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The Russell catch-all transfer thread
Topic Started: Apr 20 2013, 01:07 PM (22,025 Views)
yasser
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Ivan Golac
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Conan the Destroyer
Jul 16 2013, 06:30 AM
Tom_Boland
Jul 15 2013, 09:58 PM
Aye he could've been better. All credit to him however for scoring 1 of the goals at Dens in the QF.

BTW Conan, have you had your visit to Scotland yet?
Pardon?

East Kilbride was annexed to Scotland a long time ago - I'm confused.
You're confused.

For some reason Chipping Sodbury springs to mind.
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findus
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Jerry Kerr
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reekie
Jul 17 2013, 09:29 AM
McLean is not a person, I would suggest
I know he wasn't a fan favourite, but that's a bit harsh.
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Naebody
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Twat
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whatsthatonyourback
Jul 17 2013, 10:00 AM
Wasn't that answered in your previous post, then my follow up linked article and Matthew Syed's Abramovich/Chelsea analysis, where attaching oneself to a prominent institution like a football club can serve as some protection to scrutiny?
It's the QIA, though. It doesn't need shielding from scrutiny because it's the bloody QIA, with its $115bn of clean US petrodollars to spunk on behalf of a population of 250,000. The protection gained from an association with a football club is equivalent to putting a party hat on a rhinoceros.
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reekie
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lum raker
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Might I direct the honourable gentleman to my previous post?
Admittedly, the world cup revenues are small beer but the kudos from being involved with the world's favourite game is worth the outlay, surely?
"Hey! Look! We're an obscenely wealthy emirate with a very poor human rights record, raising a generation of layabouts, but, really, we're just like you!
We love football!"

eta -of course, they may just be gearing up to align themselves with less Gulfy states...
Edited by reekie, Jul 17 2013, 12:03 PM.
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Conan the Destroyer
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I prefer it when we're pish
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yasser
Jul 17 2013, 10:03 AM
Conan the Destroyer
Jul 16 2013, 06:30 AM
Tom_Boland
Jul 15 2013, 09:58 PM
Aye he could've been better. All credit to him however for scoring 1 of the goals at Dens in the QF.

BTW Conan, have you had your visit to Scotland yet?
Pardon?

East Kilbride was annexed to Scotland a long time ago - I'm confused.
You're confused.

For some reason Chipping Sodbury springs to mind.
I'm not a man who stays in one place for too long.
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Naebody
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Twat
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reekie
Jul 17 2013, 11:43 AM
Might I direct the honourable gentleman to my previous post?
Yeah, I accept that argument, even though it still seems ludicrous. QIA are not dumb people, generally speaking, and are relatively westernised so the PR argument looks tenuous. Do we really warm to Qatar because they're making PSG into something monstrous? It's rather like your gran spending her pension on hiring Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass to play at your 16th birthday because she knows you like music.
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reekie
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lum raker
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Naebody
Jul 17 2013, 01:01 PM
It's rather like your gran spending her pension on hiring Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass to play at your 16th birthday because she knows you like music.
As strategies go, that would work for me!

Perhaps it's as simple as wanting to be part of things current?
In the way that kids who once whizzed by proudly on their Micro scooters, now wouldn't be seen dead on anything other than a JD Bug.
Just on a much bigger scale obviously.
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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The Qatari's investment in football doesn't initially seem as transparent as other mega rich investors, and their investment in PSG doesn't look like making them a profit anytime soon, so surely it's a combination of many factors?

- As Reekie said there's huge kudos and reflected glory in owning a club doing well in the CL, you get to stand beside hugely famous players (in front of 100s of Millions of TV viewers all over the world) saying, yep, I basically own him now! Similarly rich emirates have been doing the same with racehorses for years and surely football's a bit more interesting...

- Marketing and PR exposure for your Country and it's brand. I haven't read his book (http://www.wsc.co.uk/reviews/59-Clubs/8967-richer-than-god) but David Conn's articles have regularly detailed the strategy behind Man City's Abu Dhabi based owners to use the enormous worldwide exposure of European football to market their brands like Etihad Airways etc. It cant be too far fetched to presume the Qatari's have similar intentions.

Re the question Naebody posed
Quote:
 
QIA are not dumb people, generally speaking, and are relatively westernised so the PR argument looks tenuous. Do we really warm to Qatar because they're making PSG into something monstrous?
That may be easy to answer for older fans who think the vast injections of money into football is obscene. But we're probably not their market - what with our misplaced cares about human rights and equality issues - it's the younger generation of fans who buy Ibrahimovic & Cavani shirts and identify themselves with the associated brands. There's every chance they couldn't care less about such trivialities as obscene wealth and the rights of a Country's citizens.
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Naebody
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Twat
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Morvant's Finest
Jul 18 2013, 12:58 PM
That may be easy to answer for older fans who think the vast injections of money into football is obscene. But we're probably not their market - what with our misplaced cares about human rights and equality issues - it's the younger generation of fans who buy Ibrahimovic & Cavani shirts and identify themselves with the associated brands. There's every chance they couldn't care less about such trivialities as obscene wealth and the rights of a Country's citizens.
Yup. But .......

I can just about believe that a European Cup is worth paying nearly anything to secure. My issue is more with the idea that all this money is aimed at creating a kind of football equivalent to the Harlem Globetrotters. But there are a dozen Globetrotters already, and no one is volunteering to be the Washington Generals. So who's going to watch a European Super League of 12 Globetrotters? The same people who watch Formula One, I guess; dull people.
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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Naebody
Jul 18 2013, 01:26 PM
Morvant's Finest
Jul 18 2013, 12:58 PM
That may be easy to answer for older fans who think the vast injections of money into football is obscene. But we're probably not their market - what with our misplaced cares about human rights and equality issues - it's the younger generation of fans who buy Ibrahimovic & Cavani shirts and identify themselves with the associated brands. There's every chance they couldn't care less about such trivialities as obscene wealth and the rights of a Country's citizens.
Yup. But .......

I can just about believe that a European Cup is worth paying nearly anything to secure. My issue is more with the idea that all this money is aimed at creating a kind of football equivalent to the Harlem Globetrotters. But there are a dozen Globetrotters already, and no one is volunteering to be the Washington Generals. So who's going to watch a European Super League of 12 Globetrotters? The same people who watch Formula One, I guess; dull people.
I take your point Naebody, but PSG have just outbid Chelsea, Man City & Real Madrid to buy the best striker in Italian football, the year before they bought Napoli's next best striker Lavezzi, the hugely sought after (at the time) Pastore & the future of the Italian midfield Marco Verratti. They also have the best Centre Half in the world Thiago Silva in their team and are just about to buy one of the highest rated young defenders in the world from Roma in the shape of 19 year old Brazilian Marquinhos.

They only narrowly lost to Barca in the CL knock out stages last year and are shaping up to be stronger this year. I'd argue they could very well be the Harlem Globetrotters of European football quite soon!
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Naebody
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Twat
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Morvant's Finest
Jul 18 2013, 03:51 PM
They only narrowly lost to Barca in the CL knock out stages last year and are shaping up to be stronger this year. I'd argue they could very well be the Harlem Globetrotters of European football quite soon!
Well, no. They can't. Because -- brace yourself here -- Harlem Globetrotters matches were fixed.

Now, I accept that the Champions League is pretty much fixed as well, in the sense that richer teams get numerous parachutes while the smaller ones are cannon fodder. But it needs to remain a game, if only because there are now a dozen or so clubs indulging in this ridiculous arms race. They can't all win. All but one, in fact, must lose; that's a problem the Globetrotters never had. Even if you think the cost-benefit analysis makes sense for a Champions' League winner, it still seems a ludicrous gamble.
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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TBH I wasn't really considering the fixed nature of the Globetrotter games, just commenting on the potential of PSG to go from being a distinctly average team in the 5th strongest league in Europe, to being a genuine contender for European honours.

You're right in saying that you can only have one winner of the CL, but if PSG can go close and win Ligue 1 again next year they'll still gain significant worldwide exposure.

Would also slightly dispute there are a dozen teams taking a ridiculous gamble financially. A fair few of the Top 15 teams by turnover like Man Utd, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Juve, Dortmund, Spurs, Napoli etc mostly live within their means, and Italian teams like Milan and Inter have cut back their expenditure significantly in recent years and are heading towards break even.

Even the huge losses that Real & Barca post periodically aren't that significant compared to their huge turnover and their massive worldwide fanbase and heritage should shield them from experiencing the kind of problems that teams like Leeds have experienced anytime soon.

There are of course outliers like Man City, PSG, Monaco, and to a lesser extent Chelsea (whose losses are bizarrely quite manageable given the ridiculous new TV deal in England) but given the potential revenues in the top level of European football, are their owners really acting that differently from the local businessman made good of yesteryear football, chasing the odd Cup win to justify pissing away their children's inheritance?
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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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Barcelona and Real Madrid make large profits these days. I choose to admit I had assumed they made regular losses and carry massive debt. Not so. Wish it were true. Winning bastards.
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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whatsthatonyourback
Jul 18 2013, 10:46 PM
Barcelona and Real Madrid make large profits these days. I choose to admit I had assumed they made regular losses and carry massive debt. Not so. Wish it were true. Winning bastards.
Yep, even read a detailed analysis a while back that said that after the new TV deal in England, even evil despots Chelsea don't really have that much to worry about with regards to the Financial Fair Play regulations as well.... :fisted:

BTW on a totally unrelated topic, read this in the report of the match against Cottbus:
Quote:
 
Despite having plenty possession and looking dangerous, the Germans continued to threaten and it took a great challenge by the very impressive Calum Butcher to keep the scoreline 0-1 in the 57th minute.
I'm now totally confident that Butcher is going to be a great signing. :ban:
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Setenza
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Knitting with only one needle
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Does / did anyone start shopping in Morning, Noon and Night when Thompson took over?
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