Who buys a Ferrari F40 and attempts to service it using eurocarparts.com 🏎
To own a professional football club the size of WBA will always require continuous financial investment, especially to move forward. Failure to do this just leads to stagnation (or worse). As fans we should expect a little more than “well, it’s okay because we’re run properly as a clubâ€.
And going back to the original point the Albion are notorious for penny-pinching.
Most "investments" in football clubs have a negative expected value. Even under Peace nearly every penny that the club earned went back into the club and were it not for a very fortunate set of circumstances Peace would not have made anywhere near as much as he did. £50m of the sale price was frankly the froth on top of the beer.
Football squanders resources so badly and so routinely that it is difficult to get any true sense of worth but in a world gone mad wear your sanity as a badge of honour. Penny pinching is better than the alternative.
Finally why should fans expect better? At what point did I acquire the right for a random rich person to subsidise my hobby pastime or entertainment?
To give this some context look at the Wigan situation with the attendant hand wringing isn't it terrible what has happened? Well let's cut to the chase here. Wigan lost £16m off a turnover of £11m netted to £9.2m after player sales last year in the Championship the year before £9.6m off a turnover of £6.7m netted down to £7.7m. Wigan have a gate in the Championship of roughly 11,500 to break even as a mid table Championship club without owner subsidy every man women and child needs to put in an additional £800 a year each over and above what they already spend on the club.
Now I am not suggesting for a minute that they can or should but in pretty much every set of circumstances if you want £800 of value you better be prepared to show me the money or you don't get the goods.
