Wishful thinking.
You gotta love it.
When I wrote the “Arab billionaires” story earlier this month I had my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, as most readers were well aware. But the story wasn’t complete nonsense and it wasn’t based on flights of fancy and the joining of two plus two to equal eight. There were indications which pointed to it, and some supporting evidence, particularly as what we were talking about wasn’t an investment, as such, but simple stadium naming rights.
But yes, it was a fun suggestion which very few people took seriously.
They weren’t really supposed to.
In fact, most fans who were polled on the subject on Facebook didn’t only think it was a joke, but they weren’t particularly interested in the idea anyway. They didn’t want what they termed “blood money”; the human rights record of the United Arab Emirates is appalling, and in the main our supporters wanted nothing to do with it.
I still think the chances of us getting offered some form of sponsorship from them is likely. But we don’t kid ourselves about becoming the sugar-daddy plaything of a billionaire. Ours is a club that has never had that, and we’re doing pretty well without it.
Sevco fans long for that kind of investor. They’ve kidded themselves for years that they had one like it before; in fact, what they had was a blowhard who was indulged by the largesse of a bank for over a decade. He didn’t have the money. The club didn’t have the money. They lived, for years, on the back of that unsustainable spending and can’t imagine another way of following their team. That’s why they maintain this belief that eventually they’ll see those days again.
And so it is that the Red Bull rumour has been born, a story which redefines dumb and which could best be described as Red Bullshit. That hasn’t stopped some of the media from flagging it, as if it’s something other than sheer nonsense.
Did you see them flagging my own story about the Arabs?
Of course not.
But anything to cheer up the Sevco fans, right?
This rumour is based on three things, and the first of them is the gullibility of their supporters. As far as I can determine, the story actually originated as a joke on a Celtic fan site. It’s since gone viral as an example of the crap some of their fans believe. The second thing it that RB Leipzig, the club the company bought in Germany, are playing Sevco in a friendly match. The third is that their club needs money. There it is. A combination of dumb fans, desperation and the ability of people to make crazy connections out of a need to keep their happy thoughts.
But you know what makes this one especially delicious? It’s that the Peepul who believe in it have actually no idea of what it is they are hoping for. They’re already pissed off enough with those of us who say there’s no continuity between the club they have now and the one which circled the drain and fell into oblivion in 2012. Imagine the slagging they would get when their club was renamed Red Bull Rangers. When their colours were changed. When the new managing director told them, as he told fans of Austria Salzburg (who formed a new club in response) that the history was gone, the club was no more and that a new one had been born.
Imagine their response when the club colours were changed. (Austria Salzburg fans complained about that above all; the concession they got from the company was that the home shirt colour was incorporated in the goalkeeper’s socks.) Imagine how they’d feel paying vastly over the odds for season tickets … and when the inevitable missive from UEFA landed on them, telling them they weren’t eligible to play in Europe anyway, first because sugar-daddy spending now violates UEFA Financial Fair Play (watch for how Leipzig try – and fail – to get around that next year; it’s going to be interesting) but also because of dual ownership rules.
This is a problem the company will face anyway, due to their ownership of a team in Austria and another in Germany, both of whom are in the top flight and both of whom are on their way to being in Europe next season. Only one of them will eligible if the clubs are in the same competition, which, as the Scottish press was fond of telling us, is why Ashley was going to have problems had Sevco and Newcastle ever competed in the same competition at the same time.
Whatever choice the company makes between their two existing European teams, there is little doubt that if they owned three that Sevco would be the most likely to be sacrificed; there are three reasons why this is the case. Firstly, Red Bull is based in Salzburg. This is why the home town team was their first football purchase. Secondly, RB Leipzig is their new flagship team. The cash they’ve put into that club has been spent with one purpose; to get them into the biggest club competition in football. Third, and most important, the potential television audience for a Scottish club in Europe is vastly outstripped by that in Germany.
If all three clubs qualified for Europe in the same year two or more of them would be competing in the same competition, and so at least one would have to go.
I would bet on Sevco’s club being little more than the afterthought if all three qualified for Europe in the same year. The financial upside to backing the Germans would be enormous. The upside to backing their local club would be political, and not to be underestimated. It would be like if a Scottish consortium bought Sevco and another European club and decided that they’d put their local team on the shelf and backed the other.
Any Sevco fans who believe in this are delusional fools. Red Bull’s decision to buy a local club was a business decision. Their decision to back a club in Germany in the hopes of taking them to the top flight was a business decision. Everything they do is about making money. If Sevco fans thought the idea of Ashley rebranding their club was loathsome I can’t understand why they’d be excited about the possibility of a complete transformation such as the one this company would force them to undergo. The regulations are in the way of it too.
Today King himself has poured a bucket of cold water on the idea, when he told the Sevco fans at the AGM that he wants them to buy the shares if the plans for a new rights issue are approved. He knows full well there’s exactly zero interest in their club outside of Scotland, but he also pointed out a self-evident truth; that when outside investors get control of a football club they can pretty much do with it whatever the Hell they like.
They don’t need to worry about that, but all football fans should.
The Red Bull story isn’t one you want repeated at your favourite club.