The million dollar question

There seems to be no greater bugbear to the modern football supporter than seeing another team trying to buy success. Not even diving dandies or Scandinavian referees will provoke the bile of the average fan as much as the prospect of one team spending £100 million of one man’s money in an attempt to buy some silverware.

The two clubs that attract most contempt are Chelsea and Manchester City, but this phenomenon is by no means limited to England. Contrary to the belief of those who seem to think it’s confined to dark blues and sky blues rich men all around the world buy their way into football clubs in an attempt to buy glory that can’t be found in the business world – Patrice Motsepe and Mamelodi Sundowns, Xu Ming and Dalian Shide, Fernando Roig and Villarreal, the Tanzi family and Parma, Sergio Cragnotti and Lazio, Bernard Tapie and Olympique Marseille, Dietmar Hopp and Hoffenheim. Why buy another jet if you can buy a shiny bit of silverware?

This habit isn’t even something rare in England, where Liverpool, Manchester United, Aston Villa, West Ham United, Sunderland, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Derby County and Wigan Athletic are among the many clubs that have benefitted from a cash injection from some rich admirer over the last fifteen years or so. Neither is it a tendency exclusive to the Premier League as Peterborough United, Ipswich Town, Brighton etc, MK Dons, Darlington, Reading and even Truro City will testify.

Everyone’s done it – so what’s the problem? Perhaps the only people who don’t like it are those whose clubs have been overlooked by the sugar daddies. Or maybe there’s a hierarchy of preference – Irish money isn’t as good as English money, but it’s better than American money, which in turn is better than the Russians. And anything’s better than the Arabs, apparently.

Whatever the problem is, there is certainly a degree of snobbery involved – Arsenal’s shiny new stadium found no disapproval, and neither will Liverpool’s, whereas Manchester City’s flashy new signings, or attempted signings, are roundly criticised on every forum and in every journalist’s article. It’s as if there was a typically English class system at play in football. People talk of Arsenal’s financial stability and ignore the financial situation that Liverpool’s owners will have the club in of they go ahead with the new ground. “Financial stability” masks the snobbery about new money. Especially Arab money, apparently.

Let’s face it, when someone offers £200 million for your club, should the owner say no? And should the supporters say no? Even huge clubs like Newcastle are not exempt from trouble. Lifelong fans of Luton Town, Bournemouth, Rotherham, Chester City and a host of other car crash clubs will tell you that they would have loved somebody to come in with a huge wad of cash and save their clubs. Football is business because ever since the dawn of time somebody will make anything into business. Where there’s a demand for money there’s a supply. And football is about community, and too many towns have seen their team practically disappear because they had no money.

The other side to this story is whether or not money really can buy success. The universally reviled Chelsea and Manchester City appear to demonstrate the two different possibilities. In 2003 Roman Abramovich bought the companies which owned Chelsea and the club went on to win three Premier League titles, (finishing as runners-up three times too), two FA Cups, two League Cups and reach a Champions’ League final. While some would argue that the revival started in the late nineties with two European trophies and the influence of Vialli, Zola and Gullit, followed by excellent managers in Ranieri and Mourinho, there can be no doubt that money has played a part.

Manchester City were taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group in September 2008, and while the Group have poured astronomical amounts of money into the club the players have as yet done nothing impressive. Of course impatience is yet another aspect of this financial phenomenon.

What about other clubs that have been blessed with rich benefactors? Cragnotti’s Lazio won one league title (and were twice runners-up), three Italian cups, two Italian Super Cups, the European Cup Winners’ Cup, the European Super Cup, and reached the UEFA Cup final, while Parma collected two UEFA Cups, the European Cup Winners’ Cup, the European Super Cup, two Italian cups, the Italian Super Cup and were runners-up in Serie A.

However, when Franny Lee moved in to Manchester City – there’s that club again – they dropped to the third division for the first time in their history. Randy Lerner’s Aston Villa, Jack Walkers’s Blackburn, Lionel Pickering’s Derby County and Jack Hayward’s Wolves did absolutely nothing compared to their earlier glories. John Madejski’s Reading came up but went back down again. Darlington ended up with a luxury stadium they can’t fill and George Reynolds ended up in prison.

Real Madrid are not bankrolled by one person, but Florentino’s first project was an abject failure compared to their gilt-edged past, while Sunderland – first with the Drumaville Consortium then Ellis Short have had poured money in and simply went from the depths of the Championship to the depths of the Premier League, and although it’s a miracle they didn’t drop straight down, the rise is generally regarded as being due to Keano’s management. (Sorry, that was the only way I was ever going to see Sunderlandnil in the same paragraph as Real Madrid!)

Success is relative, as the proud recent history of Wigan Athletic, Truro City and Villareal shows, and patience is essential for Brighton, Ipswich, Peterborough, MK Dons and the other newly blessed, but none of them can claim to have bought a stack of silverware with their rich daddies’ money.

If you want success, take Liverpool – Gillett and Hicks may have come in with their money in 2007 but Liverpool is a club that wins things with people, not money. Or have a look at Manchester United – the Glazers may have bought the club, but United were winners under Busby and have been winners again since Ferguson arrived. Again, money not people.

Your club will be more likely to enjoy success with the right people at the top. Herbert Chapman brought Arsenal their first period of success and Huddersfield their only success, Ferguson revived a despondent Manchester United, Bill Nicholson made Spurs great and Bill Shankly made Liverpool great. And they certainly weren’t swimming in cash.

So maybe cash isn’t the route to success. But we shouldn’t criticise a club for suddenly becoming the object of desire of some rich entrepreneur. Perhaps the fans object because they themselves are generally not rich people and do not wish to be treated as little rich boys by association when their club comes into money - it's considered more noble to struggle through life like Rochdale. But none of them would knock back a lottery win.

Of course there is a danger that the money is in the hands of the wrong man (Reynolds, Ridsdale, Shinawatra etc) – but this alone does not justify our being against a cash injection. There is also the argument about how money at the top starves those at the bottom – all the more reason why clubs outside the “top four”, and indeed outside the Premier League, should be allowed a piece of the billionaires’ pie too.

And we should stop behaving as if this was an exclusively modern problem because money has been a contentious issue in football from the very birth of the game as we know it. Accusations of professionalism levelled at Preston North End in 1884 opened a can of worms – Bolton, Villa and Sunderland were also paying their players – but the solution was not only easy, it was to the benefit of all. Just go with it and see what happens.