da 888casino： Rarely these days do you see Englishmen as club owners in the Premier League.
da bet nacional： Even less is the likelihood that the owner would have any connection or care for the club or at least the sport. It seems more and more that football teams are just becoming a property on their Monopoly board to many of these owners. To me it is much more. If only these owners felt that same affection.
Now, I know all the soldiers in the Toon Army will rip me apart as a result of this but I have to pay respect to an English businessman in this day and age. If I met him I may not like him either but it’s definitely refreshing to still see English owners who actually appreciate the sport for what it is.
Mike Ashley isn’t exactly a local lad but, he does seem to have at least some care for the club. Of course it is to him, as it is to every other owner, an investment with expected returns. But it appears, just like top tier players, that there is a growing lack of English ownership in the business.
Arsenal co-owner Alisher Usmanov once said that foreign owners are good for English football and he argued was that it helps boost the economy. In many respects Usmanov was right in what he was saying.
But it’s more than that. Football is a culture to some, even a religion, so it would be almost sacrilegious to stand by and watch your club be dismantled by outside investors.
The issue isn’t always the fact that the owners of these clubs are foreign, that they don’t sit in the stands with the fans or even that they don’t wear the kit at home games. For me it’s more about the care of the game.
Of the 20 Premier League clubs, 13 are under foreign ownership. It’s possibly even likely that these owners couldn’t even name the starting XI of their respective clubs. How can that even be?
Don’t get me wrong, changing the name of St James’ Park perplexed me as much as your average Magpies fanatic and didn’t do much Ashley’s reputation amongst the fans of the club he owns. But he’s far from the worst nightmare some would make him out to be. It’s just like being at school. No one likes the Headmaster but, once they leave, they realise he/she wasn’t as bad as first thought.
Ashley’s reign was tough to begin with. Ut was as though Ashley just didn’t get the ethos at St James’ Park that he so desperately wanted and needed. Surely it wasn’t as distressing as how the Hull City fans felt about Assem Allem’s attempt to change the clubs name to ‘Hull Tigers,’ or Cardiff City fans’ reaction to their club colours being changed from blue to red by owner Vincent Tan.
Club owners don’t appear to care about fans views and it’s hard to realistically expect a multibillionaire to immerse himself in the community and align himself with the so-called ‘lower classes,’ but they should at least make an effort.
We need more owners like Mike Ashley, who really appreciate the culture behind they club they run. I just wonder if more English owners in the game would also lead to more English managers and then ultimately, a stronger English core at these top tier clubs.
But I’ll leave that idea for another day.