| Week 1 - For
the past few season's I like a lot of United fans have started
to get very disgruntled by the way the club is being run from
the top down. The main reason for this concern would lie at
the door of the chairman, one Jim McLean. The reasons being
our inability to sign top quality players on a regular basis
mainly due to two factors. |
| 1. We will
not pay the inflated transfer fees needed to secure the best
players. |
| 2. We will
not pay the minimum wage that players require. |
| We all
know United's wage system has always been about performance
related pay, If you get a result you get the cash. But players
nowadays need security and offering them a low basic wage is
not it. |
| This position
bothered me until recently when it has become clear that those
who run our club have again proved that they seem to know what
is happening in the financial world of football. Remember the
contract disputes with Hannah and McKinlay among others, tied
to 5 or 6 year contracts pre Bosman. 5 years now seems to be
the norm when signing a deal. The fact we wanted to protect
our investments back then only came in for criticism. |
| This
brings me onto my point for this week. We all complain that
no money is being spent on quality and the Billy Dodds situation
seemed to emphasise this when he was not replaced. We have just
invested 600k in Danny Griffen, outside the old firm no other
club will spend that fee on a player this season. Why? Because
in the past 3 or 4 years when United have been watching the
balance the other pretenders to the throne of third biggest
team in Scotland have been spending willy nilly. Aberdeen who
at one point were paying Craig Hignett £8000 a week basic,
and Hearts a £8.4 million investment that seems to have
disappeared are just a couple of instances of bad money management.
I mean half of Hearts investment was for players and the other
half was for a football academy. They spent £1.2million
on players and are now losing £250k a month with no sign
of an academy. How can this happen? |
| I'm
sure that situation would not happen at Tannadice. Whatever
people think McLean has got the club's interest at heart and
I do believe he wants the club to be the third force in Scottish
football. We have to live within our means and if that means
paying lower wages and trying to bring success through the club
then so be it. We are not a club who if they get into serious
financial trouble, like Aberdeen and Hearts, can just ignore
it and hope for major financial backing because of who we are.
Real Madrid are £100 million in debt and have been for
years but because of who they are and their financial appeal
worldwide the creditors are willing to give them an unlimited
stay of execution. |
| One
final point. For a club who had to scrape together the money
for two new stands not so long ago, the Marr brothers seem to
have come into a bit of cash. Dundee, I'll give it 3 years and
they'll be in financial hell. Cheers Rob. |
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