Salford City

Pretty soon, all the main European teams will be backed by Middle Eastern or Russian money. Football should at least pretend or aspire to be something approaching a level playing field.

I don't like what this has done to the game. I could live to be 300 and I'll never agree with it.

I'm not against investment. But pumping billions into a team turns them into nothing more than a brand themselves and an advert for the owners.

Turning back to Salford City, don't forget Gary Neville is a property developer. At its heart, this project has very little to do with football.

Don't necessarily disagree dazza, and i think there should be some checks and balances in the league structure to make it a more fair competition, but alas, we live in a consumer society, where money is king. Neville, as you say, is a property developer, so i'm sure he has other motives aside from football, but he is free to spend his money where and how he wishes, as are the others involved in it. Until and unless those that run football introduce measures to make the system fairer, there will be many more Phoenix clubs rising through the leagues.

You could argue that we are bankrolled by a local millionaire, just not to the same extent as Salford. If all clubs had to rely on gate money and commercially generated income, the better supported clubs would naturally rise to the top, so is there a fair system for everyone anyway?

Has football ever been a 'level playing field' in this country? (Arsenal were known as the Bank of England club in the 1920s for example)

Unless a club is being run into the ground (Portsmouth), I don't really mind owners pumping in a fortune (Man City).

Quoted from Abdul19

Has football ever been a level playing field in this country? (Arsenal were known as the Bank of England club in the 1920s for example)

Of course not. Even in the days of fixed wages, the better players were enticed to clubs with houses, jobs and backhanders.

I think pumping money into a club like Salford or Fleetwood is completely different to a club like Grimsby or Man City. Grimsby have had a lot of history of sustaining Championship football and there is no reason why they couldn't again. City have had history at the top of English football and were in the premier league anyway when they were taken over. Inflating there average league position by 10 places hardly makes a difference.

Were teams like Salford, Fleetwood and Fylde differ is that the manager is taking clubs with no history, in areas that already have league football teams. This increases the competition for players and fans in the local area. While loyal fans aren't going to switch trams it will spread people who like to watch football and young fans among more clubs potentially harming your established clubs such as Bury, Oldham, Rochdale etc. I honestly don't see why Greater Manchester needs another league club and I don't see what Salford will add to the local footballing scene.

It’s mad how the focus on Salford is always around the class of 92 millionaire property developers, and never the Singapore-based billionaire who actually owns 50% of the club individually.

Still, jumpers for goalposts and all that...

Quoted from ginnywings

You could argue that we are bankrolled by a local millionaire

I'm not going to go there.  



As for the rest of it, I'm not being naive and I do appreciate the realities of the market. It's just that sometimes, something occurs in football that to me is just so blatantly cynical, that I have to get off the fence.

As for wishing we had millions. Well obviously I wish our financial position was better than it is. But I doubt that Moneybags FC winning the champions league in front of 120,000 would feel anywhere near as special as Arnold's third goal did to the 13,000 who were there that day.

Quoted from ska face

It’s mad how the focus on Salford is always around the class of 92 millionaire property developers, and never the Singapore-based billionaire who actually owns 50% of the club individually.

Still, jumpers for goalposts and all that...

Not really. They're the ones in the public eye and also the ones who secure all their (free?) publicity from the national broadcaster.

“Arnold’s third goal”?

awful writing. You know what I meant.

Quoted from marinerdazza

Not really. They're the ones in the public eye and also the ones who secure all their (free?) publicity from the national broadcaster.

Maybe but Lim puts in 5 times what any of the others do as individuals. What peeves me is Gary Neville telling a bunch of MPs that the FA shouldn't sell Wembley in order to help fund grassroots football when he clearly hasn't got a clue what happens in grassroots football, because in normal land there are not too many Singapore businessmen and multi-millionaire ex-footballers kicking around.