I’ve umm’d and ahh’d over this for the last few days since the Qatar interest has manifested itself, and seemingly every 5 mins spent thinking about my personal opinion on the matter, I’m just left torn.
I think it’s great that so many people are highlighting their human rights record & lack of support for women and the gay community - but, then what? What are you expecting to happen after that?
It kind of reminds of the reaction when something overtly racist happens - like Rashford, Saka & Sancho missing their pens in the Euro Final and the trolls came out in force, but as a country we all banded together to stomp out racism, and make it clear that it’s wrong. Great. Then what? Not much else you can do beyond that right, you just have to live life knowing that people who hold such views live among us and could be in positions of power. It’s disappointing but life can’t stop.
I’ve spent the last 10 years or so being part of social movements, primarily rooted in Black & LGBTQ progression - and one of the hardest parts about it is, you can care so deeply about an issue, and put your heart, soul & every ounce of effort into wanting to see change - and it still won’t move the needle, because the people who have the power to make change, are often the very people you’re fighting against or the people who are indifferent.
So yeah, it’s great to see so many people pushback on a country with an ideology that isn’t accepting of all people - but I want you all to realise that you’re going to have to live with the disappointment that your good intentions & moral code isn’t enough.
Maybe one day in the future Qatar will change its laws on human rights & equality, hopefully soon, however this guy buying Manchester United, will not have an impact on that. The best that we can hope for, is that he personally doesn’t believe gay people & women are less equal, in the same way I have to try and believe everyone I come across isn’t racist.
Side note: Sir Jim being a tax-haven living Brexit voting gammon doesn’t sit well with me either, (though obviously doesn’t compare) there’s no such thing as a good billionaire.
If Al Thani buys us, he has to invest in the women’s team & their facilities, and also make it clear that everybody regardless of their sexuality is a part of this club. Beyond that, I’m not expecting much else.
I don’t know if that makes sense, and maybe in another 5 mins my mind will change again - but ultimately, the closest thing I can compare the feeling to, is that reluctant acceptance that people treat others differently for things they have no control over, and you can’t change their mind about it. Anybody who’s part of an oppressed minority can probably relate.
On to the football side of things, we don’t need someone who needs to falsify sponsorships in order for us to generate revenue. Even after 10 years of almost no success we generate £700M in revenue, and without the glazers & their debt, I calculate approximately £150-200m that we could spend on a yearly basis - depending on where we finish in the league - without needing to dip into cash reserves. And for a manager like EtH that’s more than enough.
That being said, the glazers have clearly sucked us dry, so whoever does come in - needs to pay off the debt, not just move it via accounting. And, for the first window at least inject some cash for us to spend - we can be self-generating afterwards. Sir Jim’s offer is the least appealing based on this.
The others are nice to haves - yes it would be nice to have a new stadium, new facilities etc but it won’t stop any on-field success we have, it would simply make sure we’re not falling behind our competitors in those spaces.
If someone comes in & makes us debt free, we can still finance a new stadium & upgrade our facilities, because EtH won’t need to spend £200m every single year - so a new stadium might take 8 years instead of 3-5 for example.
I’ll wait until more details come out, SJR needs to be more transparent about how he’s raising his funds & how he plans on investing in the club if he’s having to loan from 2 different banks - both of which are also very questionable.
I like the Progress Pride flag that Arsenal have in their stadium, maybe we could get a banner with that flag hung in the stadium, that would be great.