The purchase of Everton Football Club by the American Dan Friedkin, the owner of the Italian club AS Roma and of the Toyota Gulf States, has taken the ownership of American ownership to ten clubs in the Premiership. Are these warning signs for the futuristic look of English football? A huge wind of change will develop if four more clubs become American owned, which in turn would give the USA majority voting rights as the parachute franchise regiment from over the pond lands on our shores.

The franchise system billboards as being cost effective and a quick way to grow. The overriding ballpark theme with huge football clubs investment into human capital, the players, the sounding of a meat factory, but not quite, link to terminology, to slaughter all dissenters in their quest for more wealth, alongside the want for those gleaming trophies to badge themselves up, for the supporters anyway possible to fast track to glory, bragging rights, any success is palatable, slumped intoxicated over a bottle riddled bar, ‘We are the champions’ that’s the end game. On the flip side, the Doodle Dandy’s want it all, to control all, from player renumeration to the number of games played, all of a positive direction? That depends pm which side of the bread you want buttered.

The franchise themed, “The owner, the franchiser grants to investors the franchisees the right to operate a business in a manner and style the company has already developed equity can provide a significant upside financially.” The normal punter on the Ladbrokes ticket would rule that a club of Manchester City’s ownership, the Abu Dhabi United group is immune to the franchise American concept, but are they? Gone under the radar, City have opened the doors to a private American equity with Silicon Valley outfit Silver Lake at an 18% stake in the club. In the red half at Manchester United, the club is a public company quoted on the Nasdaq in New York. The club’s owners, the Glaziers, ride into the Big Apple on their Texas chainsaws to saddle up swathes of cash to rob the bank of Manchester United, but they are the owners? Yes, crooked owners. Do they care about the decaying Old Trafford Stadium, no investment there, do they care about the leaking roof? Of course not, they most probably enjoy it, a public company to feather their own nest.

At Liverpool FC Redbird Capital partners, an American investment management firm have acquired a minority stake controlled by Fenway Sports, Redbird also have paid 1 billion for control of AC Milan at the Chelsea, Todd Boehly has been bandied around as the club’s owner, but that is not the case, Boehly was a front man with a 13% shareholding, Clearlake Capital, a private equity firm from Santa Monica who own 61.5%, are the owners with Boehly’s role play being sidelined. To complete the American Parachute regiment, Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Arsenal, Fulham, Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town complete the parachute 10. Are these warning signs? In part yes, for American franchises to exercise total control on voting rights could have serious ramifications. The fuse is lit, but will it be a problem?

Dreamscape

The day the Glaziers came into Manchester United is the day that one of the biggest heists in English football kicked off with the club hitting the 1 billion pound debt mark twenty years on from their ownership. The club is in need of a rebuild on and off the pitch. A so-called expert of a group of investment bankers stated that United will return to the top. How? And when? Not in the immediate future that’s for sure, unless manager Rubin Amorim miracles it all.

The attached to the Global investments UBS are urging investors to buy shares in the club with their prediction of a United return to the top. Are the Glaziers and Sir Jim Radcliffe working their glove puppets behind the veiled curtain to trickery mousery on possible investors? Their claim is that cost cutting will lead to improved sporting performances and a return to profitability, will that change with the Glaziers filling their cash saddle bags. United have dropped to fifth on overall figures projected, but to suggest that United would be ranked at number 1 without the Glaziers sucking cash, that’s the ball and chain attached, there will be no shackling free despite Radcliffe’s cost cutting measures and posturing.

The FA Cup

The scrapping of the FA Cup replays has reared its ugly backside with the Tamworth’s valiant play to take Tottenham Hotspurs to added extra time period in this season’s FA Cup before succumbing 3 to nil left the nicknamed lambs as sacrificial being denied a replay due to the extra time being introduced alongside the loss of a million pound pay cheque in replay receipts at the home of Tottenham, all to cater for the greed of the governing bodies and high echelon clubs in their quest for bigger cash revenues to squash the footballing calendar and to dismantle the FA Cup’s heritage, link to article Sept 3^rd ‘The 2023 World Cup and attached The FA Cup’.

Clubs further down the line will suffer from the loss of those funds in the lifetime big pay days, clubs in the pyramid system punished, it all equates to money being piped to the top Premiership players, a sickening fest of one long dump which trails down the pyramid. The bigger clubs like to participate in the latter stages of the competition and the trophy becomes of importance, but they also deride the heritage, they want it all. In response the paltry offerings from the Football Association are to scrap extra time to go into a penalty shootout for next season. The FA Cup has been devalued and to it needs to be returned to its inception, for the smaller clubs to challenge the big clubs, all be it of temporary for those glory days, and financial gains, link to article 25^th March ‘English Pride, the FA and League Cup’.