86
(^) Daily Mail, Friday, August 30, 2019
Don’t blame
Bury...their
space, but one is not responsible
for the other.
Manchester United pay the
going rate in their market place,
and can afford it. When they pay
Sanchez, even to play for Inter
Milan, they are still living within
their means, as extravagant as it
seems. A £500,000-a-week con-
tract that you can afford is your
business; a £500-a-week deal that
you cannot is catastrophe.
It’s like gambling. The £13.6m
that Kerry Packer is believed to
have lost across three days in Las
Vegas in 2000 was not a problem
to him, but going £100 down is a
problem for you, if you’ve only got
£20 in your bank account.
So the easy line is to blame
Bury’s crisis, and that of other
clubs, on football businesses two
or three divisions above them
working in entirely different
markets, with different figures,
demands and ambitions.
Roughly 25 per cent of Bury’s
income was provided by the
Premier League solidarity system
so, given what we now know of
their precarious finances, the
Premier League money has
probably made the difference at
the club for a number of years.
In 2014, Manchester City allowed
Bury to use their old Carrington
training ground rent-free. To
lease such a site would cost in the
region of £80,000 annually, but
Bury were required to simply
maintain the facility and pitches,
which it did not do, leading to
break-ins and general disrepair.
At one stage the water was cut
off due to unpaid bills. So how far
should this assistance go?
A brains trust of local Liberal
Democrat MEPs and councillors
— there were three of them —
came up with the idea of a ‘means-
tested Greater Manchester
Football Fighting Fund’, with all
of the region’s clubs paying in to
help their preservation.
Translation: the wealth of
Manchester United and Manches-
ter City will be used to prop up
Oldham and Macclesfield. There
is another word for this: third-
party interference.
We don’t have feeder clubs in
this country for the same reason.
Although Bury and Manchester
City are far removed, they are
technically part of the same pyra-
mid, so they can help but not be
directly involved.
The moment City and United
begin conferring money on other
clubs — even through a ‘means-
tested Greater Manchester Foot-
ball Fighting Fund’, everyone
would get their collar felt.
So thanks very much, Liberal
Democrats, but haven’t you got a
country not to run? This is all
Maidstone United were unable to
start the season and folded; or
earlier that year, when Aldershot
went. In 1962, Accrington Stanley
resigned from the league mid-
season.
Notice anything? No Premier
League — unless we count the
two days it was operative before
Maidstone’s official liquidation.
The 27 years since it was formed
have actually been a period of
relative stability, considering
three clubs were lost in the 30
years preceding. There has never
really been a golden age of
football club ownership.
Between 1923 and 1932, Staly-
bridge Celtic, Wigan Borough and
Thames all resigned from the
league for financial reasons —
and if 30 years passed between
Thames and Accrington Stanley,
this was more likely due to the
T
hERE is a reason
why Steve Dale
was able to buy
Bury for £1 last
December. Nobody
wanted to come up with
£1.50. Not even £1.25.
Amid the tears and recrimina-
tions around Bury’s sad demise,
this is the reality. They had long
ceased to be a viable concern,
financially. As a football club, they
were holding their own. They won
promotion to League One with
players they could not afford and
staff they could not pay.
Yet the warnings were there
even on that joyous day at Tran-
mere. The only reason a chancer
like Dale ends up with a football
club is because other, more
competent business folk have
looked at it and run a mile.
This is why, while the anguish of
Bury’s fans is entirely sincere,
some of the reaction around their
demise is opportunist cant.
No, the EFL did not bother with
the necessary checks on Dale
before he bought the club for an
amount that can be found down
the back of most sofas, but what
if they had?
Bury, in all likelihood, would
have folded around six months
earlier. The outrage that Dale
should not have been allowed to
buy Bury — and, plainly, he
shouldn’t — does rather imply
that this process prevented
several more viable candidates
doing the same thing.
But that’s untrue.
Bury’s previous owner, Stewart
Day, was seeing his property
empire collapse into insolvency.
he had already placed a crippling
mortgage on Gigg Lane and its
social club.
Bury are in more trouble now
than they were then but, undeni-
ably, they were already in dire
straits when Dale arrived on the
scene with his many empty prom-
ises and false dawns. Unless he
was a brilliant businessman —
and his record indicates he is not —
it was a matter of time.
Doom-laden predictions say this
will be the start of an avalanche
of lower-league liquidations,
but now a strange thing has
happened. Bolton are saved.
On Wednesday, despite the best
efforts of another rogue owner,
Ken Anderson, the club was sold
to the Football Ventures group.
This doesn’t necessarily mean
sunlit uplands ahead but, for now,
it has stemmed the extinctions at
one. And that is still too many.
But in football — like every other
business — it happens. In
August 1992, for instance, when
MARTIN
SAMUEL
CHIEF SPORTS WRITER
Football
closed shop at the bottom of
Division Four, where teams
applied for re-election, often
successfully, rather than endure
summary relegation.
Without a doubt, the pyramid
— brilliant concept though it is —
puts rather more clubs in jeop-
ardy. Darlington, Rushden and
Diamonds, hereford United and
Chester City have all fallen after
dropping from the league.
So success can be a factor, but
significant financial failure is a
guarantee. Clubs fold because
they have been badly run, not
because Manchester United paid
Alexis Sanchez £500,000 a week.
Dave Lewis, chief executive
officer of Tesco, earned £4.9million
in 2017, but that is not the reason
your local greengrocer has shut.
Supermarkets and high street
shops exist in the same local
There has
never been a
golden age of
football club
ownership
Our scout is a top football
expert who attends matches
each week searching for the
next star. He’ll bring you his
verdict in Sportsmail.
THE
SCOUT
WHAT HAS HE GOT?
CHARLTON have begun the
season in fine style and rookie
manager Lee Bowyer has used
the loan system to maximum
effect. Conor Gallagher is one
of several loanees, having
taken the short trip from
Chelsea to enhance his career.
At 19, he has already adapted
to league football with a
strong contribution from
midfield. Playing from the left
side of a three in midfield,
I like the way he mixes his
game up.
In the match I watched, he ran
on from midfield, skipped
away from his marker, played
the ball wide accurately,
accepted the early cross and
put the icing on the cake with
an adroit finish. In another
move, he let the ball run
across his body, completely
deceiving his opponent, then
hit an excellent crossfield ball
with his right foot.
When tightly marked and
receiving with his back to
goal, he played a clever
‘round the corner’ ball to his
alert front man. In a young
midfield, he took the
responsibility for getting on
the ball and prompting his
colleagues.
WHAT DOES HE NEED?
At Championship level, players
need stamina and strength,
and Gallagher appears to have
that. He is playing at a much
higher level than the academy
football he was used to last
season. It is important that
midfielders are not just
players who ‘lend’ the ball to
colleagues but seek an end
product, too. Gallagher gets
into the box against strong
defenders and shows the
bravery to force a goal.
He works hard and does not
shirk a challenge. Chelsea
manager Frank Lampard will
clearly encourage youth and
his staff will closely monitor
this Epsom-born boy as the
season progresses.
CONOR GALLAGHER
AGE: 19 CLUB: CHARLTON (on loan from Chelsea)
POSITION: MIDFIELD VA LU E : £1M
2019-20 APPS: 5 GOALS: 3
WANYAMA HEADS
FOR BRUGES AT
LAST IN £13M DEAL
CLUB BRUGES have agreed a
£13million deal to sign Victor
Wanyama from Tottenham.
The 28-year-old midfielder is
expected to sign a four-year
contract after lengthy talks.
Wanyama cost Tottenham
£11m from Southampton and
they have done well to make
a profit on a fringe player,
although the deal is for
£9m up front with the rest in
add-ons. The powerful
Kenyan has suffered with
niggling knee injuries in
recent seasons.
Arsenal midfielder Mohamed
Elneny is close to sealing a
move to Besiktas of Turkey.
FOOTBALL DIGEST
NEWCASTLE midfielder
Jonjo Shelvey says he is
not a lazy player and has hit
back at those who use
running statistics as a
measure of performance.
The former England player,
who was dropped for the 1-0
win at Tottenham, said: ‘You
can run 15km if you want.
At the end of the day, I’m a
footballer. Did you see Gazza
running 15km?’
MANAGER Ralph
Hasenhuttl has admitted
Nathan Redmond’s absence
with an ankle injury has hit
Southampton’s hopes of
beating Manchester United
tomorrow. The 25-year-old is
out for up to three weeks and
Hasenhuttl said: ‘It is a
massive one for our team,
absolutely. Every game he is
missing is not good for us.’
CONTRIBUTORS: Craig Hope, Peter Carline, Adrian Kajumba