Ian Ayre

The Robson Report: killing football in ‘one foul swoop’

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Every decent football supporter was outraged by the Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre’s repugnant call for changes to TV rights that would divert more and more money to a handful of “big” clubs. Jeremy Robson is surprised more attention was not given to another corporate threat to the national game, this time from Suits of the imported variety …

Ten of the 20 current Premier League clubs are foreign owned. This would have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

Of the current crop it was Fulham who were the first to be taken over by a foreign investor (Mohammed al Fayed), in 1997, when they were in the third tier. Much has changed in a short period (and that’s no pun or reference to our owner and chairman).

Why is this significant? What difference does it make where the money comes from?

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Salut!’s Week: Liverpool greed, Crossan gold, Arsenal groans

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The second week of a non-football fortnight, as it has been for those who care little for internationals, has been a busy old time at Salut! Sunderland. Here is a resume for readers who do not visit the site every day, starting with something that isn’t in the headline but should be …

Jonathan Wilson is widely acclaimed as one of the best football writers around. You can read him in The Guardian, in his own books (his Brian Clough biography is due out soon) and, as of this week, Salut! Sunderland.

A truly magical piece of writing, about an unbreakable attachment to Sunderland AFC passed down from one generation to the next, appeared first at the SB Info Plus website but was reproduced here with the permission both the writer and the site. Several people who read it were, like me, deeply moved by Jonathan’s words.

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