Sugar daddies and the Yankee dollar - Part II

Part one of this blog explored the ownership styles of three Premier League clubs (Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City). All slightly different, and now part two looks at three more, how they came to be under such rule, and perhaps a peek into the future.

Liverpool - John W. Henry

Anfield was in turmoil. Owned by the two characters from the Muppets who booed everything from the director box, slipping down the league, and seemingly further back than they were when Hicks and Gillett took over. Henry (and his Fenway Sports Group) bought the club in late 2010, and quickly identified the one thing that would get him onside with the club's fans - put Kenny Dalglish in charge. Woy Hodgson did well with Fulham, but signings like Joe Cole, Paul Konchesky and Christian Poulsen just weren't good enough.

Since then, Henry has overseen a rise in morale at the club, with Dalglish still in a year long honeymoon period. Throwing money at players like Downing, Henderson and Carroll hints at a strategy more like the cast of Byker Grove, but a new kit deal (around £25m a year) and talk of a new ground being back on the agenda, perhaps long term they are in comfortable hands.

Liverpool's former owners appeal for handball

Manchester United - Malcolm Glazer

Before Liverpool, before Arsenal, Manchester United were owned by an American sports mogul. Malcolm Glazer owned the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (NFL) and completed his takeover of Manchester United in 2005. Using an unpopular method of purchasing the club using it's own shares as collateral, amazingly the club has continued to win trophies. The sale of Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m has effectively funded the transfer dealings since, and it's highly likely that under any other manager, the club would have struggled. Up-and-coming youngsters Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes continue to lead the way.

In spite of the on-field success, the club's fans have continued to protest at the owners, with scarves, not renewing season tickets, and even setting up a rival club (not Man City, but FC United of Manchester). Rumours of an Arab/Far East sale rumble on, and surely Glazer knows that without him, the overall value of the club will plummet. Alas Glazer didn't announce his impeding takeover like Michael Knighton did in 1989, playing keepy-uppy in front of the fans in full kit. Berk.

Norwich fans rebel against Delia

Newcastle United - Mike Ashley

Ashley owns Sports Direct, the sportswear shops that make JD Sports look like Harrods. Amazingly he made so much money, he treated himself to Newcastle United, apparently without even looking at the accounts. Initially seen as just a fan with money, he was seen in the away end at Arsenal drinking a pint of lager, although he wasn't topless so perhaps not your typical Toon fan. By the end of the 2008/09 season, the club were relegated and seemingly in turmoil, after giving Alan Shearer eight games to keep them up. Shearer hadn't managed a game before, or since…

After replacing promotion winning Chris Hughton with Alan 'David Brent' Pardew, Ashley and his so-called Cockney Mafia of Dennis Wise and Derek Llambias have taken a back seat, and shrewd investment in players (mostly from France), and of course banking £35m for Andy Carroll, the club appear to be in a better position than they have been since the Bobby Robson days. Of course, the recent decision to rename St James' Park as the Sports Direct Arena has deservedly brought much criticism, so perhaps not all is rosy after all for the man who incidentally owns that house on Totteridge Lane with the most garish Xmas tree lights (his neighbours include Arsene Wenger and David Dein incidentally).

Even Ashley struggled to afford a balti pie at the Emirates

Perhaps these are not all the best examples of a sound investment with your lottery winnings. There have been worse run clubs in recent memory, Portsmouth, Leeds and Darlington being the most topical, but targetting the top clubs never hurts. Although Leeds' alleged contract talks with Seth Johnson deserves a blog in itself.

Sugar daddies and the Yankee dollar - Part I

Owning a football club is one of those pipe dreams for winning the pools, along with a toilet made out of solid gold and a King Ralph bowling alley in the shed. Even winning the pools is one of those things about the game that has almost vanished, almost worth a blog of it's own.

But what sort of football club owner would you be? In the first of a two-part blog, we look at three Premier League clubs, and how their main owners have got involved, and what will come next?

Arsenal - Stan Kroenke

'Silent' Stan is married to the daughter of the founder of Wal-Mart, and is well-known in America for owning various sports clubs. Now the majority shareholder in Arsenal, he has overseen a period where the club seem to be accruing money like it's going out of fashion. Of course he's used his own money to buy shares in the club, but with Arsene Wenger at the helm, does he need to invest anything in the team?

With a transfer kitty of over £50m available and gaining interest, the new ground being paid off, and new deals on the horizon, his investment is growing without real success on the pitch. The fans crave a trophy, but hey ho, surely UEFA will boot everyone else out and give the Champions League to the Gunners by default?

Stand up if you hate Tottenham

Chelsea - Roman Abramovich

Stamford Bridge had been poodling along for a while under the ownership of Papa Smurf, with such ideas as electrifying the perimeter fences to keep the fans from misbehaving... In 2003, present manager Claudio Ranieri suddenly was shown a massive bag of Russian money and new signings a-plenty. Of course he didn't last long, but the seed was sown. Millions spent, millions wasted.

League titles followed, but it seems that Mourinho, Scolari, Ancelotti etc will be followed out the revolving door by Villas Boas unless the Champions League trophy comes soon. The fact that they start with ten men whenever Torres is in the line up doesn't help. They have no chance when their sharpest shooter is Ashley Cole... Their aim to break even seems further away than ever.

Chelsea's new away kit, sponsored by Marks and Spencer

Manchester City - Sheikh Mansour

City were one of those clubs whose glory days seemed long ago. Within recent memory, they graced the third tier of English football, and it was a bad time to be neighbour to Manchester United. All was to being to change in 2007, when Thai Elvis impersonator (and corrupt politician etc) Thaksin Shinawatra bought the club. He only lasted a year before being substituted by Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour (and an awful lot of money).

So far, several million pounds have gone on some of Europe's finest, and $amir Na$ri. An FA Cup has come so far, and while they appear to have lost Carlos Tevez down the back of the sofa, at least they can afford to take a stance. Roberto Mancini's shoddy European record aside (another thing he brought from Italy), they are currently top of the league and no doubt will return for another crack at Europe next year. Unless Financial Fair Play comes out of nowhere... Of course their bench alone is worth more than most small countries, but as long as they keep loaning them out, everyone's happy!

Pull my finger or I'll sign Gareth Barry

Part Two will look at Manchester United and the glorious Glazers, Liverpool and their saviours (plus a look at Statler and Waldorf), and Newcastle's Mike Ashley's project, which seems to be unpopular yet promising.

Penalty shootouts - the only solution?

It's a lottery. The 'dreaded' penalty shootout. One of these keepers will be a hero. "Kevin, will Batty score this penalty?".

The cliches you associate with spot kicks deciding a game. It's painful to watch if you're involved, even if you're a neutral. They can decide in a couple of minutes something which could have required a dozen games with no outcome. In their early years, both the MLS and Japanese J-League used shootouts to resolve drawn league games, before seeing the error of their ways.

But, are there any better alternatives to penalties?

The silver/golden goal

More commonly associated with ice hockey, golden goals were brought in to reduce penalty shootouts - it was basically 'next goal wins'. It provided some big moments, the Euro 96 final was resolved by an Oliver Bierhoff golden goal. Due to teams trying to defend to force penalties anyway, the silver goal was introduced, where the team winning at half time in extra time would win. The Euro 2004 semi final was won by a silver goal scored by Greece. That also fell by the wayside, and back to penalries it was.

Golden goal wins Euro 2000 for France

Coin toss

A simple game of chance? Oh no. The humble coin toss was the ultimate choice when it came to resolving the 1968 European Championship semi final between the USSR and Italy - Italy won the toss, therefore the match after a 0-0 draw. Flipping the coin is used already for choosing ends, and of course who goes first in a penalty shootout. Until physical money is replaced, the option is always there. But does the era of legal wrangling mean the end to this pipe dream?

The Queen was not interfering with play

Reducing number of players

One idea bandied around whenever England lose a penalty shootout is the plan that once in extra time, each team should withdraw a player at regular intervals, reducing the number of players on the pitch, until a goal in scored. This does not help on occasions when commentators speculate "they could play all night and not score a goal", or of course when all the players are gone. Another hockey idea, maybe we could also bring in fighting to the death as well.

Arsenal were forced to play with Squillaci and Chamakh instead of no-one

Of course, if penalty shootouts were never invented, we'd have missed out on some of football's golden moments. John Terry's Moscow slip of 2008. Pearce's redemption in 1996. Grobbelaar's wobble in Rome in 1984.

And while strictly speaking not a shootout, we may have also been denied the greatest World Cup penalty miss of all time...

Ross scuffs it

The loan rangers

Today's first Premier League match awoke many a discussion, such as Harry's impending court case, or Manchester City's title aspirations... But it also raised the ugly head of the loan system, more so it's restrictions.

Emmanuel Adebayor is currently owned by Manchester City, and is on a season long loan at Spurs. Nothing wrong with that. Spurs needed a centre forward, and City wanted rid of him. He's done pretty well this season, and Tottenham were third before the game (they still are).

But because of the Premier League's restrictions, Adebayor was unable to play against his owning club. It's fine for him to play against City's rivals, but not City themselves? Are the FA that worried that he'll score an own goal or worse against his current team?

      

A tale of two cities

Spurs lost an excellent game 3-2, with several talking points, but as David Pleat writes in his Guardian column, they had to change their team accordingly, so it was not merely a case of putting another player in, but also altering from what had been a pretty successful system.

This blog isn't to completely criticise the loan system. It has proved the stepping stone to a great many careers, such as Beckham (played at Preston), Wilshere (Bolton) and Defoe (Bournemouth). It also seems to be the current fashion for MLS players to keep sharp in their pre-season, with this January seeing the arrivals of Thierry Henry, Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane.

 Looks weird doesn't it?

The loan system these days tends to be abused - newly rich clubs can sign lots of players to stop their rivals from signing them, then end up with surplus. Some shady deals involve loans too, such as Genoa signing Kevin Prince-Boateng in 2010, only to loan him straight to AC Milan.

Perhaps FIFA/UEFA/whoever could set some rules in stone, to ensure some consistency. Financial fair play, squad sizes etc are a start. Football truly is a squad game now.

But football is what football is. It's not going to be far away before national teams start loaning players!

Stand up, sit down - is terracing coming back?

Aston Villa have announced that they are exploring the prospect of safe standing areas. The Football Supporters' Federation have an ongoing campaign to restore the choice for fans to stand or sit. The Bundersliga are seen as torch-bearers, as grounds are allowed safe standing areas for domestic games, with the facility to install seats for European and Internationals. Is it time for terraces to come back?

It seems strange timing that Villa make their announcement today, on the day of the deadline for the e-petition set up demanding a new inquest into one of the deaths of a Liverpool fan at Hillsborough. That tragic day was the spark for the Taylor Report which recommended all-seater stadia for England.

Now exclusive flats at Highbury Square, but history was made here

Ninety-six Liverpool fans died on April 15th 1989, and the battle for true answers has been ongoing ever since. Standing at top level football has been a thing of the past for nearly twenty years as a result. But... Surely enough has changed at football to allow fans to make the choice? Most stadia are futuristic, designed within an inch of their lives for the comfort of all concerned, and monitored like a reality TV show.

However, it is also safe to say that most grounds are also quiet, peaceful places, where the main noise comes from the groups of fans who happen to spend most of the games on their feet.

 Sing when you're winning? singen, wenn Sie gewinnen sind?

Borussia Dortmund's Signal Iduna Park (formerly the Westfalenstadion) is home to the German champions, and was visited by this writer in September 2011 on Matchday 1 of the Champions League. The atmosphere was almighty, and despite the forced seating as per UEFA regulations, not one person in that South stand was seating, and they were led by the bandmasters at the front, including Daniel Lörcher, as profiled in Blizzard issue two by Uli Hesse. The atmosphere was electric, and must be a contributing record to their recent title win.

Surely if that's not an advert for safe standing, I don't know what is. Will we see it in England? Who knows. Aston Villa's announcement is a big step. Will any others follow? Or will the Emirates, Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge remain seated and mute?

But will the law-makers and paymasters accept it? Or should stewards start learning to alter the terraces to seats before a UEFA match?

Looking for lost coins

To read more about the FSF's campaign, follow this link