Who have been the worst owners/CEO in football?

[SambaBoy]

I'm thinking of Barca over the last few years, I'm not sure Bartomeu counts as an owner but he was in charge of the club for that period.

Some of the signings he made, the wages he handed out.. well we can see the effect that has had on the club. He had no regard for the sustainability of the club and led it to ruin. They've lost their best ever player, bought Griezman for a massive price when he wasn't really needed before loaning him out to the same club two years later. They had some relative success in the period he was in charge, but all in all terrible management of the club and it'll take a few years at least for them to recover I'd imagine.

Another one is Peter Risdale at Leeds. You can counter that by saying they got to two CL semi finals and did well in the League but it came at a price. There is the story of Seth Johnson agent saying 'we'll start with £30k, and try get like £24k p/w out of them", they then went into the meeting and were immediately offered £40k p/w by Risdale.

Venky's at Blackburn? Although I read an interview about them not long ago, and it seems they have turned it around somewhat and are not as hated now in Blackburn.

I'd imagine a lot of people will say the Glazers.

 

[Kag]

The Oystons at Blackpool spring to mind. Few will miss that bastard when he eventually croaks it.

 

[WeePat]

Not sure about their finances and all that but the Cardiff owners deserve a mention for rebranding the traditional blue home kit to red for some inexplicable reason.

He eventually caved into fan pressure after 3 years and reverted back to blue, but still, imagine the Glazers changing United's home kit to blue. Unacceptable shithousery.

 

[EtH]

Surely Kroenke is up there. And yes, the Glazers are as well.

 

[mancsarered]

Kroenke's are the worst of the American owners in my opinion. Arsenal have been left in the past without a blink of an eye. At least the Glazers spend from time to time.

 

[Dave Smith]

Have to go for the Oystens, they got Blackpool to the PL and then completely plundered them.

As for Kronke and Bart man, I want to buy both of them a drink for the jobs they've done at Arse and Barca so cannot count them.

 

[visiting villain]

Tony Xia.... took us on the verge of bankruptcy

 

[P-Ro]

You can't get any worse than Kjell Inge Røkke and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten. Took over Wimbledon FC in the Premier League and literally destroyed the club. It doesn't exist anymore. And the shitty club they parasited from the old Wimbledon ended up getting relegated to League Two in 2018. Funniest of all was the phoenix club (AFC Wimbledon) that was born after these bastards robbed our club from us started the 2018 season in the league above, having been in the 9th tier in English football in 2004.

 

[Caesar2290]

No mention of Venkys who doomed a consistent midtable Blackburn to the low tiers of English football?

Also Portsmouth's owners and Leeds(2001-2003, bless them) deserve an honorary mention. Berlusconi who turned AC Milan into perenial CL contenders to selling of all their star players and bailing on them have to be here.

 

[Caesar2290]

You can't get any worse than Kjell Inge Røkke and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten. Took over Wimbledon FC in the Premier League and literally destroyed the club. It doesn't exist anymore. And the shitty club they parasited from the old Wimbledon ended up getting relegated to League Two in 2018. Funniest of all was the phoenix club (AFC Wimbledon) that was born after these bastards robbed our club from us started the 2018 season in the league above, having been in the 9th tier in English football in 2004.

It say's you support AFC Wimbledon. So which Wimbledon do you support, the current iteration or the old one?

 

[Gandalf]

Steve Dale has got to be up there. Bury deserved so much better.

 

[P-Ro]

It say's you support AFC Wimbledon. So which Wimbledon do you support, the current iteration or the old one?

You started your first post with "No mention of Venkys" despite the OP naming them. And you come up with the quote above? Learn to read.

 

[BlackShark_80]

Bartomeu and Peter Lim

 

[The Boy]

I think Brighton's Bill Archer, Greg Stanley and David Bellotti have a crack at this title.

To cut a long story short, Stanley was chairman, Bellotti was CEO and Archer the main shareholder of Brighton. Together they took control when they "saved" the club from a winding up order with an injection of 800,000 pounds, all good so far....

It later turned out that this wasn't their money, it was a bank loan secured against the stadium. They'd actually put in exactly one hundred quid of their own cash. They then secretly voted to rewrite the articles of the club, changing them so shareholders could profit from the sale of the Goldstone ground.

We had played at the Goldstone for 90 years but despite fan protests, (mine included!) it was sold in 1997 for over 7 million quid, demolished and turned into a retail park, there's a Lidl there now.

There were no plans for where we would play. The bank loan was paid back and other debts paid off and the rest of the cash from the sale went to the shareholders, in other words Bellotti, Stanley and Archer rather than to the club. They'd spent one hundred quid between them, left us homeless and broke while they walked away with a few million.

They tried to make us ground share with Portsmouth initially but when that fell through, we shared with Gillingham 75 miles each way. Archer was finally ousted from the club in 1999, Bellotti and Stanley were already gone by then.

We played at Gillingham for two seasons, finally moving back to Brighton to the Withdean Stadium, an old dilapidated athletics stadium that initially had a capacity of about 1000.

It wasn't until 2011, fourteen years later, that we finally moved into the Amex.

I know people think the Glazers are bad and Bartomeu will get a few mentions I'm sure, but they're haven't come close to doing what Archer, Bellotti and Stanley did to to Brighton.

 

[NinjaZombie]

I think Brighton's Bill Archer, Greg Stanley and David Bellotti have a crack at this title.

To cut a long story short, Stanley was chairman, Bellotti was CEO and Archer the main shareholder of Brighton. Together they took control when they "saved" the club from a winding up order with an injection of 800,000 pounds, all good so far....

It later turned out that this wasn't their money, it was a bank loan secured against the stadium. They'd actually put in exactly one hundred quid of their own cash. They then secretly voted to rewrite the articles of the club, changing them so shareholders could profit from the sale of the Goldstone ground.

We had played at the Goldstone for 90 years but despite fan protests, (mine included!) it was sold in 1997 for over 7 million quid, demolished and turned into a retail park, there's a Lidl there now.

There were no plans for where we would play. The bank loan was paid back and other debts paid off and the rest of the cash from the sale went to the shareholders, in other words Bellotti, Stanley and Archer rather than to the club. They'd spent one hundred quid between them, left us homeless and broke while they walked away with a few million.

They tried to make us ground share with Portsmouth initially but when that fell through, we shared with Gillingham 75 miles each way. Archer was finally ousted from the club in 1999, Bellotti and Stanley were already gone by then.

We played at Gillingham for two seasons, finally moving back to Brighton to the Withdean Stadium, an old dilapidated athletics stadium that initially had a capacity of about 1000.

It wasn't until 2011, fourteen years later, that we finally moved into the Amex.

I know people think the Glazers are bad and Bartomeu will get a few mentions I'm sure, but they're haven't come close to doing what Archer, Bellotti and Stanley did to to Brighton.

That's scummy af.

I don't understand why the British government don't step up and introduce some law to prevent things like from happening. Football is a very big part of the UK, it's a very big part of your culture and people all over the world admire the country for this heritage. You can't be having people coming and buying up these heritage that goes back a 100 years or more and straight up ruin it.

I see there have been zero news of the legislations being talked about at the height of the ESL protests. Whatever became of that?

 

[Sky1981]

G n G?

Cringey goal tender

 

[48 hours]

.

Another one is Peter Risdale at Leeds. You can counter that by saying they got to two CL semi finals and did well in the League but it came at a price. There is the story of Seth Johnson agent saying 'we'll start with £30k, and try get like £24k p/w out of them", they then went into the meeting and were immediately offered £40k p/w by Risdale.

Venky's at Blackburn? Although I read an interview about them not long ago, and it seems they have turned it around somewhat and are not as hated now in Blackburn.

I'd imagine a lot of people will say the Glazers.

sounds like Ridsdale must have been Matt Judges tutor

 

[Strelok]

This summer is a bit of redemption for the Glazers but I still fecking hate them for making us to pay their debts. £80m each year for 15 years. We could buy a prime Ronaldo each year with that money. I still fecking despise and hate them.

 

[RoyH1]

You can't get any worse than Kjell Inge Røkke and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten. Took over Wimbledon FC in the Premier League and literally destroyed the club. It doesn't exist anymore. And the shitty club they parasited from the old Wimbledon ended up getting relegated to League Two in 2018. Funniest of all was the phoenix club (AFC Wimbledon) that was born after these bastards robbed our club from us started the 2018 season in the league above, having been in the 9th tier in English football in 2004.

Came here just to say I agree with this and would have written something along these lines myself. It was an incredibly stupid, narrow minded and short sighted move that ended in utter failure.

 

[Catt]

Do Blackburn still have the "chicken" owners?

 

[Oranges038]

Yer man Reynolds that ruined Darlington.

Craig White at Rangers.

Them guys at Conventry that left them without a stadium once or twice.

 

[WeePat]

You can't get any worse than Kjell Inge Røkke and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten. Took over Wimbledon FC in the Premier League and literally destroyed the club. It doesn't exist anymore. And the shitty club they parasited from the old Wimbledon ended up getting relegated to League Two in 2018. Funniest of all was the phoenix club (AFC Wimbledon) that was born after these bastards robbed our club from us started the 2018 season in the league above, having been in the 9th tier in English football in 2004.

One of the funniest chants was born out of that disgraceful episode when the two met each other a few years later.

"where were you when you were us"

 

[K Stand Knut]

This summer is a bit of redemption for the Glazers but I still fecking hate them for making us to pay their debts. £80m each year for 15 years. We could buy a prime Ronaldo each year with that money. I still fecking despise and hate them.

You can’t slag the Glazers off this season. They’ve done their usual trick of pulling the wool over some of the fans eyes by ‘spending’ some money on players.

They are fecking cnuts.

Not quite the level of some of the people described in here but their plan is just a posher, more legal way of what the old Brighton owners did.

Utter cnuts

 

[Wolf1992]

That's scummy af.

I don't understand why the British government don't step up and introduce some law to prevent things like from happening. Football is a very big part of the UK, it's a very big part of your culture and people all over the world admire the country for this heritage. You can't be having people coming and buying up these heritage that goes back a 100 years or more and straight up ruin it.

I see there have been zero news of the legislations being talked about at the height of the ESL protests. Whatever became of that?

Cause British government don't give a shit, as long as they profit from the sell, they won't do anything, they are even probably looking to push to sell Arsenal to the Saudis...i mean they already sell military weapons to Saudi Arabia.

 

[Wonder Pigeon]

No mention of Venkys who doomed a consistent midtable Blackburn to the low tiers of English football?

Also Portsmouth's owners and Leeds(2001-2003, bless them) deserve an honorary mention. Berlusconi who turned AC Milan into perenial CL contenders to selling of all their star players and bailing on them have to be here.

Berlusconi also turned Milan into those perennial contenders, it's just he's a crooked bastard who unperenialled them then again a few decades later.

 

[esmufc07]

I think Brighton's Bill Archer, Greg Stanley and David Bellotti have a crack at this title.

To cut a long story short, Stanley was chairman, Bellotti was CEO and Archer the main shareholder of Brighton. Together they took control when they "saved" the club from a winding up order with an injection of 800,000 pounds, all good so far....

It later turned out that this wasn't their money, it was a bank loan secured against the stadium. They'd actually put in exactly one hundred quid of their own cash. They then secretly voted to rewrite the articles of the club, changing them so shareholders could profit from the sale of the Goldstone ground.

We had played at the Goldstone for 90 years but despite fan protests, (mine included!) it was sold in 1997 for over 7 million quid, demolished and turned into a retail park, there's a Lidl there now.

There were no plans for where we would play. The bank loan was paid back and other debts paid off and the rest of the cash from the sale went to the shareholders, in other words Bellotti, Stanley and Archer rather than to the club. They'd spent one hundred quid between them, left us homeless and broke while they walked away with a few million.

They tried to make us ground share with Portsmouth initially but when that fell through, we shared with Gillingham 75 miles each way. Archer was finally ousted from the club in 1999, Bellotti and Stanley were already gone by then.

We played at Gillingham for two seasons, finally moving back to Brighton to the Withdean Stadium, an old dilapidated athletics stadium that initially had a capacity of about 1000.

It wasn't until 2011, fourteen years later, that we finally moved into the Amex.

I know people think the Glazers are bad and Bartomeu will get a few mentions I'm sure, but they're haven't come close to doing what Archer, Bellotti and Stanley did to to Brighton.

Interesting that - thanks. Still amazes me stuff like that is legal…..

 

[redrobed]

It’s between the Blackpool owners, Blackburn’s and ours. If we don’t sign a CM before the window closes I’d say it’s the Glazers.

 

[Santos J]

It’s between the Blackpool owners, Blackburn’s and ours. If we don’t sign a CM before the window closes I’d say it’s the Glazers.

Got some bad news for you mate

 

[GoonerBear]

I think Brighton's Bill Archer, Greg Stanley and David Bellotti have a crack at this title.

To cut a long story short, Stanley was chairman, Bellotti was CEO and Archer the main shareholder of Brighton. Together they took control when they "saved" the club from a winding up order with an injection of 800,000 pounds, all good so far....

It later turned out that this wasn't their money, it was a bank loan secured against the stadium. They'd actually put in exactly one hundred quid of their own cash. They then secretly voted to rewrite the articles of the club, changing them so shareholders could profit from the sale of the Goldstone ground.

We had played at the Goldstone for 90 years but despite fan protests, (mine included!) it was sold in 1997 for over 7 million quid, demolished and turned into a retail park, there's a Lidl there now.

There were no plans for where we would play. The bank loan was paid back and other debts paid off and the rest of the cash from the sale went to the shareholders, in other words Bellotti, Stanley and Archer rather than to the club. They'd spent one hundred quid between them, left us homeless and broke while they walked away with a few million.

They tried to make us ground share with Portsmouth initially but when that fell through, we shared with Gillingham 75 miles each way. Archer was finally ousted from the club in 1999, Bellotti and Stanley were already gone by then.

We played at Gillingham for two seasons, finally moving back to Brighton to the Withdean Stadium, an old dilapidated athletics stadium that initially had a capacity of about 1000.

It wasn't until 2011, fourteen years later, that we finally moved into the Amex.

I know people think the Glazers are bad and Bartomeu will get a few mentions I'm sure, but they're haven't come close to doing what Archer, Bellotti and Stanley did to to Brighton.

That's horrible to read, & wondering if that's the way Rangers were heading under Charles Green & the increasingly influential Mike Ashley at the time, until the current ownership with help from that fans managed to force their way in.

Of course, all this was triggered by firstly David Murray deciding to pay all his top level employees (not just football one's) with the use of EBT's that then racked up a massive tax bill when HMRC tried to close off this loophole, who was then duped into selling to Craig Whyte for £1, who then used future season ticket money to finance Rangers for a matter of months, before it came out that he wasn't paying PAYE & seemed to deliberately steer us to administration. He also sold historic shares in Arsenal that was decades old & had a lot of historic value that we'll never get back.

Then somehow Charles Green & his consortium came out of nowhere to resurrect the club, & he started slowly but surely selling off the family silver to Mike Ashley. Getting loans that we couldn't pay back for things like unfavourable retail deals, even at 1 point trying to use the stadium as a guarantee I think for 1 of these loans.

On the other side of the coin, I think Celtic fans will have horror stories about the Kelly family as well before Fergus Mccann rescued them from going into administration?

 

[djembatheking]

The Glazers . cnuts.

 

[ElCuddlos]

Yer man Reynolds that ruined Darlington.

I think Darlington can claim to have had the worst run of owners over more than 20 years. It started before Reynolds when the club was loaded up to the eyeballs with debt. Reynolds built a massive 25,000 seater stadium and moved us from Feethams which had been left to us in perpetuity for the purpose of football in the town. George Houghton then came in and split the club and stadium into separate companies, meaning when we went bust we had no assets. Then later Raj Singh blocked a CVA that would have allowed us to keep our league position after which we were relegated to the 9th tier with no ground, no assets but still massive debts to football creditors. The fans deserve a massive amount of credit for the way they have built the club back up to where it is.

 

[Lay]

The guys who took over Notts County and signed Sol Campbell, Kasper Schmeichel and hired Sven in league 2. They bailed after about 2 weeks into the season.

I remember a documentary located their base to a market stall in Pakistan

 

[Bobade]

The Glazers have got nothing on most of these stories.

 

[Moby]

There is the story of Seth Johnson agent saying 'we'll start with £30k, and try get like £24k p/w out of them", they then went into the meeting and were immediately offered £40k p/w by Risdale.

why can't I find such clients.

 

[Goku1983]

I dont follow Europe enough but speaking of the Prem alone you would have to say FSG and Kronke are the worst of the big clubs Glazers not far behind

 

[horsechoker]

I'd give the Glazers 3.6, not great, not terrible

 

[JPRouve]

Colony Capital with PSG, Bartomeu because he had a cheat code and still managed to arguably waste it and then put Barcelona in a hole. Whoever owns Schalke or Hertha Berlin at any given time.

Peter Lim is an interesting mention because Valencia were in deep trouble way before he purchaseed them, he failed to pull them out of their financial troubles but with FFP and the fact that he isn't that wealthy, it's difficult to right some of the previous wrong quickly and without injecting lots of money. As a side note Nou Mestalla is still not finished, due to financial problems, the construction started 14 years ago.

 

[P-Ro]

You can't get any worse than Kjell Inge Røkke and Bjørn Rune Gjelsten. Took over Wimbledon FC in the Premier League and literally destroyed the club. It doesn't exist anymore. And the shitty club they parasited from the old Wimbledon ended up getting relegated to League Two in 2018. Funniest of all was the phoenix club (AFC Wimbledon) that was born after these bastards robbed our club from us started the 2018 season in the league above, having been in the 9th tier in English football in 2004.

I'd just like to add to the bizarre story that is Wimbledon FC that the previous owner Sam Hammam bought the club in 1977 and we went from non league football to the 1st Division (now the PL) in 9 years. You'd have thought he would be remembered as a hero for accomplishing that and winning the FA Cup but he's not at all. He sold our ground Plough Lane after it was deemed unfit for the top flight and we ground shared with Crystal Palace until the end. The last thing he did before selling to the 2 arseholes described above was to try and move Wimbledon to Dublin. His idea was that he would ferry the Wimbledon fans to and from Ireland for each home game. He also made millions from the sale of the ground to be developed into a supermarket, which was never built. Around 20 years on and AFC Wimbledon are now back at Plough Lane, having constructed a new stadium 200 yards away from the original site.

I remember driving past this gate at Plough Lane back in the day. Still get a little emotional looking at it today. I think it lasted for a few years before it got removed.

 

[Josep Dowling]

The Bury owner takes some beating. I can remember his interview on Talksport. Simon Jordan hammered him with questions and he wouldn’t take any responsibility.

 

[strongwalker]

This thread needs more Jesus Gil y Gil