@DubaiSpur ...I keep reading your long posts (nothing wrong with them being long) and although you do square your reasoning, they just feel a little disingenuous. There is something there, a dislike, a distrust, I can't quite nail it. Maybe you've always had a bee in your bonnet regarding levy/lewis (i know you've never given levy much slack), and now it really looks like coming together, it really appears to be an effort for you to give them outright praise.
Well, that's a novel take on it, I suppose.
I freely admit that I've never given Levy much slack, although I'm largely content with his current approach - comes down to how much he backs the man in charge, really. He doesn't have much of a financial input into the club, so I expect good decision making as a substitute for that - hasn't always been the case, although thankfully with things like backing Poch with big bids he's making the decisions I want to see him making.
As for Lewis, no, no specific distrust or dislike, mate. But I'm firm on the idea that he isn't some ideal owner that we are blessed to have, or even a fan of our club - he's made it clear on his end (to my mind) that we are an investment, nothing more, and thus there are a range of better and worse ownership models out there to compare ourselves to. Some models have given their teams both success and the financial stability we spent one and half decades slowly building - others have seen owner take money out of their clubs and run them into the ground. Lewis' model is midway on the scale for me - not good, not bad. You don't have to dislike a man to hold that view, or distrust him given that he's made his intentions abundantly clear (to my mind) and stuck with 'em in a range of situations where some investment might have helped, or (alternatively) where the temptation to take money out of the club must have been tempting.
I
'm perfectly happy with the way they have run the club as a business. That's how they bought it in the first place (as an investment vehicle). And more so, it aligns with my beliefs that achieving anything is so much sweeter if you've had to work hard to get there. The journey is paramount.
Eh. In the long sweep of history, when our relatively barren spell from 2001 to 2017 (and counting) is brought up, the explanation will probably be that we were building, slowly and steadily. But then we will be compared to Chelsea and City as two other examples, who will both end up with stadiums our size, financial stability and success to boot without any of the arduous labour of doing it on a self-sustaining budget - and it will be pointed out that we also had a billionaire owner, like them. Only a far less personally invested one. So why was it necessary to take this route?
My ideal was, and is, fan ownership - we would be forced to go down that slow, careful route in that instance, but we can know that it's because it's our chosen way, the way of the little guy in the stands who will be at the club long after billionaires come and go - and truly a manifestation of our determination to get there ourselves as a fanbase and a club. And that would make me enormously happy. As it stands, the way chosen for us has been chosen not because of any inherent financial limitations on the part of our own disinterested billionaire, but because it fits with the 'buy low, sell high' approach. We are just an asset that appreciates in value and profile and is eventually sold - and two decades with one League Cup to show for it is in pursuit of *that* goal primarily. The club building a base to challenge was an important aspect of it, but it was likely secondary to that primary goal (or at least, was done with that goal in mind).
It's important to note that, is all. This conversation started because I posted something about Zuckerberg being the lesser evil to some blood-stained oligarch or oil monarch - I pointed out that he would probably be a better option because I could at least rest easy in the fact that we weren't owned by a complete c*nt, but that he would be the same sort of investor seeking a profit that ENIC is. I believe
@Rorschach chimed in and said that our model was ideal because it was working up the slow way, without unlimited money (apologies if I'm misquoting you, mate - foggy memory, even at my age
) - I disagreed because it wasn't our chosen model, it was ENIC's chosen model, and that the difference mattered. Spiralled from there.
The other way is just instant gratification. The have it yesterday, can't wait for nothing mob.
I could f.ck a high class brass every night if I wanted, and for two weeks it would be quality, but after a month it would just be a hole....not a goal.
Right, but that's a bit tangential to the points that were being addressed earlier on. The main reason people have pointed to us as being unique (as far as I can tell) is because we're financially stable and living within our means while slowly building up to challenge for things. And it took seventeen years to get here. My counterpoint was that the flash clubs with the cash, the car and the birds are also financially stable now - they make more money than we do (through a variety of means), and run on that money. Our new stadium will be followed by Chelsea's and the expansion to the Etihad to take it up to our capacity - so they can build the same infrastructure we can, but do it quicker and easier. So what has been the tangible advantage of seventeen barren years? Our stability is something Chelsea and City can pull off while also winning trophies and being generally successful, so where have we come out ahead?
To think we might just pull this off, and when considering the parameters, restrictions we face and not too mention the doped up clubs we are up against is nothing short of remarkable. To tip toe a path thru that is a credit to Levy and by extension Lewis (even if the only thing he's done is save us from Sugar).
They deserve whatever they get.
And that's because they've been banging away at it for 15+yrs executing a plan that will leave a legacy at the club we all love long after you and I have spent our last visit to the new WHL.
Well, sure, we might pull it off now, and a lot of credit goes to Levy, and to a lesser extent to Lewis, for putting us in a position to make that happen - but that really doesn't change the fact that we could have done it a different way and been no worse off for it.
Ultimately, being owned by billionaires isn't my ideal scenario - being owned by the fans is. Beyond that, the particular shade of billionaire who owns us is just quibbling, but a generous fan billionaire would be useful to speed up the slow build that a stingier, more profit-focused billionaire would insist on, is all. I wouldn't take the former over the latter if the former came with blood-stained hands like those of Abramovich - but other than that, I really don't see how the latter is any more morally upright than the former.
Anyway, I've liked your post because you've taken the time to read my positions, and I appreciate it - even if you seem to perceive some residual distrust or dislike of Lewis and Levy that I assure you isn't there.
