Football these days is a monster. It’s a business but not a model that companies should follow. It is in its own world and in the upper echelons of the sport it all about money, money and much more money.
The influx of oil barons and multi millionaires to the game as owners in England has arguabley inflated an already out of control sport, originally known as a pass time. It has gone way past that.
Follow the media and they are obsessed with it and so are the clubs. A week in which a £100 million transfer fee has courted for Gareth Bale, £55 million plus for Luis Suarez and similar for Wayne Rooney should he leave the champions. All obscene amounts of money. In comparison you have clubs in dire financial trouble, Coventry and Aldershot to name but two. A small percentage of those transfer fees mentioned would go a long way to securing the future of each of those clubs.
It goes to show that football is eating itself and I really do not want Palace going all out chasing the dream. Some say that our play-off win got us £120 million. But you would be a fool to think that money was delivered in cash to Steve Parrish that evening. It is what a season in the Premier League is worth to a team but you have to spend before you get much of it.
Money is a massive thing for Palace, a club that has seen administration on two separate occasions and come out the other side. The thought of a Premier League season that we are about to embark is still a dream. If anyone knows what chasing that dream can do to you it is us.
I am trying to resist harping on about what happened in 2010 and those terrible days wondering if we would ever see Palace again. But they were feelings as a football fan that I never want to see again. The rumours today about the naming rights of the stadium have led me to write this piece as the reaction has been absolutely ludicrous.
Selhurst Park is ours. It will always be ours. It is our bricks and mortar and while it is tatty at the seems and old, it is our home. I say the term ‘ours’ loosely as of course Selhurst Park is owned by the club once again. And we have the current owners to thank for that. These are the same owners that came forward in 2010 as our knights in shining armour. They were the ones to stump up the cash to save us. No one else was around willing the throw money at us like they seem to be doing now.
So what of it that the stadium could be named ‘12Bet Stadium’ or anything else come to that? Who are we to argue that the owners are willing to accept cash in exchange for naming rights? Surely it is easy money and an additional avenue for the club to bring in revenue in order to improve the stadium. Most clubs have to build a new stadium to get a sponsor for it. It appears that we do not. Arguably an old stadium that has seen 20-30% improvements over the summer but much more is needed. Should the owners stump up more cash to do that? I don’t think so. This seems an obvious method of bringing in revenue to secure one of the greatest assets of the club, the ground itself.
In short, we may not like the sponsor’s name, but if they are giving us a decent deal in exchange then I do not seriously see the problem. We move with the times and remember back to the day when no-one would give us any money. How times change, but we grab it with both hands and do something to secure our future.
