Money & Football - A Perspective

[downendcity]

In the same week that Gretna have folded, with the knock on effect of players and staff losing their livelehoods, I've been reading, ad nausium it seems, about Wayne and Colleen's Wedding, and am astonished by the amount being spent be the couple.

Colleen's had about 3 pre Hen night, hen nights, and Wayne's mob and friends are jetting out for 4 days in Ibeza, where he's told everyone to "leave your wallets at home" ( don't know whether that's because he's footing the bill , or because he's worried that with so many scousers thee wallets will go missing!)

I haven't bothered to add it all up, but the cost to Colleen and Wayne must be geting on for £1m- and that's even before the wedding.

The wedding rumoured to be costing £5m, and Ive seen comments in the press regarding the amount involved and the response was along the lines that it's Wayne's fortune and that's how he wants to spend it.

If a 21 year old can afford to blow £6m on getting married, because "that's how he wants to spend his fortune", then it is absolute proof that players earn ay to much. And while Hello are rumoured to be paying £2.5m ( the highest ever, for the wedding pics, the couple are said to be donating a substantial amount of that to charidee - so that's OK then.

I wonder how much it might have taken to keep Greetna afloat?

[spectator]

In the same week that Gretna have folded, with the knock on effect of players and staff losing their livelehoods, I've been reading, ad nausium it seems, about Wayne and Colleen's Wedding, and am astonished by the amount being spent be the couple.

Colleen's had about 3 pre Hen night, hen nights, and Wayne's mob and friends are jetting out for 4 days in Ibeza, where he's told everyone to "leave your wallets at home" ( don't know whether that's because he's footing the bill , or because he's worried that with so many scousers thee wallets will go missing!)

I haven't bothered to add it all up, but the cost to Colleen and Wayne must be geting on for £1m- and that's even before the wedding.

The wedding rumoured to be costing £5m, and Ive seen comments in the press regarding the amount involved and the response was along the lines that it's Wayne's fortune and that's how he wants to spend it.

If a 21 year old can afford to blow £6m on getting married, because "that's how he wants to spend his fortune", then it is absolute proof that players earn ay to much. And while Hello are rumoured to be paying £2.5m ( the highest ever, for the wedding pics, the couple are said to be donating a substantial amount of that to charidee - so that's OK then.

I wonder how much it might have taken to keep Greetna afloat?

Good post, it's obscene and tasteless.

I can't wait for the wedding do back here with the "real" families.

I have it on good authority from someone who was at Colleens 18th, that they all love each other so much, there was a ruck between them all.

Apparently the families initially stood on either side of the room / hall/ boxing ring or whatever it was, and literally Charged at each other with the first few seconds being a stampede to embrace one another, by knocking each others lights out.

[Cyderman]

The problem with this arguement is that there'll always be a more worthy cause. I mean, if I was a millionnaire looking to donate to charity, i think there'd be a fair few more deserving causes than a football club, which only got anywhere anyway because a millionnaire investor allowed them to leapfrog the entire scottish league without planning for what would happen if he left. Think of it as 'Why we're glad to have SL' part 467.

[sunningdalered]

Not sure that I can see the relationship between gretna going **** up and how much rooney is spending on his wedding. Are gretna going under because shrek earns a stupid amount of money? What he spends that stupid amount of money on is irrelevant isnt it? Are you suggesting he should have used some of it to keep gretna afloat? If so, why?

In truth, there are a (relative) handful of players who earn massive weekly wages - and they are the cream of the footballing crop. If you consider just how many people play football every week in the UK, those making fortunes are probably about 0.0000000000001% (ok - so I exaggerate a bit!). I don't begrudge them the money - if I was good enough to play for one of the top 4 prem teams I would!

Stop reading about the wedding!!!!

[Fodbarmyarmy]

In short....If I individualy or as part of a team, earned my employers £280+million profit in a year ...thats PROFIT mind you...then I would expect a similar wage to Shrek and co

IMO the wage only reflects the profit the players make for their clubs

Gretna...sad to say...Obviously made no profit

a good example of the dangers of one man investors ploughing cash into clubs - all great when the going is good but as soon as things get tough and they pull out...WHAM

[22A]

In the days of a 92 club League, gate receipts were split three ways. Most went to the home team (as they had to pay the expense of floodlighting and ref's expenses etc), some went to the visitors (as their fans contributed to the gate) and a third portion went to the league pool. At the end of each season that pool was split into 92 equal portions and given to the clubs. If 100 extra turned up to watch Hartlepool it helped Man U and if 1,000 extra watched Liverpool, that helped Gillingham.

At the League AGM Div 1 & 2 clubs had a vote each whilst the lower 2 divs had 4 votes between them. They then declared this to be in breach of the Company's Act and demanded a vote each. The then big clubs threatened to break away unless the league agreed Div 4 clubs - 1 vote each, Div 3 - 3 votes each, Div 2 - 6 votes each and Div 1 - 12 votes each.

24 + 72 + 132 = 252 votes for the lower three divs whilst the Div 1 clubs combined votes = 264. So the 22 clubs in Div 1 could outvote the rest of the League. They also insisted instead of sharing gate receipts each club kept 100% of it's own gate money. To ensure the sanctity of the League, the lower clubs went along with this. A few years later, the big boys ran off to play their own game anyway.

In Scotland when their Prem League was set up one Chairman said "If Cowdenbeath want to play Arbroath in front 1,000 fans let them. Us monied clubs should stick together". Three years ago when Celtic & Rangers asked to play in the English Prem, their Chairman stated "It's important for the monied clubs to be together".

A season ticket gave you admission to ALL home games, league, league cup, FA cup, friendlies, reserve & youth games. At a stroke all clubs decided to reduce what a season ticket entitled you to.

[downendcity]

Not sure that I can see the relationship between gretna going **** up and how much rooney is spending on his wedding. Are gretna going under because shrek earns a stupid amount of money? What he spends that stupid amount of money on is irrelevant isnt it? Are you suggesting he should have used some of it to keep gretna afloat? If so, why?

In truth, there are a (relative) handful of players who earn massive weekly wages - and they are the cream of the footballing crop. If you consider just how many people play football every week in the UK, those making fortunes are probably about 0.0000000000001% (ok - so I exaggerate a bit!). I don't begrudge them the money - if I was good enough to play for one of the top 4 prem teams I would!

Stop reading about the wedding!!!!

I'm not suggesting there is a direct relationship between Rooney's wedding and Gretna. Other than both stories, at the opposite end of the spectrum, are current.

Equelly I'm not suggesting that it's down to Rooney, or any other footballer, to bail out Gretna or any other club.

At the time of it's formation, we were told that the Premier League was primarily to benefit and improve the England national team. I thought it was bull5h1t at the time, and it's proved to be the case. It was then, and is even more so today, solely about money and power. The stats were out the other week about the ratio of english players in the prem and it's lower than ever. The concentration of wealth means that the top clubs can attract the top players in the world for top fees and top wages.

In the good old days money trickled down through the leagues as big clubs bought young players from smaller clubs further down the structure. Today, the majority of the money at the top of the game goes either to players and their agents or to foreign clubs in transfer fees. A very small fraction of the big money coming into the game gets anywhere near the lower league clubs.

I don't begrudge top players earning good money , as they are in the entertainement business and do help earn their clubs big profits. However, I don't care how entertaining Ronaldo is, how can he be worth £200,000 per week other than the fact the a club is prepared to pay him that amount? If the top players earned a little less they would still be doing more than OK, but their clubs could charge the ordinary man in the street ( remember him, 'cause he's the man who kept these clubs afloat before TV money?) a bit less for their inflated ticket prices, and would still make a tidy profit. However, you might remember that Ashley Cole left Arsenal because he was offended that they offered him ONLY £55,000 perweek instead of the £60,000 he wanted - the vastmajority of Arsenal fans would be hapy with £5k per week!!! Unfortunately the clubs and players are too busy pushing their snouts in the trough to see, hear or worry about the ordinary man who helps pay their wages.

In these days of credit crunch and rising prices, I wonder how many of Rooney's fans will be quite so fond of him when they are struggling to pay the mortgage, electricity and gas bills but see their hero jollying it up at a cost of £6m? The day's of football being the working mans game are long past, I am afraid.

By the way, I'm not looking to read about Rooney's wedding, it just happened to confront me as I turned the page in today's paper, and I can guarantee you that I will not be rushing to buy Hello in order to see the pictures of what will surely be a tasteful and stylish wedding event. But then I suppose I am just a sad old git.

I'll get my coat, and buttonhole and make my way to Portofino. Arriverderci!

[One Team In Keynsham]

How two rich young people choose to spend their money is really no business but theirs. Yes, I think that GBP6million (if that is a true number) on a weddng is outrageous, and yes, I suspect that their idea of taste would clash with mine, but it is their choice.

The fact that they have become so rich is the thing that partially staggers me: Wayne I can understand, he was, in my opinion, the most exciting young player I had seen since Gascoigne (before it all went horribly wrong after assualting Gary Charles), and if a club is willing to pay him vast sums of money, then fair play to him (doesn't make it right, but can't blame a man for getting the best wage he can). In all honesty, if anyone on here was offered tens of thousands pounds a week to play football, would anyone turn it down? Colleen, to me, is a different kettle of fish: living overseas I am protected from the utter sh1te of Hello/OK celeb culture in the UK (but get a similar amount of garbage on the US front) but I still fail to understand what she actually does. I don't really care, I just don't get it. But, whatever it is, people seem to lap it up or fall for it, and thus she seems to have become very wealthy in her own right. And as for their families not getting on. Is that a shock? Guess what, they are real people, and real people have problems with in-laws.

My view is that the root of the problem is not with the players, but with the clubs and the consumers (or fans, as they used to be called). If there was no club willing to pay mediocre players GBP10,000s/week, then they would not get paid it, end of. And, the clubs only have the money because of, in the main, TV rights, gate receipts and merchandising (leaving out sugar daddys like Roman, and net transfer revenue): if no-one paid their Sky monthly fees, or their Setanta PPV charges, if no-one bothered going to the games, if no-one bothered buying yet another club branded replica shirt, duvet cover, toaster, dildo, whatever, then the money flow dries up.

I feel sorry for the fans of Gretna that the club has gone under, but looking at it coldly, the club's business plan was as watertight as a sieve. What would be more entertaining is one of the "big 4" suddenly finding the owner has pulled the plug, the debts need to be paid and a "sh1tty no mark team" has kicked them out of the holy grail of 4th spot for the Champions League (another problem, and another rant for another day). I only hope it happens to the side that Ashley Cole is playing for at the time.

Mindless, and rambling, rant over, back to work.

[BITW]

All good points made, but IMO, getting payed for your job is one thing, but getting the kind of money these players do is beyond ridiculous. Football used to be played purely for enjoyment. I'm not saying that some of these players aernt passionate, but I just think its a shame this sport has turned into something where money is the most important thing!

[Geoff65]

I believe the reason Gretna went tits up was due to no one wanting to buy the ailing owner's shares off him - if there was such a person then Gretna wouldn't have gone tits up because the owner gets virtually nothing or in fact nothing now the club has been wound up.

Your observation that the trickle down effect of the Premier league money hasn't worked - when the Premier League gave money to the football league (not last year but the time before) Mr Scally of Gillingham fought tooth and nail to keep as much as possible in league one (or the championship as it is now called) - how I bet he regrets that now.

How will the Man Utd Fans react to Mr Rooney splashing out £6m on his wedding - I doubt if they give a toss - why should they? The only thing they would be wanting is to do with what he does on the pitch. You would think that Newcastle would not have welcomed Barton at their club but as long as they do he performs on the pitch the Newcastle fans wont give a monkeys.

Football is mucked up as is the money coming into the game and how it's allocated - Uefa should be much more thoughtful on how to rectify the allocation of moneys going into their members leagues but instead they decide to prattle on and focus on the wrong things.

[Geoff65]

Just as an aside Man Utd wage bill was circa £92m last year - Arsenal's was £88m and Chelsea around £120m

- in contrast

Alonso is £15 million annually and Raikkonen gets a £20 million salary. Schumaker was getting paid including endorsements around £50m a year.

Roger Federer - £17m a year

Valentino Rossi (MotoCross) £17m

Yao Ming (Basketball) £16m

Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd) £15m

Ichiro Suzuki (Baseball) £13.5m

Lewis Hamilton (Formula One) $27.6m

Top players get top whack.

[East End Lad]

If your offered that much who is going to turn it down? I don't have a problem with them earning the money they do, but what annoys me is when average players who sometimes show no passion earn good amounts of money. As Geoff65 said, the best players get paid the best amounts. Not just that, look at what film stars earn, or Kanye West, or Madonna. The best and most famous get large amounts of money, and as someone else said if Wayne is helping United make the profit that they do then he should be intitles to be paid accordingly.

The other thing about giving to charity is that there will always be something more worth to spend your money on. That £11 you spent on a DVD could have gone to charity, but you can only do so much. I'm sure Wayne does give a lot of money to charity, but the press don't publicise that part?

[chinapig]

David Conn writes brilliantly in the Guardian on the (often shady) financial side of the game. His latest articel here is relevant and very interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/ma...ue.championship

[petehinton]

they do get pampered with the kit being layed out for them and what have you

take away the money and many many footballers would leave the world of football (Ronaldo)

they're the ones with all the money and yet some of them don't have time for us because they're too busy either combing their hair,checking for wrinkles or tasting wine

Gavin Harris in Goal 1/2 is a pretty good example of what i'm trying to say; take away the money and they would lose interest

When everyone of us on here would want to play for City infront of 18,000 for free let alone for 5k a week !

[dezgimed]

they do get pampered with the kit being layed out for them and what have you

take away the money and many many footballers would leave the world of football (Ronaldo)

they're the ones with all the money and yet some of them don't have time for us because they're too busy either combing their hair,checking for wrinkles or tasting wine

Gavin Harris in Goal 1/2 is a pretty good example of what i'm trying to say; take away the money and they would lose interest

When everyone of us on here would want to play for City infront of 18,000 for free let alone for 5k a week !

No Pete, no footballers would leave the world of football. Maybe if ALL money was taken away and they don't get paid a penny.

But they'd play even for a measly £20k a year, because playing football is a hell of a lot more exciting than laying bricks, sitting in a checkout, playing with excel all day etc.

[WTFiGO!?!]

My view is that the root of the problem is not with the players, but with the clubs and the consumers (or fans, as they used to be called). If there was no club willing to pay mediocre players GBP10,000s/week, then they would not get paid it, end of. And, the clubs only have the money because of, in the main, TV rights, gate receipts and merchandising (leaving out sugar daddys like Roman, and net transfer revenue): if no-one paid their Sky monthly fees, or their Setanta PPV charges, if no-one bothered going to the games, if no-one bothered buying yet another club branded replica shirt, duvet cover, toaster, dildo, whatever, then the money flow dries up.

Indeed, here layeth the problem.

Nationalwide boycott is neccessary to counteract this sickening aspect of the once beautiful game.

Other point to remember is the business saying about something only being worth what people are willing to pay for it.

Saw a report stating 1/7 top flight Club S/T holders not renewing for 08/09 so that bodes for slight encouragement.

It's all rather depressing though

[DavidNoble]

Well think of it this way, whilst many of US go jetting off for our summer holidays or spending a hundred pounds on the latest TV there are kids in Africa that are desperate for just a bit of money, it's probably the same for them except we are the millionaires and they are the 'poor ones'.

[Nogbad the Bad]

if no-one bothered going to the games, if no-one bothered buying yet another club branded replica shirt, dildo,

OK, own up everyone, who on here has bought one of City's club branded dildos?

First I've heard of them, don't reckon I'll bother myself.

[sunningdalered]

I can assure you that neither am I the owner (proud or otherwise) of any battery-operated city merchandise :noexpression:

Ok folks, respect for all of the opinions above - so, how do we square all of this off with the fact that we so nearly joined the favoured few a couple of weeks ago? We all have a fair idea of what would have happened if we had won the pray-off final - but, most notably, and inevitably, we would have spent as much time talking about money (tv rights, wages, transfer fees, ticket prices etc etc etc) as we do currently about the football our team is playing.

So, should we be happy in the CCC? I know we did this one before the final (Malone started a cracking, and surprisingly controversial, thread on the subject), maybe views are different now our heads are not pounding so much with the anticipation of the final

[Nibor]

It's all very well moaning about the money in the game until you consider who's to blame.

The answer isn't very easy to stomach - it's ALL of us.

Everyone who has sky sports or setanta, every time you go to a pub showing sky football, every time you buy goods from one of the sponsors, even listen to a game on the radio, you're putting more money into the machine.

Ultimately the only way to remove the money from the game is to stop doing all those things, we've already shown the money men that we won't so prices will continue to rise and so will wages until the point is reached where we can't afford it any more. The power lies with the consumer and the consumer is still putting his hand in his pocket.

I don't begrudge the players the money, when you're in a small group of people at the top of a profession that billions of people will put money into you're going to be rich. It's the same in other sports, and in some other industries. What they do with it is their business, I'm not the least bit interested unless it affects how my team play on the pitch.

What I do begrudge is the egotistical club boards that will borrow to the hilt and recklessly chuck money at players risking the future of their club on a whim. It's a nasty vicious circle because other clubs start doing the same to compete with them. When an English league club finally goes bust without a last minute rescue in the middle of a season and some of these idiots are banned from directorships, maybe people will start seeing sense.

[SimplyRed]

I think we should remember that it WAS the players of the halcyon days of the 60's and purveyors of the so-called 'beautiful game' that started the ball rolling by campaigning for the removal of the maximum wage, which footballers were subject to in those days.

Jimmy Hill was a founding member of that campaign, out of which eventually grew the PFA.

Now I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have liked to have a maximum wage imposed on my work, so you have to concur that removing the maximum wage was a good thing.

The fact that the ever-increasing demand for skillful, speedy athletes has pushed up the wage demands is only natural. A top professional football player for earning £15m/year is really no different to a top dog in the City receiving a 1m annual bonus for making his company some juicy profits. Companies are happy to reward their top performing people for boosting the profits, just as football clubs reward their top players - it's called capitalism.

[Bangkok Red]

Now I don't know about you, but I wouldn't have liked to have a maximum wage imposed on my work, so you have to concur that removing the maximum wage was a good thing.

No problem for the removal of the max wage. Subsequent changes like freedom of contract, Bosman ruling etc have put too much power in the hands of players & agents. As a result, agents are now able to hold clubs to ransom when negotiating contracts for top players. That's very damaging for the game.

The fact that the ever-increasing demand for skillful, speedy athletes has pushed up the wage demands is only natural.

Other way round. The demand hasn't gone up. The problem is that the supply of quality players (particularly in the UK) has gone down.

A top professional football player for earning £15m/year is really no different to a top dog in the City receiving a 1m annual bonus for making his company some juicy profits.

No, there's a big difference. The company in the City is paying the bonus out of actual profit. Most football clubs are paying salaries beyond their means and running at a loss. There is no profit.

Companies are happy to reward their top performing people for boosting the profits, just as football clubs reward their top players - it's called capitalism.

As above, profitable clubs are the exception and not the rule. Rewarding people beyond your means is not called capitalism - it's called insanity.

[Bangkok Red]

Just as an aside Man Utd wage bill was circa £92m last year - Arsenal's was £88m and Chelsea around £120m

- in contrast

Alonso is £15 million annually and Raikkonen gets a £20 million salary. Schumaker was getting paid including endorsements around £50m a year.

Roger Federer - £17m a year

Valentino Rossi (MotoCross) £17m

Yao Ming (Basketball) £16m

Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd) £15m

Ichiro Suzuki (Baseball) £13.5m

Lewis Hamilton (Formula One) $27.6m

Top players get top whack.

True, top players do get top whack, but your example is a complete distortion. You have to compare teamsports v teamsports and individual sports v individual sports for a fair comparison.

It should also be stated that the pro American teamsports like Baseball & Basketball are operating under a salary cap - one blokes massive salary means less in the kitty for the rest of the roster - now that is a fair system that could be introduced into football to moderate wage demands.

[elhombrecito]

pro American teamsports like Baseball & Basketball are operating under a salary cap

There is no salary cap in baseball. The Yankees and Red Sox pay huge amounts more in salarys than any other team.

[chinapig]

Doesn't the Football League require clubs to keep wages to a maximum of 60% of turnover or something? If so this is effectively a salary cap and a very sensible one. They are also tough on clubs going into administration. By contrast the Premier League doesn't seem to give a monkey's how much debt clubs are in and corporate governance is virtually non-existent. Mind you much the same could be said of banks rewarding the few for taking massive risks with other people's money and then expecting the taxpayer to bail them out so why should football be any different?

[Rob k]

Why do people care so much about how much others earn and spend, i never see anybody having a pop at mcartney for Raking in nearly 1billion through music, if somebodys prepared to pay you obscene money then fair play, i for one would not turn it down thats for sure.

[merrickstash]

I don't really begrudge any of the players their money. That fact is, they earn it. Without them, no one would buy their Sky box or their season ticket. What I do resent is people who explot the game - ie the Glazers, the Dildo-men at Birmingham etc - to make themselves rich - without seeming to add anything to it. They're parasites in my view....

Having said that, virtually all Prem players do earn huge amounts of money. More than anyone could reasonably spend. I think they'd be doing themselves a favour if they gave some of that back in a highly visible way. I'd like to see the PFA get involved with perhaps a 2 or 3 per cent levy on salaries.

Back of the fag packet calculation suggests to me that would raise about £10 million a year from the Prem alone. Enough in a decade to equip hundreds of youth centres etc.

Randy Lerner at Villa - who appears a good sort - seems to have the right idea by giving away the shirt sponsorship to a charity.

Call it a PR job or whatever, but it would achieve a lot of good and improve the reputation of the game.

[One Team In Keynsham]

There is no salary cap in baseball. The Yankees and Red Sox pay huge amounts more in salarys than any other team.

This is indeed true: NHL, NFL and NBA all have caps of some description, MLB took a different approach (per Wikipedia, so could easily be garbage...):

Luxury Tax in Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball has instead implemented the so-called luxury tax, an arrangement by which teams whose aggregate payroll exceeds a certain annually revised figure is taxed on the excess amount (or fined). This is paid to the league which then puts the money into its "industry-growth fund". [4]

For the 2004 season, only Boston, Anaheim, and the New York Yankees paid any luxury tax, as the team's superstar players earned yearly salaries close to the entire payroll of some other clubs. The tax has only been implemented on nine occasions and the Yankees have been the subject of five of those.

However, critics point out that the luxury tax has had little effect on maintaining competitive balance and on overspending by affluent teams.[citation needed] Due to opposition of a powerful MLB players' union, and because the Yankees and Red Sox refused to side with the majority of MLB owners, the implementation of a salary cap is unlikely at the moment. Although some saw the success of NHL owners in their 2004-05 lockout as an opportunity for MLB to reform its collective bargaining agreement,[citation needed] baseball owners agreed to a new five-year deal in October 2006 that did not include a salary cap.

Unlike the other three major North American sports, MLB has no team salary floor. The only minimum limits for team payrolls are based on the minimum salaries for individual players of various levels of experience that are written into MLB's collective bargaining agreement.

[Bangkok Red]

There is no salary cap in baseball. The Yankees and Red Sox pay huge amounts more in salarys than any other team.

OK, you can substitute NHL or NFL in my earlier post then :tongue: However, you fail to mention that Baseball has a "luxury tax", where a fine is levied when the aggregate payroll exceeds the limit, so there are some moderating controls in place :tongue:

It doesn't alter my general point that the salary cap makes a lot of sense in moderating wages and prevent clubs living beyond their means. Salary caps are operating in Rugby League, so why not in football?

[One Team In Keynsham]

I can assure you that neither am I the owner (proud or otherwise) of any battery-operated city merchandise :noexpression:

Ok folks, respect for all of the opinions above - so, how do we square all of this off with the fact that we so nearly joined the favoured few a couple of weeks ago? We all have a fair idea of what would have happened if we had won the pray-off final - but, most notably, and inevitably, we would have spent as much time talking about money (tv rights, wages, transfer fees, ticket prices etc etc etc) as we do currently about the football our team is playing.

So, should we be happy in the CCC? I know we did this one before the final (Malone started a cracking, and surprisingly controversial, thread on the subject), maybe views are different now our heads are not pounding so much with the anticipation of the final

There is nothing to square off in my view: we were in a position to be promoted to a higher league than the one we were currently in: if you play in a tiered league structure, then save for a few exceptions it must be the goal of the team to advance up the league pyramid (only exceptions I can think of are teams like Real Madrid Castilla, the Real Madrid B team, that plays in the Spanish league system and is prohibited from playing in the same division as its parent side.) To do anything else is pointless. I read Malone's thread, and whether or not it was the work of a WUM, I appreciated the comments, just disagreed with them. Had we gone up, we would then be part of the same corporate monster, but as long as we used the opportunity wisely, we could have cleared our debts and got a new ground as the pay off for 9 months of horrific on-field batterings.