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Jealousy
Tonight sees Birmingham City travel to the Etihad Stadium to play one of the richest teams in world football, and it’s made me think about the whole Manchester City question – ie is their financial model good for the long term future of football? It’s a clichéd question though, and what I think is more valid is how the ownership at Manchester City has changed fans’ viewpoints on Blues ownership.
Let’s be honest, it’s easy to be jealous of Manchester City right now. I will admit that I’d love to have a situation at St Andrews where we could quite literally make a legitimate offer for any player in the world backed with wages that would nullify the “Birmingham factor” (I don’t want to move there) when signing a player. I can think of reasons why in my own personal opinion Blues would be the perfect investment for a trillionaire with a passion for football.
The problem is though that it’s as likely as me getting offered a threesome with Rihanna and Beyonce. I might want it desperately, I might feel I deserve it – but it’s just not going to happen. This is where I think that some Blues fans need to “get real”. Whilst it’s easy to understand the frustration on the terraces, when watching the team out on the pitch now compared with twelve months ago, the grim financial reality is that without someone with a spare billion or two in cash, we’re never really going to be much more.
In the Premiership years, Blues were heavily reliant on Sky cash – I remember seeing the excellent Swiss Ramble blogsite giving a figure of 75% of turnover being purely from Sky. The club can’t sell out a 29k seater stadium on any sort of frequent basis – so for the club to be able to compete financially there needs to be either some amazing new revenue stream (the ill-fated selling the club in China type thing) or this sugar daddy figure. Unless there is a massive change amongst the fans – both socially in fans being encouraged to come back to watch the games and economically in fans being able to afford to pay for tickets and merchandise, Blues main revenue stream will be Sky and the advertising associated with televised football.
And this is where the Man City problem comes in. People look at them and think why not us? People look at owners and decide that they’re not putting in enough cash because we’re not seen to be competing – maybe not with the Man Citys of this world, but teams like Stoke City are spending massively – and of course, they are backed by the riches of Peter Coates and Bet365. I think people need to accept their jealousy – it’s a natural thing after all – but understand it’s something we have to live with. Whatever happens with Carson, whether we get new owners or just new investor in BIH, I think we have to accept that barring a miracle, we’re going to be one of the also-rans for a while yet.
Tags: Carson Yeung, Man City
13 Responses to “Jealousy”
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A fan of the darker-skinned girls are we, Almajir?
Relevance?
count me in!!! ;)
Really pleased you pointed out that Stoke have a sugar daddy. It infuriates me when pundits talk about Stoke being a great example of how to build a stable club. They are just a significantly smaller version of Man City.
Good blog but a billionaire would not benefit us in the short term given the new UEFA rules. We have missed the benefits of that boat as spending is restricted to a formula based upon revenue/ turnover. This rule is being tested given the “generous” sponsorship by Etiihad at Man City so this will be interesting to watch. It would appear to be very difficult going forward for a new billionaire to enter football and upset the apple cart as Abramovich and Sheikh Mansoor has done!! So the big clubs such as Man U, Real Madrid and Barcelona will retain the power in football going forward it would seem!! KRO
The sooner platini & FIFA implement their financial fair play rules, the better. Football is simply not a level playing field anymore and sucess is dictated by which clubs are lucky enough to find sugar daddies, as opposed to whcih clubs are the best run. If that leaves us as a perennnial yoyo club, that’s fine with me. It keeps it interesting and it wouldn’t be the blues we’ve all come to know and love. Blackburn chelsea and now man city will buy the league title but to me its a hollow victory for them.
THe truth is football has not been a level playing field since the introduction of the PL with Sky money and the CL. The top four teams have, more or less, been the same so these clubs and those of the biggest playing leagues in Europe always get the most money. These clubs buy the best plays to retain the status quo and keeping all the others out year on year. The only way to break this monopoly is to have the investment Sheikh Mansour has brought to City.
So Plantini’s financial fair play rules are only there to protect the elite, the ‘sky four’, both Milan clubs, Barca and Milan, Bayern and other clubs making up the European 14. And if your club is not already in it then you might as well call it Financial UNFAIR play because there is not a cat in hell’s chance of any other English club qualifying for the CL on a regular basis.
I wouldn’t say am jealousy of Man city or even bitter about our rivals AV, every supporter wants their team to play well at what ever level. For me it about paying a fair match ticket, and watching your team play with passion and desire. Footballers whether they like it or not get paid extremely well…………
Whether blues situation will ever change time will tell. At this moment in time CH is doing a excellent job under very difficult circumstances and to pull off a result against man city who have spend £400 MILLION funny things happen in football lol…………….. KRO
A well constructed comment, Almijir, I for one, would love to see again a Gold/Sulivan, type ownership, [ before anyone blows a fuse over that statement ], They did take us by the scruff of the neck, cleared the cobwebs, built up a superstructure from the bottom up, and we were generally debt free,!!.
The fact that the fans wre not satified with the rate of progress, was probably down to Sulivan, showing his heart was not ” bluenosd “, talk of him going to Cardiff, then of course West Ham , did not help relationships between him and the supporters one bit,!!.
To conclude, we need some to do another bottom upwards job on us, [ structures are now better than they were then ], Mainly patience from us whilst this is happening,?. — please god,!!.
A threesome with rihanna and beyonce,id much prefer Eve Myles and Kat from eastenders myself but i guess its down to personal oponion lol.
@oldbluenose,i seem to remember Sullivan trying to take over at Manchester City too,only shortly after taking over at blues.
The relevance of manager pitting wits against manager seem to have little to do with teams and more to do with the size of their resources. It seems inconceivable now, but when I first started going down the Blues we had an idea that we could win the league! Teams like Man U, Man C and Chelsea are able to do it and sustain it for many years to come. The rest are also rans. Who were the last mortal team to come close. Possibly the Villa?
Its a little ironic that the panacea for all of football clubs financial demise is the attraction of a super rich sugar daddy. I have been a Blues supporter for 47 years and a season ticket holder for longer than I can recall, but the shannaigans of the last ten years have slowly worn me down to the point now where I can barely recognise the experinece of following football in comparison to previous decades. It is the imposition of the super rich, the cow towing to the super brats and the general isolation of the working classes that leads me to fear that this could well be my last season as a guaranteed season tocket holder and that is no slight on Blues, I’ve simply had enough of “The most mone buys the best team” edict.
i would love to see a multi-billionaire owner at blues….
it means survival….
it means success…
it means a top stadium full of blue noses singin’ their hearts out….
and best of all, it means a damn good chance of battering the vile season in season out….
billionaire owners at man city and the likes????…..its the only way….bring it on…..KRO….