Top clubs still paying the price for foreign investment

David Mellor
7 May 2008

Those of us who worry that the real threat to the Premier League comes from unregulated foreign ownership rather than foreign players won't take too much comfort from this week's news from both the light blue and red halves of Manchester. Manchester City owner (should that read dictator?) Thaksin Shinawatra has made it clear he intends to dismiss manager Sven-Goran Eriksson despite what has been, by City standards, a pretty successful season.

Shinawatra has not even paid lip service to consulting the fans and it is clear he does not give a tuppenny stuff what they think.

The Thai is a highly controversial figure who has been accused of all manner of crimes and abuse of power in his native country.

And he seems to have brought to Manchester the same ruthless and arrogant high-handedness.

A properly regulated league would have rules about the standards of probity required of club owners. Although the Premier League claim to have a "fit and proper person" test, it is obviously a joke since Shinawatra sailed through it.

As, indeed, did the Gaydamak family at Portsmouth, when there is a suspicion that it is father Gaydamak, a man with a questionable past,who owns the club and his son is merely the front man.

Another thing the Premier League are too permissive about is debt.

Manchester United's results show an extraordinary indebtedness of around £666million, way beyond anything previously encountered in British football, and which rises to £750m-plus when money still owed on player transfers is added in.

This debt mountain will continue to grow because not all the interest due on these borrowings is being paid year on year. Of £81m interest payable last year, the accounts reveal some £39m was rolled up, thus piling debt on debt.

When you factor in interest rates rising to an eye-watering 14.25 per cent, it is obvious United's financial future is becoming increasingly compromised.

Everything has to be repaid by 2016. If Premier League football is still on a high, no doubt the club could, if necessary, be sold for enough to satisfy the banks, or, if credit markets permit, at least part of the debt can be refinanced. But if things are not going well in both departments, United could be bust.

Foreign owners are hitting the Premier League with a double whammy; some who come in with plenty of money are ethically compromised, while others who are okay as far as reputations go - like the Glazers, or Hicks and Gillett at Liverpool - seemingly can't wait to saddle their clubs with unacceptable levels of borrowing.

All this is boring compared to action on the pitch, but unless the Premier League impose firmer ethical and financial rules there could be big trouble ahead.

You have only to look at once proud Leeds to see what happens when the money and the credit runs out.