Morning:
14°c
Do you want to know the latest score at Fulham FC? I don't mean from our last match - I mean in general.
Let me tell you. It's 6-0. No, make that 8-0. To me. Because I own the best club in the world, with the best team and the best fans.
I want to reassure people of this, because sometimes there are naughty rumours (even in this paper) that I may sell the club.
If anyone thinks I'm not committed to the game, or to Fulham, they're wrong. Any so-called expert who wants to say differently is an ignorant idiot. I have nurtured my club lovingly for nearly 12 years, and I don't plan to give it up. In fact, when have you ever known me to give up on anything?
I am not going to give up on other things in the game either. Take my crusade against sky-high players' wages. Our expenses bill rose by 17 per cent last year. How can it be right for top players to be earning £15, £20 million a year? It's crazy. These wages need to be capped.
But I worry that it won't happen, because the Premier League and the FA are run by donkeys who don't understand business, who are dazzled by money. If the world wants to keep players in pocket for tens of thousands of pounds every week, then let the Premier League and the FA negotiate with Sky and other broadcasters for a share of the billions that they make in profit from our product, from my product.
Because at present, they don't. All around the world, football fans are paying to watch top matches on TV. And yet do most clubs see any of that money? No: we are hopelessly dependent on our end-of-season league placing to determine our share of the cash - it makes a difference of feast or famine every season. Yet even then, except for the top four clubs, we're only talking about a difference of a few million, which doesn't get you far.
I want to help other clubs. I speak my mind, and other chairmen should, too. They need to wake up from their coma and join me in this fight with the Premier League and the FA.
In fact, they can come and have lunch with me at Harrods, where I can serve them stags' testicles from my Scottish estate, Balnagown. We all need big balls in this business.
* Mohamed Fayed is owner of Fulham FC and Harrods.
Reader views (10)
Why does anyone give this "ignorant idiot" house-room? Because he uses words like donkeys and (tee-hee) testicles??
This is nonsense. LITERAL nonsense. Is it "Feast or famine"? or "Only a few million, which won't get you far?" It can't be both.
And which PL player, pray, is on "£20 million a year"? That's £385,000 a week. Is there something about Fulham's wage-bill that the accounts published last week didn't tell us? It can't be Bobby Zamora's goal bonus.
If Fayed really was to "speak his mind" he'd have nothing to say. He should stick to serving stags' testicles, rather than talking them.
- Mark Murphy, Hook, Surrey
A refreshingly candid and robust stance from 'the man who knows' how to successfuly run a modest, average sized football club, so typical of thousands of 'town' clubs across England and Wales.
The vast majority of FA club chairmen and fans would heartilly agree with such hometruths and sentiments, as, I'm sure, would Messrs Blatter and Platini.
Methinks that the fat cats and fat heads at the FA, and at the Premiere League [who effectively stole control of the 'best quality brand' of the 'product'], won't easily relinquish control of 'their' accounts to the majority of FA shareholders without protracted legal challenges and/or massive financial compensation, especially with their convenient, 'rolling contracts'[?] with the likes of Sky and Setanta.
Have a word with the Chairman of the Football League. Their exciting and successful 'Championship' is, apart from the crudely distorting 'parachute payments' the fairest and most open league competition for years!
Even with many clubs still running frighteningly large defecits.
You should go national with this long overdue debate,
but action is certainly needed.
- Dave, Cumbria
I highly appreciate your ideas, excellent, all these factors are the root cause of the financial crunch.Huge bounses, big contructs....
- M A Sular, London
I'm sorry did he really just say "then let the Premier League and the FA negotiate with Sky and other broadcasters for a share of the billions that they make in profit from our product, from my product" - oh yes my heart bleeds for these 'poor' premier league clubs that get an estimated £50 million at the end of every season through TV revenues. Mr. Fayed seems to have casually forgotten about the vast sums of money that Premier League clubs make from TV. Very convenient. He should stick to running his overblown department store rather than social commentary.
- Andrew, St. John's Wood, London
Mr Al Fayed is a national treasure!!!!!
- Fulham, ondon
Certainly the buffet lunch at Harrods is a bargain but i saw nothing to grab me in the trouser department, it must have been a la carte.
- Jack Spratt, Richmond, England
the man is a legend!! best chairman by a country mile
- Nicw2, W2
Translation;
Pay the top clubs more (more equally).
Reduce my operating costs by curbing pay.
I wonder why?
- Fresh, London
Craven Cottage is a national treasure.
- Bloke, London
Me thinks the grocer doth protest too much.
- Jonnie Of Brixton, brixton,london,england
