Meh, internet forum is internet forum. No need for the aggro over this though.
@sunilvk7 - I do try to be fair on this forum and pay credit where it's due. You can check a lot of the basic facts I've given in places like Red Cafe (the link between the success under Busby and equity investment is acknowledged there in their history of Manchester United's ownership, as is the two breaches of the FA's financial regulations which allowed Manchester United to financially muscle their way to success again).
My point really is that it does not matter where the money is coming from - whether from sponsorship, tv, or the chairman/boards pockets. That is how football has always worked. Clough spent heavily at Derby to get success. Shanks' big successes came when he was backed financially by the Moores family. etc etc etc.
What has to stop happening however is clubs taking out debt in order to try and achieve that success. If the money is there to be spent as equity investment, where's the problem? We can gripe and moan about it, but it's not damaging the club. What damages clubs is when they have corrupt/incompetent boards - like Leeds or Portsmouth - and the spending is being done via debt and/or money is being syphoned out of the club wrongly.
My disagreement with Ferguson's statement is that he's saying that he's always developed youth rather than spent heavily. This is incorrect. This will always be incorrect. He can rightly take plaudits for the youth players who have come through the Manchester United system from being schoolboys. What he can't do is claim that this is the same as spending £20m on a teenage lad and then claiming that he's developed him as a youth player. Not the same at all. Wenger has a similar issue - he's excellent at spotting talent and bringing it in at a relatively young age, but most of the young players he's brought through spent their formative years at other clubs and Wenger has spent heavily to recruit them. Likewise with Liverpool. There's a whole raft of issues which need resolving in my view about youth football and developing young talent and it isn't helped by managers misleading people about what they're doing.
The hypocrisy I see here is only Manchester United specific because Ferguson is trying to deflect attention from his current inability to compete for signings and these are the grounds he's chosen to use. He's obviously not going to be saying, "Well, our current owners are taking out tens of millions of pounds from the club at the moment, and that means we're not able to get the players we want." Which is a shame, but then that's how Ferguson has always been with owners at Manchester United.
@sunilvk7 - I do try to be fair on this forum and pay credit where it's due. You can check a lot of the basic facts I've given in places like Red Cafe (the link between the success under Busby and equity investment is acknowledged there in their history of Manchester United's ownership, as is the two breaches of the FA's financial regulations which allowed Manchester United to financially muscle their way to success again).
My point really is that it does not matter where the money is coming from - whether from sponsorship, tv, or the chairman/boards pockets. That is how football has always worked. Clough spent heavily at Derby to get success. Shanks' big successes came when he was backed financially by the Moores family. etc etc etc.
What has to stop happening however is clubs taking out debt in order to try and achieve that success. If the money is there to be spent as equity investment, where's the problem? We can gripe and moan about it, but it's not damaging the club. What damages clubs is when they have corrupt/incompetent boards - like Leeds or Portsmouth - and the spending is being done via debt and/or money is being syphoned out of the club wrongly.
My disagreement with Ferguson's statement is that he's saying that he's always developed youth rather than spent heavily. This is incorrect. This will always be incorrect. He can rightly take plaudits for the youth players who have come through the Manchester United system from being schoolboys. What he can't do is claim that this is the same as spending £20m on a teenage lad and then claiming that he's developed him as a youth player. Not the same at all. Wenger has a similar issue - he's excellent at spotting talent and bringing it in at a relatively young age, but most of the young players he's brought through spent their formative years at other clubs and Wenger has spent heavily to recruit them. Likewise with Liverpool. There's a whole raft of issues which need resolving in my view about youth football and developing young talent and it isn't helped by managers misleading people about what they're doing.
The hypocrisy I see here is only Manchester United specific because Ferguson is trying to deflect attention from his current inability to compete for signings and these are the grounds he's chosen to use. He's obviously not going to be saying, "Well, our current owners are taking out tens of millions of pounds from the club at the moment, and that means we're not able to get the players we want." Which is a shame, but then that's how Ferguson has always been with owners at Manchester United.