New England Sports Ventures? Sooner the better at Liverpool
Should we read that as a threat? That’s certainly how it seems to me and emphasises how well rid Liverpool are of those particular American owners.
But there are further lessons to learn from the embarrassment and farce of the last week.
It’s time the whole of English football woke up to the threat posed by the growing army of foreigners reaching into the game in search of a fast buck.
I only wish the FA and the Premier League were alert to the dangers but their record is alarming: Shinawatra? The Glazers?
Unfortunately, a cult of greed permeates English football, most certainly at the top level. Think back to that ludicrous proposal by Richard Scudamore about a ‘39th game’. It was about making even more money, extending the ‘brand’ around the globe – and wholly against the interests of English football fans.
Money? Ask yourselves what possible beneficial motive (to the club that is) would have been behind the counter-bid of Mr Lim from Singapore, assuming, that is, he was other than a stalking horse at the behest of Hicks and Gillett.
What ‘Liverpool’ interest could be in the mind of a man behind a chain of ‘Manchester United theme bars’ in the Far East? I’m amazed the Liverpool board even bothered talking to him.
We could learn so much from the Germans and not just in their development and nurturing of young players. The Bundesliga has a so-called ‘50 + 1 rule’ that means fans control voting rights within their clubs and can prevent foreign ‘investors’ moving in.
It may mean they struggle to compete at the highest levels with their counterparts in England, Italy and Spain but, overwhelmingly, Germans fans are, subsequently, far happier with the way their game is run, especially in the way ticket prices are kept down.
Liverpool supporters are, of course, delighted the ownership has changed though that’s mostly because they wanted anyone bar Hicks and Gillett.
They’ll have enjoyed the cautious early noises emanating from Henry. He’ll be ultra careful to first ‘listen’ and, above all, not make promises he can’t or won’t keep.
But those fans must remain sceptical until they see what changes and they should heed the fact that Henry raised admission charges at the Boston Red Sox to the extent that Fenway Park is now amongst the most expensive sports’ venues in the United States.
Above everything else, they’ll want to see an improvement, a vast improvement, on the pitch. I had to be at Blackpool yesterday rather than Goodison Park so I am not well placed to judge whether or not Everton deserved to win the derby. The facts though are damning for Liverpool and particularly for Roy Hodgson.
Aside from the acute embarrassment of losing to lowly Northampton in the Carling Cup, that’s just one win in eight Premier League games. In the bottom three? It’s wholly unacceptable.
I thought Hodgson would be a safe pair of hands. I was wrong. Things are getting worse and not better under him. He’s fortunate in that the new owners won’t countenance an immediate change of manager. I would and maybe soon they may have to.
