Liverpool FC – You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It…
As the new Liverpool investment topic gathers traction, it’s interesting to see that much of the argument against funds backed by the Chinese government centre around morality. Really?
I’m surprised by the naivety of such a stance. It’s time football supporters woke up and smelled the aromatic, lovely yet generally immorally gotten coffee.
As a Liverpool fan, I also struggle with the perennial efforts of the club to return to the heady days when they swept aside all before them. When the Kop swelled with 25,000 supporters paying £7.50 to get in. The ownership of the club rested in British hands and the owners were wealthy enough to afford the very best in terms of players. When Peter Robinson was chief executive, Liverpool done their transfer business quietly, and the club hadn’t sacked a manager in 35 years.
Sadly those days are gone. Liverpool are no longer this beast of comfort, seemingly impervious to challenge. Times have changed. Liverpool FC needs to change also. There remains this air of pompous arrogance among us fans. We believe the club deserves to be “challenging” year in and year out. Whilst doing so, the (once) beautiful game has moved on. Money is now the divine ruler. The guiding force and the ultimate voice.
The leading clubs in English football are so because they have the funds to buy the best players and coaches, organised by the finest managers. Leicester City are a breath of fresh air, but remain a small buck in the trend. It’s been said a million times before Liverpool cannot compete because of a lack of money. I’d go one further, the lack of obscene money. For this, is what is required in order to compete with the best. The reality for the Anfield club is however, somewhat different to what’s been painted. The problem is not having money, it’s the approach to spending it.
The difference between Liverpool and say, Manchester City is more down to how the money is spent rather than the actual amount. Citeh’s view is that you need the very best in order to compete now. LFC believe you can over time gradually become the very best and then compete. Very noble, but it’s a but like taking a chisel to knock a house down. You’ll do it eventually, but why not simply get a bulldozer and be done with it.
Liverpool need to put the chisel away and employ a bulldozer. Forget this “building for the future” A future that five years on from the acquisition of the club, still has not arrived. I’m confident it won’t arrive in the next five years either, in my opinion. Somewhere in a gentleman’s club in New England, John W. Henry realised that. They’ve seen their shiny new chisel worn away trying to dismantle the walls of superiority that have been built by the games elite over the last 20 years.
The only way for Liverpool to progress is to fight fire with fire. If the funds are a available from China, then use it. So what? The £billions coming in from the sale of Middle East oil is now suddenly sparkly clean. The global oil industry is now akin to the Red Cross? Get real!
In summary, be careful what you wish for because there may only be one way to get it.
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