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Uncle Fred

Ownership - it’s time for the debate

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11 minutes ago, Uncle Fred said:

How many of the current owners of Europe’s top clubs are crooks? 

Fixed it for you 😉

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2 hours ago, hogesar said:

Fancy seeing you here

Yes, excellent thread to check on the wellbeing of absent friends...

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I think as I’ve grown older I’ve become one of the fans to be happy to be ‘little old Norwich’.

With the current ownership we are comfortably top of one of the hardest leagues in the world; just beaten a team 7-0; have some of the best players I’ve ever seen at the club; play beautiful football and have a manager who is not only a skilled coach but also seems to really love and understand the club and it’s fans.

l’m happy to settle for that even if it means we can’t spend multi millions and will struggle next year and yes potentially be relegated again.

As a point of contrast my brother is a lifelong Man City fan. Yes he has loved all their success but I still sense he lost a bit of ‘his club’ when it was sold and they ‘bought’ success. I have enjoyed this season and watching this team play much more than he has. Even though they have some of the best players in the world and will win the premier league yet again.

Heck, even Pep watches Norwich for the fun of it!

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13 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Reality is we've signed players who are now worth far more than we could afford to buy them at, even with a modestly rich owner. Burnley have done well staying up but despite that they couldn't afford Buendia or Aarons.

Sheffield United spent a lot of money and they're coming down with one of the worst points totals.

This view that new owners = more ambition = Norwich a premier league regular is a fantasy for the uneducated and nothing more.

We always end up in these same circular debates- I don't think anyone has suggested new owners who can spend more = GUARANTEED SUCCESS!!!

Sheffield United have become everyone's favorite bellwether- last season it was for those of us who felt we should have spent more, this season for the opposite crowd- but is it not worth looking at the wider picture?

Leeds and Aston Villa both spent sizable amounts on promotion and now look comfortable, Fulham spent £100m and went down, this season they've been significantly more cautious and will...go down again?

West Brom spent more than us but not much by Premier League standards and are going down. Crystal Palace used to spend loads when they first went up (£30m on Beneteke?) but over the last 3 years they've had a net transfer profit of over £30m as they've settled into being 'established' so to speak. 

What we do know is that what we're trying to do is very much the exception not the rule- if we go up and spend £40m odd (including Gibson and Dimi) while keeping our key players it would still be not that much by Premier League standards. 

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33 minutes ago, Uncle Fred said:

If perennial under achievers Man City can transform after purchase by a stinking rich  owner there is no reason why Norwich can’t with the right stinking rich owner 

I agree - there is no reason we could not be regular competitors in the Champions league if we could find a similar owner - unfortunately the chances of finding someone willing to put in hundreds of millions of pounds without return are extremely thin.

What is highly plausible, however, is that you get "an investor" who sees a chance to make some money, comforted by the fact that if his/ her gamble fails, the club has lots of assets that could be sold off to cover any costs. The most likely result of course would be that become impoverished.

Steady investment is far more likely to succeed than putting everything you have into the national Lottery and ope for the best, which is in essence what you are suggesting.

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1 minute ago, king canary said:

Leeds and Aston Villa both spent sizable amounts on promotion and now look comfortable

To be fair though, Leeds and Villa should never be in the Championship for long in any case. The only reason that they left the EPL were is due to financial incontinence , particularly in the case of Leeds.

Palace will get relegated again in the next few years (as weill Burnley, Brighton etc). Their ability to go back up again will be largely determined by the level of debt that they go down with.

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Badger makes a good point, investors want a return. I rather like our self sustaining model and a quick look at last years accounts showed a small £63k dividend being paid but little else in the way of return to the owners. Hopefully, that means ant profit gets spent on players, coaches, infrastructure etc that make the club stronger rather than on making someone richer.

My pal supports Brighton and has developed a huge sense of paranoia about being relegated. He spends ages worrying about it and looking over his shoulder. Our last few years have been up and down but we seem to be making steady progress and it’s been a lot of fun along the way. It doesn’t seem to me to be broken so why worry about trying to fix it?

Edited by Hansterbubble
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1 hour ago, horsefly said:

Indeed we have some very valuable assets at the moment, both on the playing front and the estate. Several £20m+ footballers, our own ground in a prime location, our own training ground in a prime location etc, etc. I have no doubt there are a few billionaires out there with not the slightest interest in City as a football club, but who are nonetheless very interested in those very ripe assets.

We are already showing more ambition than the last time we were promoted with the imminent transfer deals for Gibson and Giannoulis, and Webber is on record as saying he will need to support Farke with more and better player acquisition than last time. Refusal to indulge in a reckless spending spree should not be mistaken for a lack of ambition. Imagine we had spent the putative £40m value on the players we loaned instead last season, do you think we would have only had to sell Godfrey and Lewis if we had bought them? Ambition should not be judged only by one season's activity. The ambition of the club was also evident in the fact that despite relegation we were able to hang on to Aarons, Buendia, Cantwell, Pukki, and were able to add Gibson and Giannoulis. I'll take City's long-term sustainable ambition over your "time to gamble" punt every day of the week.

Im not trying to say alter our mantra/long term view. I am saying if there is a time to spend a little more this is the season, as we should a) learn from previous mistakes b) take advantage of Farke being here and supporting him financially as much as we can c) take advantage with Webber being here. 

I am not saying for one minute we risk our financial future, but there comes a time when you have to gamble a little more than what we have previously. I suspect we will see more investment in the team this season compared to last and other have rightly pointed out we are turning loans into perms with a decent outlay already. But it will take quite a bit more to get a first team ready to compete in the premier league.

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One day the club will be sold. That is certain. All we can hope for are eventual new owners that are as consistent and invested in the the future long term success of the club in good days as well as bad as Delia and Wynn Jones (and hopefully their nephew is it)

Last thing we need is it to be some rich Russian or foreign billionaires hobby that can be conveniently disposed of once the novelty wears off.  After all they could sell the ground, the assets quite easily.

As to Ipswich - well they are now owned by a Pension fund expecting, no demanding, a return. Ruthless changes afoot if they don't deliver! Could they play on the local rec  - ground share with Colchester or Southend ? 

 

 

Edited by Yellow Fever

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6 minutes ago, Hansterbubble said:

Badger makes a good point, investors want a return. I rather like our self sustaining model and a quick look at last years accounts showed a small £63k dividend being paid but little else in the way of return to the owners. Hopefully, that means ant profit gets spent on players, coaches, infrastructure etc that make the club stronger rather than on making someone richer.

My pal supports Brighton and has developed a huge sense of paranoia about being relegated. He spends ages worrying about it and looking over his shoulder. Our last few years have been up and down but we seem to be making steady progress and it’s been a lot of fun along the way. It doesn’t seem to me to be broken so why worry about trying to fix it?

Brighton actually have one of the better owners - he is a philanthropist (albeit a gambler) and a genuine fan, I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't just treat Brighton as a financial asset to just dispose of when times get hard.

Equally, however, his estimated wealth is "only" £1.3 billion, he can't keep on writing cheques for tens of millions without shedding a tear!

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The days of having no Delia and MWJ around due to their age and Webber and Farke moving on are looming large on the horizon and the thought of the boy Tom having control backed up with the likes of Stefan Philips is not worth thinking about.

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1 hour ago, jaberry2 said:

Nice over reaction there. Let me enlighten you as you have failed to detail any teams other than Leicester (for some unknown reason). West Ham, Crystal Palace, Burnley, Southampton and Newcastle to name a few now established team in the Premiership. 

Nuff Said.

Have any of the clubs you list been in the PL more than 10 years? Maybe Southampton? They've all flirted with relegation at least and had crises along the way (Leicester too thinking about it). Would anyone be that surprised if they were relegated in the next few years? That's not "established" in my book.

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33 minutes ago, king canary said:

We always end up in these same circular debates- I don't think anyone has suggested new owners who can spend more = GUARANTEED SUCCESS!!!

Sheffield United have become everyone's favorite bellwether- last season it was for those of us who felt we should have spent more, this season for the opposite crowd- but is it not worth looking at the wider picture?

Leeds and Aston Villa both spent sizable amounts on promotion and now look comfortable, Fulham spent £100m and went down, this season they've been significantly more cautious and will...go down again?

West Brom spent more than us but not much by Premier League standards and are going down. Crystal Palace used to spend loads when they first went up (£30m on Beneteke?) but over the last 3 years they've had a net transfer profit of over £30m as they've settled into being 'established' so to speak. 

What we do know is that what we're trying to do is very much the exception not the rule- if we go up and spend £40m odd (including Gibson and Dimi) while keeping our key players it would still be not that much by Premier League standards. 

Whilst it pains me to say it, Leeds and Villa are naturally much bigger clubs and were only below us in recent years due to severely bad management at ownership level.

Re your first point - plenty have said, albeit they've been quiet this season so you'll have to go back to when we were relegated last season, that "we will only stay up if we have owners with more money".

More than that, if you go back there are posts saying we'd only challenge for promotion if we got richer owners on board. That same line was used when we came down with Neil Adams last time too.

All it really shows is there's little correlation, particularly first season back, on if spending significant money gives you a better chance of staying up. As always, it's how its spent and the infrastructure of the club in general. We didn't spend enough last time to realistically give us a fighting chance but Webber did tell us all about it beforehand - not after the fact. He was scoffed at for saying it's a longer term vision and we'll come back stronger. "Webber thinks we can just get promoted again" - Well, he did, and we have.

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Ought to add - 

What Norwich need to do if they want to become an established EPL club irrespective of ownership 'charity' is create a GLOBAL brand - same as Man U and Chelsea etc. They make more from marketing than kicking a football around! They in principal can be profitable large businesses.

The question is how do we do it. The colours help - instantly recognisable and also being a 1 club city. But Norwich is unlikely to ever have the global awareness as place / city as say Manchester in China.

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4 hours ago, Crabbycanary3 said:

Just got your strength back Fred I see. We were worried

Speak for yourself,  I was more concerned for his poor missus. 

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39 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

As to Ipswich - well they are now owned by a Pension fund expecting, no demanding, a return. Ruthless changes afoot if they don't deliver! Could they play on the local rec  - ground share with Colchester or Southend ? 

Indeed! There is a fiduciary (legal) obligation on the administrators of the pension fund to serve the interests of those for whom the fund exists (and rightly so). This ain't going to be a "sugar daddy" scenario where the new owner(s) gets to financially indulge their pet project. If I were an Ipswich fan (excuse me while I cross my chest) I would be very worried that any continuation of the dreadfully poor financial performance that has dogged the club for years could see the pension fund demand a return on its limited assets.

Edited by horsefly
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19 minutes ago, Nuff Said said:

Have any of the clubs you list been in the PL more than 10 years? Maybe Southampton? They've all flirted with relegation at least and had crises along the way (Leicester too thinking about it). Would anyone be that surprised if they were relegated in the next few years? That's not "established" in my book.

You need to refer to a different book, 10 years is a little on the extreme side of things. 3/4 seasons I would say it would take to become an established premier league outfit. Many of us may quibble over the teams being mentioned and would never want to be stuck in that void of never challenging for anything other than a mid table finish, however its down to us to challenge that. 

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Football Clubs tend to change hands when either they are in the sh1te (Binners where both times debt has been cancelled   albeit in different ways ) or underperforming (Liverpool) 

City are neither . 
 


 

 

Edited by Graham Paddons Beard
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40 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Re your first point - plenty have said, albeit they've been quiet this season so you'll have to go back to when we were relegated last season, that "we will only stay up if we have owners with more money".

That isn't the same thing though.

Thinking 'we won't stay up without the ability to spend more money' isn't the same as 'if we spend more money we'll definitely stay up.'

42 minutes ago, hogesar said:

All it really shows is there's little correlation, particularly first season back, on if spending significant money gives you a better chance of staying up. As always, it's how its spent and the infrastructure of the club in general. We didn't spend enough last time to realistically give us a fighting chance but Webber did tell us all about it beforehand - not after the fact. He was scoffed at for saying it's a longer term vision and we'll come back stronger. "Webber thinks we can just get promoted again" - Well, he did, and we have.

Personally I disagree that there is little correlation. I can't think of a single example in recent years where a club has come up, barely spent anything and stayed up. People talk about Burnley as an example but even in their 'bounceback' season 5 years ago they spent £40m+. The evidence is pretty clear that 'spending money doesn't guarantee success but not spending it pretty much guarantees going down.'

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Again, it’s very simple, it’s who you sign, and not what you spend on them that counts. 

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5 minutes ago, king canary said:

That isn't the same thing though.

Thinking 'we won't stay up without the ability to spend more money' isn't the same as 'if we spend more money we'll definitely stay up.'

Personally I disagree that there is little correlation. I can't think of a single example in recent years where a club has come up, barely spent anything and stayed up. People talk about Burnley as an example but even in their 'bounceback' season 5 years ago they spent £40m+. The evidence is pretty clear that 'spending money doesn't guarantee success but not spending it pretty much guarantees going down.'

We stayed up under Lambert without spending too much.

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I would like to see us stay up in the Prem for a while if only to solidify our finances but for me it is not the be all and end all of supporting the club. In all honesty I can say that at bottom, it makes little difference to me as to which division we play in. I have had  a largely enjoyable lifetimes experience of division 3 South, division 3, division 2, division 1, The Prem, The Championship and League One. In all of them there have been moments of ecstasy and moments of agony. What else is football about?

In truth only about eight clubs can realistically lay claim to being established Top Flight teams. The rest, including us are destined to recirculate witin the range that their size allows. For NCFC this is basically what we ascribe to as of now, in being a top 26 club.

We will never be a super sized club like Man City or the rest of the big six. It is not something that I would even want my club to aspire to. There is nothing wrong with the Yoyo, I embrace the Yoyo and all the mix of emotions that come with it. If thats what it takes to provide me with a solvent football club to support then Long live the Yoyo👍

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2 minutes ago, Jersey Canary said:

We stayed up under Lambert without spending too much.

Overall we spent about the same as Swansea who came up with us. Spending £10-12m at that point was fairly standard. 

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54 minutes ago, jaberry2 said:

You need to refer to a different book, 10 years is a little on the extreme side of things. 3/4 seasons I would say it would take to become an established premier league outfit. Many of us may quibble over the teams being mentioned and would never want to be stuck in that void of never challenging for anything other than a mid table finish, however its down to us to challenge that. 

Really??? You do know that a club called Norwich City were in the Premier League for three seasons from 2011/12 to 2013/14. 

By your definition we WERE an established Premier League club. 

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9 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I would like to see us stay up in the Prem for a while if only to solidify our finances but for me it is not the be all and end all of supporting the club. In all honesty I can say that at bottom, it makes little difference to me as to which division we play in. I have had  a largely enjoyable lifetimes experience of division 3 South, division 3, division 2, division 1, The Prem, The Championship and League One. In all of them there have been moments of ecstasy and moments of agony. What else is football about?

In truth only about eight clubs can realistically lay claim to being established Top Flight teams. The rest, including us are destined to recirculate witin the range that their size allows. For NCFC this is basically what we ascribe to as of now, in being a top 26 club.

We will never be a super sized club like Man City or the rest of the big six. It is not something that I would even want my club to aspire to. There is nothing wrong with the Yoyo, I embrace the Yoyo and all the mix of emotions that come with it. If thats what it takes to provide me with a solvent football club to support then Long live the Yoyo👍

Out of likes Ricardo, but completely my sentiment too. I dread the day we become a ‘solid’ Prem club. I dread the day we become a ‘solid’ Championship club. I can’t think of anything more mundane. The unpredictability of it all is what gives us the highs and lows. There is nothing to stop us from winning one of the big domestic cups too when the stars align. They didn’t last season - just when it looked like we’d got a bit of our mojo back, the season ground to a halt. But if everything was easy and predictable, those highs would never feel like highs to me. So bloody lucky to have Norwich as our club. We must embrace every moment we can right now, rather than what may or may not happen in the future. If you live like the latter then you will never ever enjoy success when it’s actually in the here and now. Like now 🏆

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It’s the “established” ones that are in trouble if relegated - to become established usually means long term contracts without allowance for relegation . We dont offer contracts without a safety net since Naismith.

Bolton , Blackburn, Wigan, Sunderland , Portsmouth , Stoke  to name but a few , all fell foul  of this . 

Edited by Graham Paddons Beard
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6 minutes ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

It’s the “established” ones that are in trouble if relegated - to become established usually means long term contracts without allowance for relegation . We dont offer contracts without a safety net since Naismith.

Bolton , Blackburn, Wigan, Sunderland , Portsmouth , Stoke  to name but a few , all fell foul  of this . 

My feeling is the Naismith signing was one of the most important signings in Norwich City‘s history. Why? Because it taught us a valuable lesson that we learnt from big time. Little did we know that was a real turning point for us - and here we are, lesson learnt 🙏

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Surely there is a middle way where we can consolidate where we are and gradually build for the future eg further improve the academy, increase the ground capacity and hospitality and even invite an investor or two who do not want ownership but a share in the clubs success within the present model.

I love the top 26 aspiration but do worry about the end of the Delia era but I an sure any continuity plan will be built in to her successor, even if we become a fan owned club where we all have a stake.

 

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1 minute ago, Alex Moss said:

My feeling is the Naismith signing was one of the most important signings in Norwich City‘s history. Why? Because it taught us a valuable lesson that we learnt from big time. Little did we know that was a real turning point for us - and here we are, lesson learnt 🙏

Year after year Sunderland spent a fortune just surviving with outrageous contracts - and then the hands of time caught up with them .... 

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2 minutes ago, Felixfan said:

Surely there is a middle way where we can consolidate where we are and gradually build for the future eg further improve the academy, increase the ground capacity and hospitality and even invite an investor or two who do not want ownership but a share in the clubs success within the present model.

I love the top 26 aspiration but do worry about the end of the Delia era but I an sure any continuity plan will be built in to her successor, even if we become a fan owned club where we all have a stake.

 

The Southampton model.

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