Ezekiel 2517

I think that’s €70 million… So, around £60,500,000. Doesn’t feel like anywhere near enough to me…

And that’s how you would like it to remain. And you’re scared you’ll lose your place at the top of the tree. That’s what this all comes down to really, if you’re being honest with yourself for a moment. You’d be no happier if you lost the pre-eminent position you believe you hold in world football through what you’d consider at the moment to be “fair means”. And on that point, you keep saying that Liverpool have only spent money they’ve earned. That’s not true though, is it? People have repeatedly pointed out how you were bankrolled in the 60s and 70s - I believe the Ian St John was a record purchase for a player when you were in the old second division. And on the point of you crowing about how successful you are, you weren’t anything much to speak of as a club before then, despite football having been around for 80 odd yearsby then. Your memory seems to span only to the era of Shankly. It was then FSG’s money you spent to save you from bankruptcy after the disaster of the previous ownership, and their money you used to get you back up and competitive again. Nothing really too “organic” about that. And again I come back to the term “fair means” and “our own money”. You bought success in the 60s, 70s and 80s and became a prominent club in Europe. You became a global brand that many, many people outside Liverpool “supported” (that is, bought your merchandise) as a result of that. You continue to capitalise on that to this day. And what you’re saying here is, if we sell more merchandise than you and get bigger sponsorship deals, we have a right to be better equipped on the football field to win. I’m not sure I’m seeing the “fairness” from a sporting perspective. You’re now sounding like some capitalist business man (perhaps reflecting the nature of your ownership). Despite your assertion that we’d all love to spend untold billions on player transfer fees and wages, that’s simply not the case. We would like, however, to be able to spend a comparable amount of money as you, to see if we can’t kick-start the process that you were permitted to begin back in the 70s and 80s. The fact is we can’t when rules such as awarding “bigger” or more successful European clubs larger amounts in prize money for achieving no more than a “smaller” competitor are in place, or restricting the amount a sponsor can give us when they’d be allowed to sponsor you four times as much. There is nothing “fair” about these rules and for you to argue that capitalising on them equates to you having “earned” them is insulting to any football fan’s intelligence.

How can we “regularly” hope to qualify for the Champions League? This would mean we have to out perform four of the “Big 6” year after year, while they are permitted to out spend us. That’s quite an ask, isn’t it? It’s also worth remembering that we don’t receive the same amount of prize money as the “Big 6” in European competitions, as this depends upon UEFA coefficients. If we reach the same stage of the Champions League as you or Manchester City we receive much lower prize money.

Now you’re just being silly and you’ve started to sound petty. Newcastle United has quite a history, as do many clubs, but you know that. And you win things. Has it passed you by that only a very select few actually tend to win things these days and the rules you are defending make this ever more likely? You talk of growing a club “organically”, but you haven’t really explained how the current rules are not an obstacle to this - not just for us, but for the likes of Aston Villa, for example, who are not owned by a “murderous regime”.

All part of the plan to turn the Champions League into the Super League. Ensure that the big clubs have all the star players and that they’re consistently playing every year in the competition. How to turn football into Disney entertainment. As you say, “no one” wants to see less glamorous clubs spoiling the entertainment value.

Yeah, fair point. I’m just speculating as to what could have caused such a seemingly dramatic - almost allergic reaction - to playing for us again. And how a seemingly intelligent, level-headed person appears to have lost their mind.

There have been hints that something else has affected him, haven’t there? Didn’t Bruno say something about him going through a tough time? Wasn’t he burgled a couple of times and could it be something to do with that…? Whenever Eddie or anyone else for that matter has spoken about him, they’ve always referred to how intelligent and thoughtful he is, so I can’t get my head around this simply being a “toys out of the pram” reaction to not being effectively handed over to Liverpool. It feels like the degree to which he doesn’t want to be at the club is actual desperation…

Did he actually say, “It’s not fair to play with somebody as tall as Dan Burn”…?

I wonder whether it’s more likely that the pressure from the other Premier League clubs and particularly the ‘Big 6’ will result in the Premier League expelling us at some point. They will claim that we breached the separation between PIF and the Saudi Arabian state or will change the Owners and Directors test to include provisions relating to Human Rights and apply it retrospectively. The American owners in particular want to protect their investments at all costs and have shown quite clearly in almost joining a Super League from which they could never be demoted and suggesting that the ‘Big 6’ should be able to outvote everyone else that they want to significantly limit all competition.

How did Abramovich and Qatar manage to buy Chelsea and Man City if the elite clubs have done this since the leagues inception? Clearly that was not in Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and our (or anyone else in the PL at the time) interest back then. I get your point, and agree it smells like corruption for the sake of them maintaining their own status but it clearly hasn't been like this all the time. A bit more on topic, I won't be watching any games of any kind of medium next season. Whenever I'm back in Newcastle on business travel and it falls close to a weekend or so I'll try to catch a game with Gateshead or Blyth instead. It's so sad. I love Newcastle and the people living there. Going to football was always the primary objective but a big bonus was the nice athmosphere in the city, the shops, resturants so I'll definitely visit as much as I can but that will probably be less than before when I can't justify travelling to matches. What I was really alluding to was the fact that the Premier League was set up to protect the interests of those clubs in that elite group. While some clubs will move into and out of the group, the bigger players - such as Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal - were pretty much guaranteed to always be in it and therefore were able to take ever increasing shares of the revenues, so further cementing their place year after year. Years later and the whole financial balance in English football is completely out of kilter. The idea that we're now in a situation where, if you're relegated from the Premier League you're given three years worth of financial support, which gives you an unfair advantage over the other teams in the lower divisions, is anathema to me. And the fact that clubs like Bury can go out of business, while the Premier League is awash with money, is a travesty. I don't know if I'm making sense. I'm just angry at everything and particularly the whole idea of the Premier League today. It just feels like the whole set-up is inherently designed to protect the "big clubs" and that this is just another step to ensure that there are ever fewer and fewer challengers. I have similar feelings about FFP and, for me, it was little surprise to see Liverpool and Tottenham come out in support of it recently, following the outcome of Man City's appeal.

I imagine watching us play now will feel even more like watching a very dull TV programme or an awful play. The overwhelming feeling for me will be that the outcome's already been written and I don't think I can bring myself to particularly care at all what that outcome might be. The idea of Premier League football providing a world where anything can happen is pretty clearly an illusion. The "elite" will continue to look after themselves (as they have done since the league's inception) and will ensure that the odds continue to be loaded in their favour each year, so why bother...?

Is this not a little bit of a fallacious argument? We might have spent relatively little (which perhaps says more about Ashley's reluctance to spend), but surely they are worth more than we paid. The reverse might be said of some of Man. Utd and Tottenham's purchases. The frustration comes from seeing some players, who the majority would agree are very talented (regardless of the money paid for them), either playing poorly or struggling to play well together.

Mike Ashley is a gambler, a man who sets aside £20 million of his own personal fortune (not a penny more mind, when it's gone it's gone) each year for gambling in casinos. He's not a winner. He's a man who likes the thrill of winning, but the greater thrill is in the risk. This is, for me, what appears to set him apart from people like John Henry at Liverpool, who was quick to recognise the history of the club and proclaim his intentions to turn Liverpool into the 'winner' it was in the late '70s and '80s. Ashley appears to have bought our football club simply for the thrill of it. He ploughed in money from his 'gambling pot' and when it was gone it was gone. Under the previous regime, I remember looking at the accounts as the season 2006-2007 began and thinking that we simply didn't have the finances to continue and I believe that we were close to going out of business. So, Ashley and his millions did save us from bankruptcy, but in the end he's a gambler, not a winner, and in the long term we'll need a new owner with a winning mentality and a winning strategy if we're ever to challenge for the top honours.