So let’s say you’re a Russian oligarch, and want to buy an English football team. You’re worth billions, and willing to pay billions, but nothing is for sale at the higher levels. So you set your sights on a lower-division club – let’s say, for the sake of argument, Brentford FC, way down in the Fourth Division.
Obviously, it’s quite an uphill trudge, but taking one step at a time, your first objective is League One. So you start spending. First you get better players, maybe invest more in the development squad, gussy up the weight room. Let’s say the strategy pays off, and Brentford is promoted. Now they’re in League One, and set their sights on the Championship League. So the cycle continues – better players, more investment in the facility, plans for a bigger and better stadium. Ten years later, Brentford reaches the Empyrean.
My question is, is this a viable strategy? Has anyone done it? And above all, does it make financial sense – i.e., does the eventual value of a Premier-league club outweigh what you might have invested?
David Wheelan did it to Wigan. Brought them up from the fourth tier in 1995 to the Premiership a decade later. Of course, it’s not just about having the money to buy players, but having the business sense to know how to develop a fanbase, expand or (re)build stadiums, etc.
Here’s a related question: are there teams that are basically content to stay in the lower divisions? Like there’s a worry about losing the fan base if the club gets too successful?
Good point, they did also rise through three promotions. But the difference, as I see it, is that they weren’t a club without a tradition of being with the big boys (i.e. spending plenty of time in the second division ). Wigan came from nowhere.
I think the answer can only be ‘no’. What makes the promotion/relegation system possible is the combination of pragmatism, where the ambition is to win the division you are in, or just to survive in it, combined with the idealism and egalitarianism of the fact that any team could theoretically rise all the way up. And to match this, the fact that Sal Ammoniac’s beloved Brentford are in the same league as ex-Premiership Bradford City. Plus two other past FA Cup winners (Notts County and Bury).
The fanbase for those teams hasn’t disappeared, and is no danger of doing so, even though it’s shrunk. Bradford ran a very successful promotion this year of slashing season ticket prices if they got enough people pledged to buy them at the lower price, and as a result have had much bigger crowds than in the last few years. If those people weren’t fans of the team, who simply hadn’t been able to pay the prices of previous years, they’d still be at home watching the Premiership.
Conversely, I can’t imagine anybody seriously worrying about losing their core support just by growth and success. If Man Ure and Chelski can hang onto their true fans while whoring themselves to the entire world, then anybody else could do the same.
That being the case, I’m a little surprised that the attempt is not more often made, given the huge value of a Premier League club to its owners. Maybe not with Brentford, but with a Championship League club, or even a decent League One club.
Well, anyway, who wants to chip in a fiver so we can have a go?
Firstly, the huge money sloshing around is a relatively recent phenomenon, with Wigan and Fulham being perhaps the first ‘buy your way to the top’ products of it. No matter how much money you have, you’re going to have to be projecting for achievieng your aim in ten years’ time, not next season.
Secondly, there’s been other attempts, but there’s always going to be failures. Darlington know all about that.
Thirdly, there’s plenty of investment going on in the Championship. My completely unbiased example is Ipswich, currently in the process of being bought by a businessman who has expressed his intentions to be entirely about football success, not money-making.
Fourthly, I suppose my eventual answer to ‘is money enough’ is ‘no’. No matter how rich the owner, no matter what the financial rewards, you ain’t gonna get Ronaldinho to sign for Brentford. Spending has to be paralleled by success on the pitch, otherwise the shop signs will all say ‘closed’.
Of course !Man.U. is the most successful club on earth,its all about genuine,raw,local talent !
If a club could just buy players and then win then there would be no interest in soccer from any slightly intelligent person.
). Wigan came from nowhere.