charles
Graham Fisher
Andrew Aigner-Muehler
LukeS
HardyAnother club fall to foreign ownership.
July 24th 2007 10:23
Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. courtesy of Sky
Yet again another English Premiership club has fallen in the hands of international ownership, this time it is Manchester City.
Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has acquired at least 75% of the shares needed, which also delist Man City from the London stock exchange according to reports.
The Man City take over follows the Liverpool takeover that took placed in February when Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett bought the club for 174 million pounds. Prior to these, there were the takeover by Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich, when he purchased Chelsea of Ken Bates for 140 million pounds in 2004, and then when another American Malcolm Glazer paid 740 million pounds for Manchester United in 2005, which is still today the largest amount ever paid.
The Shinawatra family are to follow the likes of Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool in purchasing up big on top named players to strengthen their squads, with Man City new manager Sven Goran Erikkson already purchasing Rolando Bianchi and Gelson Fernandes. Sources say also that Man City are also looking at adding atleast two national Thai players to their squad. It must also be a good sign and boost for Thai football.
In the past there has been a bit of backing premiership managers for foreign ownership. Suppose it is just another chapter in the revolution of this great game, with TV companies having more influence with TV rights and also paying enormous amounts of money for the rights to telecast the games. It is also a step up from the big corporate companies like Vodafone and Emirates paying big money for advertising rights, just to get their name out there and noticed.
Our great game has got to the stage where they re-start play waiting for a commercial to finish on TV, like you see in NFL and Australian Rules.
As long as the history of the clubs don't change, and it is a step in the right direction, then it is all good. The clubs that struggle these days are the clubs that usually don't have the financial support to buy top players, and to acquire these top players, you need financial support like Thaksin Shinwatra.
Just as long as the former Thai prime minister doesn't come out and say something like 'my two sons played soccer when they were young, one was a goal tender, and the other a defenseman'.
[Image source: Wikipedia]
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