what do Fulham, Villa and Swansea have in common?

[jarv]

American owners who like to oversee the freefall and demise of relatively successful premier clubs. 094.gif

[snarks]

Give it a break please. I'm not saying the stewardship is everything I hoped for, but really do we have to go through this, when there appears little basis for it financially. He's not Ernie clay or several of the others that predated MAF. Ok he hasn't achieved MAF's level of success yet, but no need for the bashing either.

[cmg]

Give it a break please. I'm not saying the stewardship is everything I hoped for, but really do we have to go through this, when there appears little basis for it financially. He's not Ernie clay or several of the others that predated MAF. Ok he hasn't achieved MAF's level of success yet, but no need for the bashing either.

Agree.
I know little or nothing of Aston Villa or of Swansea City, but I do not recognize the OP's description as being applicable to Fulham.

[RaySmith]

Maybe in years to come people will be posting threads arguing for a statue of Mr. Khan to be built, after all our success, and with our brand new  stands.

Seriously, I don't feel that our owner has done a lot wrong, and has invested in the team and manager, our training facilities and, potentially, the ground

[Mince n Tatties]

Bleedin Yanks thought they could get my old aunt
Ivy in bed all for a pair of nylons..Cor Blimey your
avin a laf..At least a bar of chocolate on top.. :022:

[cookieg]

Isn't the bloke who owns Villa Chinese?

[jarv]

oh dear oh dear. The irony was completely lost in what I thought was mildly amusing after a lunch with my Swansea supporting mate the other day. 

Snarks...give it a rest...really. Perhaps you should find a sense of humour  :005: You will be amazed how a smile enriches one's own life.

[love4ffc]

Villa was owned by an American who did do a dismal job.  He has left and a Chinese sports corporation has taken over. 

As for Swansea I believe you have a case where you have two American owners looking for bragging rights that they own an English team.  One of them owns DC United and the other has tried to purchase the Oregon Timberwolves.  This is not that different of a situation from Khan buying FFC.  So I believe the Swansea owners are currently going through the same learning curve that Khan has gone through.  Will be curious to see how they fair compared to Khan. 

[YankeeJim]

Must be an international week since we're having threads started with a groundless cheap shot. What's that word........xen???????

[alexmur]

Yawn

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[ToodlesMcToot]

American owners who like to oversee the freefall and demise of relatively successful premier clubs. 094.gif

Well, if you're going to blame Khan for our relegation, then you'd have to blame Villa's Chinese owner for their demise. He was driving that turd as it circled the drain last season.

As was asked prior to my posting, why start this over again??

[Mince n Tatties]

Bleedin Yanks thought they could get my old aunt
Ivy in bed all for a pair of nylons..Cor Blimey your
avin a laf..At least a bar of chocolate on top.. :022:

With regard to that bar of Chocolate, my understanding is that Mick Jagger is an authority on Mars Bars, if you know what I mean, so if you ask him for his recommendation, I would imagine a Mars Bar would be at the top of the list.

Don't know if they could get mars bars during the war Woolly,better you phone Marianne Faithful, she might know. :022:

[dannyboi-ffc]

I'm gonna defend the op here. OK the wording could have been better because I don't believe Khan liked/purposely took us where we are now. But the way Swansea and Villa have gone/ are going raises an interesting debate.

For many years Villa expressed their issues with their American owner, they may be owned by Chinese now but their demise started a long time ago through neglect. You could argue MAF did the same but it's a much harsher accusation considering the success we had compared to Villa.

Swansea seem very similar to our situation, it seems more naivety than anything. But the Arsenal chairman, makes sh1t loads of money but Arsenal haven't come closer to winning anything since he's owned the club. And by that I clearly mean the prem or champs league and many fans would question how much the owner cares about trophies, it's all about profit.

The Glazers seemed to be a exemption but now I'd question whether they are all that clever after all. Most of it was clearly down to Sir Alex Ferguson. Losing a youth team player and then resigning him for a world record fee doesn't strike me as good ownership. Plus not sure they've got the management setup right at all yet which is something we struggled with when Khan came in, Rene, Magath, Kit in 3 years. Then 2 months with no manager. Seems a similar scenario on a bigger scale.

The blokes at Liverpool, Gillette and someone? They made a big mess of it before selling. There must be a good apple in there and I reckon in time Khan will prove to be one of those as his heart seems to be in the right place. But compared to others it seems the Americans aren't the greatest owners in the land and I think their lack of understanding of the game has to be part of the issue. And by understanding I mainly mean understanding it's a club and not a business and the fans matter.

I think the culture of no relegations/ promotions and not being used to how competitive our leagues are is an issue in itself.

But then you've got Birmingham, Blackburn and Cardiff who are Asian and Blackpool with Oyster so I think my conclusion is, the Americans are a bit naive and are blinded when purchasing a club because of the pound sign and the novelty of the premier league. But in general it matters not where they come from, you just need to be lucky and get a good egg with good intentions.

Could have been a good debate this one.....shame

[HatterDon]

Villa was owned by an American who did do a dismal job.  He has left and a Chinese sports corporation has taken over. 

As for Swansea I believe you have a case where you have two American owners looking for bragging rights that they own an English team.  One of them owns DC United and the other has tried to purchase the Oregon Timberwolves.  This is not that different of a situation from Khan buying FFC.  So I believe the Swansea owners are currently going through the same learning curve that Khan has gone through.  Will be curious to see how they fair compared to Khan.

Oregon Timberwolves, Gracie?  064.gif 064.gif 064.gif 064.gif 064.gif 064.gif

Are they affiliated with Shrewsbury Argyle?

[RaySmith]

I think there are problems  related to foreign ownership.
They are presumably investing in The Prem , or potential Prem, for business reasons rather  than the sentimental reasons of the traditional British owners. Even MAF wasn't motivated by money in owning Fulham, but more by  the idea of reflected glory, and gaining success in British society.
Also, there is  the distance - both physical and cultural.

BUT - they are the ones with the money to buy  British clubs, and can  finance them to , hopefully, success.
Who else would be able to invest in Fulham as Khan has.

It would be better if British clubs were owned  by owners here, not because of xenophobic reasons, but  football clubs are such an intrinsic part of our society and communities. I believe that in Germany this is recognised more, but they don't have a league as globally successful as the Prem, attracts businessmen from all over the world, with the huge amounts of money involved.

However, Khan seems decent as an owner, and is very rich, and doesn't seem to have done too much wrong that  he could have avoided - either because he was badly advised, or just bad luck.

[Forever Fulham]

We were in early downfall under MAF in the last year or two of his ownership.  He wasn't making any real investments in talent.  He perfumed the pig and found Khan, got him to buy.   I don't buy the notion that he was such a great guy at the end. He did a lot, until he stopped doing anything.   As to Liverpool's two former joint owners, Hicks and Gillette, I always thought that Gillette genuinely tried to do the right thing by that club, but Hicks had his own agenda and thwarted him.  Could be wrong about that, but that was the strong sense I got out of following reports and write ups.  I have no respect for Hicks. 

[snarks]

We were in early downfall under MAF in the last year or two of his ownership.  He wasn't making any real investments in talent.  He perfumed the pig and found Khan, got him to buy.   I don't buy the notion that he was such a great guy at the end. He did a lot, until he stopped doing anything.   As to Liverpool's two former joint owners, Hicks and Gillette, I always thought that Gillette genuinely tried to do the right thing by that club, but Hicks had his own agenda and thwarted him.  Could be wrong about that, but that was the strong sense I got out of following reports and write ups.  I have no respect for Hicks. 

Agree with this, if it's a genuine debate and not a dig at the owner, then in my view Khan was sold a bit of a pup. As has been well discussed on here MAF had stopped investing. Also Fulham are in a better place then when MAF took over, which is no bad thing.

The bloke who took over at Arsenal is also American (as are liverpools current owners) they seem to have got it right, so not all are bad.

[snarks]

That's just it tho' it's opinions. MAF was brilliant for Fulham, that is unchallengeable, the only debate is did he stop investing in the club in the 2 years before he sold it, my view is yes. Jol would not have still been in charge if it had been the MAF of 5 years before. Can you trace the start of the decline to him? I think so. Is Khan blameless? No clearly not.

[Williams Tale]

George Michael was careless with a whisper in that toilet a few years ago .

[dannyboi-ffc]

All well and good excusing Khan of being sold a pup. But ultimately it didn't come down to the lack of investment from Mo. In fact I'm not convinced splashing cash is always the solution. Mo can't be blamed for the consistently poor decision making from Khan and his staff. Manager appointments and signings like Mitroglou. I'm not buying it that we are where we are now thanks to Al Fayed.

It looks to be getting better now but our downfall over 3 years was khan's incompetence. This season has proved it takes just 1 window and 1 manager to turn it around. It took Khan's staff 5 managers if you include keeping Jol too long and 5 windows to get things looking bright again.