In recent times, it has become fashionable for wealthy foreign businessmen to buy English football teams to give them something to do on a Saturday afternoon.
Typically a story will appear in the press about how a 'consortium from some nation where everyone apart from them is poor are preparing a takeover bid.' The new owners will eventually emerge to know nothing about football or the English language.
Fans of the club will rejoice as all the outrageous debts run up by the previous regime are erased and the manager is given millions to spend on mercenary signings. Fans of other clubs will ridicule any club with new owners and rename them with a stereotypical name from their new owner's country like Chelski, Manchester Buccaneers or Abu City. This will go on until their own club gets a new owner, when all previous xenophobia is disregarded.
New logo design
As a rule, all clubs with 'new owners' must pay an extortionate sum for any player, rather than an accurate valuation of the player's worth. As another rule, any player signing for a club with a 'new owner' must cite wanting a 'new challenge' as the reason for the move, rather than being a greedy bastard.
Old Owners[]
In the past, all topflight English football clubs were all owned by:
- local-boy-done-good entrepreneurs, who threw away the money they earned flogging dodgy record-players and second-hand car aerials.
- carefree members of the aristocracy, who threw away the money they earned by being born.
- the fans themselves, who threw away the money they earned by either working in a mine or on the docks if they were Northern, or appearing in stock footage of the Blitz if they were from London.
Some clubs were also owned by unpopular, fat, cockney tossers who made money selling second-rate sportswear across the country. Fortunately, however, these clubs are no longer in the Premier League.
New Owners[]
Nowadays, all topflight English football clubs are owned by:
- American billionaires with horrendous names like Randy or Buck. They buy the clubs using huge amounts of debts collateralised by their oil rigs; stake in Disney Land; or ownership of The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. American owners usually smell a huge profit due to enormous TV revenues and gate receipts in the Premier League. They don't realise that all income is quickly swallowed in order to pay vast player wages and to finance the inevitable signing of Nicolas Anelka that all clubs at some point have to endure.
- Russian oligarchs who made vast fortunes from the collapse of Communism and the willingness of the new regime to look the other way while they exploit the former USSR's natural resources. Are happy to pile money into outrageous signings like Sebastian Veron, Hernon Crespo and Andrily Schevchenko, only to not play any of them. This is because they're just glad to have their money in a currency that's more valuable than Monopoly notes and slightly more stable than a jelly in an earthquake.
- Middle Eastern oil-rich sheiks who make more money in a second doing nothing than most people will in a lifetime of work. Only former Man Utd lay-about Mark Bosnich has ever managed to earn more money for doing less work.
- Former leaders of corrupt regimes and banana republics looking to shift as much embezzled money out of their native country as possible before the inevitable coup. Are happy to pile money into outrageous signings. This is because they're just glad to have received a passport and escaped trial, torture and most likely a horrible death as part of the bloody revolution back home.
Some Randy American
Thaskin, so glad to be alive, forgets he bought the other Manchester team.