SSN reporting on who's bidding for Hearts, followed by Real Madrid paying £34m for an under 21 international. Is it any wonder the games ****ed?
Printable View
SSN reporting on who's bidding for Hearts, followed by Real Madrid paying £34m for an under 21 international. Is it any wonder the games ****ed?
Perhaps more relevantly, Fulham - who are arguably a smaller club than Hearts in terms of fanbase and success historically - being sold for between £150M and £200M to an American billionaire.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23297785
Sorry? Fulham a smaller club than Hearts? I don't see how that an be argued. 13th season in the EPL, Europa League finalists a couple of seasons back and a 25k capacity stadium which is more or less full each home game.
Al Fayed to his credit, has had been a fine custodian of the oldest club in London.
The only similarity is that Fulham have a statue of Michael Jackson but HMFC have gone one further and employed a couple of dodgers...
Before Fayed pitched up, Fulham were basically Leyton Orient-on-Thames. You wouldn't argue that Leyton Orient are a bigger club than Hearts. Fulham take advantage of their location and PL status to sell a lot of tickets to tourists. They have a neutral section at every game to reflect this.
http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/982-F...-floating-fans
Fulham are a bigger club simply because they are in the Premiership and based in London.
It's easy to clarify that with 'if they weren't in the EPL they'd have smaller gates' well yeah. I'm sure if either Hibs or Hearts were for whatever reason in the EPL they'd probably be able to fill 30k or even 40k stadiums with the extra casual fans and tourists that would turn up just to see Man Utd or the other big hitters come to town.
Smashing buy and the fact he's trying to bring more Jaguar games over here to London for regular NFL games makes it all more sense. Fulham are a very steady decently supported club with great history, a wee bit of development and they can be regular top 8 team.
Depends on how the individual defines bigger?
Sky Sports would have you believing Wigan are a bigger club than Ajax, Celtic & Red Star Belgrade combined 'cos they played in the sooper dooper Premier League for a few years.
All if's and buts I know but give Hibs, Aberdeen, Hertz 40m a season we'd have bigger supports than some EPL clubs, easily.
Nutshell. TV money has made the smaller countries football backwaters. The success of clubs like Fulham, Wigan and Stoke should make Hibs/Hearts/A'deen, never mind the OF think hard about their (lack of) a future in the Scottish game.
IMO we need to be merging with the other smaller football countries, the Scandinavian and Benelux nations, to form viable leagues appealing to English speaking broadcasters. Otherwise we're going to be playing for a couple of diddy cups and 3rd/4th slots and the right to be gubbed by fit dross in their midseason, in Euro prelim rounds forever and ever.
Some may be satisfied with that, but my aspirations for Hibs are higher.