Keeping Up With The Joneses

Anyone watch Jim White's interview with Reading chairman John Madejski yesterday? On Sunday's edition of Sky Sports News, Madejski was giving quite the sales pitch.

On the heels of the news that Liverpool are on the verge of new deep-pocketed ownership, I'm guessing that the club from Berkshire wants a little piece of the action. With numbers like $900M being talked about in the bid for the Reds, how can you blame him?

From last night's conversation:

Madejski: My view is that within 10 to 20 years all premiership clubs will probably be foreign-owned. I think they're going to become the accessories of the super-rich, and I haven't got a problem with that. Because it is a rich man's game. If some really obscenely rich...Russian gentleman, or a guy from the Far East, was to come in and say, plunk bags of cash on the table, then I'd say fine. Over to him.
White: You would sell?
Madejski: Yeah I would sell, provided the guy was credible...
White: What you're saying today John is that if someone came in this afternoon, an Abramovich equivalent, if you like, and persuaded you to sell Reading today, you would sell?
Madejski: Yeah, yeah I would.

Spending power is the obvious benefit to takeovers involving wealthy benefactors. One only needs to look at what a certain Russian has done in London for evidence of that. The downsides are many and well known by everyone. To name a few: transfer fees and wages going through the roof, greater disparity between the haves and have-nots, and the price of attending matches getting too pricey for the average fan.

As FSC's Nick Webster notes, these clubs mean so much to so many people. If the bottom falls out of some of the EPL clubs owned by foreigners, it could hurt the league as a whole.

Liverpool lining-up $900m takeover [CNN]
Foreign ownership in the Premier League [Fox Sports]

-ac