Saudi mates

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HD8 Blades

HD8 Blades

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Kirkburton. HD8
A Saudi Prince must have some ridiculously rich contacts. Billionaires who need a hobby. How hard can it be to sell up. By his own admission he’s taken us as far as he can and wants out. Pick up the phone Abdullah, get your investment back and find another project you can afford.
 

HD8 Blades said:
A Saudi Prince must have some ridiculously rich contacts. Billionaires who need a hobby. How hard can it be to sell up. By his own admission he’s taken us as far as he can and wants out. Pick up the phone Abdullah, get your investment back and find another project you can afford.
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Is there any recent indication that he wishes to sell ?
 
HD8 Blades said:
A Saudi Prince must have some ridiculously rich contacts. Billionaires who need a hobby. How hard can it be to sell up. By his own admission he’s taken us as far as he can and wants out. Pick up the phone Abdullah, get your investment back and find another project you can afford.
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Lots of fans mention "ambition". A billionaire's hobby. That's not ambitious. Surely we don't want our Club to be a Billionaire's hobby.
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
Lots of fans mention "ambition". A billionaire's hobby. That's not ambitious. Surely we don't want our Club to be a Billionaire's hobby.
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If you want the Premier league, and a lot do it seems, you need a billionaire..

I don't want the Premier league, but I'd like a billionaire to build academies and new stands, and buy top players etc.

Win something in my lifetime maybe as well?
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
Lots of fans mention "ambition". A billionaire's hobby. That's not ambitious. Surely we don't want our Club to be a Billionaire's hobby.
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I want an owner to want to maximise the resources the club has, fill in the gaps financially if required (the amount depends on what level he wants to operate at), focus on developing the club and not just the first team, scrap the multi club idea/focus on Sheffield.

I have no desire to win the Premier League because our owner has the most money and therefore the most leeway in signing star players. It'd be nice to win a trophy but it's not why I go. Moments I'll always remember mean more to me than results
 
Tezza1889 said:
If you want the Premier league, and a lot do it seems, you need a billionaire..

I don't want the Premier league, but I'd like a billionaire to build academies and new stands, and buy top players etc.

Win something in my lifetime maybe as well?
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OK. Hold on. Hold on. I know the next line. It's on the tip of my tongue. Got it. We are in the Premier League.

(I think the next response is - for the time being summat summat summat)
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
OK. Hold on. Hold on. I know the next line. It's on the tip of my tongue. Got it. We are in the Premier League.

(I think the next response is - for the time being summat summat summat)
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I'm certain that you realise that time isn't on anybodies side regarding picking a trophy up, without a billionaire owner it's unrealistic to expect anything, ever?

(meaningful success not the FA trophy)
 
Tezza1889 said:
I'm certain that you realise that time isn't on anybodies side regarding picking a trophy up, without a billionaire owner it's unrealistic to expect anything, ever?

(meaningful success not the FA trophy)
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We are in the Premier League. Without a billionaire owner. And without the constant replenishment of Saudi money.
 
Tezza1889 said:
Yeah.. Tearing it a new one aren't we..
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Shit. I was hoping you'd go with - for the time being summat summat summat.

We all know the script. Some fans want to try harder to win something by becoming a (?Saudi?) Billionaires hobby.

I just feel - if you write it as - my ambition is for the club to be a Billionaire's Hobby - if you focus on that bit - it doesn't sound like an ambition.
 

I wrote my take on Hobby Owners in 2016. I've not really changed my view.

The Blades Train Set

Sheffield United 0 v Burton Albion 1 Tuesday 1 March 2016 League 1 Played at Bramall Lane Twitter @ball_sup Today’s Adkins Home Grown/S...
ball-sup.blogspot.com ball-sup.blogspot.com
 
Tezza1889 said:
I'm certain that you realise that time isn't on anybodies side regarding picking a trophy up, without a billionaire owner it's unrealistic to expect anything, ever?

(meaningful success not the FA trophy)
Click to expand...

If COVID hadn't hit, we'd have probably achieved success in the form of European football, without really having any money and certainly without a billionaire owner. You're right though, because that was an absolute one-off, which makes it really hard to take that it didn't happen in such a way.

I think I'll probably look back on my life as a blades fan and think that was it, the one chance, and it just so happened to fall at the one time in a hundred year spell that football had to stop. Typical.
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
I just feel - if you write it as - my ambition is for the club to be a Billionaire's Hobby - if you focus on that bit - it doesn't sound like an ambition.
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We are on the same page clearly from a traditional football fans point of view, we certainly lose identity, that's the price we'd pay if we went down newcastles route, it woudnt be the same "united" and I get it.

But to summarise, and I know I'm being selfish and the wrong side of 50 but potentially and I'll use Newcastle (probably unfairly)

With their takeover potential Honours in in the next 10 years.

Champions league - yes.
Euefa Cup - yes.
Premier league - yes.
FA Cup - yes.
League Cup - yes.
Charity shield - yes.

Sheffield united with Prince Abdullah and Paul Heckingbottom in charge.

Potential honours..
League one winners - yes.
Championship winners - yes.
Everything else - No.

It's a lifetime already without any meaningful success..

We mortgage our soul I know, but I'm up for doing it to see them win something.

Portsmouth went boom and bust, won the FA Cup, a decent amount of thier fans are ok on the whole going belly up, as they know it's near on impossible to win that trophy again... Unless you have....
 
Tezza1889 said:
We are on the same page clearly from a traditional football fans point of view, we certainly lose identity, that's the price we'd pay if we went down newcastles route, it woudnt be the same "united" and I get it.

But to summarise, and I know I'm being selfish and the wrong side of 50 but potentially and I'll use Newcastle (probably unfairly)

With their takeover potential Honours in in the next 10 years.

Champions league - yes.
Euefa Cup - yes.
Premier league - yes.
FA Cup - yes.
League Cup - yes.
Charity shield - yes.

Sheffield united with Prince Abdullah and Paul Heckingbottom in charge.

Potential honours..
League one winners - yes.
Championship winners - yes.
Everything else - No.

It's a lifetime already without any meaningful success..

We mortgage our soul I know, but I'm up for doing it to see them win something.

Portsmouth went boom and bust, won the FA Cup, a decent amount of thier fans are ok on the whole going belly up, as they know it's near on impossible to win that trophy again... Unless you have....
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Meaningful to who though? Loads of what United have done is meaningful to me. Couldn't care less what other teams fans think
 
HD8 Blades said:
A Saudi Prince must have some ridiculously rich contacts. Billionaires who need a hobby. How hard can it be to sell up. By his own admission he’s taken us as far as he can and wants out. Pick up the phone Abdullah, get your investment back and find another project you can afford.
Click to expand...
What a novel idea, never seen this wonderful suggestion on the forum before. I do hope the Prince reads it and we all live happy ever after.
 
I’ll be honest, the thought of us turning into a club like Chelsea, City or Newcastle, the plaything of a billionaire or a country’s method of sportswashing isn’t something I look forward to. But equally I was giddy as anything when the prince first got involved because my thought was Saudi prince = more moolah than Scrooge McDuck and a desire to spend loads of it on us, and I was totally fine with it.

If by some extremely remote chance the prince does sell to someone with an absolute fuck ton of money that he wants to spunk away on Sheffield United then his background would be a secondary consideration. Dodgy source of income, like Abramovich? Cool. Lots of oil wells in his enormous back garden, but a bit choppy-offy of other peoples extremities on occasion? Bring it on. Megalomaniac with dreams of galactic conquest, a big space station that might be initially mistaken for a moon and the odd bit of blowing up other planets? Sign me up.

I’d happily put up with it for the chance to actually win something more meaningful than the League One title. So what if he wants to blow up Alderaan? We’ll be in Europe next season, and the Imperial March would be a hell of a piece of music to come out to.
 
Tezza1889 said:
Wouldn't you love to see us lift the FA Cup.... Just one time?
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It'd be great. I just don't think it'd be better than something like the Blackburn QF, Derby on Boxing Day 2018, any time beating Wednesday, the Forest play off semi, beating Leeds in the League Cup. Even the joy of seeing the team lift the L1 trophy.

I have unbelievably good memories from watching United and I'll always have them. I don't think winning a cup would supersede them because the only way that happens is becoming a version of Newcastle
 
Tezza1889 said:
Wouldn't you love to see us lift the FA Cup.... Just one time?
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I'm all in for the hypotheticals. Would you love to see us lift the FA Cup?

If the new owners

Changed the kit colours to reflect their national identity.
Fiddled with the badge to exploit commercial opportunities.
Moved out of Bramall Lane to a brownfield site near Doncaster.
Used an additional nickname alongside The Blades to reflect their national bird.
Explained their long term ambition was for Utd to become a feeder club to a team in their country.

Have you any line in the sand? Or is it a hollow shell of what used to be a football club, still nominally called Sheffield United can win the FA Cup and you'll die happy.
 
It's a problem being the fan of a football club such as ours (most clubs). We don't like getting pumped every week in the PL so we go down and people can start to enjoy football again, winning games. But to what end? To get promoted to the PL where we're miserable for another season, looking forward to being in the Championship again, to see us winning games of football. But to what end? To end up back in the PL. Where pretty much unless you've got a billionaire owner, you can't compete. I know "9th placed finish etc" but that was an anomaly. So if we don't court a billionaire then the whole thing is a cyclical merry-go-round. Which is pretty boring imo.

Other points about improving the facilities, academy etc, again, to what end? Surely to get to the PL. Same problems faced.

As an aside, I don't really get the 'if it weren't for COVID we'd have got into Europe' stance. COVID happened to everyone?
 
I think we all would welcome a sale
But when the biggest club in world football can’t get a buyer why does everyone expect one just to rock up and buy us 🤷‍♂️
 
shorehamview said:
I’ll be honest, the thought of us turning into a club like Chelsea, City or Newcastle, the plaything of a billionaire or a country’s method of sportswashing isn’t something I look forward to. But equally I was giddy as anything when the prince first got involved because my thought was Saudi prince = more moolah than Scrooge McDuck and a desire to spend loads of it on us, and I was totally fine with it.

If by some extremely remote chance the prince does sell to someone with an absolute fuck ton of money that he wants to spunk away on Sheffield United then his background would be a secondary consideration. Dodgy source of income, like Abramovich? Cool. Lots of oil wells in his enormous back garden, but a bit choppy-offy of other peoples extremities on occasion? Bring it on. Megalomaniac with dreams of galactic conquest, a big space station that might be initially mistaken for a moon and the odd bit of blowing up other planets? Sign me up.

I’d happily put up with it for the chance to actually win something more meaningful than the League One title. So what if he wants to blow up Alderaan? We’ll be in Europe next season, and the Imperial March would be a hell of a piece of music to come out to.
Click to expand...

The force is strong in this one.
 

One of my most enjoyable seasons was the Wilder league one season. Having said that I would 100% swap with Manchester city. Ultimately I want good football, the potential to beat anybody and at the highest level we can do that. I genuinely don't enjoy our role in the premier league but as a poster pointed out doing well in the league below gives you this.
 
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