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| Shad Khan's Fulham (white) lost to English Premier League leaders Chelsea 3-1 on Saturday to remain in last place and in threat of relegation. (Photo Courtesy of FulhamFC.com) |
By Will Brown
English
media has lamented the increase in foreign ownership of its soccer clubs for
years. However, commentaries will not staunch the influx of overseas ownership
in that country.
Friday,
Richard Williams of The Guardian, wrote a
commentary that once again wondered aloud about the impact of foreign ownership
in English soccer. He used Fulham Football club as an example of a club
that may have done it right.
The
problem is Williams was referencing previous owner Mohamed Al Fayed.
Fulham
has a 6-3-19 record, or 21 points, which is
good enough for dead last in the English Premier League. Saturday’s 3-1
loss against league leaders Chelsea underscores how dire the situation is for Shad
Khan’s other football team. Not only does Fulham have the worst record in the
EPL, but they have the worst goal difference of the 20 teams in the league, and
their 62 goals allowed is more than any top-flight team in the top five
European leagues.
“Would
they be in this demoralising position had Fayed stayed on? At least, unlike his
successor, he was not one of those absentee owners who resemble the rich folk
currently purchasing London mansions and penthouse flats as investments and
leaving them empty,” Williams wrote. “Khan attends the occasional match at the
Cottage — which is more than can be said for Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi, the
owner of Manchester City — but his physical commitment, like his knowledge of
football, is at best semi-detached.”
Williams
admitted Fayed had his quirks. Fans will tolerate eccentricities so long as their
team is productive. The problem with Fulham under Khan’s leadership is they are
not.
Fulham has 10 games to save its season. Unlike
the Jaguars, Khan’s other investment will not be rewarded with an opportunity
to sign some of the best talent around because of failures in previous seasons.
If Fulham doesn’t win games, the more the better, the club will be relegated to
a lower league.
So what you say?
Well, far smarter people have estimated that relegation from
the English Premier League will cost a team more than $30 million in television
revenue. That doesn’t even include reduced income from gate receipts, sponsor
dollars and selling players at cut-rate prices.
Khan spent a reported £200 million to buy the club last
summer. Anyone who spends that type of money on anything would not be thrilled
if their investment substantially depreciated within a year.
The appointment of Felix Magath to be Fulham’s manager may be
the latest ploy to save the season and secure top-flight status.
Magath has won a league championship in Germany with two
different clubs. He has also fallen out with just about every club he’s managed
in the last 15 years — occasionally with disastrous results preceding his exit.
“It wasn't lost on me that introducing a third
manager in a season would appear, let's say, unconventional or unpopular — or
both," Khan wrote in the program for Saturday's match against Chelsea
according to the Associated Press. "I expected the scrutiny and know there
will be more ahead. I accept this and welcome the responsibility, because the
alternative was risking a non-stop slide in the table in the hope that better
results would occur in time to save our season."
Khan, as well as other Jaguars officials, has
repeatedly stated the two clubs will have strategic synergies. The New York Times devoted an entire feature about
just that back in October when the Jags were in London to play San Francisco.
Fulham had just as many games televised
nationally in the United States this season as the Jaguars did — yet another
perk of playing in the English Premier League. If the club is to be
self-sustaining in the near future, as Khan told the Times he prefers, second-tier
soccer will not be satisfactory.
In order to avoid that fate, Fulham must have a
late-season resurgence, like the Jags did in 2013. Otherwise, the consequences
of relegation would reverberate across the Atlantic.
