Let's imagine the worst possible situation and get mad about it!!!
And you seem to do this every day.
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And you seem to do this every day.
I don't want to be a marketing tool to mask extreme homophobia, modern day slavery and everything else that country stands for.
He's not my hero either. I voted remain in Brexit referendum too so he was on the opposite side of the debate to me.
He's far better in my eyes than selling our souls to the middle East though and be used as a political tool.
I agree up until the last paragraph. I think you'd find plenty of Liverpool fans willing to accept Qatari ownership if it were dangled in front of them.
The blunt truth is that to some football fans, trophies are all that matter, and anything that they perceive to get them closer to winning those trophies is to be welcomed.
Thats fine though, like I said, if you don't want Qatar for moral reasons then fair enough, that's a fair point of view, it's not mine, but it's not something I'd take issue with. But why does that mean that you have to try and pretend that Jim would be better for us on field, to try and pretend as if his time as nice has been anything other than disappointing, if you don't want the qataris for non football reasons that's fine, but there seems to be an enormous correlation on here between people who have an issue with the qataris, and people trying to pretend as if Jim would be more successful. Its weird, one opinion shouldn't influence the other, you should be entirely capable of thinking Qatar would be much better for us in terms of on field performance, while also not wanting them as owners
I believe either bid could be a good owner in reality. There will be a stark difference between approaches, but both will be a net benefit to the club.
My reasons for preferring INEOS are not entirely football related, but I’m also not seduced by endless cash and FM style squad turnover apparently on offer from Qatar. I’d rather we build sustainably and organically, and most importantly to have earned anything we win, not just bought superiority over our rivals.
Anyone else think that the Times article suggested that the Glazers want to be bought out fully. I sort of read it as Ratcliffe is the preferred bidder unless Qatar gives us what we want.
Happy to be corrected. You're more likely to know better sources than me on this but again, I've just googled it and looked at a few of the results.
That's incompetence though, isn't it? Knowing where to invest, how to spread it, not neglecting entire important areas... It's just standard care stuff. A bang average owner the past 10 years would have seen us in a far better position, that's the thing.
Ultimately, we have no idea what any billionaire will do, anyone pretending like they know is talking out of their ass. We can talk in likelihoods that it won't be as bad, because there are very very few owners who are worse (but they do exist). So we'll see. Likelihood is we see a vast improvement.
People equating Ratcliffe to Glazers because he didn't turn Nice into title challengers is laughable. Nothing wrong with wanting to turn a club sustainable and just run it smartly.
Maybe but convinced they won't give the leeches what they want. Can't see Qatar getting in front of Ratcliffe now
That won’t happen because the club simply couldn’t sustain a debt that big, and INEOS are not idiots. They aren’t about the spend 5bn to bankrupt their asset.
Nah I have read and seen a lot of them say they'd never go for it.
Hate them as we do.....they do love their club and what it stands for.
The lads who go on the overlap to talk about Liverpool are massively against state ownership and have said most match going fans also are.
I don't see it that way. I think if they have the money behind them they will buy us. The only reason Ratcliffe gets this is if SJ is a bluffer with no money behind him.
There are six other teams above them in the league, and they don’t have Mbappe and Neymar, nor do they have billions to spend.
Yeah. He has Nice at the level Nice historically have been. If he gets us to the level we historically have been, we'll be pretty happy.
This is what I can’t understand. If they have the cash to invest why not just up the bid and put back the infrastructure investment a bit? Something isn’t adding up.
Well that's a valid reason for some I guess. I can agree with you on that, but pretending Radcliffe it's a better option for us than Qatar is nonsense. For purely sporting reason Qatar would offer us a way better chance to success than Radcliffe.
As for myself I don't think of my football club as the epitome of moral standard so I don't really care if Qatar wants to wash whatever they want, as long as it's not cheating or illegal its ok with me.
I think no track record is better than a poor track record.
I'm more willing to give Qatar the benefit of the doubt in that regard, also because there are many unanswered questions about the clubs needed infrastructural investments and debt etc. from INEOS
By any chance did you stumble on a Onzemondial article? It's from 2019.
In 2023 Nice have the 5th average wage and I believe 6th total wage bill.
That's the mystery isn't it.
Still think they are just waiting to outbid Ratcliffe strategically.
If Joel and Avram want to stay then there’s no amount that SJ can offer them to make them go. That’s probably why they prefer Ratcliff, because he made them an offer to keep them at the club.
Come on man, It’s definitely a negative. You don’t cut your teeth on the biggest club in the world. His inexperience could really hold us back, much like Woodwards has.It's neither a negative or a positive then
It's not yours and again that's your choice.
Are you happy with that stand point or do you simply not care about those practices as long as we win a few more trophies?
This is the thing. If Qatar weren't a truly abhorrent regime I would be perfectly fine with either bid and I'd probably be in favour of Qatar over Jim.
But they aren't. They are appalling. Look at the world cup debacle. Some of those poor migrants are still fresh in the ground no doubt from a world cup they bribed their way to host.
I just can't ever be happy with that regime using our name. Not now not ever.
If Qatar win this with an eleventh hour bid I won't turn my back on this club but I will be incredibly disappointed and sad.
I don't think a lot.of the pro Qatar fans on here have even thought through what it actually will be like. All they can think about is Mbappe Neymar and co.
I don't think they do
I don't doubt there are plenty who are strongly against it, but the same thing was said by plenty of United fans until it Jassim waved a big wad of cash in their faces.
I dunno man, I just think a lot of football fans are pretty fickle.
If they take Ratcliff’s offer they’re staying.
I don't really think it's as much of a negative as Ratcliffe's footballing involvements have shown.
Because Qatar didn't match it. They are idiots but they will never take less money.
This is probably more the truth. Jim is obviously the far more impressive man of them both. No debating that. Self made actual billionaire who has actual money.
I have zero clue who the shiek even is. Nobody does. He seemed to have just appeared from nowhere which is kinda worrying for a potential owner.
I just see him smiling in pictures. Jim will be the more cutthroat of the two I imagine for good or for bad.
You don’t become as powerful as he has without that trait in the West. We’ve seen in this bidding process the guy is ruthless doing everything he can. Qatar’s bid seem like pussycats in comparison.
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Reality Check, SJ is going to lose because he wouldn’t do a deal with Joel and Avram or wouldn’t indulge their ridiculous valuation of £6bn and SJR will be the new owner with 51% he probably bid £5.5bn or £2.8bn for 51% for controlling shares, probably thought that was better than paying for 69% as he can now absorb £635m debt into the parent company Ineos and clear the debt.
Some Fans of the Qatar bids are expecting a last minute miracle, I have always been in ABG (AnyoneButGlazers) Camp and completely neutral, I really don’t care who wins this bid just as long as the Glazers go, I’m not happy with Joel and Avram staying but the fact that they won’t be calling the shots is a small win for now.
Ratcliffe just hired JC Blanc and I suspect that if he wins the bid Blanc won't go to Nice but Manchester this summer.
That's fair enough but I can only go on what has actually happened.
I have no idea who that person is either to be honest.
Is he active in the day to day running of the F1 team? That’s impressive. Busy guy!
Well I actually outlined my point earlier, I think closer cultural ties to the west, won't lead to instant improvements, but over the next one or two generations is likely to lead to a massively more progressive country, these countries can't rely on oil and gas forever and want to attract tourism and investment from the west, which will be predicated on a society that aligns more with ours. But it ha sa very religious population, even if the rulers allowed lgbt rights, the population wouldn't accept it, turning them into international pariah is more likely to make them more insular and less progressive, telling them feck off until you agree with us (but we'll keep buying your oil and gas) will leave them in a regressive state. Having closer cultural ties withthe west probably won't change much for the older generations but for younger people and future generations it's likely to be better
It's only abiut 70 or 80 years ago that we would chemically castrate people for being gay, a lot of progress can be made within a couple of generations. So i don't feel morally it's an issue for them to own us, or Saudi Arabia with Newcastle or Abu Dhabi with City.
You might scoff at this claim, but as Saudi Arabia has looked to attract western investment they've had to improve women's rights, a lot of this is linked with the closer cultural ties with the west, its not going to be an overnight change but it likely will happen, and things will get better for people in those countries. I don't think cutting ties with those countries will make things any better,
But all that's by the by, it still doesn't explain why your moral issue with Qatar has any impact on whether we'd be more successful in a sporting sense with them. Surely that's the point of your position, that you'd take us being less successful to avoid Qatar, in which case it seems weird to spend so much time pretending Jim will be better in a sporting sense, when rationally you must know that won't be the case
JC Blanc is the executive that was in charge of sorting Juventus's mess after the Calciopoli and he became PSG COO when QSI bought them.
I disagree with you. Not because Qatar didn’t match it but because Joel and Avram want to stay, and Ratcliff offered them exactly that. The Qataris didn’t give them the option to stay (yet). Contrary to the four other siblings who want to sell their shares, Joel and Avram want to stay.
Joel and Avram don't want to stay. I don't believe that personally.
If Ratcliffe and Jassim offered the same deal in terms of valuation but Ratcliffe was for 51% and Jassim the 100% then they would sell to Jassim.
I also think the media framed it that way today also.
It was basically Ratcliffe will be the preferred bidder if Jassim doesn't up the bid, implying that all 6 want to sell but Jassim has just offered less. The minority deal is just currently the best offer on the table.
Patterns of ownership do not lie when you can trace back to multiple sports-related ventures.
The Glazers, for instance, are grossly incompetent and it is reflected in the way they manage both United and the Buccaneers. If it wasn't for a stroke of luck in signing Tom Brady, we would be talking about 20+ years of shit for the Buccs with a rotting stadium despite the fact that the NFL has a salary cap that applies to all teams. In those 20+ years, there are many teams playing in more than 1 Super Bowl final and even winning more than 1 Super Bowl trophy.
Someone tried to reply to a comment of mine on Twitter by saying that it's not because a first marriage ended in failure that he will fail again. In SJR's case, that would be his third "marriage" to football ownership if he wins the bid. If things are already this bad at Nice and at Lausanne, how can you believe that things will be better for United when the patterns are there? Once again, it's a matter of patterns. To go back to the marriage analogy, Donald Trump is not going to be a better husband after the status of his 3 marriages.
Not sure, was a couple of weeks ago I did the search tbh. I just took the articles dated 2023. There was a twitter thread from Swiss Ramble for the 2021 wage bills as well but obviously out of date but gave a baseline figure as presumably their wage bill will have increased since.
I disagree.
Silly thought, but I wonder if the Qataris upset the Glazers more than we think when they had their knuckles rapped by Raine for the ‘former glories’ statement. Maybe the glazers really have no intention of doing business with them at any price?!
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