In the wake of match fixing allegations involving the Pakistan cricket team, and while I was thinking about the seemingly unrelated topics of who buys EPL teams and match fixing, it occurred to me that you could easily combine the two - corruption and team ownership, that is.
If you really wanted to control outcomes in matches people bet on heavily, why not buy yourself a Premier League team? According to Declan Hill's The Fix, something like this was done on a small scale in the Finnish league (and in Belgium), when the alleged fixer Ye Zheyun (a mysterious Chinese businessman) used the financial problems of the Finnish team AC Allianssi to become its manager through an injection of cash. On the side, Ye Zheyun also helped out a number of Belgian clubs in financial distress by becoming a part owner in them. So, when it turned out that there were unusual betting patterns in the Finnish and Belgian league involving teams that Ye had a stake in, noone should have been surprised. There currently are being investigated by Belgian authorities, and pre-trial proceedings are underway.
All of this got me wondering: could this happen in England? And more generally, why would anyone want to own an EPL team in the first place? Aside from graft, I see several possibilities:
(You'll see that I also included potentials Liverpool owners in orange).
But ideally and realistically, the people who can afford to buy EPL teams and wish to manipulate betting markets would want to invest in cheaper and less visible teams in smaller leagues. Seems like a better bet (pun intended). So if not manipulation, what's behind the fact that people from corrupt countries and not very transparently run economies are out to buy Premier League (and other) teams?
Given that the odds of making loads of money from soccer are relatively low (compared to other similarly sized investments people might make), I see two additional motivations for buying a team. A love of the game and a particular team, but also social competition (and in the case of Abramovich, a nice and clean way to get out of Dodge - Moscow - when things got dicey). Clearly, these people find soccer irresistible, and it allows them to show off. EPL ownership - to some extent - has become a vanity project for some.
Mind you, this is not dissimilar to ownership motivations in the big North American sports leagues. Ownership bestows many social benefits in the community, among peers, and let's face it: it's just very cool to hang around professional sports teams. This makes it even more unusual that the Sunderland owner Ellis Short does not seem to ever "cash in" on these social benefits. But social benefits to owning a sports team (especially one with global reach) can also play out another way, as the story of the Abu Dhabi and Dubai rivalries and ownership of Manchester City shows. Perhaps Short is deriving social benefits that aren't obvious to non-billionaires.
But in the end, all of this raises one critical question I'd like to know the answer to: does it matter who the owners are and what motivates them? Is it for money, fun, or showing off? And by "matter" we could think of a variety of things, including the club's bottom line, its transfer policy, the spirit of the club and the fans, and a good number of other things. I think if you asked the supporters of clubs like Man City, Man U, Chelsea, or Sunderland, the answer would be a resounding yes. So which of the motivations for owning a team are least damaging to the game?
If you really wanted to control outcomes in matches people bet on heavily, why not buy yourself a Premier League team? According to Declan Hill's The Fix, something like this was done on a small scale in the Finnish league (and in Belgium), when the alleged fixer Ye Zheyun (a mysterious Chinese businessman) used the financial problems of the Finnish team AC Allianssi to become its manager through an injection of cash. On the side, Ye Zheyun also helped out a number of Belgian clubs in financial distress by becoming a part owner in them. So, when it turned out that there were unusual betting patterns in the Finnish and Belgian league involving teams that Ye had a stake in, noone should have been surprised. There currently are being investigated by Belgian authorities, and pre-trial proceedings are underway.
All of this got me wondering: could this happen in England? And more generally, why would anyone want to own an EPL team in the first place? Aside from graft, I see several possibilities:
- A love of the game and a particular team
- A chance to make money
- Social competition
(You'll see that I also included potentials Liverpool owners in orange).
But ideally and realistically, the people who can afford to buy EPL teams and wish to manipulate betting markets would want to invest in cheaper and less visible teams in smaller leagues. Seems like a better bet (pun intended). So if not manipulation, what's behind the fact that people from corrupt countries and not very transparently run economies are out to buy Premier League (and other) teams?
Given that the odds of making loads of money from soccer are relatively low (compared to other similarly sized investments people might make), I see two additional motivations for buying a team. A love of the game and a particular team, but also social competition (and in the case of Abramovich, a nice and clean way to get out of Dodge - Moscow - when things got dicey). Clearly, these people find soccer irresistible, and it allows them to show off. EPL ownership - to some extent - has become a vanity project for some.
Mind you, this is not dissimilar to ownership motivations in the big North American sports leagues. Ownership bestows many social benefits in the community, among peers, and let's face it: it's just very cool to hang around professional sports teams. This makes it even more unusual that the Sunderland owner Ellis Short does not seem to ever "cash in" on these social benefits. But social benefits to owning a sports team (especially one with global reach) can also play out another way, as the story of the Abu Dhabi and Dubai rivalries and ownership of Manchester City shows. Perhaps Short is deriving social benefits that aren't obvious to non-billionaires.
But in the end, all of this raises one critical question I'd like to know the answer to: does it matter who the owners are and what motivates them? Is it for money, fun, or showing off? And by "matter" we could think of a variety of things, including the club's bottom line, its transfer policy, the spirit of the club and the fans, and a good number of other things. I think if you asked the supporters of clubs like Man City, Man U, Chelsea, or Sunderland, the answer would be a resounding yes. So which of the motivations for owning a team are least damaging to the game?
PS: A list of EPL owners can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_football_club_owners
