How to Buy a Football Club...or Not!

My twitter timeline went kind of mad last night, with a peak at around 8:50pm onwards. The Dispatches - How to Buy a Football Club programme on Channel 4 was suitably hyped as must see television, yet for the most part it didn't really live up to expectations and can be seen as a missed opportunity. A view I know is shared by writers at Two Hundred Percent and The Two Unfortunates.

When the goal was gaping several times (the opportunity to expose further cracks in foreign club ownership), the investigative team seemed intent on trying to round yet another defender, showboating when they should have tapped home. Joe Sim's braggadocio about his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson, was latched on to as the big name target to reel viewers in, a target that would be particularly difficult to nail, yet they still went ahead. Yet there were many, just as important, threads not pursued, regarding the network of far-eastern football investors/potential investors.

So what did the first 50 minutes tell us. For the informed football fan, probably not a lot more than we already know:

That football attracts businessmen for who breaking rules is just a minor headache to get what they want. Really!

That Bryan Robson proposes a business model where a (non-supporting) owner buys a floundering lower league club on the cheap, invests enough to try and reach the Premier League (or the Premiership as he seemed intent on referring to it) and then sells up at a profit (probably without a care about who to). What's new about that? Isn't that the Milan Mandaric model? One that he is applying to his purchase of Sheffield Wednesday?

That a footballer/ex-footballer is happy to hang around with businessmen who buy him drinks and go along with their business deals providing there is something in it for him? No - didn't see that one coming.

That Bryan Robson, former England captain, failed club manager, failed international coach is now desperately trying to claw something back from his footballing connections/ nah, can't imagine an ex-pro would be doing any of that.

That Robson's knowledge of the modern game is limited. Ask any Blades fan or Boro fan and they wouldn't disagree. Noting Sheffield Wednesday as having big investment potential, yes I can see, but the sell the training ground model he proposed wont work at Wednesday and to say they will get average Premier league crowds on 35-38,000 was naïve in the extreme. Wednesday haven't averaged 35,000 crowds for over 50 years.

That big businessmen, get to sit at the shoulder of football managers and owners at dinner? Well if certain businessmen get the ear of politicians, the PM, why are football directors and managers any different when they are being "entertained"?

That the Football League is a "simple alliance" of clubs who cannot afford to have the regulatory systems in place that identify and prevent potential shared ownership or unscrupulous owners taking over. The Football League - archaic in it's approach? Never! If the Premier League struggle to manage and impose a Fit & Proper rule, what chance have the Football League got? It has barely moved forward from the Hardaker days.

Then, after 50 minutes came the big reveal. Joe Sim was prepared to name one of his two target clubs, the one he was going to invest in with the Dispatches consortium. Photos of Bramall Lane appeared. Photos of Sim being entertained by Scott McCabe, son of majority shareholder Kevin were shown. The #twitterblades #sufc hashtags were in frenzy.

The club, he claimed, is £57m in debt (although most of that is owed to McCabe and his companies) and was available for $15m. So we are seen as ripe for investment, despite the significant debt. No surprise really, although it shows the hit McCabe is willing to take to get out. It was also no surprise to hear the names of other clubs mentioned earlier in the programme as potential targets. All with decent fan bases, most with recent Premier League experience.

So should Blades fans be embarrassed that their club was shown to be entertaining Joe Sim? Well after the initial shock of seeing us involved, no I don't think so.

We have an owner trying to take a back seat, who is looking for new investors and has promised to ensure the club is in safe hands. As he is a fan, we have more reason than most to believe the latter point. Can other club's fans feel as confident? Maybe we have misplaced confidence? God knows McCabe has made mistakes in recent years.

In advertising the fact that he is looking for investment, McCabe is going to attract a variety of different people to the club. Some will be the right kind of person, some wont. Some will be unscrupulous businessmen, where it is self evident, others may mask it well. He will not know this until they have been fully researched, met and discussions have taken place. The statement from the club this morning; that initial meetings took place, but the club decided to take it no further, were no more than I expected. 

Sim and London Nominees are not the only reported investors showing an interest in United. The Malaysian press reported the interest of "billionaire" Vinod Sekhar a man who was reportedly at Bramall Lane for the QPR match last August. A match which saw the Blades defeated and  Kevin Blackwell sacked after just 3 games of the season. This story then went quiet as a bankruptcy claim was filed against him in Malaysia, a claim dismissed just a couple of months ago. Having read some of the comments under this article regarding the case, I would suggest we proceed with caution should any further interest arise.

Interestingly, Dave McCarthy (United's Managing Director), in an interview with the Sheffield Star at the end of June reassured fans that any potential investment would undergo the utmost scrutiny;

"Investment is an ongoing search and before anything gets done it has to satisfy Kevin McCabe and his family. they want what's best for United. they don't want to do something in haste that turns out to be wrong further down the line."

Maybe to temper press speculation, maybe based on the club's recent experience, or maybe even pre-empting last night's programme? Either way we have to take the directors at their word. Trust is a massive part of being a fan of a football club. It is not a nice position of trust, but when someone has as much money tied up in the club as McCabe we have to accept his word.

So we escaped from the clutches of a man who said the need for good PR on takeover was so that they can appease the fans who can be "a bit of a headache". Nice not to know you Joe. Yet we haven't been so lucky in the past. 

I recently reviewed the book Fit & Proper: Conflicts and Conscience in an English Football Club for When Saturday Comes. You can read the review here. The book sets out many of the "characters" to have taken a seat in the Blades boardroom over the last thirty years. From the country's biggest white collar fraudster, to an Iraqi businessman later to undergo gender realignment - before a subsequent reversal. A chairman subject to an international arrest warrant to a fugitive still on the run from Interpol and a London socialite known as "The Count", with indirect connections to Libyan arms dealers. It would have been less of a surprise if Joe Sim and co had taken over.

On reflection, I think the people to be most worried about last night's programme are those with existing foreign ownership, particularly from the Far East where the number of connections made between various football investors was a concern. This was where the programme fell down, briefly casting light on these connections, before returning to Sim and Ferguson.

Do you really know who owns your club? Can you be sure that they are fit and proper? Do they have interests in other clubs? The scary thing is not that you don't know, but the Football League and Premier League probably don't know either.

Football fans as stakeholders deserve greater governance of those running the game and their clubs. There is enough money flushing around our game to fund it, so it just makes you wonder if deep down they really want it. Maybe it is up to the fans to up the ante and really demand it.

Chris Porter - Blades Look For A Port In A Storm

Having been out of the country for half of the last week, the announcement of Chris Porter's arrival at Bramall Lane on Friday afternoon came as a bit of a surprise. I had surfed the forums and message boards, but saw little mention of his impending signing. In fact the first I had heard of it was when a work colleague mentioned he had heard a rumour that Porter had failed a medical earlier in the week. Literally, no more than 10 minutes later, the news he had signed was on United's official website.

I felt relatively positive about his arrival at the Lane, although his recent injury record had limited his opportunities at Derby and when fit he had been unable to regain his place. Interested in finding out a Derby view on his limited action at Pride Park, I contacted Ollie Wright of The Derby County Blog for a Rams perspective. 

"Chris Porter was Nigel Clough's first signing as Derby County manager.  The Rams managed to gazump Cardiff City to sign the Wigan-born striker, who arrived from Motherwell for £400,000 at the end of January 2009 with a decent reputation as a goalscorer."

In fact, I remember that Kevin Blackwell was also interested in signing him for United at that time. I was a little underwhelmed then, I think because he was untried at Championship level. Although to be third highest goalscorer in the SPL with Motherwell was still a reasonable achievement. The fact that Clough made him his first signing, was a massive sign of faith in a player yet to play at that level. the Cardiff and Blades interest also vindicates a belief within management circles that he was more than capable. 

"He made a great start to his Rams career by bagging a brace in his first home start, a 2-2 draw with Swansea City, then followed that up by scoring in a 2-1 home win against Bristol City days later.  Unfortunately, that was about as good as it got for him at Pride Park."

"After the Bristol City game, Porter didn’t feature again for the rest of the 2008/09 season due to a hip injury and after undergoing surgery, was ultimately ruled out of contention until December 2009 by this problem. On returning, he got the winner at Watford in his first start of the 2009/10 season and was in and out of the team thereafter, scoring three more times."

It was Ollie's next words that concerned me most. "Last season was therefore make or break for Porter, as he entered the last year of his Rams contract.  Unfortunately, he broke down again during a League Cup tie at Crewe in August 2010, moving Clough to spit, “we’re sick to death of Porter, him and his hip”."

For a manager to openly criticise a player like this suggests a degree of anger and frustration at the situation. Maybe I am reading too much into it, but it strikes me as a manager who is as frustrated with a player's psychological issues in dealing with injuries as much as the physical problems themselves. Last season, I remember Ronnie Moore openly criticising Tom Elliott, a loanee from Leeds, who passed the physio's tests but mentally couldn't play through fear of an injury that had seemingly healed, but not in his head.  

"After this setback, he was barely able to feature again for Derby.  He started just six times last season and although he did score both goals in a 2-1 win at doomed Preston North End, it was no surprise that he was released this summer."

In fact his final game in a Derby shirt saw him score the goal that beat the Blades and seal the Central League Reserves title at the Blades' expense. Clearly capable of scoring goals, up against many of the young Blades players who will feature in the first squad last season, yet the manager had lost all interest and faith in him.

"If Porter is actually fit again and the hip problem is genuinely resolved, then you have got yourselves a natural goalscorer.  He is not the most mobile of centre forwards and not a great footballer, but he does have that crucial knack for finding the back of the net and could really flourish in League One. The question mark, of course, is whether he’s going to break down again."

Ollie's summing up concurs with my feelings on the matter. Although, I wasn't enthused by our interest in 2009, I think he is the right kind of signing for us now. This is based on the fact he has a proven record at this level with Oldham Athletic. But a two year deal to an injury prone striker, albeit on a free transfer, is a big risk, however stringent the medical. Especially when money is tight and transfers in will be dictated by freeing up the wage bill with movements out, alongside a more restrictive wage budget. 

In the last couple of weeks I have answered questions about the Blades' new season prospects for preview supplements to be published alongside next month's issues of When Saturday Comes and World Soccer and a special downloadable pdf produced by football league sites The Seventy Two and The Two Unfortunates. For each, I have said it will be much easier to judge how the season might unfold when we see what the final squad looks like in August.

With Darius Henderson now at Millwall and Danny Wilson this week re-emphasising the availability of Ched Evans (who you would assume will be on his way), that leaves the raw, but promising, Jordan Slew, Danny Philliskirk (another young player,signed from Chelsea), the inconsistent Daniel Bogdanovic and Richard Cresswell as strikers alongside Porter. There have also been rumours that Bogdanovic might be on the move, maybe we will see a move once the pre-season tour of Malta is finished.

I worry that, unless another experienced striker is signed, too much reliance will be placed on Porter's shoulders. Previous managers have played Cresswell out wide and he looked out of sorts over the last 12 months, in an injury hit season. Slew will need someone to play off and I am not sure that Porter will be the best foil. Maybe we can live with his lack of mobility, providing his link play can unleash Slew's pace and quick feet. I just hope that we are not placing all our eggs in a Chris Porter shaped basket. I am pretty sure we are not, I just hope that when I return from holiday for the game at Boundary Park on 6th August that other striker is in place.