Salford City

Good article apart from Neville banging on about etiquette in football. if you're trying taking the moral highground in football you'll just look stupid. As a business man Neville is smart, he has a successful property company and must have a good plan for Salford to survive in the football league. Fleetwood have shown that with some financial backing you can easily reach the top half of league 1. Its the jump up to the next level that is a real eye opener.

 

It's not Neville that's throwing the money in though, he's just the figurehead. The money man is Peter Lim and he's supposedly worth about £2B so if he's happy to bankroll them there isn't much stopping them in the bottom two leagues. Like you say though, the championship could really burn through the money unless the ex Man Utd contingent are also willing to match his investment.

 

Have you seen the academy he has planned for the area? There seems to be a long term plan on top of the short term money being ploughed into the club. I said when they got promoted that there would be every chnce they could be in league 1 in two years dependant on what investment was made. Only problem i could envisage for Salford is how much debt the owners are willing to allow the club to accrue. Forget this idea that owners put their own money in. They money put in will be in the form of loans tied against the club. The higher up the pyramid you go the more money gets eaten up. I can see a long term plan involving the academy and an education plan. There are thousands of kids around the greater Manchester area dreaming of a football career, these days that dream don't come cheap. Dangle the carrot and people will pay big time to follow their dream.

 

Thing is if they put the money in as loans they will be restricted to how much of it they can spend on players wages etc due to FFP rules. They could use it to build the academy and ground but to spend it on players they are better off gifting it

 

I can see Salford becoming as hated in the lower leagues in the coming few years, as their cousins Man Utd are in the higher echelons of the football pyramid

 

wish we had somebody with 2 billion quid behind them.

 

Is it down to investment or a coach rather than a manager .

 

I don't have an problems with Salford, money = short cuts, always has done, don't know why they are getting flack?

But they are trying to create a football league club and, in Salford, that is very difficult indeed. Fleetwood is a total insular outpost, even Harrogate can tap into a local market but Salford is akin to throwing money at BPA. Be interesting to watch given the current problems of FC United.

 

Except they are unlikely to be in the lower leagues in the coming few years. May well be hated at L2 or L1 level though.

 

The first part of your post i totally agree with but i think your missing a bit salford from the moment the class of 92 took over have bulldozed there way up the leagues paying transfer fees and wages the rest could only dream about. They have just signed adam roony from aberdeen for a fee believed to be around 300k and paying him 150k a year they also signed a lad from peterborough who said the 80k a year he was on was a pittance and thats why he moved to salford. Most folk can accept and understand clubs getting relegated and having parachute payments but not some non descript club who have been taken over and had the club badge and colouts changed and bank rolled to the tune of millions

 

How does it trickle down when they are buying players from three of four leagues above? If they were buying the best talent in their league I would get the point but not sure how buying players from Aberdeen etc will trickle down to clubs in their league or below