Meanwhile, pretty much the only player Oxford were able to sign before the embargo was issued, Frankie Kent, has torn his ACL in training and will miss most of the season. The phrase “it never rains yet it pours” springs to mind.
Are they allowed to sign youth players? What happens if it gets to the point where they can’t find XI otherwise?
If Lommy does to Turkey what he did to Kazakhstan he’ll squeeze into the top 100 richest people in the world and will consider whatever he has spent on us as loose change.
Just looked, seems they brought a Turkish e commerce brand for 1bn plus, now brought a banking arm and have a banking licence, must have cost a pretty penny.
And people think hes concerned about giving Lowry 9kpw.
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Lets be honest ML has zero interest in us or football generally, he bought the club to keep his son in law happy & to give his son a target to aim for.
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I’m not sure you’ll find many moaning about ML, he’s never seen at AP or has much to do with the running of the club.
I’m inclined to agree.
It worries me that ML seems to have zero interest in Wycombe Wanderers first team.
Thanks, @fedup1980. Very interesting.
I listened to the Price of Football podcast on this subject the other day. Kieran Maguire’s take was a broader one, I recall: basically, that Oxford has done the thing that any smaller club getting into the Championship would feel it needed to do in order to compete, by significantly raising its cost base. This had been successful in allowing them to stay up for one season, but not the second. So Maguire’s argument seemed to be that any smaller club getting promoted would likely increase its costs significantly enough that it would inevitably break the SCMP for league one and therefore face an embargo - Oxford was just an indicator of what was to come under this rule.
The point that Methven is making is that there are factors at Oxford that are particularly unusual: not owning its ground and facing a disproportionate bill to build a new one. And that these make it almost uniquely vulnerable.
I’ll go back to the Price of Football, to see if I missed anything in Maguire’s analysis.
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Cautionary tale innit. I’m biased of course but I find Oxford United fans to be some of the most pig-headed and myopic around. I don’t avidly follow their ins and outs but stuff crops up on my feeds and they’ve long held a ‘manifest destiny’ view that they deserve/must be in the Championship. Even their howling about a new ground is ‘start digging, to hell with any protesters’.
I get it as being slaves to Kassam must be soul destroying, even without the countdown to being kicked out. But at the same time there doesn’t appear to be any voices of reason saying “um, but at what cost is all this Championship and new stadium business?”
Maybe there are some sane OUFC folk but I’ve never found them. Horrible fanbase but still wouldn’t wish them to go under.
But as I began…cautionary tale.
Zero public interest. Hasn’t Rice said he regularly spoke with.
Yes, he regularly talks to Rice about the Academy and FK Zhenis.
Rice says a lot of things. Not all of them are true.
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As I live in the Oxford area I know many a season ticket holder, many were telling me last year there were financial issues but they all blindly felt a new ground was good as their owner was loaded . The trouble is with them is that they believe they are a big team. Kept telling them he hasn’t backed them that well considering he has all that money contrary to our owner which give his due has spent well on our infrastructure and academy. Ok mistakes have been made but heading the right way. Hoping we give them two whippings next season.
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It will have to be next season as from the YouTube video they won’t be going in 2 years and with no players they could be in league 2 in their last year as a club.
Am I correct in saying that under the new rules, if an owner wants to invest a further 5 million to make up the playing staff deficits. He will actually have put in 10 million, and the other 5 million has to be used on academy’s,training facilities, pitch etc.
You can’t spend it on ground improvements, sponsor boxes etc.
It seems that they give the £10 million and forms are signed to say that the money is now the clubs and they can’t get it back. I can’t see anything in the rules what it has to go on.
Page 235 of this https://images.gc.eflservices.co.uk/f5568c40-81e1-11f0-9dc6-d51c5685cbcf.pdf.
It is a good read as it also says in 25/26 the basic pay for a league 1 player is £3,400 per week!!
https://news.sky.com/story/kevin-keegan-latest-england-and-liverpool-legend-has-died-13564566
Rest in Peace Kevin Keegan
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I can highly recommend Anthony Quinn’s (not that one, another one) recent biography of Mighty Mouse, one of the first footballers to recognise fully his commercial worth.
Apparently he grew up in the house next to where my wife was born though he’d moved away 2-3 years before she was born. Her father remembers him as a kid playing on the ‘bullring’ (a park that the road goes both sides round) though. Not that he thought he’d make it as a footballer
Really sad news, As a child of the 70’s, I Absolutely adored Keegan. I loved his energy,guts,talent. He was a genuine superstar. We have lost a very special man today. The finest player (just pips Gazza) I ever saw in and England shirt, and his desire and decency followed him into management.
RIP King Kev only 5ft 7, but football has lost a giant.
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