Archive → April, 2011
Arsenal, Wimbledon, FC United, Thomas McKenna and Love United Hate Glazer
They all say ‘we won’t put you into debt’. They all say it’s for the interests of the club but in the end they are all liars. I don’t have a problem with people putting money into the game, if it goes through the correct channels and it’s in the interests of football. For example AFC Wimbledon and FC United. Two clubs running for very different reasons but they have the same view. Football in one way or another was stolen from them. AFC Wimbledon has more legitimate than the reasons for FC United but it follows the same principles. They were brought, name changed was taken away to Milton Keynes. AFC Wimbledon are now in the process of nearing the Football League. FC United aren’t that far behind them, currently in the playoffs positions two leagues below, with a few games to go. If FC United do go up, they’ll enter the conference north and at this point they won’t be that far off playing some serious football. FC and AFC league places also follow the same type of patten. AFC played three seasons where FC are now before pushing for a promotion. As AFC Wimbledon are showing, there is the possibility FC United are about to follow the exact same path. With the stadium planning well under way, a promotion and a new stadium could might give FC United a bigger boost than anyone really expected. Follow AFC Wimbledon’s approach and the football league could be calling.
Stan Kroenke might say now he won’t put debt on the club but two blokes at Liverpool also did the same thing. Have the new owners of Liverpool got any debt? I don’t think anyone knows that. It’s likely hidden in Delaware. A number of months later and that’s not the case, debt turns up on your books and they did nothing to stop it. It’s been said Kroenke wants to keep the Arsenal fan share scheme in place but if its forced to go, would he allow it back? The only other area I can look at is, he’s doing this now because its very possible during the summer, any take over with debt could be outlawed. If that did happen, that’s a third major British club being pushed into debt that isn’t needed. Glazer is meant to be worth around £2 Billion but this bloke is worth less. I don’t believe he’s got just £500m in his back pocket, plus the rest he paid for his other shares. It could also be, that he’s leant money and it’s come to the point, where he has to mount a takeover to start paying it off. Using the clubs cash and income. That’s is a reason that’s floating around in the press today and to me it would make a lot of sense. They’ll do anything to get you in at first, once they are in, they’ll do what they want.
The only other interesting information is the one about a Manchester United fan called Thomas McKenna. He’s being sued by the club after they say he leaked information about their customers/sponsors etc. I don’t really see a lot wrong with that because they club have been doing the same thing. The club say he’s caused many people personal distress. Well I can say the club and the Glazers have caused all their fans personal distress every time they put the ticket prices up and use they awful security firm CIS to stop peaceful protests. To me that’s Nazi stuff because this is a free country to a point. I really do hope, a count claim is put against the club because they are picking on one bloke to scare everyone else. Let’s get this correct, the Glazers stole the club, they wouldn’t even speak to the fans, so the fans are going to make it clear by any means possible that they aren’t welcome. If you want to support the cause against the Glazers using the club to sue fans. You can buy the famous Love United Hate Glazers stickers from the MUST Stall or the MUST Marquee tonight. I recommend everyone to buy some £3 for 50. Put them on your-desk, luggage, car window, old United shirts or the back of David Gills head. Don’t put them on any AON shirts, that’s got I love Glazer written all over it. Anywhere legal and useful. Any profits from the stickers will go towards the legal funds in court.
You can also buy the stickers here…. http://www.shop.loveunitedhateglazer.com/detail/1-luhg-stickers/flypage/1-luhg-stickers.html
LUHG
The Supporters Trust and Football Governance Committee
Over the last few weeks there have been a number of meetings between the select committee and those invited to give their evidence. Our Supporters Trust has put much faith into this but the question is what happens once its all over? What happens if nothing happens or something happens but it not what any of us wanted? Lets say the rules change but this makes no difference to ourselves? The Red Knights totally failed, followed by a failure by the government to take action. At that point its pretty clear we can’t rely on anyone but ourselves. The inaction by ourselves to do something on our own accord over god knows how many years will hit hard. The Redknights was luck of the draw, caused by Glazers actions. It wasn’t MUST who decided we’re going to raise money, it was someone else. Now again they are relying on an outside party such as Qatar to make a chance. It should have never happened like that. There are 1,000s of us last year thinking ‘phoenix fund’. They had a fantastic chance to start raising big money. If the fans want to buy into the club, they have to raise money, that’s a stone wall fact. What have we raised? 100,000 email addresses and the on rest I’ve not got a clue. They won’t tell anyone or talk about. As an example theres a club called FC United. They have around 2,000 members and they’ve managed to raise between £1.3m in community shares alone. That doesn’t include any donations towards the ground or money used to keep the club going. How many paid members? They won’t say. How much in the phoenix fund? They won’t say. The site says 167,000 members but that means nothing if action doesn’t follow it. It should read the figure in the Phoenix Fund. Money talks more than words. Ask Malcolm Glazer. The trust and the people who run it will see this as criticism but a lot of us will say, this is the truth. Inaction and lack of information. They have Obamas advertising company promoting them, use it correctly, raise some bloody money and cause some damage.
I’ll bring up another issue. The blog run on their site has gone from the story of the Red Knights to quickly advertising BetFred deals. To be honest, this is the type of thing that made many people give up back when the club house was the biggest thing on the MUST agenda. The idea did exist back in 2007, lets not say it didn’t. The idea to offer reds deals to put in the phoenix fund wasn’t a bad idea but it was poorly thought out. The biggest issue MUST are involved with currently is the football governance committee. That is the Be and End All. Not Bedfred, if they wanted a tiny amount of credibility they’d blog every tuesday and provide links to the live feed. Have they done any of this? No. If they want to use Betfred, it should be to promote the trust, not using the blog once every three weeks to advising a company. If Fred doesn’t want to promote MUST on his site or in his shops, tell him to do one. It no loss to me or anyone else. I don’t really understand what the people at the top of MUST are thinking but I think, its time for a big change.