RightFootLeftFoot
Midfield
Im out!
Too used to winning major trophies!
It'd send all our glory supporters packing, that's for sure.
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Im out!
Too used to winning major trophies!
There were a few clubs that became PLCs in the 90s with stock market listings, including us. As far as I am aware, all of them I can think of are now in the hands of single owners or a small number of investors. What was it that went wrong with that model at the time (I'm too young to have had much awareness of the business side of football at the time - just)? And did all of those clubs / PLCs have a majority owner when they were public?
There was us, Spurs, West Ham, maybe Arsenal and Millwall (a penny stock) at least - possibly others.
Yeh...ownership by the fans never works.
Oh wait..except for Real Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern Munich etc.
It's much better to rely on the current English model of sugar daddy, chancer or asset stripper. Clearly.
I got laughed at for saying it on here, but promotion from League 2 legitimately meant more than winning the FA Cup in 2008. All players only do it for the money, obviously, but the connection with the League 2 squad was stronger. You didn't bump into Harry Redknapp taking the players for a run down the seafront, or have a chat with the chairman of the club on an away day.It depends what your goals are for the club. If you want to see Sunderland as a community and civic asset, a hub of activity and a focal point for the area then sure, it's possible. But it puts a definite ceiling on what you're able to achieve.
You'd basically be giving up on the idea of ever consistently playing in the top flight, or probably the Championship, accepting selling your best players, and probably never winning a major trophy again. I personally think there's a lot of merit to it, and I'd probably be willing to accept the trade-off if it meant that the club existed for the benefit of the people of the city and the wider region. But you'd have to be very very clear about what you were giving up, because if you didn't get majority buy-in to the sacrifices you were making then people would end up very very unhappy indeed.
I got laughed at for saying it on here, but promotion from League 2 legitimately meant more than winning the FA Cup in 2008. All players only do it for the money, obviously, but the connection with the League 2 squad was stronger. You didn't bump into Harry Redknapp taking the players for a run down the seafront, or have a chat with the chairman of the club on an away day.
Plus, you cant do a good pitch invasion at Wembley
there is no way we'd keep half our fan base if we were constantly in league 1 and reduced our assets to match the money fans would be able to afford.
The SoL wouldn't be maintainable and we'd never fill it any where close for it to be sensible to keep.
NoIs it achievable for a club the size of ours?
I imagine we'd have to fall a bit further for the amount of money needed to be realistic but that might be about to happen under the current leadership.
There were rumours that explayers had shows interest in buying the club before SD. Maybe they could provide the capital for a group to bring the club back to the people who support it? Fullwell 73 is another potential source of backing.
I feel utterly pessimistic about SD, especially given his doubling down on how great a job his mates are doing. Not sure a supporter owned group could perform much worse.
@hank williams for PR manager.
and deferred maintenance on the speakers.
That was my pointPpppth we wouldn't need speakers man.