Foreign ownership poses threat to rest - Gartside

9:20am Friday 5th September 2008

Marc Iles reports on the impact the increase in foreign-owned Premier League football clubs can have on the smaller clubs in the top flight.

PHIL Gartisde’s chilling warning that clubs the size of Wanderers face a bleak future in a foreign-owned Premier League will have hit a chord even before mention of Arab Sheikhs buying into ‘Middle Eastlands’.

The Whites chairman was probably speaking from a position of knowledge when, just 48 hours before the Abu Dhabi United Group sent the transfer window through the stratosphere, he urged the league’s great and good to take action in order to safeguard clubs like his own.

It had already been an uneven playing field long before the arrival of Roman Abramovich at Chelsea skewed transfer fees forevermore, but in the light of Manchester City’s new benefactors – whose fortune dwarfs even that of the Russian oligarch – the prospect of Wanderers, Blackburn, Wigan et al managing to compete in such a stunted economy look more unlikely than ever.

Johan Elmander’s arrival in the summer forced the club’s record transfer fee up to anywhere between £8.3million and £11m, depending on which source is attributed. But even that figure is a drop in the oil barrel to the kind of playboy club owners who now seem to be circling the Premier League’s elite clubs.

Gartside has been able to count on the financial support of owner Eddie Davies to keep Wanderers punching above their weight since he originally became involved as a non-executive director in 1999. But he claims more must be done by the Premier League to ensure traditionally-structured clubs like Bolton can continue to operate at the highest level.

Writing in his programme notes before the West Brom game, he concluded: “There is a growing realism among clubs like ourselves that we cannot possibly continue the transfer merry-go-round and spiralling wages of players, especially in the current economic climate. Sponsorship and partnership income is becoming more difficult to attract unless you are in the elite group in the league. Gate income has reduced year on year for us, especially having once again reduced our ticket prices.

“Clubs under foreign ownership have falsely inflated the value of transfers and wages making it increasingly difficult for clubs like ourselves to compete. We rely heavily on local support and the tremendous support of owner Eddie Davies. It seems to me that to redress the balance and continue to have a competitive league some forward thinking is required by the league.

“Everyone at the club has worked tremendously hard over the last few years to maintain a successful Barclays Premier League position and we all find it very frustrating when the influx of foreign money into certain clubs has distorted the competition beyond all recognition.”

His comments have been echoed elsewhere in the Premier League, with Middlesbrough chief executive Keith Lamb pledging that he would resist any approach from foreign owners to invest at the Riverside.

“I know the game is global and fans all over the world like to keep in touch with Premier League football, but you don’t need foreign investment for this,” he said.

“Maybe it’s good for TV rights but I am not sure how good in the long-term it is for these clubs to have foreign ownership or why they have got it.”

Harry Redknapp, manager of foreign-owned Portsmouth, believes it is only a matter of time before every top flight club is wrestled out of English control.

“There will be more and more mega-rich owners coming from abroad and there will be more and more interference,” he said.

“Players will be given to the manager, who won’t have a whole lot of input into the process.

“Soon every club in the Premiership will be owned by mega-rich foreign investors. That’s how it will go.”