Calm down steve, I suggested nothing of the sort.
I just pointed out that RB do see Ireland as a viable market and that owning a LOI side would cost less than their current advertising spend here
If Red Bull wanted to pick up a team outside of England with a view to moving them to the English system, why would they look to Ireland rather than Scotland or even Wales ?
A number of Welsh clubs already play in the English system. And if they wanted a team on the cheap Scotland has dozens of them. We're much more likely to see a Scottish team in the English league system again (ref Gretna) than an Irish one, and I doubt Red Bull would fancy their chances on either. They're into brand building, not speculating.
Calm down steve, I suggested nothing of the sort.
I just pointed out that RB do see Ireland as a viable market and that owning a LOI side would cost less than their current advertising spend here
54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
I can assure you Dodge - as I tuck into my KFC Fillet Tower meal and Maltesers Krush'em whilst typing, I am indeed very calm....
Owning an LOI side MAY cost them more than their current spend in Ireland, but so would halving their spend in Ireland or building a castle made out of lego. But neither would do much to build their brand, which is the key point. It's all about the impact of their spending, and an LOI club just wouldn't deliver.
They could do also what culchies do - buy an old Datsun, paint it up in Red Bull colours and drive it to the All-Ireland final. That would also cost less than their current marketing spend.....
Last edited by dcfcsteve; 26/08/2010 at 3:45 PM.
I blame the outrageous anti-Rovers bias on this forum for entirely derailing the thread from its topic.
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
The short term impact would be huge, but like you I don't think there's enough sustainable interest in Irish soccer for them to bother in the long term. If anyone could do it, though, Red Bull could. They'd certainly show the rest of the teams in the LOI how to properly promote a football club.
Well thinking about it in another light. Atleast one Irish team has come so close to qualifying for Europa League/ Champo League every year fr the last few seasons. A RB investemnt in an Irish club could work out financially. It would cost pennies to take over a club. It doesn't take HUGE wages to attract the best players or even some good League 1/ Championship players who'd be interested in the money. So for a small cost they would take an Irish club to the champions league proper and earn a fortune from that?
Just another way to look at it.
Ahhhh - the mythical golden land of the Champions League. It always sits just over the horizon for those intrepid enough to sale for it, and most end up well and truely grounded on the rocks before they get anywhere near it.
The money to be made out of Champions League qualification is overstated. And they'd still have to fund an Irish club through the mundane and unattractive domestic calendar every year to get there, which would cost a bucket load as well. And there would be no guarantee to making the CL groups more than infrequently anyway.
Besides - Red Bull exist to sell soft drinks, not to try to speculate on sports. That's not why they've bought the clubs they have.
Red Bull would not be a good thing for any Irish club they bought. They tend to effectively erase the clkub's previous history and change its name, colours etc.
Some may think that being turned into a marketing tool would be a good thing for a football club. Fans of a club with any sort of history and fanbase would probably disagree. Football should be first and foremost about the game - not trying to sell soft drinks.
Not that I think this is likely to happen but I would hate to see a Bohemian Red Bulls or Red Bull Shelbourne in the league. Too much history in the names. However a Red Bull Fingal side would be fine for me. It's probably better than their current name! (not a swipe at your club, Fingal fans, just the name).
"If you don't work harder I'll pull you off at halftime,"
“Crikey, at Manchester City all we get is an orange and a cup of tea,"
Only one league of ireland team has made it to the last qualifying round of the Champions League and got beaten 3-0 on aggregate.
They have also put alot of money into Salzburg in a much more established league than the League of Ireland and they have still not qualified for the Champions League after 5 years.
If this does happen then RB can only buy a max of 49% ownership of the club as dont UEFA have rules on club ownership for clubs that compete in UEFA competitions. Basically stating that if clubs have the same majority shareholder then both cannot play in the same UEFA sanctioned competition.
The most recent examples I can think of are the UEFA Cup tie between Tottenham and Slavia Prague a few years ago, also wasn't there an issue with Abramovich ownership of Chelsea and his 'interest' in CSKA Moscow.
"U've figured how to work the Google on the internet machine"
I wish i did not know then what I dont know now
What Red Bull done to Salzburg is an abomination.
If they took over your club you would effectively be supporting a soft drinks corporation and well that just doesnt do it for me.
a few things. a loi club is cheap to buy so no large amount of cash to spend. anyone remember wimbeldon? the dublin dons? i dont think an irish club can play in the english league. it is a diffrent association and wont be allowed so i think a red bull team will be a loi team. and a few league 1 players and the red bulls will win the title it wont take much for them to win the loi with this new 25 man rule in england now i bet if the price was right a few decent players would come over to play. bellamy dropped down a division so why not a championship player coming to the red bulls for say 8000 week? this 25 man rule can be a good thing for the red bulls players will be desprate to play football i think it is worth a shot
This is an absolutely disgusting idea and I hope no fans of any club would want anything of the sort to happen to their own club. If anything like this did happen to SRFC, which I'm sure it never would, I would never set foot inside the Showgrounds again.
a) Red Bull exist to market soft drinks. They're not a sporting franchise, so would have no interest in spunking money up a wall in a small market like Ireland, as the returns wouldn't make sense.
b) More importantly, they have no interest in buying an Irish football team.
"If you don't work harder I'll pull you off at halftime,"
“Crikey, at Manchester City all we get is an orange and a cup of tea,"
It wouldn't matter how much money Red Bull could or couldn't make out of an Irish football club - they're not interested in football for making money. Their motivation is brand building.
And you've interpreted my use of the word 'returns;' as meaning financial. I was referreing to soft drinks sales - which is their primary business and the thing that drives all their other activites.
So it doesn't matter if they could make money out of an Irish club - it's unlikely the effort would deliver a sufficient incremental uplift in their drinks sales to make it even close to worth the effort, pain and risk.
Spurs and Slavia had a difficulty where the same company owned substantial shares in both (ENIC), in England it is not allowed for a company or person to own shares in 2 different clubs, the Maxwells got aroudn this by different family members holding shares of each club.
The Abramovich issue was a non-issue, lots of rumours went around though he had more of an "interest" in Spartak and Krylia Sovetov than CSKA. One of his Russian companies were told to sponsor CSKA (this was a use it or lose it deal with Putin, for whom Abramovich was a pet and former KGB colleague), it also meant his 2nd business, arms exports, went along nicely and he got the requisite licences.
Getting a team into the CL does take substantial investment, however it has to be put in over a prolonged period - anyone who has been to Cypriot League games can see that the standard is mostly lower than our own, though local wealthy elite made use of the closing window for tax avoidance to make money. It was proved last season with a 3million euro investment in wages and expenses being covered by more than 6.5million in income from the CL. Would this work in Ireland, maybe by throwing in a couple of million a year for 4 years and developing a strong youth structure, there is a chance, but a Europa League Group spot is more realistic.
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