When will the penny drop that fans of every club contain exactly the same types of people. There's not a single fan base that is made of of morally just, model citizens, and there's no fan base made up of just dick heads. You may perceive it differently based on how you view online forums, but frankly online forums make up a tiny percent of an entire fan base and are mostly representative of the admins who set the rules.
Generalisation and stereotyping of other fan bases is bullshit, but it's just another way to point score. "Look at us, we use clean money to fund our players" "Look at us, we only spent £1.2bn in the last decade, you spent £1.4bn, ha ha" That's all this silly arguing about morals really comes down to. We want to look better than the rest. Yesterday Arsenal fans had banners alluding to their legit ownership. They failed to acknowledge one of their biggest sponsorships is funded by UAE. Lack of self awareness or stupidity? Not sure. But certainly another example of a pathetic and childish point scoring exercise that supporters of rival clubs love to indulge in
When it really comes down to it, the majority won't give a feck who we're owned by as long as we're spending bucket loads of cash in the summer
You are of course right, but at the same time, this is the one way I think we can make a bad situation a little less bad.
Two thoughts I have.
1. Simply, if we get Qatari owners, we don’t need to cut corners. We don’t need sponsorship money from companies that doesn’t even exist. Under the table deals with players/coaches. Etc etc etc.
We, through MUST for example, can definitely demand openness. There is talk about a seat on the board etc. But a simple thing like, as a listed entity, the Manchester United plc today reports by the IFRS standard. We announce a year end report about 2-3 months after the season ended. Others do it 18 months after the season ended. You would in January 2024, get info about the 21/22 season.
With openness it becomes harder for us to ‘cut corners’, circumvent rules. We can afford that.
Just by making this clear, you do create a counter balance for the decision makers. It’s not all ‘we must win at any price’.
2. In addition, while the fan base in theory is faceless and does not have a voice, the fan base does have spoke persons with a voice that does get heard. They can hold our owners to the same standards as we hold our club.
The answer to that could be, boy do you have hubris if you think fans of a club could impact a countries domestic and foreign policy. And why a comment like that wouldn’t be without merit — in the public space, a club like ours has an unprecedented “loud” voice. If ETH says something, it is more or less reported by media all across the world within hours.
This article for example describes the situation for the women football team of Qatar. They need support.
https://theathletic.com/4009330/2022/12/17/qatar-women-football-world-cup/?amp=1
Protests if there are specific events.
-> All in all, I think most other clubs in the same situation, have not done anything. City, PSG and co have just been too caught up with ‘getting to the top’. We are already (barely) there. I do have a lot of faith in our fan base’s ability to the right things.