PTAO? wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 4:00 pm
Remember Colo wrote: ↑Thu Oct 13, 2022 3:30 pm
I think there's some revisionist history if you think people wouldn't still have been mad about the renaming to Sports Direct Arena if he'd promised to spend an extra 25m per year as a trade-off. People will now say it's always been about money, but I reject that. It's that right now people are grateful the football is good and will forgive things that were previously objected to in the name of history or ethics.
Edit: I also think Ashley would have spent even less on the club if he hadn't been able to derive benefits for his other benefits.
You might be right for some fans, but for a lot one of the biggest issues with Ashley was his lack of investment, and taking value from the club. If Ashley had taken sponsorship money and used it to build/cement after the 5th season, people wouldn't have been nearly as angry as they were. Like I said, I'm not one of those that would ever have been happy to be called the Sport Direct Arena, but I'd have hated it a s*** tonne less if it was benefiting the club.
Fair. I guess I'm just skeptical they need to do this. Sure, FFP requires a bunch of accounting magic - especially when we'll inevitably leverage other PIF owned businesses for the naming rights. But just take that [insert amount here] and reallocate it to any other number of mirage sponsorships we'll have going forward. It's basically going to be one big shell game of moving money from one pocket to another anyway.
At the end of the day, it'll likely be done in the name of player investment and FFP, when instead it's promotion - as the whole thing is. And we'll come out looking like a load of hypocritical supporters willing to forgive them redesigning the club in their image for the price of a Swedish starlet striker.