Texaggie7nine said:
If you want a good illustration of why it's the Red Cartel, all you have to do is look at who would have won the years City did. If City didn't win. United, Liverpool amd Arse. The financial rules guarantee their continued dominance with no hope of any contenders other than a random miracle run like Leicester but even then, the big teams would just buy away their big players.
I mentioned it before. There are plenty of legal ways an investor can dump money into a club and grow it.
Your response then was that none of the things I mentioned would buy KdB - but I ignored it because I had already made that exact point: the legal ways to grow aren't gonna happen overnight.
A real owner who's looking for ROI doesn't need it to happen overnight. They need it to grow organically and sustainably. And that's precisely why the rules exist. To prevent even good owners from getting themselves in trouble, because when clubs go into administration it's good for nobody
The crux of the issue is that City's ownership doesn't care about anything that a traditional ownership group cares about. They could dump money and demand immediate results because they care zero about financial ROI (and if you think I'm wrong, the Saudi league is doing this exact same thing).
The rules aren't holding clubs back. The same clubs ruled the roost well before these rules existed.
I'd argue that the old ownership model/philosophy in English football is what holds clubs back. When cable/satellite TV changed everything, most of these clubs changed nothing. It's like most completely ignored US sports because they were different, instead of learning from US sports business. The ones who thrived were the ones who could tap into a global fanbase instead of just being a local club.
You see this changing though. It's early days, but Leeds new Red Bull money might be effectively and sustainably growing that club (the same way they grew Leipzig legally and sustainably in Germany, taking a decade to get it to rise from the 5th tier).
I'm biased, but I'm fully convinced that in 10 years, Wrexham will be an EPL contender. Same story there, organic, legal growth. Dumping money into facilities and academy. Finding unique revenue streams, because at the end of the day, what both real owners and the league want is revenue.
I bring up those specific examples because there's a bit more similarity between them and City than other ownership groups. Red Bull and Rob/Ryan clearly have motives outside of club finances itself. If the club ROI wasn't great, they could still use reputation gains from the club to make an ROI elsewhere (very similar to UAE owners). Despite this similarity, two groups decided to play the long game and play by the rules, but one decided it was more powerful than God so it could do whatever the hell it wanted.
