Could league attract foreign investors?

**A face** · 27/01/2006, 7:56 AM

Could league attract foreign investors?

You have to admire the Lithuanians who took over at Hearts in Scotland and wonder if the same thing could happen here. It's quite simply really. Scotland have two Champions League places at present - one automatic and one in the third qualifying round, though this can and will change as the coefficient changes.

Put realistically, break the Old Firm dominance and, at worst, you are two games away from the Champions League and the cash that comes with it. In the eircom League we have one Champions League, first qualifying round place. If a rich foreigner or Irish businessman or woman invested in one club, that club could realistically be in the group stages within three or four years.

Read more at www.rte.ie

**AustinoAsprilla** · 27/01/2006, 8:15 AM

The group over Gretna in Scotland tried to do something about this time last year with Rovers and I remember the silly Herald headline about Abramovich taking over Pats as some sort of feeder club. I think the problem is anyone who has enough money to do this normally has enough money to do it to someone like Hearts or bigger again Chelsea, and wouldnt be bothered wasting their time on a small profit percentage when they can get it on a much larger scale in other European countries. Would be nice to see though, especially over one of the smaller teams like Bray, Pats or Waterford etc and add to the competition created by the top 3 or 4.

**The Stars** · 27/01/2006, 9:16 AM

this was dicussed here before....

**Block G Raptor** · 27/01/2006, 2:37 PM

Jebus we cant even get irish investors never mind russian billionaires
I love the eL but some people on here need to put the league in perspective
I agree without the Old Firm SPL is feck all but at least they have the old firm

**dcfcsteve** · 27/01/2006, 4:17 PM

Originally Posted by A face

Could league attract foreign investors?

You have to admire the Lithuanians who took over at Hearts in Scotland and wonder if the same thing could happen here. It's quite simply really. Scotland have two Champions League places at present - one automatic and one in the third qualifying round, though this can and will change as the coefficient changes.

Put realistically, break the Old Firm dominance and, at worst, you are two games away from the Champions League and the cash that comes with it. In the eircom League we have one Champions League, first qualifying round place. If a rich foreigner or Irish businessman or woman invested in one club, that club could realistically be in the group stages within three or four years.

Read more at www.rte.ie

The Key is sustainability of income.

Hearts may well make a Champions League spot in the next year or two, but as long as their average crowds are only 20-25% of those of the Old Firm, they'll never be able to sustain their challenge for those slots in a sustainable manor. That's where I think the Lithuanian guy will come a cropper. He can expand the Hearts fanbase - but 45-60,000 at an average Hearts game? Even if they had the stadium (and they got in trouble over the proposed move to Murrayfield) they'd struggle to reach those giddy heights on a going-basis. He'll therefore need to keep pumping-in his own money each and every year to keep the dream alive, and that approach to income generation is just not sustainable.

There is a view that making money from football in the long-term is nigh-on impossible, and that anyone who gets into the business purely to do so is delusional. I have a lot of sympathy with this overall theory, although there are always exceptions. Hearts ain't one of them. Even n thrichest League in the world - England - it's bloody hard to go looking for pure profit. Abramovich's motives for buying Chelsea were much more about squirrelling money out of Russia and having a rich plaything than they were about making money for him. The Glazers may well find their fingers burnt due to the fundamentally different structures between the closed-world of American sports (with its salary caps and college drafts) and the shameless open-market free-for-all of world football.

I think there is money to be made in Irish football, but there are far too many variables involved. Luckily - the outlay is small, so the risk-to-reward ratio is very good. Key would be to buy a Dublin club and aim to make it both the overwhelming power-house in the league, and also a team that the whole country could conceivably support. It would need to essentially be the club equivalent of the Irish international team. From a 'brand' point of view, only Rovers would have the instant 'Oirishness' required for that. Pat's have the name, but nothing else. Then, where you'd make the money would be in regular Champions League appearances, merchandise, and with a view to any eventual Super League. Luckily, your competitors in Ireland don't have deep pockets, so it would be easy to dominate the scene here.

**Schumi** · 27/01/2006, 4:23 PM

Originally Posted by dcfcsteve

Abramovich's motives for buying Chelsea were much more about squirrelling money out of Russia and having a rich plaything than they were about making money for him.

I think it has as much to do with making him more difficult to extradite back to Russia as anything else.

**Passive** · 27/01/2006, 4:28 PM

Chelsea just reported loses of Stg140 million last year, which just shows how sustainable that little experiment is. Makes me want to vomit.

**dcfcsteve** · 27/01/2006, 4:46 PM

Originally Posted by Schumi

I think it has as much to do with making him more difficult to extradite back to Russia as anything else.

How ? If Britain and Russia have extradition treaties, and Abramovich was wanted in Russia for a crime that fell under those extradition treaties, it wouldn't matter if he owned the crown jewels - he'd be liable to arrest and extradition regardless. Owning a football club and living in a foreign country doesn't alter your legal/criminal status.

Two things to consider when pondering why Abro invested in Chelsea. Firstly - do you think a man in his late twenties would have been able to buy Russian state assets at dramatically below their market value without some degree of shadiness involved ? Secondly - do you think Abramovich and the other 'oligarchs' have learnt nothing from the treatment of Kordokovsky? Strange that billions of pounds should leave Russia in the hands of some of its richest men at roughly the same time as the Kremlin starts to wield legal control over another one of the country's richest men. And it isn't inconceivable that sooner or later Russia will start to ask difficult questions about how so many young people got dso rich so quickly at the expense of the state. Being out of Russia makes Abramovich safe from detailed financial scrutiny, arrest etc, unless he's been careless enough in covering his tracks to make errors sufficient for any extradition.