Anfield and Kirkby

To me it is, to you it is not and you can ridicule as much as you want, I know the pattern and should have known better before engaging myself in a conversation with you. Will not happen again.

Have a nice day.

Why the fuck isnā€™t John paying for part of my house extension FFS. Iā€™m a Red - thought we were family John. Greedy cunt.

I agree with you - not on FSG to dip their own hands in their pockets. Last time I checked, thatā€™s not how legitimate businesses operate.

Chill out mate, im not ridiculing you.

The point im trying to make is if you expect the owners to pay for improvements to the club infrastructure themselves then where do you draw the line?

And more importantly, why do you expect them to pay for it themselves when in no other walk of life would we expect an owner to finance things like infrastructure improvements from their own pocket. But as itā€™s a football club we expect the owners to fork out nearly a quarter of a billion quid to bring things up to scratch. Dead easy to say when itā€™s not your Ā£250m.

If youā€™ve a good rationale then im open to discussion. But if you want to chuck a strop then by all means ignore me, no skin off my nose.

3 Likes

Fair enough, my data came from transfermarkt:

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/fc-liverpool/besucherzahlenentwicklung/verein/31

Just on this point, football is not like any other business though. The only way to make profit in football today is buying and reselling assets, whether they be players, or the club itself. Anytime thereā€™s an uptick in the stream of money into football, be it from broadcasting, or by increasing stadium capacity, or sponsorship deals etc. etc. thereā€™s an almost immediate corresponding increase in player salaries, transfer fees & agent fees. In response to this, we then see FIFA or UEFA trying to increase number of matches in certain competitions, which would generate more revenue, but again once that revenue stream stabilises, the beneficiaries are mainly the players who we all idolise and will say nothing against.

I sometimes think football club owners from all over the world should come together and found a system that is fair to the players, allows the club to actually make profits year on year without constant buying and selling of assets, and imposes a strict FFP structure thatā€™d completely neutralize any chance of state owned clubs taking advantage, but thats a pipe dream.

There was always a saying that the only way to make a small fortune in football is to start with a large fortune.

In fact it is possible to make a fortune in football as FSG has shown with the valuation of Liverpool but it is very difficult to make an operating profit.

Of course this only holds true as long as there are a steady stream of billionaires with money to burn.

1 Like

Sure, football isnā€™t like some ecomm retail business or an accountancy firm or your local sandwich shop but itā€™s not unique in terms of a sporting sense, it just happens to be the biggest of the sporting businesses.

And no one who owns the club is in it for the annual profits but 99% of them also arenā€™t in it so they have something to plough their own personal wealth into. But football clubs can and do make a profit. Our last accounts saw us report a Ā£7.5m profit. Not a huge return given the revenue but not bad for a self sustaining club.

But that isnā€™t the point. The point is no Leicester Tigers fan thought Peter Tom, the owner of the club, should pay for their latest stand redevelopment out his own pocket so that there was more money to pay higher wages to attract better talent.

Spurs and Arsenal built stadiums at huge costs but no one realistically thought that their owners should pay for those themselves. Henry might be worth $4bn on paper but heā€™s not going to have that in the bank and heā€™s sure as shit not going to spend Ā£250m of it as a gift to what is, to him at least, one of his many business interests. Why would he?

1 Like

At the end of the day FSG will get millions and millions more when they sell because of the improved infrastructure and they let the club pay for it. Money that could gone in the squad, lower prices ect, ect and a large part of this basically (extreme)left wing forum is fine with it and say they are ā€˜greatā€™ owners.

They employ some great spin doctors Iā€™ll tell you that. :+1:

Yes, when they sell us they will make loads of money.

But they bought us for Ā£300m and the club is now valued at more than Ā£3bn. That isnā€™t because of two new stands and a new training ground.

The reason most rationale people think they are decent owners is because thereā€™s a load of ways they could have gone about the purchase, investment and growth of the club that would have been detrimental. Ask United if theyā€™d swap owners? Or Newcastle before the Saudis? Or Spurs fans.

As for the ā€˜extreme left wingā€™ and ā€˜spin doctorā€™ jibesā€™ Iā€™m not sure thatā€™s needed. With or without paying for stands and training grounds out their own pockets, the value of the club would have skyrocketed and theyā€™ll make a fortune when they come to sell it.

But the fans will be sitting in those seats long after these owners are gone. That training ground will be producing talent for the team for years to come. Itā€™s not exactly some heinous crime against socialist values to think the club paying for those things is pretty normal.

3 Likes

:rofl:

2 Likes

First off, the owners infrastructure-wise, have gone above and beyond after decades of neglect.

Second, if you believe that this is an extreme left wing forum, Iā€™ve got a bridge to sell you.

1 Like

no, itā€™s just logic. if all tickets are sold, then all seats are spoken for. you cannot sell the same seat twice, this isnā€™t an airline.

Yeah I suppose Iā€™m alluding to that club consistently being ā€˜sold outā€™ with swathes of empty seats because the tix were ā€˜soldā€™ with no intention of being occupied but just to fix the books

letā€™s pretend FSG have bought a farm. they have some corn planted, they have cows for milk and chickens for eggs and goats and such.

They bought the farm for $1,000,000, 20 years ago. First year, their revenue stream through the sale of their wares is $100,000. their cost of operating the farm is $95,000. Every year (with inflation), their revenue increases slightly as does their costs. On occasion they have to spend extra money on barn repairs or a new tractor which means they operate on a loss for a year, or may even have to take out a loan if their crop fails and they donā€™t have enough money to pay their bills.

so 20 years later, their farm is now worth $10,000,000. But the farmers, theyā€™re not planning on selling their business as itā€™s their livelihood. Theyā€™re still only making a few thousand in profit every year but the farm operates on a small profit on average, annually.

If you were one of the farmā€™s customers, would you really have the balls to tell the farmā€™s owners they should lower the price of their products because their farm is worth so much money?

1 Like

sure, I guess that logic applies if you really want to spin it that way.

1 Like

Thanks for playing but I will do nothing with it since it has noting to do what I was writing.

Yes I know, you disagree.

So only making a few k profit on 1m 20 years ago and now still only making a few k profit but worth 10 times as much? That would tell me that the value is certainly not based on the current management and probably not on its business usage but rather just the land. Otherwise a customer (or more aptly a banker, investor or competitor) could deduce that they are fairly poor custodians. And football fans in this analogy are more akin to investors as they donā€™t simply want the ā€˜productā€™ and to consume a ā€˜good matchā€™ and then get their next match from whatever team tickles their fancy but rather are invested in the long term outcome of the farm that it survives and thrives as well as producing nice products.

1 Like

youā€™re assuming that farming is a wildly profitable business. Land values have increased exponentially across the world in 20 years. as an example, I had a bid for this house accepted in 2003 for $218,000. itā€™s now for sale again. $1.4mil

https://www.realtor.ca/real-estate/25628315/22332-124-avenue-maple-ridge

Iā€™m not. Iā€™m working with your analogy. Alrhough, at least in Oz, farming can be very profitable.