Tony's Tweets

It is a great point kingfisher, but if it's a thankless task why do so many millionaires/billionaires want to buy football clubs. I would admit that fans are a fickle bunch who are  only happy when their team is winning but running any business can be classified as a thankless task. The reward for most owners is that they will be handsomely recompensed and if it all goes wrong they depart and its the club who are left to service all the debts. The club's owners tend to be handsomely rewarded and will rarely lose any of their investment.

The majority of people who buy football clubs are intelligent people who have made fortunes from their business acumen and they all appear to think that reaching the Premiership is the Holy Grail to all sorts of even bigger riches. 

Even if reaching the Premiership is the Holy Grail how feasible is that goal for a Bury or a Bolton and what would make a team languishing in the lower leagues attractive to a person who isn't a supporter of that club.  Could it be that they have assets such as a football stadium or a training ground or maybe both. Could the new owners get a huge loan against these assets and then pocket the money but leave the club with the debt? 

Maybe the new owner knows that his money is protected because if push comes to shove then he could even sell these assets? Most owners live abroad or in tax havens so if thats what happens it doesnt matter because its just a business to them. Most owners will not be true club supporters or have any real association with that club and anyway they pay others to face the flak if supporters get upset. Some will throw their toys out of the pram and stop using Social Media because it hurts them to hear the truth. 

Its highly possible that some of these owners are on some sort of ego trip but most genuinely believe that they can make a profit especially if they get to the Premier League. It doesnt always work though because I once read a report about an owner who purchased a 66% stake in a football club  for £35m (That valued the club and all its assets at c.£53m at a time when they were getting c. £60m/annum from the Premier League). The owners subsequent  poor stewardship and poor financial management of the club didnt see the owner in debt but it did leave the football club getting relegated, fined and struggling financially. The owner also suggested that he wanted the local council or some other 3rd party to fund the building of a new stadium for his club. It was even suggested by some of his clubs fans that his motive was to turn their current ground into a housing estate and pocket the income. Despicable if you ask me and surely absurd but my question is,

Why would a multi millionaire, West Ham supporting, property and business  entrepreneur who lives in Malaysia want to buy QPR ?