Posts Tagged 'football'
Gordon Brown and Debt in Football
If nothing else, the excessive amounts of debt in British football can at least serve to make you feel better about a credit card bill! I mean, a couple of hundred quid is thrown into real perspective when you consider the £700 million owed by Manchester United.
And it seems that even the British Prime Minister has a view on the footballing world’s excessive debts. While acknowledging that it’s far from his place to do a great deal about it, Gordon Brown has commented that, “…this is an issue and it’s an issue football clubs are facing and it’s a worry to supporters and I think the management of football clubs have got to look very seriously at their responsibilities to their supporters, that they have high levels of income from the supporters but the debt levels have been at a leverage level that is too high.”
While Gordon Brown might be distancing himself from the ability to do anything, Sports Minister, Gerry Sutcliffe certainly isn’t. He has already called for the FA to intervene and set regulation around debt levels. He will be meeting with football authorities in the coming weeks to discuss the matter further.
But really, what can be done? For some of the smaller clubs, the debt cannot be controlled, given low income for those clubs in the first place. But for the bigger clubs like Liverpool and Manchester United, who do generate huge incomes each year, these excessive numbers seem like nothing more than poor debt management.
Perhaps these billionaire club owners should attend some of the same debt management lessons that schools will be giving to the 5 year olds!