Sportwashing won’t make the Saudis any money and it won’t make fans love them – and here’s why
NEXT season, when you’re at a football match, take a look at the directors’ box.
What do you see? If you think you’re looking at fat cats, you’ll probably be right.
But if you think you’re looking at profit-mongers filching a fortune from your beloved club, you’re almost certainly wrong.
Because hardly any club owners make a profit. Most of the money coming in, like a bad late-night curry on top of a load of beer, races straight through the guts of the game into the pockets of players and their agents.
Perhaps that’s only right and proper — certainly as far as the players are concerned. Not sure about the agents.
But the fat cats in the directors’ box won’t get any fatter through football.
Well, some directors might be handsomely paid, but the owners are much more likely to get poorer than richer.
As the old joke goes, the only way to make a small fortune out of football is to start with a large fortune.
Madness, just madness
The scales fell from my eyes when I asked Kieran Maguire, of the brilliant podcast The Price Of Football and author of the book of the same name, if it was possible for a Championship club to get promoted without spending any more money than they were making from ticket sales, merchandising, TV deals and so on.
“Not only is it impossible to get promoted without someone throwing in lots of extra money from somewhere,” Kieran told me, “But without that cash injection, it’s almost impossible not to get relegated.”
Madness, just madness.
And we’d be mad to assume that promotion to the Premier League necessarily makes the gamble worthwhile.
If you’re not very careful, your massive wealth will be matched by equally massive costs and you’ll soon be back where you started, or worse.
So what, you might ask. What do I care if rich owners know they’ll get no richer?
I wonder if the discipline involved in having to turn a modest profit might just keep a few more of them honest and fewer clubs from going to rack and ruin. The problem is this: if owners aren’t in it for the money, what are they in it for?
Well, they might be in it for love. Take a bow the owners of Brighton, Brentford and Crystal Palace.
But more often it’s about something else.
Ego-tripping, asset-stripping . . . who knows flipping what many of these mysterious men from far-off places are up to.
This week the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund that owns Newcastle got their bulging wallet out again and took stakes in four of the country’s biggest clubs, including the team Cristiano Ronaldo plays for, Al-Nassr.
Now they are after more marquee European players, if reports are correct.
To be fair to the Saudis, it’s pretty clear what they’re up to.
I’d probably be up to the same if I was in charge of a bottomlessly wealthy regime that is widely disliked and disrespected.
I too would try to buy some love.
I’d buy something big and beautiful, whatever it costed. I’d buy football.
I’d buy a big, underperforming club and make it great again. I’d buy into several of my own country’s football clubs to help bring the most money-grabbing legendary has-beens to play for them.
I’d do whatever I could to buy the love of Fifa so I could stage the World Cup.
I’d go for other sports, too. The Saudi-funded LIV golf tour was threatening to tear the sport apart.
The old guard, the PGA Tour and so on, were fighting them tooth and dagger.
Golfers who’d taken the Saudi shilling said silly things, claiming they hadn’t gone just for the money.
Golfers who’d refused to take the Saudi shilling said horrible things about those who had, who then returned the insults with interest.
But now, rejoice, because peace has broken out and the two sides have merged, having kissed and made up.
How sweet.
You can see this, if you like, as an outbreak of common sense.
Hypocrisy and cynicism
Or as an example of quite excruciating hypocrisy and cynicism by all those who swore blind they’d have nothing to do with the Saudis. Only to then jump into bed with them.
For what it’s worth, I see it like a tree. Yes, a tree.
It’s like the PGA et al have been fighting the Saudis for control of the tree’s branches, only for the Saudis to go and buy the whole tree.
Football could be next.
So, as humble fans, what do we do?
Well, given there’s next to nothing we can do about it, I wouldn’t blame anyone for putting their head in the sand, crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.
I despair.
But one thought cheers me. In the end, these so-called sportwashers — be they Russians, Chinese, Qataris, Emiratis or Saudis — cannot truly win.
No, we can’t apparently stop them from buying our game by taking control of our clubs and hosting World Cups.
But the delicious irony is that ultimately they are wasting their money.
Because no amount of it will be enough to buy our hearts and minds.
We know who they are and what they are and what they’re all about.
And if they think they can change that, the last laugh’s going to be on them.