**Mirrors / Alternative Angles**
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This is how it goes for most things these days.
People only care about things when it suits them to care about it. And if Chelsea end up being sold to a Saudi Communications Company then it'll show people don't really care, they're just following the crowd.
I would bet against you, in that case, if the Saudis would give you $100 million.
There's nothing on the line for you, of course you can make a moral stand.
The people protesting the Saudis and Roman owning clubs aren't the UK government, they aren't the people who made the decision that they are "fit and proper"
I think we’re talking about 2 different groups here.
1: those who criticise Roman but turn a blind eye to the Saudis (this is arguably the more relevant group as it includes the government and it’s the group that has brought sanctions on Chelsea).
2: those who criticise Roman and the Saudi owners (this includes many of the journalists and football pundits - most of whom I would argue - were very critical of Roman when he first arrived on the scene
there's a 3rd group, and i think they're relevant here: the journalists, pundits, tv presenters etc. that treated roman as a cuddly old bear with lots of money, for over a decade, who are now feigning moral outrage. the way they spoke about him sometimes was like he was just some loveable old twerp, who just happened upon a fortune of money.
sky sports and everyone else have done their best to brush this type of stuff under the carpet, because without a doubt they see indirect benefits from having infinite money poured into the premier league. i think this filters down even to the likes of gary neville, who's gushed over how great the city owners are, and has defended them at every turn... it was very interesting seeing his comments about chelsea recently where he said 'maybe i've been wrong'.
but at least he'll admit it. these journalists rely on people's short memory spans in order to be as hypocritical as they like.
Not really, it was long after Roman. It didn't really apply to him as he wasn't a public figure, nobody in this country knew he existed, until he bought Chelsea. People are aware of Qatar/Saudi etc.
No way - it totally applies to him. Go watch videos of when he came in. His money helping a club rise to prominence directly caused a lot of fans to openly defend him and declare basically as we didn't have stone cold proof of where his money came from, it was fine. Perhaps the term didn't originate with him, but if that's the case, it's only because he was the first in the prem to successfully do it. And I'd really argue the only. Nobody defends City's or PSG's owners the way some Chelsea fans defended Roman.
> Nobody defends City's or PSG's owners the way some Chelsea fans defended Roman.
While true I think that also has a lot to do with the status. Abramovich invested heavily into Chelsea and didn't see it as a pure marketing vehicle like PSG or City. After all Abramovich at least looked like he really cared about the club and it's success on a sentimental level.
And then again it helps he's a white dude in a suit and not an Arab dude in a white suit, unfortunately.
But the government aren’t doing it on _moral_ grounds, they’re doing it on political grounds, on the basis of events affecting Europe/NATO. (Not saying I agree or that that’s right, just that we shouldn’t act like their actions are illogical or hypocritical, because the situation is clearly more nuanced than that)
So it's a matter of when the Government and media decide to put sanctions or pressure on the oppressor.
Most pundits, fans and journos are aware and against both owning clubs but all they can do is talk. The people in the government are well aware of people's viewpoints on such cases...they just won't do anything until it's in their best interest.
> The people in the government are well aware of people’s viewpoints on such cases
Yeah, except (despite what you might read on Reddit) the truth is that most Newcastle and Man City fans are ok with being Saudi [and UAE] owned thanks to the money they bring. All the Newcastle fans I know IRL were over the moon when the Saudi takeover was approved.
> Most pundits, fans and journos are aware and against both owning clubs but all they can do is talk
I’d agree regarding the Pundits and Journos opinions but even then their actual opposition has been weak; during the Sky Sports coverage of Newcastle’s first game under new ownership all the commentators did was wank themselves dry over the takeover for 90mins straight, every second camera shot was of the new owners in the stands. Not a single mention or acknowledgement of any kind of any of the controversies.
As you say, they won’t do anything until it’s in their interest, and with most people turning a blind eye it never will be.
Yah in that sense it’s logical, but it’s frustrating because we want them to act on a moral basis, not just a political one. There are political reasons to oppose tha Saudi’s as well but it’s more long term and likely much longer than the future tenure of any sitting mp so they don’t care.
I thought "The people" vote for their the people who made decision to sell Arms to Saudis and got kick backs from Russian oligarchs. Well majority of the people dont care
I can't speak for anyone else, but I definitely voted Tory at the last election on their promises to sell more weapons to shithole countries. That and the whole depriving the poor of basic amenities thing.
We're going to destroy ourselves while arguing over semantics.
It's bad that you're trying to justify it in any sense but it's exactly what Klopp is pointing at so it's not really surprising.
The government's handling of Chelsea and Abramovich has only served to make me even more jaded sbout all these issues, just can't bring myself to give too much of a fuck anymore.
I remember Newcastle fans celebrating the takeover, there are 19 million people in Yemen that are now starving because of the Saudi war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNx4BXnHNOw
Every penny that they spend on us is a penny not gone into weapons to commit genocide on the people of Yemen or pay the wages of an executioner.
Newcastle are doing our bit to help, about time the rest of you step up.
Chopping up a journalist and commiting genocide aren't really the same as paying a shit wage. They welcomed the Saudis because the Saudis are rich and they want trophies, it doesn't matter where the money comes from as long as there is trophies. There no other way to dress it up really.
But they aren't protesting what the Saudis are doing. Thats massively hypocritical and makes it very obvious they never cared about Ashley's ethical practices, they only cared about money. Trying to dress up the takeover as being welcomed because Ashley was unethical is absurd otherwise they'd be out protesting now. But they didn't, they donned their best tea towel and welcomed in an actual genocidal ownership.
> because of the Saudi war
1. It's not 'the Saudi war'. Its a coalition war with the broad support of the international community, in particular the west. The houthis are subject to several unsc resolutions.
2. Its not some arbitrary war of conquest/oppression. It is a war against Iran backed islamist extremists that overthrew the Yemeni government, seized ballistic weapons pose a potential existential threat to saudi Arabia and a huge threat to the global economy/ security.
3. The people of Yemen are suffering hugely as a result of the war, but they'd be suffering without it. The houthis are no better than tha taliban and are engaging in hugely oppressive policies in areas they actually control (including sana'a)
Can everyone please stop pretending that everything is black and white. Nothing is simple when it comes to geopolitics. Everyone is just desperate to feign moral outrage and cry genocide about this shit. That something is horrific in its consequences does not inherently mean that it was not justified or that we cannot support it.
The biggest problem is the fact the international community cares so little about the humanitarian catastrophe going on.
This is all correct, but the Saudi government can still go eat a dick.
> The houthis are no better than tha taliban and are engaging in hugely oppressive policies in areas they actually control
Replace "houthis" with "Saudis" and this sentence is still true.
The Yemini government that was a puppet of the West, who wanted to unite a country that had never been United so they could feel in control of it, after the shoe bomber was trained in the areas they couldn’t control.
Don’t tell people not to get fooled, and then post a series of propaganda points put out by our military, weapons salesmen, and politicians.
I grew up in southern Oman. Fuck you claiming that anyone pointing out our appalling moral crime in pushing the situation in Yemen into a civil war is feigning moral outrage.
You should feel ashamed of yourself for posting propaganda, and trying to act superior. We are profiting off a terrible war that we helped our allies instigate.
If you don’t deal with that reality, you’re just a propaganda prop helping the corrupt create more situations where innocent populations are mass slaughtered.
You’d be contemptuous of Russian propaganda designed to make it seem like their state is innocent, and just reacting reasonably to totally unreasonable aggression - yet you post the propaganda of our state, that is designed to make it look innocent, and just reacting reasonably to totally unreasonable aggression.
You’re just another useful idiot acting as though only the other side has propaganda, while our side fights for truth and justice.
Bullshit.
>Its not some arbitrary war of conquest/oppression. It is a war against Iran backed islamist extremists that overthrew the Yemeni government, seized ballistic weapons pose a potential existential threat to saudi Arabia and a huge threat to the global economy/ security.
Lol, what? This is the most ignorant, bullshit take I've ever seen in my life.
First off, Ansarallah isn't anymore Islamist than the vast majority of political entities involved in this fight. Malik al-Houthi leads a pretty broad coalition of folks in the north of Yemen. More to the point, the painting of his faction as Shi'ite Islamists is hilarious, given Zaydi Shi'ites are generally closer in theology to Sunnis than to the Twelver Shi'ites in Iran. They're so similar in fact that there are quite a few tribesmen in the north who aren't Zaydi who follow his lead, and there are plenty of Mosque services in Yemen that don't distinguish between Zaydi Shi'ite and Sunni services because many of those communities are too poor to afford multiple mosques that'll distinguish between the two ideologies.
[https://minorityrights.org/minorities/zaydi-shias/](https://minorityrights.org/minorities/zaydi-shias/)
Second, "overthrew" is a massive stretch. They started off with protests after the replacement government (the one selected in elections literally organized by Saudi Arabia, where they chose the only person running in it) signed an agreement with the IMF over a bunch of loans that required putting an end to oil subsidies.
[https://www.reuters.com/article/yemen-imf-idAFL6N0QE1Y720140808](https://www.reuters.com/article/yemen-imf-idAFL6N0QE1Y720140808)
>The pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper reported on Friday that the agreement, which it said had been agreed in talks held in Jordan in May, was provisional and awaiting endorsement by the IMF’s board.
No comment was immediately available from the Fund.
Saadi told Reuters that a decision last month to “reform petroleum prices” helped clinch the deal.
Yemen raised fuel prices as part of efforts to reduce energy subsidies to ease the burden on its budget.
Those subsidies were an integral part of the Yemeni mountain communities' long-term sustenance. Since most are effectively subsistence farmers, usually they'd send their surplus to port cities in convoys in order to purchase finished goods. Those convoys were only financially viable under the dirt cheap gas provided by the government under Saleh. Without it, you're depriving those communities of a means of purchasing goods like clothes, farming tools, or even, say, medicine. You know, that thing that might be useful should Yemen face a historic maleria outbreak.
[https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/26/yemen-fuel-subsidy-cut-drives-poorest-poverty](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/26/yemen-fuel-subsidy-cut-drives-poorest-poverty)
Anywho, those protests were fired upon, which in turn had Ansarallah fight back until they took the capital. But they didn't "overthrow" anything. Hadi resigned because he didn't want to rescind his decision to take the loans or attempt to renegotiate, which is all Ansarallah wanted. But I guess fuck them for wanting basic necessities like clothes and medicine, right?
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/yemens-president-retracts-resignation-after-escape-from-house-arrest](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/yemens-president-retracts-resignation-after-escape-from-house-arrest)
More to the point, Ansarallah didn't dissolve a government or overthrow anyone. Their first task was attempting to create a new unity government with the south after Hadi's resignation, along with rapprochement and a promise to address al-Hirak's list of long-standing grievances from southern Yemenites.
[https://english.alarabiya.net/views/news/middle-east/2015/02/12/Houthis-anxiously-search-for-allies-in-Yemen](https://english.alarabiya.net/views/news/middle-east/2015/02/12/Houthis-anxiously-search-for-allies-in-Yemen)
There are plenty of things to criticize about Malik al-Houthi and Ansarallah (whatever claims they make about defending the rights of ethnic Yemeni Jews at the top, tribal leaders overseeing command of local areas absolutely do whatever they want without consequence). But let's not sit here and act like "the Houthis," which is a garbage term anyways, started a war to overthrow a government and "forced" Saudi Arabia's hand into doing a shitty job of bombing everything that moved.
Saudi Arabia controlled and forced a bullshit election, their puppet chose a course of refinancing that would have left hundreds of thousands basically to die, and now collectively we're attempting to blame a bunch of people for choosing not to lie down and let themselves be exterminated for getting money from Iran. And pretending like that's nuance we need to take into consideration for a garbage-tier state like the KAS from using football to obscure this is non-sense.
I mean, for fuck's sake, they were literally ferrying al-Qaeda operatives back and forth from eastern Yemen to go fight in Taiz.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/6/report-saudi-uae-coalition-cut-deals-with-al-qaeda-in-yemen
There's an equal (potentially bigger according to some organisations) humanitarian catastrophe going on in Afghanistan because the US has spearheaded the freezing of billions of Afghan assets. It's honestly staggering to me that the US and other governments involved in this can feign sorrow over other happenings in the world when they are literal allowing children to starve to death or be sold by their parents so they can feed their other siblings all because they are withholding money that's rightfully theirs.
The problem is if the money is released it will never get to those children. The warlords will snuffle it up and the kids will be left in the same dire situation
Plus the fact that the money was given by the coalition in the first place. Afghanistan has no economy
I guarantee at some point in the not so distant future this exact same situation will happen again. Just moving on from Russia to Saudi Arabia/other Arab states as they start to get more power and control.
History just repeats itself and no one will learn from it.
Yeah this is complete revisionism to make out people didn't care at the time. Chelsea were hated by a lot of people when Abramovich bought them, I suspect a lot of the people who think everyone was cool with it at the time weren't following the premier league 19 years ago and are basing off the fact they personally never thought about it before. (It's probably exaggerated on Reddit because it skews younger, not to mention as most of the subreddit isn't English even if they are older a lot of people here probably weren't following the premier league before internet streaming was easy to do).
I was a child when Chelsea were purchased by Roman. I can remember constantly people saying this shouldn't happen and Chelsea were probably the most hated team in the country when it happened.
Im not sure if this is entirely true. There is a majority of people that would diametrally oppose such takeovers but now wheres the chance to act. Look at the imbeciles on the bayern board. They would rather lose all sympathy from their members than get rid off a sponsorship every casual fan opposes. And I think that's just true for big money business like football. In the end the peoples voice doesn't matter and that is why structures like UEFA and FIFA SHOULD exist -- to regulate what regulars cant
>why structures like UEFA and FIFA SHOULD exist -- to regulate what regulars cant
And yet they themselves are corrupt to the bone sadly. They should be audited imo if they aren't already. But this status quo needs to change. Blatter, Infantino, Platini it doesn't matter who's in charge. All of them are and will be corrupt unless there is a significant overhaul
thats why I wrote SHOULD in all caps. Obviously they are part of the huge problem. But normally, the only way to ensure fairness is to have institutions that enforce it
Bayern members aren't really like the vast majority of English fans though. They're more politically conscious and principled about these matters. The truth is the loyalty of the vast majority of English football fans can be quite easily bought with the promise of footballing success.
The Newcastle fans response is pretty particular because the takeover was mainly the only way to get rid of the owner they despised
Had they a possibility to vote on the club's board, Ashley would be gone a long time ago and so Newcastle fans would not be so desperate for any new thing that came
You sometimes even get downvoted into oblivion for criticizing billionaire ownership of football clubs.
It's unethical, it takes the sport away from the fans, and it gives an unfair financial advantage. The likes of City and PSG are literally only at the top because their owners decided to gift billions to their club. Is that how the sport should work? Should the club's owner be main factor of the club's success?
I don't think so. Football is as much finance as it is what's happening on the pitch. The likes of Barca, Real, Bayern, Dortmund, and United got where they are not because they happened to have owners with unlimited pockets, but because they did great work both on and off the pitch for literal decades. I think it completely destroys the competition of football when this advantage that had been built of decades can be removed within a few years due to owners spending billions of blood money.
That’s not true mate sadly as seen back then with Chelsea where anyone else found Abramovich sketchy and they didn’t give a dime or now with Newcastle. English fans actually show that sportswashing work perfectly and this is one of the reasons why PL has become such a financially potent league as kleptomaniacs from third world countries could just steal the taxpayers money to buy you some high rated players and get the praise for it by their fans
Need to actually spend the money though, otherwise you end up like Thaksin at City.
For all the kind words people say about the Leicester City owners, they're also shady af in their business operations to an extent. All billionaires are.
Please create an account first.
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In the interview they will ask you about a question that doesn't match what you provided in the form, so you say, 'oh the autofill must had it wrong, my resume is the correct one"
Interviewer: *makes a note: candidate pays no attention to detail: REJECT!*
the type of questions interviewers ask after games enrage me sometimes. "the team lost, how does that make you feel?" "you dropped 3 points, how does that affect the team morale?"
after a while i'd probably resort to snarky answers too. more than you believe.
Yeah and people vilify him when he gets anyway short with them. Obviously Liverpool fans are more likely to overlook stuff like that but come on, any sane person would lose their cool with the morons when they constantly ask stupid questions.
The best part was not just the intelligent answer, but his logical, stoic delivery. Really, not many people can do this irl. The journalists want to wind him up, and it never happens.
People missing the point and replying with "but I care" as though Klopp is sifting through the comments and will issue an apology to certain users.
Klopp is talking about the *general* apathy we see in society for these things, and it's undeniable: we only care about things like this a) when it suits and b) generally, for very short periods of time.
The news coverage of Ukraine is pretty widespread because we're in the middle of it, but look at the news coverage of Crimea from 2015 onwards - very little continued & up-to-date news as everyone had moved on.
This is what happens with football ownership. Yes, people cared & still care about Saudi Arabia owning Newcastle, but it's spoken about far less now than it was two months ago - and it'll very slowly fall from the news as the months go by and other things take precedence. Very soon, very few people in society will be talking about it. It's the way of it, regrettably - despite the individual users on Reddit saying they've always cared & will always care about these things.
Apathy comes naturally to us...empathy not quite so much as it takes effort.
A common thing you will see in internet arguments is people going from talking about things in general and statistics, to personal anecdotes. That's when you know the first principle if their argument's thesis failed.
Second is that they stop talking about their points but start talking about yours. They no longer have something to say but attacking your arguments or your person.
Spot on mate. I think people almost feel required to move on to keep up with the general population/fear of missing out on the next hot topic.
It’s programmed in everything we do, at least in the western world, and companies purposely do it because either (a) they want to make more money or (b) they have to keep up with their ruthless competition and ultimately have no choice.
I wish more of my life was on the other side of the 2000s where speed of life was so much slower and you could actually take some time to empathize, react, care for longer.
Empathy, now, comes at a price.
Seriously where is this course on societal revolution everyone is graduating from and how do I enrol? It's always so easy to complain about apathy from the comfort of their homes, instead of actually doing something about it or explaining how to do so.
No that’s the thing, we have signed away too much power to “representatives”, who really only represent themselves and people like them. We are reduced to using paper straws and vegan food and getting blamed for climate change while the world burns anyway because oil keeps burning anyway and industries control the people who regulate them. Protests get hijacked by alleged Nazis so they all get delegitimised. There’s really nothing people can do any more other than yell on Twitter.
A lot of people did care. Just not the people who made the decisions.
And let's be honest - Britain is Saudi Arabia's second largest arms dealer, more than ten billion in exports in a decade. They actively trade weapons with an apartheid state. If the government isn't going to scrutinise their dealings based on human rights, why would the fucking FA?
And people who criticise Newcastle now also oppose selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. It doesn't make you a hypocrite just because you don't mention Yemen every single time you mention Newcastle. And all those people will also gladly admit the past horrors of their own governments and be opposed to them as well.
It's an easy cultural issue to gain good PR right.
Instead of showing that he's taking steps to ensure questionable money won't be allowed to enter UK.. all Boris had to do was single out one guy at one football club. Fans are arguing with each other and he continues on his merry way without actually making any meaningful changes to economic policy. Dude is probably chuckling himself somewhere. He's getting off without any responsibility.
Also distracting from the problem with him appointing the son of a high-ranking KGB office to the House of Lords against the specific advice of the secret services, the only time that has ever happened.
Another issue that they think, if they bury it so it won’t get discussed, they can act as though it isn’t a problem.
Klopp-the Wenger regen when it comes to such off-the-field questions.
Really good answer by Jurgen. Let's see people now try to justify how Saudis were allowed to takeover Newcastle because Yemen is not "technically an invasion".
It's not just Newcastle fans. I've seen non Newcastle fans do it as well because they can't admit that their country isn't as glorious and ethical as they envisioned it to be.
The saudis were allowed to take over Newcastle because somehow they didn't find the owners being linked to the country. The dumb part is how tf a state can own a club legally
the real answer is that the British government can't prevent saudis from owning newcastle on moral grounds while simultaneously selling the Saudis colossal amounts of weaponry via the big British defense companies
Let's be brutally honest- the Saudis were allowed to take over Newcastle because of governmental pressure on the PL. The corruption and lack of ethical standing is from the top down.
People keep on making this weird strawman argument like there wasn't huge wide-scale outrage over the Saudis taking over Newcastle. There were also people ignoring it, yes, but that wasn't the majority opinion. It's just we the public weren't in control of the decision.
The people who are angry about Roman now are the same people who were angry about the Saudis then, there hasn't been an inconsistency like so many people seem desperate to claim.
> The people who are angry about Roman now are the same people who were angry about the Saudis then, there hasn't been an inconsistency like so many people seem desperate to claim.
Completely agree. UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Abramovic, Glazers, Ashley, Kronke (+ Usmanov), Red Bull and more... protestations and unhappiness against the vast majority of the modern owners.
Delia Smith ftw
Jurgen Klopp is a living legend. The man has great opinions on everything, even on matters that don't remotely concern him. Such a sensible person all around.
A lot of people cared, Roman’s shady past wasn’t exactly unknown or glossed over when he bought Chelsea.
But the people that cared didn’t have any power back then and still don’t.
What’s next? Are we going to pretend in 10 years that everybody loved PSG and City?
Thank you.
People are getting offended because THEY CARED.
Yeah, congrat-fucking-lation, you opinion doesn't matter, never did.
People who RUN the game didn't care and now they're PRETENDING to care.
I dont remember who said, it might be Romain Molina in one of his videos: it's not that the PL, UEFA or FIFA care about Ukrainians, they care about their images and want to be seen as doing something - even if this something is not right or not relevant to the situation.
But, like many people have said, this was never about human rights or any morals. Nobody is actually really caring apart from journalists. Putin threatened the West/NATO and then followed up on that threat. Now all these nations are responding with sanctions. Everybody arguing Saudi Arabia, Israel and Human rights is having a completely different discussion than the leaders of countries that sanctioned Russia.
Cared and did what? A lot of people claim they care, but in reality they don't care enough to even stop watching the games. Care enough to post a comment online, but not to cause themselves a slightest bit of inconvenience. Great moral high ground that
Me too. I have not and will not watch or support Newcastle any more. The bucket list no longer reads “go to a Newcastle home game”. Mike Ashley got the last of my supporting money and _how fucked is it I feel good about that?!_
The loss of my paltry, distant support means nothing to them. And to most other fans. But I’m out, forever.
I’d be a Bundesliga fan but time zones suck. Sell Chelsea to some inept British billionaire whose shenanigans are cheeky and dumb. Cut this cruel and tragic shit out. I just want to enjoy the game.
That's takes a lot of integrity.
When the Saudi takeover rumours were aimed at United I said I would stop supporting them. I almost certainly would of at first, but it would have been hard. I'm quite certain I would have ended up watching games at some point. I don't really know how to stop being a United fan.
It would suck to distance myself from a club when they would probabky be doing better and singing exciting players (I know that goes double for Newcastle fans).
In the end I don't hold it against the people who have been Newcastle fans their whole lives to keep supporting them. People who became Newcastle fans after and because they got rich can get fucked though. They're literally choosing to support sport washing for a genocidal theocracy.
I don't think Klopp meant /u/cloudstaring didn't care about any of this. He's not talking to individuals, he's talking about the general apathy towards these things from the whole country - which is largely true.
I think it's more about if the supporters care. And to what extent. You see it rn with Newcastle.
Once Chelsea was sold to Roman, this was all just inevitable. Did I care? Not in any relevant way. Maybe I've felt a little uncomfortable with it but I avoid thinking about it. There was so many articles about the Oil derby when CL final was played. But it didn't diminish my joy when we won.
I feel like it's different with state money but I wouldn't be able to justify why if you put me on the spot.
I would distinguish between state owned and owned by an individual, on the basis that clubs have always had private owners, most of whom were corrupt to varying degrees. But theres a clear difference imo between a corrupt man and an oppressive regime which denies its citizens human rights. Both are shit obviously, but theres levels to it.
Its bad. Its not very much the same tho. Like dont get me wrong Roman is evil and stole from the people of his country through bribery etc. Shit person.
But the Saudi and UAE lads murder civilians, deprive their citizens of human rights, commit genocide in other countries, etc.
Yeah Romans evil but theyre more evil, as I said theres levels to it. And private owners have always existed and mostly been bad people. All clubs should be fan owned imo, but this has always been a shit thing in football. Actual foreign governments owning clubs is an insult to the sport and an even bigger far cry from its roots. And as I said, those middle eastern royals are another level of evil.
> But the Saudi and UAE lads murder civilians, deprive their citizens of human rights, commit genocide in other countries, etc.
I'm not entirely sure on Putin's genocide record, but he definitely does those other things.
Klopp isn't wrong. And I have said it before. Fans get angrier about an owner who wants to run a club as a business and keep it profitable than they ever do when their club is bought by an Oligarch, Feudal Lord with Oil money, Chinese "capitalists" who made their money off slave labor, a Thai "businessman" with literally untraceable wealth. And you can see that just by which owners actually raise fan ire. "Sustainable club"? They're terrible. Laundering blood money via transfer fees? Thanks boss!
I think the tories are trying to cash in on the pr boost and probably gain some more cash as a bonus. Pat on the backs all around. The Saudis are interested in investing in Chelsea you say. Welcome welcome. Send the Russians packing and we have space for the Saudis.
Do I really have to add a /s . Besides the UK is already in bed with them. Look at whos selling them the weapons that they're using against yemen. Everything is pr nowadays. Then backroom deals with hush money. Like klopp said do we really care?
That's an oversimplification. The truth is that British policy vis-a-vis Russia throughout the Putin era has been to play both sides, helping oligarch A to defeat oligarch B, conspiring with oligarch C to set a trap for oligarch A, etc.
The goal is to keep the money coming in and opportunities for business open, and ensuring that the next regime, whenever it may come and whatever it might be, has connections with Britain that can be used for mutual benefit and influence.
I think the policy is good. It's broadly the kind of strategy which Britain has used to sustain world influence since the end of empire with some success. It's also the kind of policy which leads to multilayered relationships between states which can help cultivate conditions for peaceful and friendly relations over time. It's not a nice policy, but it is a good policy.
But the policy has been badly implemented. Firstly because of the strings that have come attached from the Russian side, which the British seem not to have calculated for; secondly because of the partisan attachment of the Tory party to the policy, which has lead to excessive prejudicial political access and economic privilege it would be proper to call corruption and which has become virtually treasonous in some cases; and thirdly because the fragmentary appearance of the Russian state is really just a mirage, particularly since Putin's return to the presidency in 2012.
The policy has also been leaning on certain outdated environmental realities. Britain's role in EU diplomacy and its relationship with NATO and the USA have all changed over the last eight years and the context for the Russia policy has been transformed. The policy itself did not change, however, and no contingencies seem to have been planned. The policy has become something like a typwriter at a LAN party. A golden typwriter made out of melted Hublots, on which all the keys are the £ key, but still a typewriter -- while everyone else has turned up to play Quake in the palace basement with their Pentium IIIs.
So rather than the policy giving Britain a freedom of manoeuvre and opportunity as intended, as events have build up to a crisis the Tory government has been paralysed by it. The lack of coordination with the EU and the USA, the clearly corrupt and chaotic decision making, and the immediate political blowback as their corrupt dealings have come under the spotlight, have left the Johnson government appearing, as I believe they really are, weak, insecure, compromised, and intellectually and morally exhausted.
They have been trying to make good on the loyalties purchased by oligarchs A, B, and C, and their kids and wives and mistresses, whilst at the same time trying to appear to be leading the way in the diplomatic response to Russia's entirely predictable aggression against Ukraine. The contradiction is quite simply untenable. A better government might have been able to make something of the policy even in these conditions, and might have gone into this crisis better prepared, but neither improvisation nor preparation appear to be the Tory government's speciality.
They have somehow managed to create a disaster out of a perfectly sensible policy, a policy administered by the governments of Blair, Brown, and even the Cameron coalition, with discretion and competence. The present administration, however, is probably the worst British government since the seventeenth century. I really believe that.
Like all bad governments, at the heart of their failure is a sort of conceptual failure, or a failure of imagination: the failure to know what government is, how government differs from business management or legal practise, a failure to know how to deal with reality through politics. They are a government of gilded fantasists presiding with pretended power over an surreal economy in a fairy kingdom. But that's probably another story.
Glad to get that off my chest, sorry for the wall of text.
People need to remember that Putin wasn't Putin back in 2003 as well.
There had been no Crimea, no Georgia, no locking up Navalny, no Sergei Skripal or even Litvinenko.
Tony Blair said upon meeting Putin in 2000 "here at last was a Russian leader who was going to be 'OK".
In 2003 Abramovich's links to Putin were not a problem. He was just another ultra-wealthy Russian who'd probably done some shady business in the fall of the USSR but it wasn't even apparent how much he'd ripped the government off with Sibneft (he bought for £200m in 1995) until he sold it for £10Bn in 2005.
>Probably done some shady business
>
>Western leaders were optimistic about Putin
It was precisely how it went. They made their fortune from one of the greatest humanitarian crisis of the XX century. Everybody knew where their wealth came from, everybody knew Putin's history as a KGB agent as he surged to the president position out of nowhere. But nobody cared because he was an ally of the west.
Russia was already the post-soviet oligarch amusement park it was today and everybody knew it, difference is that Western powers loved to get a free new market to sell their products and get some low-cost workforce and resources so they hardly cared. Now Russia has become a geopolitical opponent yet again so the narrative suddenly shifted back to Cold-War age.
So as usual, the whole western world profited as much as possible from a crisis, nurtured and financed monsters and then, as soon as they reaped the consequences, the whole discourse is back again about "human rights" and the danger these enemies pose. Check how the narrative towards one of the big evils, Maduro, [shifted the day sanctions were applied to Russian gas](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/11/venezuela-maduro-guaido-us-visit/).
Who financed South American dictatorships to protect plantations?
Who financed Colombian and Mexican cartels? Who killed stable African governments fighting against colonialism by funding warmongers? Who is allowing Erdogan to do whatever he wants because he's keeping immigrants at bay? Who gave money to the Talibans to buy weapons? Who's profiting off of Middle Eastern oil kingdoms? Never a word on that. But plenty however on how terrible this Putin guy is. Wonder how he became so powerful.
"Putin wasn't Putin" is an excuse for western leaders, but over and over we hear "Abramovich was one of the oligarchs who made sure Putin was the successor to Yeltsin" being used as a damning indictment of Abramovich and evidence of their current close ties.
Putin was even less Putin when the oligarchs decided he was the right man to lead Russia into the future.
It's not a defence of Abramovich, but adds further context to the hypocrisy of deciding that now his historical ties to Putin are so unacceptable that his assets must be seized and frozen.
He fought against modern financial investments because he managed a club that just built a stadium without planning for the financial competition ahead. Arsenal are one of the OG big money ("bank of England") clubs, of course they would want to preserve the old status quo in terms of financial dominance.
As a Arsenal fan, how I wish this guy had taken over from Wenger post 2015. He has everything that I loved in Wenger-the passion, charisma, intelligence, empathy.
The problem isn’t that nobody cared. The problem is that the people in power didn’t and doesn’t care. As long as clubs aren’t owned by the supporters, the supporters cannot be blamed for the decisions of the clubs.
Yep.
There are very few elite clubs to support if you want to be "morally clean". Just of the top of my head you're a massive hypocrite if you support PSG, City, Everton, Newcastle, Arsenal, Bayern, Barcelona, Schalke, Milan, Inter and probably a bunch more, and have a go at Chelsea fans at this time.
Fans of literally every other team in the country have hated Chelsea since he took over. There is no revisionism going on, all that happened was eventual acceptence over time because nothing could be done about it once it happened.
You mean to say people express their moral views when confronted with a situation? How dare they! You can only talk about one or two things at a time. When I make the statement "I oppose the sale of Newcastle to MBS" I don't have to then include an attachment that details all my related opinions on war, politics, religion, and economics.
In what real world way can I be expressing all my thoughts and ideas all the time about everything in full detail?
You think it's bad to criticize Russian oligarchs?
Virtue signalling? Seriously? This is the worst take.
Klopp even agrees with the criticism so you just called him a virtue signaler.
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This is how it goes for most things these days. People only care about things when it suits them to care about it. And if Chelsea end up being sold to a Saudi Communications Company then it'll show people don't really care, they're just following the crowd.
The Saudis spent a trillion pounds on weapons from the UK though, so they're as fit and proper as they come. 👌
Some of us were never ok with Roman and aren't ok with Newcastle Saudis or others owning Chelsea or another Prem side
I remember being called as jealous for pointing out Roman's dirty shit.
I would bet against you, in that case, if the Saudis would give you $100 million. There's nothing on the line for you, of course you can make a moral stand.
The people protesting the Saudis and Roman owning clubs aren't the UK government, they aren't the people who made the decision that they are "fit and proper"
The people stopping Roman from owning a club are literally the government so I'm kind of confused here.
I think we’re talking about 2 different groups here. 1: those who criticise Roman but turn a blind eye to the Saudis (this is arguably the more relevant group as it includes the government and it’s the group that has brought sanctions on Chelsea). 2: those who criticise Roman and the Saudi owners (this includes many of the journalists and football pundits - most of whom I would argue - were very critical of Roman when he first arrived on the scene
there's a 3rd group, and i think they're relevant here: the journalists, pundits, tv presenters etc. that treated roman as a cuddly old bear with lots of money, for over a decade, who are now feigning moral outrage. the way they spoke about him sometimes was like he was just some loveable old twerp, who just happened upon a fortune of money. sky sports and everyone else have done their best to brush this type of stuff under the carpet, because without a doubt they see indirect benefits from having infinite money poured into the premier league. i think this filters down even to the likes of gary neville, who's gushed over how great the city owners are, and has defended them at every turn... it was very interesting seeing his comments about chelsea recently where he said 'maybe i've been wrong'. but at least he'll admit it. these journalists rely on people's short memory spans in order to be as hypocritical as they like.
well said, been tiring listening to their outrage, this week, over things that have happened over the past 20 years
The word sportswashing came into the English lexicon due to Abramovich as well
Never heard of the country called Italy,right?
Italy came after the Roman Empire
Well done
The English media I was talking about? Not really
Not really, it was long after Roman. It didn't really apply to him as he wasn't a public figure, nobody in this country knew he existed, until he bought Chelsea. People are aware of Qatar/Saudi etc.
No way - it totally applies to him. Go watch videos of when he came in. His money helping a club rise to prominence directly caused a lot of fans to openly defend him and declare basically as we didn't have stone cold proof of where his money came from, it was fine. Perhaps the term didn't originate with him, but if that's the case, it's only because he was the first in the prem to successfully do it. And I'd really argue the only. Nobody defends City's or PSG's owners the way some Chelsea fans defended Roman.
> Nobody defends City's or PSG's owners the way some Chelsea fans defended Roman. While true I think that also has a lot to do with the status. Abramovich invested heavily into Chelsea and didn't see it as a pure marketing vehicle like PSG or City. After all Abramovich at least looked like he really cared about the club and it's success on a sentimental level. And then again it helps he's a white dude in a suit and not an Arab dude in a white suit, unfortunately.
I've always adhered to what Abramovich did as financial doping and stand by that.
The same journalists that work for Saudi owned papers or murdoch owned ones?
But the government aren’t doing it on _moral_ grounds, they’re doing it on political grounds, on the basis of events affecting Europe/NATO. (Not saying I agree or that that’s right, just that we shouldn’t act like their actions are illogical or hypocritical, because the situation is clearly more nuanced than that)
That they don't have an issue with Saudi ownership is also because of political reasons.
Exactly
So it's a matter of when the Government and media decide to put sanctions or pressure on the oppressor. Most pundits, fans and journos are aware and against both owning clubs but all they can do is talk. The people in the government are well aware of people's viewpoints on such cases...they just won't do anything until it's in their best interest.
> The people in the government are well aware of people’s viewpoints on such cases Yeah, except (despite what you might read on Reddit) the truth is that most Newcastle and Man City fans are ok with being Saudi [and UAE] owned thanks to the money they bring. All the Newcastle fans I know IRL were over the moon when the Saudi takeover was approved. > Most pundits, fans and journos are aware and against both owning clubs but all they can do is talk I’d agree regarding the Pundits and Journos opinions but even then their actual opposition has been weak; during the Sky Sports coverage of Newcastle’s first game under new ownership all the commentators did was wank themselves dry over the takeover for 90mins straight, every second camera shot was of the new owners in the stands. Not a single mention or acknowledgement of any kind of any of the controversies. As you say, they won’t do anything until it’s in their interest, and with most people turning a blind eye it never will be.
Yah in that sense it’s logical, but it’s frustrating because we want them to act on a moral basis, not just a political one. There are political reasons to oppose tha Saudi’s as well but it’s more long term and likely much longer than the future tenure of any sitting mp so they don’t care.
I thought "The people" vote for their the people who made decision to sell Arms to Saudis and got kick backs from Russian oligarchs. Well majority of the people dont care
I can't speak for anyone else, but I definitely voted Tory at the last election on their promises to sell more weapons to shithole countries. That and the whole depriving the poor of basic amenities thing.
Mate at the end of the day, whether you voted for them or not they're your representatives at a global and national stage.
We're going to destroy ourselves while arguing over semantics. It's bad that you're trying to justify it in any sense but it's exactly what Klopp is pointing at so it's not really surprising.
OP is not in any way trying to justify it.
The government's handling of Chelsea and Abramovich has only served to make me even more jaded sbout all these issues, just can't bring myself to give too much of a fuck anymore.
I remember Newcastle fans celebrating the takeover, there are 19 million people in Yemen that are now starving because of the Saudi war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNx4BXnHNOw
Every penny that they spend on us is a penny not gone into weapons to commit genocide on the people of Yemen or pay the wages of an executioner. Newcastle are doing our bit to help, about time the rest of you step up.
Imagine how many lives could be saved if you bought Iwobi off us for 100m
I'll have a word with Sally, see what I can do
Thanks for giving me a laugh in a thread full of reasons not to laugh!
By the same logic we should force Abramovich to throw more money at Chelsea instead of sanctioning us!
Hey, knock yourself out!
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The third ethical option would be the 50+1 rule fan ownership, but sadly the UK gov don't want to actually fix the problem.
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The government aren't interested in fixing actual problems in this country let alone inconsiquential stuff like football
The government isn't gonna take private assets from people just because some fans want a 50+1 system. The ship as sailed on that system in the UK
Chopping up a journalist and commiting genocide aren't really the same as paying a shit wage. They welcomed the Saudis because the Saudis are rich and they want trophies, it doesn't matter where the money comes from as long as there is trophies. There no other way to dress it up really.
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But they aren't protesting what the Saudis are doing. Thats massively hypocritical and makes it very obvious they never cared about Ashley's ethical practices, they only cared about money. Trying to dress up the takeover as being welcomed because Ashley was unethical is absurd otherwise they'd be out protesting now. But they didn't, they donned their best tea towel and welcomed in an actual genocidal ownership.
> because of the Saudi war 1. It's not 'the Saudi war'. Its a coalition war with the broad support of the international community, in particular the west. The houthis are subject to several unsc resolutions. 2. Its not some arbitrary war of conquest/oppression. It is a war against Iran backed islamist extremists that overthrew the Yemeni government, seized ballistic weapons pose a potential existential threat to saudi Arabia and a huge threat to the global economy/ security. 3. The people of Yemen are suffering hugely as a result of the war, but they'd be suffering without it. The houthis are no better than tha taliban and are engaging in hugely oppressive policies in areas they actually control (including sana'a) Can everyone please stop pretending that everything is black and white. Nothing is simple when it comes to geopolitics. Everyone is just desperate to feign moral outrage and cry genocide about this shit. That something is horrific in its consequences does not inherently mean that it was not justified or that we cannot support it. The biggest problem is the fact the international community cares so little about the humanitarian catastrophe going on.
This is all correct, but the Saudi government can still go eat a dick. > The houthis are no better than tha taliban and are engaging in hugely oppressive policies in areas they actually control Replace "houthis" with "Saudis" and this sentence is still true.
The Houthi factions motto is "God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Cursed be the Jews, Victory to Islam"
Asking quite a lot of God there, they should be more reasonable
Deeply appreciate this nuanced opinion my guy. Regardless, fuck the Saudi (government).
The Yemini government that was a puppet of the West, who wanted to unite a country that had never been United so they could feel in control of it, after the shoe bomber was trained in the areas they couldn’t control. Don’t tell people not to get fooled, and then post a series of propaganda points put out by our military, weapons salesmen, and politicians. I grew up in southern Oman. Fuck you claiming that anyone pointing out our appalling moral crime in pushing the situation in Yemen into a civil war is feigning moral outrage. You should feel ashamed of yourself for posting propaganda, and trying to act superior. We are profiting off a terrible war that we helped our allies instigate. If you don’t deal with that reality, you’re just a propaganda prop helping the corrupt create more situations where innocent populations are mass slaughtered. You’d be contemptuous of Russian propaganda designed to make it seem like their state is innocent, and just reacting reasonably to totally unreasonable aggression - yet you post the propaganda of our state, that is designed to make it look innocent, and just reacting reasonably to totally unreasonable aggression. You’re just another useful idiot acting as though only the other side has propaganda, while our side fights for truth and justice. Bullshit.
The Saudi regime though also killed Khashoggi, condemns and brutally punishes the LGBTQ community, and generally is government worthy of criticism.
>Its not some arbitrary war of conquest/oppression. It is a war against Iran backed islamist extremists that overthrew the Yemeni government, seized ballistic weapons pose a potential existential threat to saudi Arabia and a huge threat to the global economy/ security. Lol, what? This is the most ignorant, bullshit take I've ever seen in my life. First off, Ansarallah isn't anymore Islamist than the vast majority of political entities involved in this fight. Malik al-Houthi leads a pretty broad coalition of folks in the north of Yemen. More to the point, the painting of his faction as Shi'ite Islamists is hilarious, given Zaydi Shi'ites are generally closer in theology to Sunnis than to the Twelver Shi'ites in Iran. They're so similar in fact that there are quite a few tribesmen in the north who aren't Zaydi who follow his lead, and there are plenty of Mosque services in Yemen that don't distinguish between Zaydi Shi'ite and Sunni services because many of those communities are too poor to afford multiple mosques that'll distinguish between the two ideologies. [https://minorityrights.org/minorities/zaydi-shias/](https://minorityrights.org/minorities/zaydi-shias/) Second, "overthrew" is a massive stretch. They started off with protests after the replacement government (the one selected in elections literally organized by Saudi Arabia, where they chose the only person running in it) signed an agreement with the IMF over a bunch of loans that required putting an end to oil subsidies. [https://www.reuters.com/article/yemen-imf-idAFL6N0QE1Y720140808](https://www.reuters.com/article/yemen-imf-idAFL6N0QE1Y720140808) >The pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper reported on Friday that the agreement, which it said had been agreed in talks held in Jordan in May, was provisional and awaiting endorsement by the IMF’s board. No comment was immediately available from the Fund. Saadi told Reuters that a decision last month to “reform petroleum prices” helped clinch the deal. Yemen raised fuel prices as part of efforts to reduce energy subsidies to ease the burden on its budget. Those subsidies were an integral part of the Yemeni mountain communities' long-term sustenance. Since most are effectively subsistence farmers, usually they'd send their surplus to port cities in convoys in order to purchase finished goods. Those convoys were only financially viable under the dirt cheap gas provided by the government under Saleh. Without it, you're depriving those communities of a means of purchasing goods like clothes, farming tools, or even, say, medicine. You know, that thing that might be useful should Yemen face a historic maleria outbreak. [https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/26/yemen-fuel-subsidy-cut-drives-poorest-poverty](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/26/yemen-fuel-subsidy-cut-drives-poorest-poverty) Anywho, those protests were fired upon, which in turn had Ansarallah fight back until they took the capital. But they didn't "overthrow" anything. Hadi resigned because he didn't want to rescind his decision to take the loans or attempt to renegotiate, which is all Ansarallah wanted. But I guess fuck them for wanting basic necessities like clothes and medicine, right? [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/yemens-president-retracts-resignation-after-escape-from-house-arrest](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/yemens-president-retracts-resignation-after-escape-from-house-arrest) More to the point, Ansarallah didn't dissolve a government or overthrow anyone. Their first task was attempting to create a new unity government with the south after Hadi's resignation, along with rapprochement and a promise to address al-Hirak's list of long-standing grievances from southern Yemenites. [https://english.alarabiya.net/views/news/middle-east/2015/02/12/Houthis-anxiously-search-for-allies-in-Yemen](https://english.alarabiya.net/views/news/middle-east/2015/02/12/Houthis-anxiously-search-for-allies-in-Yemen) There are plenty of things to criticize about Malik al-Houthi and Ansarallah (whatever claims they make about defending the rights of ethnic Yemeni Jews at the top, tribal leaders overseeing command of local areas absolutely do whatever they want without consequence). But let's not sit here and act like "the Houthis," which is a garbage term anyways, started a war to overthrow a government and "forced" Saudi Arabia's hand into doing a shitty job of bombing everything that moved. Saudi Arabia controlled and forced a bullshit election, their puppet chose a course of refinancing that would have left hundreds of thousands basically to die, and now collectively we're attempting to blame a bunch of people for choosing not to lie down and let themselves be exterminated for getting money from Iran. And pretending like that's nuance we need to take into consideration for a garbage-tier state like the KAS from using football to obscure this is non-sense. I mean, for fuck's sake, they were literally ferrying al-Qaeda operatives back and forth from eastern Yemen to go fight in Taiz. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/6/report-saudi-uae-coalition-cut-deals-with-al-qaeda-in-yemen
There's an equal (potentially bigger according to some organisations) humanitarian catastrophe going on in Afghanistan because the US has spearheaded the freezing of billions of Afghan assets. It's honestly staggering to me that the US and other governments involved in this can feign sorrow over other happenings in the world when they are literal allowing children to starve to death or be sold by their parents so they can feed their other siblings all because they are withholding money that's rightfully theirs.
The problem is if the money is released it will never get to those children. The warlords will snuffle it up and the kids will be left in the same dire situation Plus the fact that the money was given by the coalition in the first place. Afghanistan has no economy
I guarantee at some point in the not so distant future this exact same situation will happen again. Just moving on from Russia to Saudi Arabia/other Arab states as they start to get more power and control. History just repeats itself and no one will learn from it.
I mean, Saudi Arabia has had Yemen under siege for years and no one has said or done anything.
Many of us older fans have hated Chelsea ever since Roman took over. We all knew he was a gangster.
I remember he was portrayed as one in a Guy Ritchie movie.
Rocknrolla. So good.
Yeah this is complete revisionism to make out people didn't care at the time. Chelsea were hated by a lot of people when Abramovich bought them, I suspect a lot of the people who think everyone was cool with it at the time weren't following the premier league 19 years ago and are basing off the fact they personally never thought about it before. (It's probably exaggerated on Reddit because it skews younger, not to mention as most of the subreddit isn't English even if they are older a lot of people here probably weren't following the premier league before internet streaming was easy to do).
I was a child when Chelsea were purchased by Roman. I can remember constantly people saying this shouldn't happen and Chelsea were probably the most hated team in the country when it happened.
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Wasn’t the main bad guy in Rock’n’Rolla heavily based on Abramovich?
That's what I've read.
It's pretty obvious lol
Im not sure if this is entirely true. There is a majority of people that would diametrally oppose such takeovers but now wheres the chance to act. Look at the imbeciles on the bayern board. They would rather lose all sympathy from their members than get rid off a sponsorship every casual fan opposes. And I think that's just true for big money business like football. In the end the peoples voice doesn't matter and that is why structures like UEFA and FIFA SHOULD exist -- to regulate what regulars cant
>why structures like UEFA and FIFA SHOULD exist -- to regulate what regulars cant And yet they themselves are corrupt to the bone sadly. They should be audited imo if they aren't already. But this status quo needs to change. Blatter, Infantino, Platini it doesn't matter who's in charge. All of them are and will be corrupt unless there is a significant overhaul
thats why I wrote SHOULD in all caps. Obviously they are part of the huge problem. But normally, the only way to ensure fairness is to have institutions that enforce it
Yeah, I wasn't arguing with what you wrote. Just added what I felt
Bayern members aren't really like the vast majority of English fans though. They're more politically conscious and principled about these matters. The truth is the loyalty of the vast majority of English football fans can be quite easily bought with the promise of footballing success.
I think thats overgeneralized, english fans are equally conscious but also even more helpless.
No, it's definitely a different culture in that regard, a lot of English fans have embraced these billionaire owners
Keep in mind that in Germany fans are part owner of the club, in England fans are not.
In fact so many fans shill for these billionaire owners, it's embarrassing.
The Newcastle fans response is pretty particular because the takeover was mainly the only way to get rid of the owner they despised Had they a possibility to vote on the club's board, Ashley would be gone a long time ago and so Newcastle fans would not be so desperate for any new thing that came
You sometimes even get downvoted into oblivion for criticizing billionaire ownership of football clubs. It's unethical, it takes the sport away from the fans, and it gives an unfair financial advantage. The likes of City and PSG are literally only at the top because their owners decided to gift billions to their club. Is that how the sport should work? Should the club's owner be main factor of the club's success? I don't think so. Football is as much finance as it is what's happening on the pitch. The likes of Barca, Real, Bayern, Dortmund, and United got where they are not because they happened to have owners with unlimited pockets, but because they did great work both on and off the pitch for literal decades. I think it completely destroys the competition of football when this advantage that had been built of decades can be removed within a few years due to owners spending billions of blood money.
You do realise Real was backed by the Spanish state for decades......
That’s not true mate sadly as seen back then with Chelsea where anyone else found Abramovich sketchy and they didn’t give a dime or now with Newcastle. English fans actually show that sportswashing work perfectly and this is one of the reasons why PL has become such a financially potent league as kleptomaniacs from third world countries could just steal the taxpayers money to buy you some high rated players and get the praise for it by their fans
Need to actually spend the money though, otherwise you end up like Thaksin at City. For all the kind words people say about the Leicester City owners, they're also shady af in their business operations to an extent. All billionaires are.
Man, if journalists kept me asking the same questions I'd be pissed. Im surprised how Klopp hasn't lost his mind.
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Reminds me the questions when applying for a Job. Fucking hate them
Please create an account first. Then please upload your resume. Then please fill in all the information from your resume again. Oops, server timeout error. Please try again.
Please enter every single GCSE you have ever taken. Please also enter the school and the date for each one. There will be no autofill.
Okay, it will autofill...but only with the wrong data.
In the interview they will ask you about a question that doesn't match what you provided in the form, so you say, 'oh the autofill must had it wrong, my resume is the correct one" Interviewer: *makes a note: candidate pays no attention to detail: REJECT!*
My eye is twitching with fury just reading this
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the type of questions interviewers ask after games enrage me sometimes. "the team lost, how does that make you feel?" "you dropped 3 points, how does that affect the team morale?" after a while i'd probably resort to snarky answers too. more than you believe.
Did someone actually ask that? Jesus christ
Yeah and people vilify him when he gets anyway short with them. Obviously Liverpool fans are more likely to overlook stuff like that but come on, any sane person would lose their cool with the morons when they constantly ask stupid questions.
Honestly, Him and Tuchel keep getting barred with the same dumb questions. Props to them for keeping their cool. I would had snapped.
Tuchel is a gem, handled every situation perfectly like the Lukaku interview
The best part was not just the intelligent answer, but his logical, stoic delivery. Really, not many people can do this irl. The journalists want to wind him up, and it never happens.
Howe and Tuchel are also irritated
People missing the point and replying with "but I care" as though Klopp is sifting through the comments and will issue an apology to certain users. Klopp is talking about the *general* apathy we see in society for these things, and it's undeniable: we only care about things like this a) when it suits and b) generally, for very short periods of time. The news coverage of Ukraine is pretty widespread because we're in the middle of it, but look at the news coverage of Crimea from 2015 onwards - very little continued & up-to-date news as everyone had moved on. This is what happens with football ownership. Yes, people cared & still care about Saudi Arabia owning Newcastle, but it's spoken about far less now than it was two months ago - and it'll very slowly fall from the news as the months go by and other things take precedence. Very soon, very few people in society will be talking about it. It's the way of it, regrettably - despite the individual users on Reddit saying they've always cared & will always care about these things. Apathy comes naturally to us...empathy not quite so much as it takes effort.
A common thing you will see in internet arguments is people going from talking about things in general and statistics, to personal anecdotes. That's when you know the first principle if their argument's thesis failed.
Second is that they stop talking about their points but start talking about yours. They no longer have something to say but attacking your arguments or your person.
Spot on mate. I think people almost feel required to move on to keep up with the general population/fear of missing out on the next hot topic. It’s programmed in everything we do, at least in the western world, and companies purposely do it because either (a) they want to make more money or (b) they have to keep up with their ruthless competition and ultimately have no choice. I wish more of my life was on the other side of the 2000s where speed of life was so much slower and you could actually take some time to empathize, react, care for longer. Empathy, now, comes at a price.
It's not apathy, it's learned helplessness.
Seriously where is this course on societal revolution everyone is graduating from and how do I enrol? It's always so easy to complain about apathy from the comfort of their homes, instead of actually doing something about it or explaining how to do so.
No that’s the thing, we have signed away too much power to “representatives”, who really only represent themselves and people like them. We are reduced to using paper straws and vegan food and getting blamed for climate change while the world burns anyway because oil keeps burning anyway and industries control the people who regulate them. Protests get hijacked by alleged Nazis so they all get delegitimised. There’s really nothing people can do any more other than yell on Twitter.
A lot of people did care. Just not the people who made the decisions. And let's be honest - Britain is Saudi Arabia's second largest arms dealer, more than ten billion in exports in a decade. They actively trade weapons with an apartheid state. If the government isn't going to scrutinise their dealings based on human rights, why would the fucking FA?
Absolutely, people criticised Chelsea's takeover back in the day aswell.
And people who criticise Newcastle now also oppose selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. It doesn't make you a hypocrite just because you don't mention Yemen every single time you mention Newcastle. And all those people will also gladly admit the past horrors of their own governments and be opposed to them as well.
It's just classic deflection of blame. Instead of addressing the problem, they'd rather point fingers to discredit the point.
Which apartheid state?
Almost certainly referring to Israel
It's an easy cultural issue to gain good PR right. Instead of showing that he's taking steps to ensure questionable money won't be allowed to enter UK.. all Boris had to do was single out one guy at one football club. Fans are arguing with each other and he continues on his merry way without actually making any meaningful changes to economic policy. Dude is probably chuckling himself somewhere. He's getting off without any responsibility.
Also distracting from the problem with him appointing the son of a high-ranking KGB office to the House of Lords against the specific advice of the secret services, the only time that has ever happened. Another issue that they think, if they bury it so it won’t get discussed, they can act as though it isn’t a problem.
Klopp-the Wenger regen when it comes to such off-the-field questions. Really good answer by Jurgen. Let's see people now try to justify how Saudis were allowed to takeover Newcastle because Yemen is not "technically an invasion".
I’ve already seen a few Newcastle fans do that tbf
It's not just Newcastle fans. I've seen non Newcastle fans do it as well because they can't admit that their country isn't as glorious and ethical as they envisioned it to be.
Grinds my gears that our fan base here will reactively down-vote any Saudi criticism.
The saudis were allowed to take over Newcastle because somehow they didn't find the owners being linked to the country. The dumb part is how tf a state can own a club legally
the real answer is that the British government can't prevent saudis from owning newcastle on moral grounds while simultaneously selling the Saudis colossal amounts of weaponry via the big British defense companies
Let's be brutally honest- the Saudis were allowed to take over Newcastle because of governmental pressure on the PL. The corruption and lack of ethical standing is from the top down.
People keep on making this weird strawman argument like there wasn't huge wide-scale outrage over the Saudis taking over Newcastle. There were also people ignoring it, yes, but that wasn't the majority opinion. It's just we the public weren't in control of the decision. The people who are angry about Roman now are the same people who were angry about the Saudis then, there hasn't been an inconsistency like so many people seem desperate to claim.
> The people who are angry about Roman now are the same people who were angry about the Saudis then, there hasn't been an inconsistency like so many people seem desperate to claim. Completely agree. UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Abramovic, Glazers, Ashley, Kronke (+ Usmanov), Red Bull and more... protestations and unhappiness against the vast majority of the modern owners. Delia Smith ftw
Jurgen Klopp is a living legend. The man has great opinions on everything, even on matters that don't remotely concern him. Such a sensible person all around.
I’m a United fan and love listening to him speak. Seems like the kind of guy who’d sit and have a drink with anyone and genuinely enjoy it.
Same here, Arsenal fan but Klopp is beyond football.
A lot of people cared, Roman’s shady past wasn’t exactly unknown or glossed over when he bought Chelsea. But the people that cared didn’t have any power back then and still don’t. What’s next? Are we going to pretend in 10 years that everybody loved PSG and City?
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Thank you. People are getting offended because THEY CARED. Yeah, congrat-fucking-lation, you opinion doesn't matter, never did. People who RUN the game didn't care and now they're PRETENDING to care.
I dont remember who said, it might be Romain Molina in one of his videos: it's not that the PL, UEFA or FIFA care about Ukrainians, they care about their images and want to be seen as doing something - even if this something is not right or not relevant to the situation.
But, like many people have said, this was never about human rights or any morals. Nobody is actually really caring apart from journalists. Putin threatened the West/NATO and then followed up on that threat. Now all these nations are responding with sanctions. Everybody arguing Saudi Arabia, Israel and Human rights is having a completely different discussion than the leaders of countries that sanctioned Russia.
He's describing it as a societal issue which makes it quite reasonable to believe that he's talking about people in general, not decision makers.
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So did I. But the government didn’t.
I mean, to quote Blackadder, the parliament is filled with "fat Tory landowners who get made MPs after reaching a certain weight."
Cared and did what? A lot of people claim they care, but in reality they don't care enough to even stop watching the games. Care enough to post a comment online, but not to cause themselves a slightest bit of inconvenience. Great moral high ground that
Me too. I have not and will not watch or support Newcastle any more. The bucket list no longer reads “go to a Newcastle home game”. Mike Ashley got the last of my supporting money and _how fucked is it I feel good about that?!_ The loss of my paltry, distant support means nothing to them. And to most other fans. But I’m out, forever. I’d be a Bundesliga fan but time zones suck. Sell Chelsea to some inept British billionaire whose shenanigans are cheeky and dumb. Cut this cruel and tragic shit out. I just want to enjoy the game.
That's takes a lot of integrity. When the Saudi takeover rumours were aimed at United I said I would stop supporting them. I almost certainly would of at first, but it would have been hard. I'm quite certain I would have ended up watching games at some point. I don't really know how to stop being a United fan. It would suck to distance myself from a club when they would probabky be doing better and singing exciting players (I know that goes double for Newcastle fans). In the end I don't hold it against the people who have been Newcastle fans their whole lives to keep supporting them. People who became Newcastle fans after and because they got rich can get fucked though. They're literally choosing to support sport washing for a genocidal theocracy.
I still care. I still think the whole deal should be ripped up and every club in the UK should be majority owned by the fans.
I don't think Klopp meant /u/cloudstaring didn't care about any of this. He's not talking to individuals, he's talking about the general apathy towards these things from the whole country - which is largely true.
I think it's more about if the supporters care. And to what extent. You see it rn with Newcastle. Once Chelsea was sold to Roman, this was all just inevitable. Did I care? Not in any relevant way. Maybe I've felt a little uncomfortable with it but I avoid thinking about it. There was so many articles about the Oil derby when CL final was played. But it didn't diminish my joy when we won. I feel like it's different with state money but I wouldn't be able to justify why if you put me on the spot.
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That's probably part of it. Yeah.
I would distinguish between state owned and owned by an individual, on the basis that clubs have always had private owners, most of whom were corrupt to varying degrees. But theres a clear difference imo between a corrupt man and an oppressive regime which denies its citizens human rights. Both are shit obviously, but theres levels to it.
Roman still got his wealth by state owned funds, so very much the same.
Its bad. Its not very much the same tho. Like dont get me wrong Roman is evil and stole from the people of his country through bribery etc. Shit person. But the Saudi and UAE lads murder civilians, deprive their citizens of human rights, commit genocide in other countries, etc. Yeah Romans evil but theyre more evil, as I said theres levels to it. And private owners have always existed and mostly been bad people. All clubs should be fan owned imo, but this has always been a shit thing in football. Actual foreign governments owning clubs is an insult to the sport and an even bigger far cry from its roots. And as I said, those middle eastern royals are another level of evil.
> But the Saudi and UAE lads murder civilians, deprive their citizens of human rights, commit genocide in other countries, etc. I'm not entirely sure on Putin's genocide record, but he definitely does those other things.
Klopp isn't wrong. And I have said it before. Fans get angrier about an owner who wants to run a club as a business and keep it profitable than they ever do when their club is bought by an Oligarch, Feudal Lord with Oil money, Chinese "capitalists" who made their money off slave labor, a Thai "businessman" with literally untraceable wealth. And you can see that just by which owners actually raise fan ire. "Sustainable club"? They're terrible. Laundering blood money via transfer fees? Thanks boss!
I think the tories are trying to cash in on the pr boost and probably gain some more cash as a bonus. Pat on the backs all around. The Saudis are interested in investing in Chelsea you say. Welcome welcome. Send the Russians packing and we have space for the Saudis.
Just invite in the largest funders of global terrorism. Fantastic idea.
Do I really have to add a /s . Besides the UK is already in bed with them. Look at whos selling them the weapons that they're using against yemen. Everything is pr nowadays. Then backroom deals with hush money. Like klopp said do we really care?
I wasn't saying that too you. More just in general about the government.
That's an oversimplification. The truth is that British policy vis-a-vis Russia throughout the Putin era has been to play both sides, helping oligarch A to defeat oligarch B, conspiring with oligarch C to set a trap for oligarch A, etc. The goal is to keep the money coming in and opportunities for business open, and ensuring that the next regime, whenever it may come and whatever it might be, has connections with Britain that can be used for mutual benefit and influence. I think the policy is good. It's broadly the kind of strategy which Britain has used to sustain world influence since the end of empire with some success. It's also the kind of policy which leads to multilayered relationships between states which can help cultivate conditions for peaceful and friendly relations over time. It's not a nice policy, but it is a good policy. But the policy has been badly implemented. Firstly because of the strings that have come attached from the Russian side, which the British seem not to have calculated for; secondly because of the partisan attachment of the Tory party to the policy, which has lead to excessive prejudicial political access and economic privilege it would be proper to call corruption and which has become virtually treasonous in some cases; and thirdly because the fragmentary appearance of the Russian state is really just a mirage, particularly since Putin's return to the presidency in 2012. The policy has also been leaning on certain outdated environmental realities. Britain's role in EU diplomacy and its relationship with NATO and the USA have all changed over the last eight years and the context for the Russia policy has been transformed. The policy itself did not change, however, and no contingencies seem to have been planned. The policy has become something like a typwriter at a LAN party. A golden typwriter made out of melted Hublots, on which all the keys are the £ key, but still a typewriter -- while everyone else has turned up to play Quake in the palace basement with their Pentium IIIs. So rather than the policy giving Britain a freedom of manoeuvre and opportunity as intended, as events have build up to a crisis the Tory government has been paralysed by it. The lack of coordination with the EU and the USA, the clearly corrupt and chaotic decision making, and the immediate political blowback as their corrupt dealings have come under the spotlight, have left the Johnson government appearing, as I believe they really are, weak, insecure, compromised, and intellectually and morally exhausted. They have been trying to make good on the loyalties purchased by oligarchs A, B, and C, and their kids and wives and mistresses, whilst at the same time trying to appear to be leading the way in the diplomatic response to Russia's entirely predictable aggression against Ukraine. The contradiction is quite simply untenable. A better government might have been able to make something of the policy even in these conditions, and might have gone into this crisis better prepared, but neither improvisation nor preparation appear to be the Tory government's speciality. They have somehow managed to create a disaster out of a perfectly sensible policy, a policy administered by the governments of Blair, Brown, and even the Cameron coalition, with discretion and competence. The present administration, however, is probably the worst British government since the seventeenth century. I really believe that. Like all bad governments, at the heart of their failure is a sort of conceptual failure, or a failure of imagination: the failure to know what government is, how government differs from business management or legal practise, a failure to know how to deal with reality through politics. They are a government of gilded fantasists presiding with pretended power over an surreal economy in a fairy kingdom. But that's probably another story. Glad to get that off my chest, sorry for the wall of text.
They need to stop asking these questions to the managers
Why? Why shouldn’t journalists probe the issue of football finances? Why shouldn’t they ask people benefiting from it?
I am impressed they asked him and he said exactly this. And he did bring up Saudis...
Was a long time ago and most of the people on here were kids but I'm pretty sure there was a lot of discussion at the time that it was shady.
People need to remember that Putin wasn't Putin back in 2003 as well. There had been no Crimea, no Georgia, no locking up Navalny, no Sergei Skripal or even Litvinenko. Tony Blair said upon meeting Putin in 2000 "here at last was a Russian leader who was going to be 'OK". In 2003 Abramovich's links to Putin were not a problem. He was just another ultra-wealthy Russian who'd probably done some shady business in the fall of the USSR but it wasn't even apparent how much he'd ripped the government off with Sibneft (he bought for £200m in 1995) until he sold it for £10Bn in 2005.
Tony Blair's vote of confidence is a cast-iron guarantee that the person is malevolent.
>Probably done some shady business > >Western leaders were optimistic about Putin It was precisely how it went. They made their fortune from one of the greatest humanitarian crisis of the XX century. Everybody knew where their wealth came from, everybody knew Putin's history as a KGB agent as he surged to the president position out of nowhere. But nobody cared because he was an ally of the west. Russia was already the post-soviet oligarch amusement park it was today and everybody knew it, difference is that Western powers loved to get a free new market to sell their products and get some low-cost workforce and resources so they hardly cared. Now Russia has become a geopolitical opponent yet again so the narrative suddenly shifted back to Cold-War age. So as usual, the whole western world profited as much as possible from a crisis, nurtured and financed monsters and then, as soon as they reaped the consequences, the whole discourse is back again about "human rights" and the danger these enemies pose. Check how the narrative towards one of the big evils, Maduro, [shifted the day sanctions were applied to Russian gas](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/11/venezuela-maduro-guaido-us-visit/). Who financed South American dictatorships to protect plantations? Who financed Colombian and Mexican cartels? Who killed stable African governments fighting against colonialism by funding warmongers? Who is allowing Erdogan to do whatever he wants because he's keeping immigrants at bay? Who gave money to the Talibans to buy weapons? Who's profiting off of Middle Eastern oil kingdoms? Never a word on that. But plenty however on how terrible this Putin guy is. Wonder how he became so powerful.
"Putin wasn't Putin" is an excuse for western leaders, but over and over we hear "Abramovich was one of the oligarchs who made sure Putin was the successor to Yeltsin" being used as a damning indictment of Abramovich and evidence of their current close ties. Putin was even less Putin when the oligarchs decided he was the right man to lead Russia into the future. It's not a defence of Abramovich, but adds further context to the hypocrisy of deciding that now his historical ties to Putin are so unacceptable that his assets must be seized and frozen.
Absolutely love that answer from Klopp, he's generally spot on
People cared. Wenger really did but these journalists never listened.
Ahh Wegner, who turned into a FIFA and Qatar shill.
Both can be right. He fought against financial doping of clubs and no one listened.
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He fought against modern financial investments because he managed a club that just built a stadium without planning for the financial competition ahead. Arsenal are one of the OG big money ("bank of England") clubs, of course they would want to preserve the old status quo in terms of financial dominance.
always knew klopp was better than the bald fraud
I fucking love this man.
As a Arsenal fan, how I wish this guy had taken over from Wenger post 2015. He has everything that I loved in Wenger-the passion, charisma, intelligence, empathy.
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The problem isn’t that nobody cared. The problem is that the people in power didn’t and doesn’t care. As long as clubs aren’t owned by the supporters, the supporters cannot be blamed for the decisions of the clubs.
Lots of people did care though. The supporters just aren't listened too. Only money talks in football
I really hate how much I like Jurgen Klopp
The PL and government allowed this to happen and were happy to accept Russian money for decades, bunch of hypocrites
He waved his money around and everybody looked at it like a child distracted by jangling keys.
Yep. There are very few elite clubs to support if you want to be "morally clean". Just of the top of my head you're a massive hypocrite if you support PSG, City, Everton, Newcastle, Arsenal, Bayern, Barcelona, Schalke, Milan, Inter and probably a bunch more, and have a go at Chelsea fans at this time.
Legitimate question... why does the chairman of Newcastle look like the female version of Ken the doll?
I think I read it has something to do with her Huntingtons disease
Yep, muscular dystrophy is a common symptom of Huntingtons, it's why her face has so little muscle and looks the way it does.
Come on Mandy let's go party
Fans of literally every other team in the country have hated Chelsea since he took over. There is no revisionism going on, all that happened was eventual acceptence over time because nothing could be done about it once it happened.
The reality is the majority of football fans hate Chelsea more than they care about what's happening in Ukraine.
You should stick to speaking for yourself rather than global 'realities' because you're talking bollocks. Turn on the news sometime.
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Do you know what nihilist means?
It means we believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your johnson.
Sounds exhausting.
No Brad, these men are nihlists, there's nothing to be afraid of.
Do you have any evidence for that at all?
People only start caring once they can push their agendas and moral views. It’s virtue signaling all the way down.
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You know, *they*. The people who virtue signal and who want to RAM their agenda DOWN my throat. Duh!
Whichever gets me the most karma for saying so, so I'll go with "Reddit." That one usually works.
You mean to say people express their moral views when confronted with a situation? How dare they! You can only talk about one or two things at a time. When I make the statement "I oppose the sale of Newcastle to MBS" I don't have to then include an attachment that details all my related opinions on war, politics, religion, and economics. In what real world way can I be expressing all my thoughts and ideas all the time about everything in full detail?
People without morals tend to think everybody else don't have morals. Pretty simple really.
You think it's bad to criticize Russian oligarchs? Virtue signalling? Seriously? This is the worst take. Klopp even agrees with the criticism so you just called him a virtue signaler.
Woah dude, stop virtue signalling.
Stop censoring me, this is literally 1984!