The Changing Face of English Football

It appears on the surface that football is facing major changes in England. Obviously these sort of changes started a while ago with the introduction of the transfer window and the money Chelsea have had injected into them. Since then though things have seriously escalated and foreign ownership has become the rule not the exception. Aside from the clubs who have foreign owners there are also countless examples of clubs that have superrich British owners. There are relatively few examples of football owners in the top two divisions in England who would be classed as "poor" millionaires.

Norwich City has been in the news this week regarding a possible takeover. Two members of the Norwich City board resigned in Andrew and Sharon Turner. This left the club with a 2 million pound void to fill. That drama is already over because majority shareholder Delia Smith has since injected the 2 million. This doesn't mean the problems are over as fresh investment is needed. The strongest rumour surrounds Peter Cullum, who is worth 1.7 billion. If Cullum does takeover then this will add another superrich Championship club; joining the likes of QPR and Wolves.

The problem with the Premiership at the moment is that there appears to be only one way to be successful and that is by throwing money at the problem. Of course this is no guarantee of success after all the likes of Newcastle, Liverpool and Tottenham have done that, but it has bought them limited success.

I have major concerns regarding the motivates of many of these foreign owners. It appears that football in getting more and more businesslike by the day. Yes, football is a business, but very different from any other kind of business. It's my opinion that it's vital to have business people and football people involved together in the running of a football club. What really annoys me are boards undermining managers when it comes to buying and selling players. The reality is the football expert is the manager and it's vital to trust him to do a good job. There is more to running a football club than buying players that owners think will be good. Building a team should be left to managers. I also fear that if some kind of specialized rules are not implemented than football as we know it will spin out of control. In the short term foreign ownership will remain.