Herald Tribune Blog, 2 Sep 2008, posted a interesting article on “Lesson on the sales of a team” commenting on former Thai Minister’s sale of Manchester City to an AbuDhabi Consortium.
http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/business/globalization/?p=797
“Thai billionaire is selling an English team to some Arabs swimming in oil money”
Daniel Altman, the author pointed out that this move has significance not only for Football but for the Global Economy.
Football clubs and football players have become a Global Investment Instrument.
“For some of them, an expensive team is basically a toy, for others, it’s a heavily leveraged investment” says Altman.
From the comments, not many people are too worried about this..
S Lakshma Reddy, commented…
“This will pave the way to global personal merit and talent, pure and simple, and will receive global recognition and compensation. No national bias or prejudices and only global spirit and merit and citizenship.”
Many commented that as long as the owner changed, and the game remained as in this case in England, then it is good for England. Many were concerned that like in the US, teams abandoned one city for another, after the City has spend a great deal of investment in building a stadium and other infrastructure for them.
Whilst not abandoning their cities, increasingly English, Italian and Spanish teams are playing more games outside their country and city.
Would teams in time find it more lucrative to play their games overseas than in their home country? It’s really a question of how much local sponsors are willing to pay, and Fan are willing to fork out to watch their teams, isn’t it?
Tags: football, global investments, Manchester City, Thaksin
