If by the odd chance we do move into this new stadium that we kept being told all about I get the feeling ENIC will sell to the highest bidder. And there will be interested parties! London club with history + new 50,000 seat stadium + hopefully still a top 8 club = US & asian investors. There's already been a few looks from a couple US investment companies.
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Okay, that was a fair enough reply, I'll skip the ignore. But please don't tell a loyal supporter like me to go and support another club. Every day I wake up and care about this club. I've spent about 20,000 days caring about this club.
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Unfortunately I'll be on no planet as I won't exist anymore, though there'll doubtless be some faint internet traces of me out in cyberspace to haunt some of the posters in Spursdom I'd hope anyone willing to spend close to £1billion would be a bit more willing to flex their financial muscle and improve the most important thing about any football club, THE SQUAD OF PLAYERS! Can't say that's happened in a long time at our club
Well said, there might be hope yet, but given the eye-watering price ENIC will doubtless demand, we might be saddled with them for another 20 years or so.
I actually don't think the price tag is that laughable.... if we ever moved into the stadium that is!
They probably won't, but the issue here is the principle. For years we've had people telling us they don't want us to go the City Chelsea way, because it's unsustainable, 'buying trophies', etc, well what I and ever more people are saying are 'we'll take the gamble, trophies now, worry later'.
Chances are we've missed the gravy train. So Chelsea and City along with the other 'big 3' will probably continue to lap up the trophies. We might get the occasional crumb of comfort, but then again ...
You might be right, we'll see. So much depends on the next two rounds of TV money (domestic and abroad). If the money in continues to soar, then £1 billion for us might be reachable. But one thing ENIC is good at is counting the pennies, so every time a new TV deal is announced they'll be there in detail with their cost/benefit analyses, spreadsheets and calculators, and if they think that the market will now sustain £1.1 billion, then the price will doubtless go up.
There was one look, which the club rejected, and then those investors chickened out after being told to fuck off.
People keep claiming "oh, they're going to sell', but there is no actual statement on the record or off, from the actual owners to indicate that at all.
"They've got money to spend."
The club doesn't have a pile of unused cash.
"They're going to sell."
They told the only potential buyer to ever appear to fuck off.
"They're only in it for the profit."
They continuously state they want to compete in the Champion's League, and put up with fans constantly bitching about everything.
The facts do not support the claims made by the "fans."
The investors that chickened out were if you believe the reports told the club wouldn't be sold for less than £1 billion. It's not worth close to that without the new stadium so they didn't invest (or chicken out as you call it).
I'm of the opinion English National Investment Company will look to sell the club once it reaches a point where investors are looking to buy for that billion £ amount. After all they are an investment company and that would be what a good investment company would do is it not, sell at it's top value?
Only 3 PL club majority shareholders (Abromovich, Mansour & Ashley) have a higher net worth than Joe Lewis so the money is there if he cared at all about football. But he doesn't http://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/22/creditcrunch.moneyinvestments it's no more than another investment for his investment company. I really do think that if you gave Lewis & ENIC the option between great success off the pitch for Tottenham Hotspur or on it, they'd take 1st option!
So, ENIC set a price so high they scared off buyers. But they're not committed to the club.
They may sell at some point, but haven't actually said so. You're ascribing a motive to them without actual facts to back it up.
Let's unpack what you're saying:
He's very rich. He owns a football club. Some other very rich owners of football clubs like to treat them like toys and spend massive amounts of money to buy success, and don't run the clubs like a business.
Joe Lewis, because he has a lot of money, if he cared about football, should do the same.
Liking football doesn't mean he has to overspend to show it. He may be treating the club as business investment. He may feel it's morally pretty awful to engage in that kind of financial doping. We just don't know. But you feel that because other rich guys do something, he should too. Not for any reason apparent to him, necessarily, but just because it satisfies your demands for the brand you support to have the same experience at that Chelsea-lot you're so apparently jealous of.
You prefer you club to be run like a business turn in nice small profits for shareholders and win fuck all?
Brand? No matter how much football has become big business in the last 25 years supporting a CLUB is nothing like BRAND LOYALTY. You choose the brands you like, you live and breath the clubs you support. We aren't a bloody soft drink! This isn't North America mate leave your warped unfortunate ideas over there.
I prefer us to win trophies by building the team organically with a great manager and young prospects we've found and developed. I'd like it to be built on our own hard work, rather than borrowed from bankers, subject to their seizure at some undefined point in the future.
For you, it appears it is. You talk about love of the club, but you want it to be loaded to the gills with debt pursuing immediate success with no stable future, because you can't wait for hard work to pay off. You are green with jealousy at what Chelsea and City have done, and want Spurs to do the same. But you have no ability, nor right to demand it.
When ENIC bought the club, there was no Russian oligarch turning Chelsea from a footballing leper colony into the poster child for the nouveau riche. There was no petro-dollar fuelled City. Going by their original plan, we'd be a Champion's League regular right fucking now. The goals posts were artificially changed. So, the club pursues objectives that will put the plan back on track, not through debt-fuelled shortcuts, but through real achievements which will actually have a lasting impact on the club.
Veruca Salt, you are indeed a brand whore, and you are ever so upset to be called out on it.
Who is the last side to win a trophy that way? Swansea? So we are comparing ourselves to a side that was league 2 not long ago instead of the top top sides.
The training ground, the Sainsburys and what else? Oh yeah the 1 League Cup.
Of course I'm pissed off we've been passed by historically lesser clubs in City and Chelsea. More to the point we've actually finished above them and got to 4th twice under Redknapp and then poor management (not just football management, but also board room management) has seen this pipe dream gone and a good achievement is now finishing close to Southampton & Everton. But hey at least we are in the top 8 out of the 92 in the football league right?
If me not being happy with the mediocrity that we have served up in my life time makes me a brand whore in your North American eyes then so be it I'm more than happy to be one and want my club to improve. 2 league cup wins + 2 final defeats, 1 FA Cup & 2 top 4 finishes in the PL era is mediocre in my view. Not going to bother arguing whether it is or it isn't. In my view Tottenham with all it's history is better than a 3 cups in 26 year span
Better to live as the magnificent Achilles , all conquering Alexander ,, steadfast Leonidas , seizing glory , the moment , the honour , the passion,
no matter how short that may be , than a life of the weak, feeble , irrelevant and timid .
no matter how short that may be , than a life of the weak, feeble , irrelevant and timid .
Well, we all hate them, but United actually did that (they have grown organically). If we had better timing in the 1980s, we'd have done so as well possibly. In Germany, all the titles Bayern or Dortmund won have come that way too.
The training ground is a real thing, and it does matter. It's a tool to help build a better team, and having the best one in the country isn't a bad thing. The stadium will be a good thing as well, since it's going to bring a big revenue boost.
We finished 4th twice, once before City had started spending (and while Liverpool collapsed), and the other while Liverpool was still in collapse and Chelsea had a management meltdown. If we want to contend regularly we need more money. You can either use a lot of debt, or more revenue. ENIC have chosen the latter.
But hey, if you see your neighbours maxxing out their credit cards, buying a house they can't afford to pay the mortgage on, and leasing a Bentley, sure, let's do it too.
Financial suicide doesn't appeal for some.
Then blame Irving Scholar for losing a fortune, and then blame Sugar for being unable to make one. That's why we're in the position we are and have had to make such a slog of it. While the competition got to feed at the trough for the first decade of the Premier League, we were recovering from near death. That kind of recovery takes time.
If spurs go down the city and Chelsea road of an oil rich gangster sugar daddy what's left of the clubs tradition will finally die out. Look at those two clubs now successful yes but plastic as fuck, stadiums full of Asians racing plastic flags. I for one don't wanna see that shit. Also a mega investment in overpaid superstars means ticket price hike and who can afford the tickets to go up any more? I'd much rather win the league cup than finish forth any day. Let's go back to being shit but stylish and entertaining.
City fans get cheaper tickets than us, IIRC. I think Chelsea's fans pay similar prices to ours.