Well I chose a bad weekend to go away!
Feb 22, 2016 16:58:41 GMT
JeffNZ, traveling_wilbury, and 13 more like this
Post by irishrover on Feb 22, 2016 16:58:41 GMT
Blimey - where to start. Don't normally start threads based on my personal opinion as it feels a bit (and, to be honest, is) self-indulgent especially when posting at length. But, in my defence there's too many threads I want to contribute to here and so in the interests of efficiency I wanted to bung down some thoughts.
Firstly, I don't know about anyone else but I'm still struggling to digest this and I suspect that what we feel about this now will almost certainly not be the same as what we feel about it in 6 months time. So I feel like it's almost impossible to reflect on this properly at the moment beyond a kind of vague shopping list of positives and negative that have been largely been already covered on the board. Overall then I think reserving judgement seems like a pretty sensible (and deathly dull) approach and a way of avoiding mammoth dissaspointment. But, sod it, that's boring so lets do it anyway!
Secondly, I accept all the concerns about foreign owners but nearly all of those concerns equally well apply to British owners. The kind of issues people flag up about clubs not having owners rooted in their communities could just as well apply if we'd been taken over by a businessman from Carlisle and there have been just as many incidents (probably more in fact) of those kind out of town British owners screwing over football clubs with which they had no prior connection (normally in collusion with previous owners that did have a connection....). The difference is that those owners don't get grouped together as 'British owners' in the same way 'Foreign Owners' do. They get treated as individual cases not as part of a malign process but, in reality, the mechanism is exactly the same; clubs being bought by unscrupulous people who have no connection with the community or fans. The problem isn't whether someone is British or not, the issue is our model of football club ownership that treats clubs purely as assets to be bought and sold. Once that's in place then fans have no more control over who owns our clubs than we do over who owns our local pub. Ie. We may have an emotional tie to it but we have no impact on its future affairs beyond the ability to withhold our custom - the relationship is purely customer - owners and that's the way football clubs are now run in England. People who make the anti-foreign owner argument tend to focus on what type of people these owners are - they should concentrate more on the structure I think because it's a much bigger issue. I don't like the current ownership structures of English football at all but I can't blame Nick Higgs or the Al-Qadi's for that - to me it's a different question. It's a bit like when people get angry when an unpleasant individual wins the lottery - it kind of misses the point. It's the structure of the contest that creates this - not the specific people involved. I feel that that the truth is that most foreign owners are quietly competent but high profile failures/dodgy individuals get more attention because it's an easy extra stick to throw at them (unlike s*** British owners, these type of owners are both s*** and foreign so therefore in a false logic foreign owners must be s***!). So, as a criticism, that's a complete non-starter for me. Exactly the same concerns would have applied if Higgs had sold up to the rumoured Birmingham consortium (unsubstantiated reports of ex-Rovers involvement not withstanding).
Thirdly, like everyone else I like the sound of this guy and good noises are being made. But, at the same time I find it a little bit sad. Wael has given several interviews in which he has sounded humble, intelligent, realistic, passionate about the game and excited about the project. Despite being coy about the details I see no particular reason not to believe what he says. The reaction by Rovers fans has been predictably positive. What is sad for me though is that a Posh guy from Jordan with an expensive and elite UK education and no prior connection to the club or the area has come in and instantly sounded like he has a better understanding of what Rovers fans want to hear and what they will respond positively to than a board of professed lifelong Rovers fans have for most of the last 15 years! OK, yes, obviously it's much easier when you are announcing good news and being hailed as a saviour and no doubt he has a very good mastery of basic PR in his line of business etc etc but this isn't really designed as a massive dig at the departing board. I just think it puts into sad contrast the absolute breakdown of the positive relationship between the board and the fans over a successive number of years. Which kind of backs up the previous point - people tend to want clubs (however they're owned) to be ideally run by those who are from and understand the area, and have always supported the club, largely because they think those type of local owners understand the supporters better. Well we've had that and there's been naff all evidence of any real understanding - if anything it's just produced a paranoid and parochial bunker mentality based on perceived slights and petty personal disagreements. I find that sad because it really, really didn't have to be like that. Maybe a professional distance will actually be a good thing after the last few years - it's probably reached the stage where we needed someone from the outside to come in and basically steamroller over all cracks and fissures that have opened up in the last decade. This could not represent more of a fresh start for all concerned (the retention of certain holdovers excepted) - why do I suspect that will not be the case though and people will just find other proxy battles to fight?
Fourthly, at this stage we have absolutely no idea the level of investment these guys are planning. So before we start planning our assault on the Champions League perhaps we should reign in our horses just a weebit until the colour of the money is revealed. Meetings with UWE, commitment to build the new stadium etc. All of that sounds very promising. They were far less forthcoming I thought about investment in the team although there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to come in all guns blazing on that score; unsettle current staff, get driven up in wage negotiations, create unrealistic expectations etc. Mostly I liked how calm and measured and well thought through all of this sounds - the amount of evidence that is being found related to due dilligence and working with high end professional organisations is quietly relieving while, I admit, not perhaps as exciting as a guy walking onto the training ground with a giant bag of money and saying to DC 'it's all yours mate'. The emphasis on academy sounds good as does their prior football experience. My completely uninformed hunch is that these people want to be a player in regional/international football politics (I would imagine that there's likely huge financial/reputation potential in the wider area linked to the Qatar World Cup in terms of offering a unique international networking opportunity for big Middle East organisations) and that owning an English football club is a good way of building up a credible profile while investing in something interesting. I don't see how this is all about the stadium deal. Whatever wealth level these people have we know it's pretty astronomical - they're not looking to make a pile from a stadium deal in the way a speculative consortium might be, they're already megawealthy. I think it's more likely that they were looking to invest in a football club anyway and that our stadium deal adds a very handy potential bonus as a good reason to chose us over someone else. If all they wanted to do was invest in a property deal then surely there are simpler ones available for people that wealthy. But, at the same time I'm sure they'll look to maximise the deal because it makes sense for them to do so and that's where we all just have to trust that those interests align with the club' interests. All in all I think I'm marginally happier trusting megarich Jordanians to do that than I am moderately rich Bristolians for the simple reason that they have far less personally riding on it (both financially and for their professional and personal status). My main worry all along was that the board would do a deal on the UWE anyway because one way or another they had to and it would end up as the final millstone that dragged the club under - something that has happened at other clubs. This removes that concern but potentially replaces it with other ones.
Fifthly, what a result for Nick Higgs. Good for him - he's had a rough ride and I hope he goes happily off into the sunset. For all that there is much to criticise about his period in charge I always felt it fell a bit disproportionately on his head - the real problems with Rovers definitely predated Higgs Chairmanship. But, I think it's fair to say that his legacy also rides on what happens now. If Al-Qadi come in, get the stadium built (particularly if it is UWE and I don't think there's any real reason to think it won't be) and provide a solid base for the club then I think he would deserve to be seen as the guy who built the base for that. However, if it all goes pear shaped with Al-Qadi then that's part of his legacy too - they've made a big play on having sold the club to the right people, I really hope they've got it right - if so the Higgs statue at UWE may not be such a laughable idea. Very good initial signs.
Sixthly, we can calm down about onfield stuff! Relax, take a chill pill. If these guys are the real deal then what we currently have essentially is a freepass for the rest of the season - if they're not then we're screwed anyway. It would be bloody awesome if we got promoted and would definitely add to the sense of a club on the up. But, if not, we have billionaires with pocketfuls of cash to fund a serious promotion bid next time. I don't think anyone (not even DC if he was being really honest) thought we'd do this well and coupled with City's struggles the season has taken on an urgency that seemed a bit unlikely in September. Now it looks like City will stay up and we seem to be well placed off the field. So it doesn't need to happen tomorrow. Though I would love it if this side managed to go up I don't think this increases the pressure. DC should definitely stay and the squad should be added to not rebuilt by the way - it would be very dissapointing if it went any other way. However, I am concerned that the 'Holloway in' movement will build very quickly the moment we hit any kind of roadblock and given that these new owners will have a desire to make an impression with fans and Ollie's current employment status it seems a very real risk to me that DC would find himself on an unfarily short leash.
Seventhly, bloody hell can we take a leaf out of our impressive sounding new owners book and be a little bit humble about this? Getting involved in 'who has the richest owner?' debates with City fans seems incredibly tedious and almost completely irrelevant (though sadly I see it becoming as standard as the crucial 'who takes more fans away?' debate). It's pretty funny though for someone my age who grew up with both clubs being financial basketcases in the early 90s. Certainly the your Channel Island Tax Exile vs Our Jordanian Bankers (who one assumes are not overly burdened in the tax department themselves) is a somewhat different order of magnitude from 'My Milkman vs Your Keyboard Player from Bros....'!
Anyway, that's more than enough crap for the timebeing. Most of it is guff but I needed to write that down just to get my own head round what I actually thought about it - still pretty stunned. Turns out a leopard can't change it's spots - boring old cautious optimism is the order of the day as usual....
Firstly, I don't know about anyone else but I'm still struggling to digest this and I suspect that what we feel about this now will almost certainly not be the same as what we feel about it in 6 months time. So I feel like it's almost impossible to reflect on this properly at the moment beyond a kind of vague shopping list of positives and negative that have been largely been already covered on the board. Overall then I think reserving judgement seems like a pretty sensible (and deathly dull) approach and a way of avoiding mammoth dissaspointment. But, sod it, that's boring so lets do it anyway!
Secondly, I accept all the concerns about foreign owners but nearly all of those concerns equally well apply to British owners. The kind of issues people flag up about clubs not having owners rooted in their communities could just as well apply if we'd been taken over by a businessman from Carlisle and there have been just as many incidents (probably more in fact) of those kind out of town British owners screwing over football clubs with which they had no prior connection (normally in collusion with previous owners that did have a connection....). The difference is that those owners don't get grouped together as 'British owners' in the same way 'Foreign Owners' do. They get treated as individual cases not as part of a malign process but, in reality, the mechanism is exactly the same; clubs being bought by unscrupulous people who have no connection with the community or fans. The problem isn't whether someone is British or not, the issue is our model of football club ownership that treats clubs purely as assets to be bought and sold. Once that's in place then fans have no more control over who owns our clubs than we do over who owns our local pub. Ie. We may have an emotional tie to it but we have no impact on its future affairs beyond the ability to withhold our custom - the relationship is purely customer - owners and that's the way football clubs are now run in England. People who make the anti-foreign owner argument tend to focus on what type of people these owners are - they should concentrate more on the structure I think because it's a much bigger issue. I don't like the current ownership structures of English football at all but I can't blame Nick Higgs or the Al-Qadi's for that - to me it's a different question. It's a bit like when people get angry when an unpleasant individual wins the lottery - it kind of misses the point. It's the structure of the contest that creates this - not the specific people involved. I feel that that the truth is that most foreign owners are quietly competent but high profile failures/dodgy individuals get more attention because it's an easy extra stick to throw at them (unlike s*** British owners, these type of owners are both s*** and foreign so therefore in a false logic foreign owners must be s***!). So, as a criticism, that's a complete non-starter for me. Exactly the same concerns would have applied if Higgs had sold up to the rumoured Birmingham consortium (unsubstantiated reports of ex-Rovers involvement not withstanding).
Thirdly, like everyone else I like the sound of this guy and good noises are being made. But, at the same time I find it a little bit sad. Wael has given several interviews in which he has sounded humble, intelligent, realistic, passionate about the game and excited about the project. Despite being coy about the details I see no particular reason not to believe what he says. The reaction by Rovers fans has been predictably positive. What is sad for me though is that a Posh guy from Jordan with an expensive and elite UK education and no prior connection to the club or the area has come in and instantly sounded like he has a better understanding of what Rovers fans want to hear and what they will respond positively to than a board of professed lifelong Rovers fans have for most of the last 15 years! OK, yes, obviously it's much easier when you are announcing good news and being hailed as a saviour and no doubt he has a very good mastery of basic PR in his line of business etc etc but this isn't really designed as a massive dig at the departing board. I just think it puts into sad contrast the absolute breakdown of the positive relationship between the board and the fans over a successive number of years. Which kind of backs up the previous point - people tend to want clubs (however they're owned) to be ideally run by those who are from and understand the area, and have always supported the club, largely because they think those type of local owners understand the supporters better. Well we've had that and there's been naff all evidence of any real understanding - if anything it's just produced a paranoid and parochial bunker mentality based on perceived slights and petty personal disagreements. I find that sad because it really, really didn't have to be like that. Maybe a professional distance will actually be a good thing after the last few years - it's probably reached the stage where we needed someone from the outside to come in and basically steamroller over all cracks and fissures that have opened up in the last decade. This could not represent more of a fresh start for all concerned (the retention of certain holdovers excepted) - why do I suspect that will not be the case though and people will just find other proxy battles to fight?
Fourthly, at this stage we have absolutely no idea the level of investment these guys are planning. So before we start planning our assault on the Champions League perhaps we should reign in our horses just a weebit until the colour of the money is revealed. Meetings with UWE, commitment to build the new stadium etc. All of that sounds very promising. They were far less forthcoming I thought about investment in the team although there are many reasons why you wouldn't want to come in all guns blazing on that score; unsettle current staff, get driven up in wage negotiations, create unrealistic expectations etc. Mostly I liked how calm and measured and well thought through all of this sounds - the amount of evidence that is being found related to due dilligence and working with high end professional organisations is quietly relieving while, I admit, not perhaps as exciting as a guy walking onto the training ground with a giant bag of money and saying to DC 'it's all yours mate'. The emphasis on academy sounds good as does their prior football experience. My completely uninformed hunch is that these people want to be a player in regional/international football politics (I would imagine that there's likely huge financial/reputation potential in the wider area linked to the Qatar World Cup in terms of offering a unique international networking opportunity for big Middle East organisations) and that owning an English football club is a good way of building up a credible profile while investing in something interesting. I don't see how this is all about the stadium deal. Whatever wealth level these people have we know it's pretty astronomical - they're not looking to make a pile from a stadium deal in the way a speculative consortium might be, they're already megawealthy. I think it's more likely that they were looking to invest in a football club anyway and that our stadium deal adds a very handy potential bonus as a good reason to chose us over someone else. If all they wanted to do was invest in a property deal then surely there are simpler ones available for people that wealthy. But, at the same time I'm sure they'll look to maximise the deal because it makes sense for them to do so and that's where we all just have to trust that those interests align with the club' interests. All in all I think I'm marginally happier trusting megarich Jordanians to do that than I am moderately rich Bristolians for the simple reason that they have far less personally riding on it (both financially and for their professional and personal status). My main worry all along was that the board would do a deal on the UWE anyway because one way or another they had to and it would end up as the final millstone that dragged the club under - something that has happened at other clubs. This removes that concern but potentially replaces it with other ones.
Fifthly, what a result for Nick Higgs. Good for him - he's had a rough ride and I hope he goes happily off into the sunset. For all that there is much to criticise about his period in charge I always felt it fell a bit disproportionately on his head - the real problems with Rovers definitely predated Higgs Chairmanship. But, I think it's fair to say that his legacy also rides on what happens now. If Al-Qadi come in, get the stadium built (particularly if it is UWE and I don't think there's any real reason to think it won't be) and provide a solid base for the club then I think he would deserve to be seen as the guy who built the base for that. However, if it all goes pear shaped with Al-Qadi then that's part of his legacy too - they've made a big play on having sold the club to the right people, I really hope they've got it right - if so the Higgs statue at UWE may not be such a laughable idea. Very good initial signs.
Sixthly, we can calm down about onfield stuff! Relax, take a chill pill. If these guys are the real deal then what we currently have essentially is a freepass for the rest of the season - if they're not then we're screwed anyway. It would be bloody awesome if we got promoted and would definitely add to the sense of a club on the up. But, if not, we have billionaires with pocketfuls of cash to fund a serious promotion bid next time. I don't think anyone (not even DC if he was being really honest) thought we'd do this well and coupled with City's struggles the season has taken on an urgency that seemed a bit unlikely in September. Now it looks like City will stay up and we seem to be well placed off the field. So it doesn't need to happen tomorrow. Though I would love it if this side managed to go up I don't think this increases the pressure. DC should definitely stay and the squad should be added to not rebuilt by the way - it would be very dissapointing if it went any other way. However, I am concerned that the 'Holloway in' movement will build very quickly the moment we hit any kind of roadblock and given that these new owners will have a desire to make an impression with fans and Ollie's current employment status it seems a very real risk to me that DC would find himself on an unfarily short leash.
Seventhly, bloody hell can we take a leaf out of our impressive sounding new owners book and be a little bit humble about this? Getting involved in 'who has the richest owner?' debates with City fans seems incredibly tedious and almost completely irrelevant (though sadly I see it becoming as standard as the crucial 'who takes more fans away?' debate). It's pretty funny though for someone my age who grew up with both clubs being financial basketcases in the early 90s. Certainly the your Channel Island Tax Exile vs Our Jordanian Bankers (who one assumes are not overly burdened in the tax department themselves) is a somewhat different order of magnitude from 'My Milkman vs Your Keyboard Player from Bros....'!
Anyway, that's more than enough crap for the timebeing. Most of it is guff but I needed to write that down just to get my own head round what I actually thought about it - still pretty stunned. Turns out a leopard can't change it's spots - boring old cautious optimism is the order of the day as usual....
) my thoughts.
