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Relegation Battle


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3 hours ago, RiseAgainst said:

I don't think a Red Bull takeover would be ruinous for the club:

1. We already play in red and white, so a splash of yellow in our kit isn't going to change it the way a red/white/yellow kit would materially affect Chelsea or West Brom.

2. Red Bull couldn't change our club's name under FA rules. Our history and identity would be protected to a degree, at least.

3.  It's not like they'd have to build a new stadium to enable MFC to flourish. The Riverside is fine. Again, heritage preserved.

4. If they wanted to rename the stadium the Red Bull Riverside, is it really worse than the BT Cellnet Riverside?

5. Our club is sinking into obscurity at present. Red Bull have a proven track record of making clubs successful, and after the last ten years, we could do with their guidance.

6. There are far fewer ethical concerns about being owned by an energy drinks company than by Emiratis, obscure shell corporations or Mike Ashley. Or Karl Oyston. Or Steve Dale. Or anyone else who decides to make Steve Gibson an offer in future.

7. I'd much rather see people walking around Middlesbrough advertising energy drinks on their replica shirts than the assorted pawnbrokers and bookmakers we've been sponsored by since the late Noughties.

8. It does appear Steve Gibson is losing interest in MFC, and his decision making over the last decade has been fairly absymal. Wouldn't it be nice to have a clear identity, a sense of direction, and a long-term plan? Even a Director of Football, for Christ's sake?

As for the reactions of other clubs' supporters, (a) IDGAF, and (b) they'd just be jealous. Red Bull are a typically efficient Germanic organisation who have successfully disrupted every industry they've entered. They know what they're doing. Can the same be said for our current owner, who has been trading on past glories for over a decade?

Stop making me wish for something that is never going to happen, please.

At the moment I'd take a competently managed side who can score at home to Luton 😞 

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Right then, first of all to address borodane referring to a ‘Middle Eastern despot’. I’m going to assume that’s a reference to Man City’s owners. They are morally repulsive, and if I was a Man City fa

Hope not considering your user name. 😬🤣🤣

Blackburn got relegated with 51 points the season we were in the Prem. 4 of the last 5 seasons, 42 points has been enough. Comparing both 16/17, 18/19 and this season after ~32 games, the bottom

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15 hours ago, sanddancer said:

I’m sure if there was a take over any new owner would invite the local population to there ground. Any thought that one investor is better than another Is like asking who would take the most, investors are interested only in gain because any business plan that states operating at loose won’t be sanctioned. 
Anyway Bulk-haul profits have recently shot up so to offset tax we may see a bit of money offered to Woody for his rebuilding plan. We could be seeing high press football quicker than we expected and it would help secure Woody future.  

Hope you're right!

Come to think about it - how come we've never been sponsored by Bulkhaul? Is there some conflict of interest rule about that?

 

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21 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Come to think about it - how come we've never been sponsored by Bulkhaul? Is there some conflict of interest rule about that?

 

Good question. But surely there can't be, since the skunks have been sponsored by Sports Direct and suchlike?

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4 hours ago, AnglianRed said:

Hope you're right!

Come to think about it - how come we've never been sponsored by Bulkhaul? Is there some conflict of interest rule about that?

 

Yea why haven't we had a really nice lucrative bulkhaul sponsorship deal..

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I'd love a Red Bull takeover to be honest.

Imagine our current academy with extra investment and a bigger scouting network. We'd have one of the best academies in Europe.

Red Bull would bring investment to the area and the club, as well as bringing the fans back. They'd probably be able to lower ticket prices to make it more affordable for fans as a repayment for losing some of our identity. Our fans would soon stop caring about the loss of identity if we were in a similar exciting situation as say Wolves are now. With the resources they have, they could probably invest in the area and bring extra jobs and opportunities to Middlesbrough as well.

Also every other club in England would hate us and that would bring a feeling of a united Boro even more, us against the world.

Of course this is never gonna happen but a man can dream 🙃

 

 

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Wolves got overtaken by an international company who had a clear plan. I'm pretty sure the Wolves fans are very happy and don't care that they are owned by a Chinese company. I for one envy the position they are in and they've done it in less than 5 years.

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18 hours ago, Johnmfc81 said:

Yea why haven't we had a really nice lucrative bulkhaul sponsorship deal..

Isn’t that part of the reason Man City are being sanctioned - sponsorship by owner alleged to be uncommercial. I.e. it was owners way of pumping money in to avoid losses?

By the way, Bulkhaul profits are published  and Gazette says they are up to £44m, so SG shouldn’t have any problems continuing o fund losses, provided he wants to. Club accounts not out yet.

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I'm pretty sure the majority of fans don't give a toss about it and even if some did, they would not give up their football club because of it. I imagine there's a small section of fans who are just having to maintain a level of ignorance about their concerns and the success reinforces that. Nobody is going to complain about having a successful team.

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50 minutes ago, wilsoncgp said:

I'm pretty sure the majority of fans don't give a toss about it and even if some did, they would not give up their football club because of it. I imagine there's a small section of fans who are just having to maintain a level of ignorance about their concerns and the success reinforces that. Nobody is going to complain about having a successful team.

@RealSlimSladeyy might

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On 2/20/2020 at 8:30 AM, Denzel Zanzibar said:

Go on then, why are Red Bull so terrible?

Right then, first of all to address borodane referring to a ‘Middle Eastern despot’. I’m going to assume that’s a reference to Man City’s owners. They are morally repulsive, and if I was a Man City fan I doubt I could compartmentalise the fact that their success is directly linked to such a regime. I think it’s interesting that borodane specified Middle Eastern owners as an example. Pretty much every owner (ie an extremely wealthy person/business) operates at least partially in a morally grey area, and a lot go beyond that. Let’s not forget that Putin once described Abramovich as ‘our oligarch’. 

Onto why a Red Bull takeover would be terrible. Firstly, I get why fans would be on board with it. The prospect of success is exciting. We’re a club that has been largely devoid of significant achievement. No one likes being irrelevant and we are exactly that to the vast majority of the footballing world. A red bull takeover could change all that. I get it. 

Why I would be adamantly opposed to a Red Bull takeover ties into a larger issue I have: the domination of money and the commercialisation of the game. More so than ever, money dictates success and greed dictates the culture of football. Money is both a prerequisite for success and the most significant factor in determining it. As we all know, to compete at the highest level you need an unbelievably wealthy owner. These owners, due to the way fast amounts of wealth is acquired, are almost always business owners. Naturally, their ownership of a football club is orientated towards the interests of their business. The success of the football club is primarily a vehicle to boost their business and individual wealth. That produces an inherent contradiction with what I find so attractive about football. I said in a post the other day that I love the essence of football but I despise the form it currently takes. This is what I meant. For me, and I think most fans, what is so engaging about football is its ability to root you in a place and consequently garner a sense of collective identity. When people speak of their fondest riverside memories, they often point to the game against Brighton where we secured promotion. They talk of the atmosphere and the euphoria of promotion. Implicit in that is that they treasure the memory of everyone pulling together and striving forward in the same direction. Everyone associated with Middlesbrough Football Club united and it is through this unity that success was achieved. Another smaller scale example would be when we score and in the away end I hug some random bald fella. That’s probably someone with a radically different background and worldview to myself, but in that moment it doesn’t matter because we are all united by a common goal. I maintain that this aspect of football is truly beautiful.  Although an elastic word, I believe that football is socialist at its core and that these socialist qualities I’ve just detailed are what leads to the game dominating so many people’s lives. If you don’t want to take it from me, there is this quote from the Bill Shankly,

‘The socialism I believe in isn’t really politics. It is a way of living. It is humanity. I believe the only way to live and to be truly successful is by collective effort, with everyone working for each other, everyone helping each other, and everyone having a share of the rewards at the end of the day. That might be asking a lot, but it’s the way I see football and the way I see life.’

So, collective identity is key to the attraction of football. Yet any takeover of the club by a ridiculously rich owner undermines that sense of identity. You sacrifice a large portion of your identity as a place, a club, and a community to the fact that your club is now primarily operating to boost someone’s business interests and wealth. Success and identity in football are at odds with each other and a Red Bull takeover, given their overt rebranding of clubs, would be the absolute epitome of that. Whatever success we hypothetically achieve under them, our identity would be intrinsically tied to the profits of a German energy drink company. We exist primarily not as a club that achieves success through the unity it has cultivated but as a pawn in some greedy game. That runs counter to everything I love about football and everything I love about supporting Middlesbrough FC.

I think the game is in desperate need of restructuring. At the very least a wage cap. If I had it my way, I’d move towards an NFL style system. It doesn’t solve the issue of business owners compromising a club’s identity but it would mean success is more dependent on strategy than money. We would probably still be terrible but it’d be easier to take that we’re bad because of weak strategy rather than weak finances. Of course there are countless problems with this too: what happens with relegation? Do we get rid of it? What happens to the clubs that can’t fit in the system? Do I really have the audacity to bang on about the importance of identity to me as a Middlesbrough fan only to propose a new system that would disregard the identity of countless other fans of clubs that wouldn’t make the cut? I don’t have all the answers but it’s the best solution I can currently think of to the absolute state football is in at the moment. The gap between my love for football and the disgust I have with regards to its current structure widens each season. Maybe I’ll reach a breaking point one day - if Red Bull took over that could well end my status as a Middlesbrough fan.

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1 minute ago, wilsoncgp said:

A lot of that really rings true with me, @RealSlimSladeyy. I don't know if I could ever end my following of Boro and thus the ignorance I speak of is undoubtedly true of myself but you've pulled a lot of my mindset into that post.

Yeah man I almost said in the OP that of course it’s very easy for me to say hypothetically I’d give up Middlesbrough on moral grounds. But in reality I’m not sure I could give up something that has been such an important part of and influence on my life. 

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6 minutes ago, RealSlimSladeyy said:

Yeah man I almost said in the OP that of course it’s very easy for me to say hypothetically I’d give up Middlesbrough on moral grounds. But in reality I’m not sure I could give up something that has been such an important part of and influence on my life. 

I think if it was easy to give up on Middlesbrough FC a lot of us would have done it a long time ago. 🤔

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