I honestly don't care if its SJR or Qatar, and I would like to argue that it really doesn't matter much if at all for us, if we are bought by either of them.
The reason for this is mainly the following.
(1) The impact of deep pockets is limited. And even if eights are skated around the new FFP rules, the "max" spending a great team can have is perfectly within reach for us.
(a) Spending must be looked at over a longer period of time. The last 4 years,
PSG have on average spent
95m per season and
Man City spent
157m. How about the best club on the planet,
Real Madrid? The last three 3 years, they spent an average of
33m per season. The season before that, they spent
355m.
My point is just, teams don't spend just because they can. It would disrupt chemistry. And like, why burn money.
(b) How much "can" we spend on transfers? Theoretically if you built a squad:
*Of only 100m players
*Each bought player had a shelf-life of only 7 years
*The squad was 21 man strong and with a cheaper back-up GK
-> You need to spend on average of
700m per season.
This is not a scenario that is in touch with reality. The above must be adjusted. Here is why:
*You can't have 21 players that all cost 100m. Would just create issues in the locker-room. But lets still count -- extremely -- high. Lets say that a starting XI player shall cost 100m and a rotation player 50m, with a shelf-life of 5 years to account for bust signings.
*We do not start with a clean sheet. We already have a squad.
*It must be expected that we will sell players for say at least 30m per season on avg.
*It must be expected that our Academy will produce a XI player every 4th year and a rotation player every 4th year.
(c) Hence, the following break-down more or less sets out what our "maximum" spending could be.
(d) Conclusions:
-Over the coming 12 years, we could max spend 250m on avg (I disregard inflated transfer prices since everything else equal, increased transfer prices should be set-off by increased reveneue, meaning that the relative value of the numbers above still are true vs. today)
-It is of course very volatile. In 2024, we would have 570m going out, with incoming of 30m the two following years, then 270m out, 20m out, 220m out, 720m out, 80m in and so forth.
-This is a ridiculously expensive squad. But I still think that the 250m figure per season bear some value. In all likelihood we would come in below that if we are bought by Qatar. But that is kind of the max figure you could get if you don't do anything well; players only play for you at a high level for a short period, you can't sell players, you can't develop players really well.
2. The big legit fear is that building a new stadium under SJR will prevent us spending as much as is necessary. Right? And I would also question if we could afford to build a new stadium under Jim and invest 400m in the squad every summer ten years in a row. But even with a squad as absurdly expensive as the above, the avg. spend over the first 4 seasons is still only 195m.
3.What is really important, is that a club like ours do -- not -- make stupid business decisions due to lack of liquidity/funds. Not spending this January was a stupid risky business decision. Due to horrendous work on the transfer market, our squad has a big up front investment requirement.But this is not how someone like SJR --- or any real business man -- run a business. SJR has made a fortune buying up mistreated industries and making them work. Sometimes they will have required cost cutting, other times investments/modernization. You cannot become a successful business man unless you realize that its always better to take a necessary cost as soon as possible when it regards the performance capacity. This is of course exactly what Boehly is doing too.
I have no reason whatsoever to doubt that SJR wouldn't act differently than the Glazers in this regard. The Glazers are not businessman. Its a group of 6 people that never have accomplished anything, and none of them individually has any kind of wealth whatsoever.
4. Just like there are pros with Qatar, the ability to splash money on a stadium etc., there are also cons. These things are of course extremely hard to value, but seriously, how much would it be worth for our brand to be able to say '
we aren't owned by a dictator state like everyone else, we are the genuine real deal'? Look, I am not saying in any way, shape or form that it "should" matter. That is another issue. It does matter. 200%, if like a Steve Jobs was born in Manchester and was a City fan and sponsored them instead of Abu D, the "appeal" of that club would be higher than it is now. Everyone associates City with "oil money". I am not saying that this in any way should be a deciding factor, but on the balance of things, it can be mentioned for the sake of completeness.