Former player, John Aldridge, has spoken out against the American ownership of his beloved Liverpool, claiming that the club’s “getting neglected.”
Liverpool are but one of England’s top flight teams to have gone under the ownership of foreign businessmen in recent years, but with the club’s stadium plans having to be reworked and the widely reported differences in existence – between not only coach and owner but also between owner and owner – a group of concerned fans have been making a push to put the club back in the hands of people who care; the fans themselves.
Aldridge is a board member of the group (Share Liverpool FC) and his public support of the campaign must add credence to it. Whether or not the group will be able to find the 100,000 supporters willing to part with £5,000 required in order for the dream to be realized remains to be seen. But the ideological support alone that this project has received is testament not only to the strength and character of Liverpool’s fan base, but also to the skepticism which many English fans hold towards the notion of uneducated and self-interested foreign businessmen interfering with their clubs.
An exuberantly expensive assembly of players – along with European and domestic success – may have made it easier for most Manchester United fans to warm to the Glazer family, but let’s not forget the uproar at the time of their takeover. The Glazers’ reign has been largely stable and one would expect their interest in the club to be lasting, but as the city’s other team has been passed from the hands of one foreign rich man to another – and as foreign investors are lining up to take charge of any Premier League team they can get their hands on – skepticism is a wholly rational response from supporters who have been obsessively following the ups and downs of their clubs for the majority of their lives’.
United and Chelsea may be prospering from the millions and billions respectively at their owners’ disposal, and perhaps Aldridge’s comments will prove to be as much of an overreaction as the formation of FC United of Manchester, but in light of America’s (and therefore the world’s) current economic frailty, the fear of a financial fallout at Liverpool – or any other Premier League club flirting with grandeur – is not only a real one, but a understandable one. Fans of League One’s Leeds United will confirm that he who dares doesn’t always win.
From 90:00 Soccer Magazine
Liverpool are but one of England’s top flight teams to have gone under the ownership of foreign businessmen in recent years, but with the club’s stadium plans having to be reworked and the widely reported differences in existence – between not only coach and owner but also between owner and owner – a group of concerned fans have been making a push to put the club back in the hands of people who care; the fans themselves.
Aldridge is a board member of the group (Share Liverpool FC) and his public support of the campaign must add credence to it. Whether or not the group will be able to find the 100,000 supporters willing to part with £5,000 required in order for the dream to be realized remains to be seen. But the ideological support alone that this project has received is testament not only to the strength and character of Liverpool’s fan base, but also to the skepticism which many English fans hold towards the notion of uneducated and self-interested foreign businessmen interfering with their clubs.
An exuberantly expensive assembly of players – along with European and domestic success – may have made it easier for most Manchester United fans to warm to the Glazer family, but let’s not forget the uproar at the time of their takeover. The Glazers’ reign has been largely stable and one would expect their interest in the club to be lasting, but as the city’s other team has been passed from the hands of one foreign rich man to another – and as foreign investors are lining up to take charge of any Premier League team they can get their hands on – skepticism is a wholly rational response from supporters who have been obsessively following the ups and downs of their clubs for the majority of their lives’.
United and Chelsea may be prospering from the millions and billions respectively at their owners’ disposal, and perhaps Aldridge’s comments will prove to be as much of an overreaction as the formation of FC United of Manchester, but in light of America’s (and therefore the world’s) current economic frailty, the fear of a financial fallout at Liverpool – or any other Premier League club flirting with grandeur – is not only a real one, but a understandable one. Fans of League One’s Leeds United will confirm that he who dares doesn’t always win.
From 90:00 Soccer Magazine
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