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Manchester United and the Monkees
Posted on October 3, 2011
A comparison that doesn’t fully stand up to scrutiny, I promptly concede, but the ‘soulless’ way Manchester United is run as a business must trouble many a fan of what was once ‘the beautiful game’, and has often in the past been referred to as ‘the people’s game’. An article in the Financial Times really […]
Posted in Globetrotterisation, Marketing | 2 Comments »
Chester revisited
Posted on June 28, 2011
Not a return visit to the carryings on of Stephen Vaughan, or the resurrection at the Deva, but a revisiting of the Report of the Committee on Football, aka The Chester Report, published in 1968. With the current Select Committee report on Football Governance in preparation, it seemed timely to have look at what has […]
Posted in Costs, Governance, History | Leave a Comment »
Manchester City’s aspirations of global hegemony?
Posted on December 14, 2010
Manchester City are the latest addition to a strategic alliance of football clubs across the world which Atlético Madrid have been building. Atlético’s international agreements go back as far as November 2009, when they started to collaborate with Shanghai Shenhua of China (1). Collaboration was essentially sporting, with the use of player loans to gain playing […]
Posted in Fans, Globetrotterisation | 2 Comments »
Liverpool and Manchester United
Posted on October 14, 2010
I’ve been abroad for work and then taken a couple of days leave – the net result is a week of only occasional internet contact. A week is a long time in football it would seem. All my standard searches to keep up with football management affairs have resulted in a total overkill on the […]
Posted in Costs, Debts, Investors, Ownership, Revenues | 5 Comments »
Manchester City following in Pompey’s footsteps
Posted on October 2, 2010
Manchester City’s financial results, published earlier this week (1), were generally reported uncritically earlier this week, notwithstanding the key loss of £121m, with the exception at least of The Sun (2), where there was some attempt to look beyond the positive headlining provided by the club. According to the club, the financial highlights could be […]
Posted in Benefactors, Costs, Debts, Ownership | 10 Comments »
Whither Chester?
Posted on February 28, 2010
The decision of the Football Conference Chairmen to expel Chester City at last showed a will to take the decisive step to bring to an end the sorry tale of this club (see postings passim). Well, probably that is with respect to Chester City Football Club 2004 Limited. It can of course apply for membership […]
Posted in Football Conference, Governance, Resurrection | 2 Comments »
The suspension of Chester City
Posted on February 11, 2010
As Stephen Vaughan seems unwilling to do the decent thing and fall on his sword, the Conference have given him a shove in the right direction by suspending the club, ostensibly for failing to fulfill fixtures (1). The suspension is for seven days, but as the police will no longer man matches at the Deva […]
Posted in Debts, Football Conference, Governance, Insolvency | 4 Comments »
Chester City and Notts County
Posted on January 27, 2010
It was adjournments all round for the two clubs who faced winding-up petitions from HMRC in court today. Notts County, supposedly about to receive £5m investement from an as yet unnamed source, got a 28 day extension (1). HMRC agreed to this, but subject to the fact that in 28 days the hearing will be […]
Posted in Debts, HMRC, Insolvency | 5 Comments »
Chester City drinking at last chance saloon
Posted on October 21, 2009
It was less than a fortnight ago that I was blogging on the Stephen Vaughan approach to management, and some of the odd theories he proposed on how to run a club (1). The Conference is now running out of patience with the way Chester City is being run. This afternoon they published this blunt […]
Posted in Debts, Fit and Proper Person tests, Football Association, Football Conference, Governance, Insolvency, Ownership | 4 Comments »
Scary plans at Chester City
Posted on September 30, 2009
Alerted by a posting on the Supporters Direct blog titled Strange goings on at Chester City, I’ve been looking at an Excel spreadsheet (1), downloadable from the club’s website, of the club’s forecast for its Profit & Loss Account for 2009/10. Highly commendable that the club should make this available, but it certainly isn’t going […]
Posted in Costs, Debts, Uncategorized, Wages | 1 Comment »
Three cheers for Manchester United!
Posted on September 22, 2009
No, seriously! With just the slightest touch of curmudgeon to begin though. I’ve blogged before on how football’s culture of secrecy results in good news stories being hidden away, and this is another fine example. Not well covered in the media, with the honourable exceptions of a report by Brian Viner in The Independent (1) […]
Posted in Community, Premier League | Leave a Comment »
Revolving doors at Dorchester
Posted on September 12, 2009
Followers of this blog will recall that Eddie Mitchell’s sudden move to the board of Bournemouth has resulted in some unusual arrangements at Dorchester Town, where he was previously Chairman (1 and 2). First Eddie handed over his majority shareholding to sons Tom and Josh on the Dorchester board (3), an arrangement that never seemed […]
Posted in Benefactors, Ownership, Trusts | 1 Comment »
Chester City case continues causing Conference chaos
Posted on August 8, 2009
Latest development in this depressing saga is that the FA have in effect over-ruled the Conference – going ahead with the first match Chester are due to play, against Grays, would be a breach of FA rules (1) and it therefore now off. To me, there are three issues here: The issue of club v. […]
Posted in Governance | 1 Comment »
Chester City latest
Posted on August 6, 2009
Chester City will play in the Conference in the upcoming season, but with a further 15 points deducted, in addition to the 10 for going into Administration (1). This immediately suggests comparison with the 15 points deducted from Leeds United, where Ken Bates bought the club back from the Administrator, and the 10+20 points deducted […]
Posted in Governance, Insolvency, Ownership, Points deduction, Sanctions | Leave a Comment »
Developments at Chester City
Posted on June 18, 2009
The latest developments at Chester City seem to have attracted surprisingly little comment, let alone criticism. Regular readers will recall that Chairman Stephen Vaughan took the club into Voluntary Administration a month ago (1). Former player David Jones got as far as requesting due diligence with the Administrator, but did not reach a deal to […]
Posted in Debts, Insolvency, Ownership, Points deduction | 5 Comments »