't care less," McKay says. "After all the damage they have done to the area, they should do the decent thing by the residents."
James McKenna, chair of the Spirit of Shankly supporters' union, says the fans have sympathy for the club's neighbours. "The stadium expansion is all about the club making more money, and fans will have to pay more for tickets," McKenna says. "To do that, Liverpool have played a part in derelict houses, streets boarded up. It's a blot on LFC's record."
A council spokesman declined to discuss details of the house-buying process. "Since last autumn we have been developing a robust set of plans for the area which are absolutely on track," he said. "This will include working with the local community on a blueprint for the wider regeneration of Anfield."
Brian Cronin, chief executive of Your Housing, defended his organisation's property stewardship in the area and said the group has invested more than £23m in refurbishments or new homes around Anfield since 2009. Your Housing has 22 properties on Lothair, Alroy and Sybil Roads behind the Main Stand, of which 12 "are long-term vacant". Cronin said: "We are currently working very closely with Liverpool city council and other partners in Anfield to establish the best long-term future for these properties as part of the wider regeneration of the area."
Liverpool declined to comment but last month Ayre updated the Liverpool Daily Post, saying: "To extend Anfield, we need to acquire a bunch of privately owned property around the stadium. We're making really good progress with that. We said some months back it would take several months to improve that property acquisition situation. We're definitely on target so far."
Once the properties are bought, Ayre said, the club will apply for planning permission. After that, the third challenge is to "build the thing".
He told the Guardian in October that an expanded Anfield with a 60,000 capacity will not allow cheaper tickets; its aim is to make more money. Liverpool have employed PricewaterhouseCoopers to survey fans, and corporate customers, to help plan price brackets for the new facilities.
Some fans wonder if FSG, which is quite remote as owner, with Henry hardly in Liverpool and progress slow and costly, may sell the club, particularly once planning permission has been secured. FSG and Henry have not said that is a possibility. The stated plan is to expand the ground and enable Liverpool to compete again by making more money, so attracting better players by offering them huge wages on a par with the other top clubs.
Liverpool's remaining neighbours, suffering some of Britain's worst living conditions, are grappling with hardball offers, to have their houses knocked down and make way for it all. In the Premier League of the 21st century, this is Anfield.
I'm not specifically targeting Liverpool or any other club. I just want to prove that it is nonsense to consider football clubs as "good" or "bad".
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Aboutreika18
Too Black, Too Strong
- 5 September 2006
If anyone is guilty of this labelling "good" or "bad" nonsense, it's you gerd, given how you fawn over Barca all the time but consistently post derisory comments about Real Madrid, for example.
Like I've said in the past on here, football's almost a soap opera at the end of the day. It's your own fault if you take it too seriously.
Like I've said in the past on here, football's almost a soap opera at the end of the day. It's your own fault if you take it too seriously.
BobbyBox
WING NUT!
- 10 October 2003
- Arsenal
I don't know why Man City and Chelsea fans try and defend it, just accept it and move on.
You can look at average transfer spend each season from the start of the Premierleague and net spend since the start of the prem league.
Scroll down on this page and you can see it here http://transferleague.co.uk/
Arsenal are 14th in that table and Chelsea and Man City are 1st and second.
Arsenal since the start of the Prem league have a whole net spend of around 30mill. Chelsea has 592mil and Man City 481mil.
Our average spend every season is around 1.5mil and Chelsea's is 28mil and Man City 22Mill since the prem started.
Now why don't you just say we you don't care we are winning things, trying to justify what Chelsea MAn city are doing to Arsenal is just stupid imo.
It's even more stupid as Chelsea spend has really only been in the last 11years say and Man City in the last 5 years maximum.
I would also like to know Godotelli who was this mysterious man that came in and gave us a huge injection of cash in the 90's. I don't know about him either?
I know of the families that have handed it down from generation to generation that made up our board Dein and Fizman coming in in the 80's and a few other randoms, but not any that put in ridiculous amounts of money for transfers, for us to outbid everybody and be any better of than other clubs around us.
I don't think you can compare Arsenal in the 90's and early 2000's to what Chelsea and Man City did at all.
The Beveren thing, I doubt Beveren were forced to sign up with Arsenal? and it was the decision of Beveren to do what they did and didn't plan well and made bad business decisions. Arsenal were a part of it, but I assume it can't all be put on Arsenal that the club collapsed?
You can look at average transfer spend each season from the start of the Premierleague and net spend since the start of the prem league.
Scroll down on this page and you can see it here http://transferleague.co.uk/
Arsenal are 14th in that table and Chelsea and Man City are 1st and second.
Arsenal since the start of the Prem league have a whole net spend of around 30mill. Chelsea has 592mil and Man City 481mil.
Our average spend every season is around 1.5mil and Chelsea's is 28mil and Man City 22Mill since the prem started.
Now why don't you just say we you don't care we are winning things, trying to justify what Chelsea MAn city are doing to Arsenal is just stupid imo.
It's even more stupid as Chelsea spend has really only been in the last 11years say and Man City in the last 5 years maximum.
I would also like to know Godotelli who was this mysterious man that came in and gave us a huge injection of cash in the 90's. I don't know about him either?
I know of the families that have handed it down from generation to generation that made up our board Dein and Fizman coming in in the 80's and a few other randoms, but not any that put in ridiculous amounts of money for transfers, for us to outbid everybody and be any better of than other clubs around us.
I don't think you can compare Arsenal in the 90's and early 2000's to what Chelsea and Man City did at all.
The Beveren thing, I doubt Beveren were forced to sign up with Arsenal? and it was the decision of Beveren to do what they did and didn't plan well and made bad business decisions. Arsenal were a part of it, but I assume it can't all be put on Arsenal that the club collapsed?
cfdh_edmundo
Maverick
- 30 December 2002
Sir Henry Norris... 1890s
Ironically now you have a chairman who bleeds the club dry for his own wealth...
BobbyBox
WING NUT!
- 10 October 2003
- Arsenal
Sir Henry Norris... 1890s
[/quote]
Hardly
He invested in a business where he makes money, like most investors and runs it like a business which all clubs should do for their own financial stability and health.
cfdh_edmundo
Maverick
- 30 December 2002
It looks more like he's creaming off the profits for himself. If he invested some of the money from the big player sales (or the commercial revenue) you might have a better squad, or more crucially, you might have been able to convince players that Arsenal were genuine contenders rather than a selling club. He is simply managing the decline of the football club, and he is doing it at such a level that soon Arsenal won't be able to command the commercial revenue they did 5-10 years ago and he'll be left with a decline on his investment.
bebo
Looking for a Manager
That is a fair comment, although he wasn't a bloke that just walked in. He didn't come from the back door wearing sunglasses n a long coat. He was part of the Arsenal's investors / board member . I agree the labour of his work has not been fruitful in trophies. The Mutds' are too strong of a force that must not be over looked . Arsenal should of gotten 2 trophies in the smaller title cups. It's hard to see Pompey, Brummies and Swanese getting trophies while we didn't . I won't blame owners for that
BobbyBox
WING NUT!
- 10 October 2003
- Arsenal
But is he investing less than what the previous shareholders did in transfers?
over the last couple of years he has invested I think nearly all of the money we received from sales to buying players.
I agree we can spend more from the commercial side and by all accounts it sounds like we are going to do that from now on. The stadium hampered this and we were stuck in commercial deals/sponsorships that were very low (Not Kroenkes fault). Now we have negotiated much better deals and they have said this money will be more available for player purchases.
Hopefully what they say is true.
Apart from high ticket prices (Which is bad, don't get me wrong) and him not saying much (which I don't really think is a problem at all) I don't see too much wrong with him.
cfdh_edmundo
Maverick
- 30 December 2002
I just get the impression he is happy for Arsenal to become a second rate club. Arsenal used to be a club of stature look at some of the signings way before Kronke, players like Bergkamp, one of the best midfielders at the 1994 World Cup, Overmars who had won the CL with Ajax 2 years earlier, Platt who had won trophies with Juventus and Sampdoria in the early 1990s (when Serie A was unquestionably the best league in Europe). There have been no signings like that under Kroenke, couldn't Arsenal have gone in for a player like Reus or Mandzukic (£15m and £10m last summer), how come Spurs managed to get Lloris (£10m) last summer yet Arsenal have long had the best connections with clubs in the French league (maybe Newcastle do now)? Arsenal have a bigger wage bill than Dortmund, Bayern and probably Spurs, they generate more commercially than those 3, yet they cannot compete with them, that to me suggests something is wrong at a high level within the club.
BobbyBox
WING NUT!
- 10 October 2003
- Arsenal
But at the time we bought our best players, the prices were pretty stable across the board so we could compete for those players.
We still missed out on hundreds of good buys then that other clubs brought instead of us, it's just that we bought better quality then as we could compete for it.
As football has progressed so has scouting for all teams, the level of this has increased throughout the league/world, so competition and finding bargains is harder.
Now the better players we are priced out of getting, when we usually could have at least competed for them.
The wages is something they are correcting but I agree it is not great, but we relied on promising young players that didn't meet their potential for us and it was a gamble that failed. But it seems like since Kroenke has taken more control, this is being looked at and improved. When we finally ship out those players, I'm sure they will think more carefully about it.
We can't compete with Spurs, that is news to me?
Dortmund and Bayern maybe not, but its hard to tell in different leagues and not playing against them as much.
Anyway I'm not saying it is brilliant but it is definitely not as bad as has been suggested and I really don't think it is Kroenks fault, he seems to be trying to correct things more than anything.
gerd
Retired Footballer
That is a litle bit harsh don't you think. I confess that i don't really like Real Madrid and that is highly subjective and not "correct". I don't know what "fawn" means exactly, but reading your post, i have an idea. I'm far less a fanboy of Barcelona than you think, but it's true that i like this current team...
So i am the first to admit that i'm very subjective. It strikes me as very odd that i should be almost scientifically objective whereas other people can be biased. Take you for example. You attack me in this thread but also read the piece about Liverpool in this thread and you saw a fantastic opportunity to annoy your Liverpool friends...that is hardly very objective...
Sometimes we all act like male pigs... so do i...unfortunately.
Lately i have had a few personal clashes on evo-web, possibly i'm to blame for it...i have nothing against you although i have a feeling that for some reason you don't like my posts. A couple of months ago you suggested to put me on you ignore list after a discussion where i was wrong. I apologised myself on that occassion but you never reacted to that, so i assumed i was on your ignore list. I remember writing you that i don't want a big conflict with a person i have never seen in person. I would like to keep it like that so i will try to explain myself about the good and the bad clubs.
I don't care about good and bad clubs. I don't even care that much for favourite teams, i consider myself a Genk fan and a Spurs fan but there are lots of clubs i like. The average fan will consider me a turncoat or a glory hunter (Spurs ???). I prefer football to football clubs.
Above all i want fair competition or a competition as fair as possible. Not because i want ot become moral, but because i want to entertained and to me entertainment is about surprises. Nowadays there is no fair competition. People point to the sugar daddy clubs because they supposedly ruïned football. I'm 51 years old and i follow footbal for more than 40 years. I hear people say football is ruïned for more than 40 years now...it's all about money was already a complaint in 1970...
Nevertheless IMHO (note the H) i saw a fundamental change in the 90's with the EPL, Sky and the television money all over Europe. The big clubs (the G14) started to build a glass ceiling. They regulated football in a way that (they presumed) it would not possible for outsiders to break into that elite club and thus be succesfull. Of course they were wrong: in came Abramovich and after him Mansour and others and they replaced the glass ceiling with another (higher) glass ceiling and suddenly clubs (and their fans) who were traditionally among the big clubs started to cry wolf...IMO that is very biased. What Chelsea, City, PSG and others did was a reaction to the kartel that was formed by the G14. Those clubs are not innocent.
About Real Madrid, i never said that they are a 'bad' club. I don't like them because what they did was IMO not fair. Real Madrid were on the verge of bankruptancy and what happened ? The communidad Madrileno bought their infrastructure (not only the Bernabeu but all the training grounds and all the rest and this i nthe centre of a European capital) and they allowed Real Madrid to use it all for free...With the billions they got from that operation they build the galactico squads...for some reason i don't like that. I know i'm extremely biased (but not always, read my posts after the second leg against Dortmund, i think i'm trying to be objective) but do you really think that i'm the only one who doesn't like what happened in Madrid ? I don't think so. And do you really think all the people that think like me are extremely biased ? I doubt it. Are Real Madrid a bad club ? No. Are they unfair ? IMO they are extremely unfair, much more unfair than the much maligned sugar daddy clubs....
Some Barcelona "fanboys" like me might also say that Man Utd fans don't like Barcelona becauwe that club overclassed them twice in a CL of because Cr. Ronaldo went to barcelona's big rival and since for some people football is about rivalry... But i admit that that would be cheap...maybe as cheap as saying that somebody "fawns" over Barcelona ? Who will say it ??? Not me, not you.
Beach is ranting about Abramovich and the way he earned his money. He's right. But what about the great Deportiva La Coruna team that was funded by drugs money ? And Jesus Gil y Gil, do you think he got his money in a fair way ? Berlusconi ? The Glazers ? Why only complain about the sugar daddy clubs ?
Hence my long rants...
I'm sorry for this one. It's just a response to a post that was a litle bit harsh on me. I have a feeling you single me out now and then...i consider it a litle bit unfair but it would not be the first time i would be wrong.
Curreently i'm a litle bit tired of aggro with other people on this site (which i enjoy huguely), so if i do something wrong, please tell me what but maybe you could try to do that in a gentle way.
Take care and no hard feelings.
PS: this long post may prove your pointthat i take football too seriously, but i think you do too, otherwise you wouldn't have posted your previous post and attacked me.
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For the record, I think Gerd is right about trying to tie moral ribbons around football clubs - especially today.
I've no idea about the Beveren situation, though having a feeder club in countries where it easier to get work permits is pretty commonplace for all big clubs in England, I think. Anyway, doesn't really matter.
I don't even want to get into where owners get the personal fortunes from (though if my club was run by violent drug dealers, I like to think I'd be turned off).
My whole issue with the whole sugar-daddy thing is just the sheer magnitude of it in recent years. I mean look at those figures above. The team currently around 4th place is competing with the teams in 2nd and 3rd. They have literally spent less than a 10th.
In the US most people frown a bit about baseball being 'unfair' because the Yankees (and now Red Sox) frequently 'but out' their salary cap so they can spend more than other teams. At it's absolute worse, the Yankees were spending almost 2x as much on their team as the 'poorest' club in the league. And that was frowned upon.
City's wage bill will likely be somewhere around 7-8x that of Reading, possibly even higher. Chelsea's will be similar. And that's not one off spending, that's structural losses, every year.
That makes a mockery of a 'league' to me. That's my issue with it.
The premier league (and la liga, and now ligue un) are more unequal than they've ever been. And while it's easy to say I shouldn't get a voice because I support a team at the top - United were never that far 'ahead' of other teams, even a decade ago. In fact, Chelsea actually had a higher wage bill than United and Arsenal before Abramovich took over, and LFC had the highest wages in the late 90's.
I've been trying to just ignore finances and get on with following the league for years now, but it still doesn't sit right with me. Some of my friends are great at it - just watch the players on the pitch and forget about what they cost - but I just find the whole thing massively flawed.
I've no idea about the Beveren situation, though having a feeder club in countries where it easier to get work permits is pretty commonplace for all big clubs in England, I think. Anyway, doesn't really matter.
I don't even want to get into where owners get the personal fortunes from (though if my club was run by violent drug dealers, I like to think I'd be turned off).
My whole issue with the whole sugar-daddy thing is just the sheer magnitude of it in recent years. I mean look at those figures above. The team currently around 4th place is competing with the teams in 2nd and 3rd. They have literally spent less than a 10th.
In the US most people frown a bit about baseball being 'unfair' because the Yankees (and now Red Sox) frequently 'but out' their salary cap so they can spend more than other teams. At it's absolute worse, the Yankees were spending almost 2x as much on their team as the 'poorest' club in the league. And that was frowned upon.
City's wage bill will likely be somewhere around 7-8x that of Reading, possibly even higher. Chelsea's will be similar. And that's not one off spending, that's structural losses, every year.
That makes a mockery of a 'league' to me. That's my issue with it.
The premier league (and la liga, and now ligue un) are more unequal than they've ever been. And while it's easy to say I shouldn't get a voice because I support a team at the top - United were never that far 'ahead' of other teams, even a decade ago. In fact, Chelsea actually had a higher wage bill than United and Arsenal before Abramovich took over, and LFC had the highest wages in the late 90's.
I've been trying to just ignore finances and get on with following the league for years now, but it still doesn't sit right with me. Some of my friends are great at it - just watch the players on the pitch and forget about what they cost - but I just find the whole thing massively flawed.