I can't imagine being happy over a football trophy knowing that it was purchased by slavery and murder. Shame on any who can find happiness in that.
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But don’t mind our kits sponsored by the Nike Sweatshop Empire and an insurance company acceding to rule by genocideaires of Uyghurs.
The objection has only ever been and can only ever be that the trophies were purchased (which they were) not how.
It’s a good point that to the issue of abandoning Spurs if they were bought by Middle East tyrants, what about them being eager and willing business partners of tyrants? All EPL money has blood mixed in.
This is why, IMO, the proper way to situate oneself amid all of this is to self-consciously understand and identify oneself as a fan and act on that basis. What are fans interests? What actions lead in that direction?
I don't buy our Nike kits, TBF.
Your post comes off a bit in line with the idea that there's bad in all things, and therefore one must accept the bad in all things no matter how egregious. The idea that a lie is a lie, whether its telling your mum her hair looks nice or telling the world that Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons. That sort of absolutism leads no where good.
The reality is that it is significantly different, the wearing of a kit manufactured by Nike or the being owned by a murderous regime.
Anyway, of course these are always only sublimated arguments about Daniel Levy.
Is the ideology he represents, the commoditization and financialization of football the great evil that must be fought, or football’s only hope against the great evil of financial doping and endless domination of petro-clubs?
Well, folks, 50+1 kills both birds with one stone, and re-situates power and influence in the game where it belongs.
When you take off your supporter hat and put on your Richard Scudamore hat to show how clever you are by play acting capital’s counterargument, ask yourself why you’re choosing to do that, and whose interests you’re serving in doing so.
There's no legal basis for implementing 50+1 in English football, no matter how romantic it may be. When it was implemented in Germany, it was reverse course - it allowed clubs to sell off 50-1 of their shares if they so desired, as clubs previously were wholly owned membership group.
What you propose is the illegal nationalized liquidation of football clubs. Who sets the market price at which a club's owners must sell their shares? Or do you propose to simply seize each club's assets and tell their rightful owners to fuck off?
Its a fantasy, and, really, a waste of breathe/typing.
Won’t be much point continuing soon will there? It will just be the three financially doped clubs winning everything instead of two.
Clubs should just refuse to sell them their players. That’s the only way to stop them.
Clubs should just refuse to sell them their players. That’s the only way to stop them.
Is seizing City and PSG from the sheikhs any less of a fantasy?
All of your points are well taken, but the seizure of control over football from capital isn’t some metaphysical impossibility, it’s not turning lead into gold.
German fans are provided a better, more sustainable product they have more input upon at a lower price. We should fight for that! Who gives a shit what the law says, laws can change.
There are already laws that allow for the seizing of assets held by foreign parties based upon their criminal conduct.
You're talking about nationalizing free market enterprises which have committed no crimes. Again trying to conflate two things that are very much distinctly different.
Just repeating over and over how much better things are for German fans with 50+1 doesn't matter. 50+1 was created to allow clubs to sell off a near majority of their shares to generate capital. Trying the same maneuver in reverse course violates the laws that protect our capitalist economy.
In the eyes of the law, football clubs are just businesses. Once you allow for the nationalization of football clubs, where do you stop? Automobile manufacturers should be 50+1 owned by employees? Banks? Airlines? Petrol companies?
You're talking about revolution, comrade.
The other clubs are owned by other billionaires, just not state backed ones. All they care about is profit, so that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
The route to stopping this was years ago, but now the genie is out of the bottle it can't be put back in. The whole sport is dripping in blood money, the only untainted clubs are the ones struggling to even pay their costs in the lower divisions. And they get brutally stamped on (See: Bury FC) when they even take a mis-step.
A greedy fat business man with a chain of cheapo sports shops is hardly the same ball park as oppressive and sometimes murderous regimes motivated by sports-washing their wealth & international reputation.
The (previous) suggestion that they care about Newcastle as a city and football club is laughable.
The whole 'Evil Ashley' thing is significantly overblown by their whiney mob anyway..... It's pretty common knowledge that he's sunk his own dosh into them and currently is shown to be OWED millions.
You're operating on the assumption that we'd all lap it up if we we're bought out by such a regime.... Fuck that; that's the last thing I (and others) want.
You also assume that all people are also pretty indifferent to the arms sales etc. etc. that you mention.
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FWIW 50+1 isn’t public ownership, it’s ownership by the club’s members, which sort of points to the solution to your line-drawing problem.
Wondering where we draw the line with ownership reforms while insisting upon a clear bright line regarding the morality of said owners is a bit inconsistent though, I must say.
Wonderful, a league with a club owned by a Russian gangster, a country that uses slaves and now a country that has spent decades spreading fanatical Salafism across the Muslim World with oil money. No doubt there will be a club owned by a CCP businessman using Uyghur slave Labour, that will probably be us.
The Premier League, what a product! Just need Hitler back from the dead to own West Ham.
The Premier League, what a product! Just need Hitler back from the dead to own West Ham.
Sports Direct staff 'not treated as humans', says MPs' report
Just a taste of what Ashley is prepared to do for profit. And that's in a country with strict laws and guidelines, he wasn't born in to a state where he has free will to oppress others.
They care because it reflects on them. I'm not suggesting they're altruistic. Man City are a propaganda tool, if the club are doing well on the pitch and the local area is revitalised, they can cover up their own dealings at home. They're imbedded in to Western economies and society.
Ashley is a terrible owner. He turned the whole club in to a billboard for his company, beyond anything other teams do. He's mistreated managers and been forced to pay large fees as a result in the past. The way the club treated Gutierrez was beyond shameful, and you might speak of investment but the clubs facilities are terribly run down, and their spending is some of the lowest in the league. If he's incapable of providing any real investment, sell the club. He is a lying, greedy scumbag of a man and if he was owner of this club I would hope we'd have stormed the stadium by now.
Most football fans are hypocrites when it comes to this stuff, and only care when it directly impacts their club. When we sold Walker to City, how many of our fans were furious we legitimised them and accepted their blood money? How many wanted us to take it and spend it on players?
I don’t mean to make fun, but China-owned Wolves never being included in these conversations because their spending hasn’t damaged the sporting integrity of the league completely gives the game away about the actual nature of these complaints.
Fair point. Haven’t look at the nature of the ownership.
It’s okay to say that cheapening the competition by just brute force purchase of titles is bad and condemnable regardless of the source. It doesn’t have to be bathed in virtue-signaling. We are football fans, acting in defense of the game is virtue enough.
I wonder what
This Fish
thinks of these latest developments?
This Fish
thinks of these latest developments?
The way I see it, if the Barcodes get taken over by a billionaire with basically unlimited funds, it will just be another club with barely a trophy history to speak of (well, pre 1969 anyway) getting artificially bumped up the table and buying players who wouldn't have gone near the place before with all the bargepoles in the world.