It's worth noting that this is not the only case of foreign owners causing a stir. This has been to varying levels, but some of the country's largest clubs have fallen foul of owners that prioritise the business over the football. Most high profile of these are the two most successful clubs in this country's history: Liverpool and Manchester United.
Chronologically, it was the reds from (not quite) Manchester that were the subject of the first takeover bid. Having been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since 1990, Malcolm Glazer had built up his share of the company between 2003 and 2005, before announcing a formal takeover in the May of the latter year. In total, the acquisition cost around £800m, though this only tells half of the story.
Before the ink had dried on the deal, and before the supporters could get excited about potential financial investment, we worked out how the deal had been financed, and more worryingly, who was carrying the burden. All loans had been secured against the assets of the club, meaning that the financial stability of the club was put in serious danger. In addition, interest payments of up to £60m annually would be owed, piling more and more on top of the club. Like Cellino, Glazer seemed only interested in protecting his own investment, rather than the fortunes of the team and the fans.
Similarly, Liverpool struggled with new American owners. Tom Hicks and George Gillette, who both had histories with sports clubs in the States, decided to take a controlling stake in Liverpool at the beginning of 2007, valuing the business at £218.9m. In a turbulent three years, the pair fell so heavily out of favour due to a lack of incoming transfer activity and a failure to deliver the new stadium that they were called "asset strippers" in Parliament and we eventually willing to take a £144m loss on the club on its 2010 sale. Court cases and legal disputes have rumbled on since, so it seems unlikely that we have heard the end of this story yet.
However, while the heritage of these two clubs has enabled them to manage their losses and survive, there are some clubs that do not have the resources. The most obvious example of this is Portsmouth. A Premier League side, the club won the 2008 FA Cup to secure the unlikeliest of places in Europe for the following season. With new investment from Sulaiman al Fahim, it seemed as though Portsmouth would be in good hands to push on up the table. However, just five years later, the side would have a series of foreign owners, all of whom would receive similar "asset-stripper" descriptions as Hicks and Gillette, leaving the club in the lowest tier of league football and feeling lucky just to be in existence.
However, before I get accused of being xenophobic, there are foreign owners that have progressed their clubs. In recent years, new footballing superpowers have been created by overseas wealth, with Chelsea and Manchester City the most high profile instances.
Chelsea, following years of being the nearly men in terms of achieving Champions League football, were acquired in June 2003 by a relatively unknown oil tycoon, Roman Abramovich. The Russian shelled out hundreds of millions of pounds on players in the early years, bringing titles in successive years in 2005 and 2006 - the club's first in 50 years. Over the next eight years, the club has gone from strength to strength, winning a further one Premier League crown, while adding four FA Cups, three League Cups, a Europa League and the one Abramovich was after, the Champions League.
More recently, my club, Manchester City were thrust into the financial limelight. Following the turbulent reign of Thaksin Shinawatra, the Abu Dhabi United group was found to take the club forward, headed by Sheikh Mansoor. The enormous wealth of the group enabled the Blues to make the seismic transfer of Robinho on the final day of the 2009 summer transfer window, before letting the cash flow freely to acquire some of the most high profile players in the world. To date, this has resulted in two Premier League titles in three years, as well as an FA Cup and a League Cup, but European success has eluded them. As a result, it seems likely that their investors are in it for the long haul.
As well as this, English people can make just as appalling owners of football clubs. Take Mike Ashley for example. If ruining the ambitions of historic club wasn't enough, he's managed two! Having spent three years at university in Newcastle, I'm well aware of how important the club is to the city and how deep the desire for success is from the fans. Never before have I seen the mood of an entire city affected by the result on Saturday, and it is a shame to see the lifeless shell that this side has become under Mike Ashley's leadership. Making a profit is one thing, and with the FFP regulations in full swing, I understand the need to balance the books, but this business sense has to be married to a progress mentality. Sadly, this is something that the Geordies can quite rightly level at Ashley, and he seems unlikely to change this in the near future.
So it appears that the old locally owned football club system has well and truly gone. It's incredible to think that there was a time when Liverpool and Everton were both owned by the same family, who ran the clubs completely independently (and successfully I might add) during the 70s and 80s. Could you imagine those two clubs operating that way in the current system? Or any two clubs - not even those so closely linked? No. As football has become increasingly commercialised, particularly in the UK (for more details of this, check out my blog on the TV rights and English clubs' struggles in Europe), club owners are focusing their energies on making money from their ventures, and as a result, the day to day business is ever-more time consuming. Attempting to take on one club is difficult enough, so two would be near impossible.
So how do we ensure that the right people take over our historic clubs, meaning that assets are not stripped, or worse, the soul of the club is damaged?
Let's have a look at our current system - the 'Fit and Proper Person' test. Introduced in 2004 to prevent corrupt or unsuitable directors of football clubs, the test is performed on any individual that acquires in excess of 30 per cent of a club. In short, the following are considered 'disqualifying events' for owning a Premier League club:
- They have power or influence over another Football League club
- They become prohibited by law from becoming a director (and believe me, there are a lot of offences)
- They are filing for bankruptcy
- They have been a director of a club while it has suffered two or more unconnected events of insolvency
- They have been a director of two or more clubs of which, while they have been a director, has suffered an event of insolvency
However, after eleven years, and numerous examples of (in mine and my dad's opinions) 'unfit directors', we can certainly say that it has not been a rousing success. What is even more worrying is that unlike other legislation, it doesn't learn from its mistakes. I accept that nothing will be perfect the first time around, but I would expect much more than watching the same situations unfold time after time. Surely, the only way of preventing unfit owners is by tightening the regulations, placing them and their intentions for the club under scrutiny.
So, possible additions to the regulations? Setting out a five year plan for the club, which must be adhered to (as much as is humanly possible), a fan vote that, though it does not have the mandate to remove any owner directly, could cause the FA to place the owner on report. Any owner placed on this report is unable to purchase any further clubs in the future - in simple terms, one strike and you're out! Though these measures may seem excessive, it is perhaps the only way to prevent the likes of Glazer, Hicks, Gillette, Ashley and Cellino getting their way, and sucking the life from some of our most historic sporting institutions.
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