Newcastle have been unable to find a realistic buyer for months, yet Manchester City today announced a £389 million investment, in a clear sign of football’s imbalance in the modern era.
Owned by Sheikh Mansour, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, the club already has riches beyond the dreams any Newcastle fan could imagine for our club. And yet, it seems, this is still not enough for them, as they are now worth £3.73 billion.
£389m would have bought Newcastle outright – despite Mike Ashley’s overpriced valuation – and left some change to spare.
They say money goes to money, and Manchester City’s latest announcement is surely proof of that.
Newcastle would be a sound investment for a billionaire, or organisation, with some wealth and a modicum of ambition, but it is of no interest to them, unless they are winning trophies and playing Champions League football.
And therein lies the vicious circle, or catch 22 if you will. Teams cannot reach that level without serious investment; yet they cannot attract that investment until they reach that level.
It is a no-win situation, and exactly why clubs like Manchester City, Liverpool, Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona have a stranglehold on the game, that will end up choking the life out of it – except for themselves and their elite counterparts.
The gulf between the top clubs and the rest is getting greater, and it is quickly becoming insurmountable for clubs outside the top six in England – Leicester City is something of an outlier.
But, as previously mentioned, it is not just an English problem, it is the same in Spain, Italy, Germany and even Scotland, as the rich clubs get richer, and the rest are left to simply make up the numbers.
It will kill the game, and we can expect to see more situations like that of Bury and Bolton in coming years.
It also means Newcastle fans are likely to be stuck in their loveless relationship with Ashley, as fewer companies are willing to invest in clubs outside the elite group.
Something needs to be done to close the gap between clubs
Until something is done to level the playing field somehow, there is little prospect of clubs like Newcastle, Brighton, Bournemouth and the like having anything to play for, other than avoiding relegation and the luxury of mid-table mediocrity – if they are lucky.
If that ends up the only realistic target for the so-called ‘lesser clubs’, fans will simply stop going, and hence, the downward spiral begins.
Would I be thinking and writing this if Newcastle had been the lucky beneficiaries of an Abu Dhabi royal family takeover? I would like to think so, because as much as I love Newcastle United, there is little point in doing so if football dies as a result of a select few teams’ greed.
In all honesty, most Newcastle fans are not expecting a takeover of Manchester City proportions. We simply want a new owner who will put the football club first, and other interests second.
Someone who can get us away from worrying about the prospect of relegation for nine months a year, and give us a team to enjoy watching, and one that will have an outside chance of a cup final or two.
That is not greed, it is hope.
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