I'm not going to say that either. I'm saying it because he's been to watch Spurs play about 3 times in 17yrs.
-
The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
Does it work in the Bundesliga? Every team not named Bayern Munich begins the season playing for 2nd and hoping they might somehow wind up with the domestic cup.
I'll never understand how the supporters who want fan ownership are the same ones who flog ENIC for not spending Lewis' yacht money. In the ownership arrangement you propose there is no one with incentive to put their own money in the club, so the club will have to survive on the money it generates. Yanno....exactly how ENIC have run it - no one can legitamately accuse them of profiteering the club.
But instead of having a steady hand on the rudder looking at the long term goals of the club you have an elected chairman whose focus is keeping his job - and with a ownership group comprised largely of supporters who value trophies of financial prudence, that motivates the elected chairman to go for short-term, win now, pay for it later strategies. You don't see this in business, as much, because the stockholders main interest is in increasing the value of the company.
It doesnt make sense to bitch about Lewis not being a sugar daddy and at the same time promote an organizational structure which precludes the potential of a sugar daddy.
It is strange. I have considerably less money and zero ownership and I do better than that. Even having to fly fucking commercial, with the unwashed masses.
Bingo!It is strange. I have considerably less money and zero ownership and I do better than that. Even having to fly fucking commercial, with the unwashed masses.
A/ irrelevant. The reason Bayern is dominating the bundesliga is the rich BMW ownership and historic money. Fan ownership (that Bayern have as well) is neither here nor there as it’s comes to competition.
B/ of course they have an incentive as they can draw dividends (you can even define it in the Statutes that only the private holders could draw dividends thus making the ‘public’ holders monitors for when and how much). Big clubs that generate a lot of revenue (that will only increase with TV deals) will always have an economic reason for investment, even in watered down holdings.
What difference does it make if you hold 10% of the shares with the rest in private hands or that some of them are coop owned?
Of course ENIC profited from the club, otherwise they would have long been out the door. No one accused them of assets stripping or anything like that, but valid concerns were raised at times.
C. Supporters who would vote for short term directors that spend big will soon go under. This is essentially similar to any corporation, if the shareholders make bad decisions they and the company suffer, thus they have incentives to make prudent ones.
D. Ours and ENIC private case is irrelevant to the general discussion
As you seem to understand economics these are baffling claims. If a similar incentive system works in regular corporations there is nothing intrinsically different about football clubs to argue against it.
A) Not irrelevant. Due to fan ownership there's no potential for any club to realistically bridge the financial gap between Bayern and the rest and so the gulf continually grows and the league becomes less and less competitive. At least as far as silverware goes. Bayern's success attracts more sponsorship revenue, pumping up their finances, and increasing their advantage season on season. Place every English club in the german model and we all just watch United win everything every year and become more and more untouchable as the years pass.
B) The chairman would be incentivized primarily to maintain his position. You're saying he'd be incentivized to input his own money basically to wash it through the club and get a percentage of the total benefit of the investment on the other side as a dividend based on his shares? Who the fuck would do that? Not someone with enough financial sense to have amassed a fortune in the first place. "I'm gonna invest my £1 to improve this company, and when we make £2 I get my 50 pence because I own a quarter of this company." If any investment was tendered, it'd be loaded onto the club as debt - meaning you could fuck off the chairman if you want, but now you just have a supremely pissed off creditor.
C) Do you follow any of the Madrid/Barca elections? They're won wholly on short-term promises of transfers and titles. Even Bayern has to burn through managers - for the chairmen to stay employed, someone else must be scapegoated for ever seeming failure to appease the masses. And you're fooling yourself if you think the average English supporter is closer to the staid German than the financially reckless Spainaird in character.
D) Its not irrelevant. Its illogical to find an owner unwilling to invest private funds into a club to be distasteful whilst also favoring a system of ownership with denies the ability for ownership to invest private funds.
Bow, his Old Man's boozer is a short walk from me off Roman Rd.
A/ rubbish. Bayern were the most successful in the past, the fan ownership scheme was in place when they repeatedly faulted in the 00’s, so this is hardly convincing.
Bayern were always the richest, the recent dominating spell is even unique by German standards, it has nothing to do with the fan ownership (as everybody as has the fan % there) but more due (paradoxically) the bundesliga being able to attract top talent, and Bayern with their edge uses it to widen the gap.
B/ again you’re talking of 100% fan ownership as I was talking about mixed ownership. It’s highly unlikely the minority shareholders as the fans will repeatedly stand behind one man to continually triumph in ejecting a chairman.
Other owners own less than 100% of their clubs and still invest so it really is a soft argument. I think that if you invest a pound and come dividends day there are 16 to allocate you wouldn’t mind holding 25%. Like in any business
C/ don’t follow Spanish football, but I do follow German football and read about it in German. This is a fairly inaccurate depiction
D/ See Supra B
He is a Spurs fan, but prefers to live the high life on his yacht in the Bahamas.
Care to post a picture for us?
Last edited:
The only clubs that this applies to are Madrid, FCB, Bilbao and Osasuna.
The law was changed in 1990 because the finances of football clubs were in such a mess, with such little fiscal transparency, that the Govt stepped in. Clubs were obliged to become Sociedades anónimas deportivas ("Public limited sports companies"), which is why you see the acronym "S.A.D. after their official name.
For reasons I've never been able to fully ascertain the 4 aforementioned clubs were exempt, and officially are designated as "non-commercial sports associations". In the case of the latter two I think it might be because the Basque Country and Navarra have special tax systems (although for some reason this didn't extend to Real Sociedad, Alaves, Eibar and other Basque clubs), in the case of the former, I suspect it's because the Govt essentially bottled it. The Spanish Wikipedia page for the law in question cites the reason as them having "higher revenues" which doesn't sound a particularly formal distinction.
One day I'll plough through the 88 acticles and the 23 additional provisions of the act in question I guess, trying to make sense of the dense legalese in which such things are written. That day might be some time coming though
Last edited:
Taking your last point first ... how does it 'work in the Bundesliga'?
If we take the Budesliga model then City (AKA Bayern Munich) would be about to win the title for the seventh year in a row and every other club, including us, would just be making up the numbers ... is that working?
A public THFC would have a market value of around 2 billion, that's just an estimate for simplicity, for the shareholders to have a seat on the board doesn't require a set number of shares, however for a shareholder to prevent the passing of special resolutions requires 25%, and obviously to have control requires 51% ... thus any supporters group would need to invest 500 million to have a meaningful say, or over a billion to have control ... that's not 'a few fans getting together' that's a business takeover .....
Finally your last point 'voters will have to show class if they want shareholders voting for them' what does that mean? FYI - ENIC hold 85.55% of shares, it doesn't matter at all what 'class' the other 14.45% show, they have ZERO influence, the Board is appointed by ENIC it has six members, that's not changing without a shed-load of cash being invested .....
Daniel Levy - Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Matthew Collecott - Finance Director, Company Secretary and Executive Director
D. Cullen - Executive Director --
R. Caplehorn - Executive Director --
Kevan Watts - Member of the Board of Directors DSP Merrill Lynch Limited
Ronald Robson - Member of the Board of Directors Inspired Capital plc
Porto works the same, and Benfica and Sporting. And almost all portuguese clubs
Maybe if the UK has a military dictator for 40 years we would also be in the mindset to elect people like those that always get in at Barca and Real.... Spain is so different
There is no evidence that he likes football let alone Spurs. The fact he doesn't even attend a game to me at least suggests football and by default Spurs, ain't his thing. I'm sure 95% of the people who frequent this forum would split their time between the yacht and Tottenham with no problem.
I think there is always a comfort in the knowledge that your owner is a fan of the club, someone that's passionate about the game too. It doesn't mean that they would be any good, it's just the idea that they care that's comforting I guess.
I really appreciate that fact that Levy is a supporter, English and whilst I'm completely agnostic, I like the fact he is also Jewish too, given our relationship with this religion over the years. (So uncle Joe does tick two of those boxes I guess).