King Power - Good or bad or both?

[shen]

1 minute ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

I may feel disinfranchised but I'll support Leicester until the day I die regardless of who are owners are and regardless of entertainment and bragging rights.

 

We watch them because it's part of our identity, but the club is an ever changing entity that we'll always just go along with anyway because it's in or blood.

 

Ownership, ethics, ground location, Manager, players, money, the division we play in etc. is all irrelevant really. None of it matters because your team is your team and that's that.

 

"Forever and ever, we'll follow our team. We're Leicester City, we rule supreme. We'll never be mastered, by those Forest bastards, we'll keep the blue flag flighing high"

But what is it you and I are identifying with? It's not irrelevant where the club plays or how much it costs to see the team or where the home ground is. Imagine Leicester City were endorsing the Holocaust, charged £1000 per game and moved it's base to Mexico City. Would you still follow them then?

[SheppyFox]

Its naive to think any Billionaires are squeaky clean  

[shen]

5 minutes ago, SheppyFox said:

Its naive to think any Billionaires person is squeaky clean  

 

But yes, it goes without saying really.

[Izzy]

1 minute ago, shen said:

But what is it you and I are identifying with? It's not irrelevant where the club plays or how much it costs to see the team or where the home ground is. Imagine Leicester City were endorsing the Holocaust, charged £1000 per game and moved it's base to Mexico City. Would you still follow them then?

A bit of an extreme example there mate but yes I would still follow them. I couldn't change allegiance even if I wanted to.

 

After nearly 40 years supporting Leicester, I went past the point of no return a long, long time ago...

 

What I'm identifying with is lifelong friends I've made along the way, thousands of miles travelled and money spent, memories to last a lifetime, and history I've witnessed and been a part of. 

[shen]

5 minutes ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

A bit of an extreme example there mate but yes I would still follow them. I couldn't change allegiance even if I wanted to.

 

After nearly 40 years supporting Leicester, I went past the point of no return a long, long time ago...

 

What I'm identifying with is lifelong friends I've made along the way, thousands of miles travelled and money spent, memories to last a lifetime, and history I've witnessed and been a part of. 

 

But on a serious note, I'd probably just quit watching and following football altogether in the same situation.
I'd still have all the friends, memories and mementos which are the ones that actually give me pleasure.

[Lovejoy]

16 hours ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

A bit of an extreme example there mate but yes I would still follow them. I couldn't change allegiance even if I wanted to.

 

After nearly 40 years supporting Leicester, I went past the point of no return a long, long time ago...

 

What I'm identifying with is lifelong friends I've made along the way, thousands of miles travelled and money spent, memories to last a lifetime, and history I've witnessed and been a part of. 

Makes you wonder how US fans feel when their team is moved to a different state.

[Babylon]

18 hours ago, shen said:

Oh absolutely. But I'm not naïve enough to believe that none of it is true to some extent and that our owners have been saints.

The FFP (which is obviously controversial in itself) matter in particular looked very dodgy with the information we were fed a few years ago.

 

 

Indeed, not complying with FFP I have no issue with. It was the attempting to avoid the fine that stinks, as I said at the time.

 

But, have I done a few dodgy things in my life? Yes. Have a taken cash jobs and not paid the tax? Maybe. I'm not squeaky clean, neither are most people for one thing or another. If someone is morally is without reproach, then fair enough I can accept their stance. But it's a bit of a double standard if I (and most people ) started worrying about the sort of things they are accused of. There are levels of right and wrong. and shades of gray.

[Guest Danny Clender]

19 hours ago, Babylon said:

If people think the world is littered with ethical rich people they are kidding themselves. Show me a billionaire and they'll have screwed someone over, used questionable practices to get there, dodged tax, used sweat shops etc etc. 

 

Compared to most we've got off lightly. They've made some questionable decisions here, but they are by far and away some of the best. Of course they make some decisions for them but often keep the thoughts of the fans in mind in the main. We've had no huge reasons to be outraged. 

Very very true. 

I reckon its all a bit bit wrong how owners have become celebrities within the game.  

Out of interest which ones would you say were the 'questionable decisions'

[Babylon]

1 hour ago, Danny Clender said:

Very very true. 

I reckon its all a bit bit wrong how owners have become celebrities within the game.  

Out of interest which ones would you say were the 'questionable decisions'

Trying to avoid FFP fine, the Thai King stuff, happy birthday Chairman. The last two very self indulgent really, goes against how they act in general though and compared to some others (badge and colour changes etc) it's mild.

[Guest Danny Clender]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Trying to avoid FFP fine, the Thai King stuff, happy birthday Chairman. The last two very self indulgent really, goes against how they act in general though and compared to some others (badge and colour changes etc) it's mild.

Thanks! Yeah...in the grand scheme, we're the right side of the tracks. I still watch Jon Rudkins sentiments to Mr C every now and again, comedy gold. 

[Kitchandro]

21 hours ago, shen said:

But what is it you and I are identifying with? It's not irrelevant where the club plays or how much it costs to see the team or where the home ground is. Imagine Leicester City were endorsing the Holocaust, charged £1000 per game and moved it's base to Mexico City. Would you still follow them then?

Yeh and what if it's not a blue flag flying high anymore? What if it's gold? Or red?

 

The club has to stand for something FFS.

[Kitchandro]

21 hours ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

A bit of an extreme example there mate but yes I would still follow them. I couldn't change allegiance even if I wanted to.

 

After nearly 40 years supporting Leicester, I went past the point of no return a long, long time ago...

 

What I'm identifying with is lifelong friends I've made along the way, thousands of miles travelled and money spent, memories to last a lifetime, and history I've witnessed and been a part of. 

Nah not having that. The club is Leicester City. So it has to be based in Leicester, at the very least. It has to be part of the Leicester community and that means it has to hold up what the community believes it to be.

 

It only exists as an extension of the people in the city/county. As far as I'm concerned if we stopped playing in Leicester or stopped playing in blue it's no longer LCFC and therefore no LCFC fan should support it. TBH if we ditched the Post Horn Gallop I'd be inclined to boycott.

 

Nobody's asking you to switch allegiance, that's inexcusable. Just not to support the club anymore if it no longer represents what it's supposed to. You don't need to support a club for the sake of it, supporting the club should mean something. What you're basically saying is you support the corporate, legal entity of Leicester City, not the team. So if it's the same company legally you'd support it even they didn't play in Leicester, didn't play in blue, didn't hate Forest, didn't have a fox on the shirt etc.....there's basically no real criteria for supporting them.

Let's say you were a Wimbledon fan - would you have supported MK Dons? They are essentially Wimbledon, they just morphed slowly into MK Dons.

 

On the flip side, what if we went bust and we had to make a phoenix club? Still called Leicester City (but probably LCAFC), still played in the city, still played in blue, fans were from the same place, sang the same songs, hated the same teams. Is that the same club or not to you?

 

I'm struggling to see what you think a football club actually is.

 

[Kitchandro]

1 hour ago, Babylon said:

Trying to avoid FFP fine, the Thai King stuff, happy birthday Chairman. The last two very self indulgent really, goes against how they act in general though and compared to some others (badge and colour changes etc) it's mild.

ahem

 

They are treading on the borderline with that one really.

[Izzy]

25 minutes ago, Kitchandro said:

Nah not having that. The club is Leicester City. So it has to be based in Leicester, at the very least. It has to be part of the Leicester community and that means it has to hold up what the community believes it to be.

 

It only exists as an extension of the people in the city/county. As far as I'm concerned if we stopped playing in Leicester or stopped playing in blue it's no longer LCFC and therefore no LCFC fan should support it. TBH if we ditched the Post Horn Gallop I'd be inclined to boycott.

 

Nobody's asking you to switch allegiance, that's inexcusable. Just not to support the club anymore if it no longer represents what it's supposed to. You don't need to support a club for the sake of it, supporting the club should mean something. What you're basically saying is you support the corporate, legal entity of Leicester City, not the team. So if it's the same company legally you'd support it even they didn't play in Leicester, didn't play in blue, didn't hate Forest, didn't have a fox on the shirt etc.....there's basically no real criteria for supporting them.

Let's say you were a Wimbledon fan - would you have supported MK Dons? They are essentially Wimbledon, they just morphed slowly into MK Dons.

 

On the flip side, what if we went bust and we had to make a phoenix club? Still called Leicester City (but probably LCAFC), still played in the city, still played in blue, fans were from the same place, sang the same songs, hated the same teams. Is that the same club or not to you?

 

I'm struggling to see what you think a football club actually is.

 

I'm actually saying exactly the opposite. It's the team on the pitch I'm supporting not all the other bollux that surrounds it. I couldn't give a fvck about the corporate, legal entity. That's my point.

 

It's all hypothetical anyway so it's a nonsense debate really.

 

[Great Boos Up]

We were a PR brand investment an they could have easily bought say..Port Vale. (just a random named club) The so called sleeping giants were 10 times the price? but circumstance led to our purchase. Fair play, they are in it for the long term and boy oh boy did they strike gold through a series of circumstances that even we can't comprehend. 

I work for and applaud those who set up companies and make millions. However making millions into billions takes a different animal altogether. But here we all are; mostly happy.

What I think about and I don't understand the facts or details; is when this royal granted non competitor sole concession duty free agreement runs out this year. Now! This will impact massively on the KP profits, but will it affect us? 

[shen]

59 minutes ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

I'm actually saying exactly the opposite. It's the team on the pitch I'm supporting not all the other bollux that surrounds it. I couldn't give a fvck about the corporate, legal entity. That's my point.

 

It's all hypothetical anyway so it's a nonsense debate really.

 

When you scratch a little underneath the surface, it actually isn't a nonsense debate. The owners are making changes to the club, significant or not; the PL and TV revenue will only increase the commercial bombardment and ticket prices; more and more outlandish players will join; soon many fans won't even be able to get into the stadium because of increased demand. Many would say we've already reached a point where supporting a football club has become nonsensical and arbitrary.

 

Ultimately LCFC are on track towards becoming just a brand, an empty shell, of a privately owned company that employs professional athletes that otherwise have no connection to Leicester or it's fans.

 

I don't understand how you can detach the team from the corporate side of things when they're a direct consquence of it.

If friends, family and large supporters groups decided to support Hinckley AFC where some of their mates would play, while the KP is half empty and atmosphere is dull... would you not rather go support Hinckley?

[shen]

5 hours ago, Babylon said:

Indeed, not complying with FFP I have no issue with. It was the attempting to avoid the fine that stinks, as I said at the time.

 

But, have I done a few dodgy things in my life? Yes. Have a taken cash jobs and not paid the tax? Maybe. I'm not squeaky clean, neither are most people for one thing or another. If someone is morally is without reproach, then fair enough I can accept their stance. But it's a bit of a double standard if I (and most people ) started worrying about the sort of things they are accused of. There are levels of right and wrong. and shades of gray.

Yes, and I know we have laws and courts of justice that attempt to determine where these levels are.

But the levels of right and wrong is exactly what I wanted people here to discuss.

 

This is a highly subjective matter and it is something that bothers me.

I'm intrigued by those that can ignore the development we've witnessed with our club or herald it in some cases.

Or even those that don't want to take a stance.

 

I think it's a bit cheap to avoid dealing with the ethical issue just because we're not saints ourselves.
Maybe it stems from the reluctance to deal with our failure to live up to our own ethical standards.

[Izzy]

33 minutes ago, shen said:

When you scratch a little underneath the surface, it actually isn't a nonsense debate. The owners are making changes to the club, significant or not; the PL and TV revenue will only increase the commercial bombardment and ticket prices; more and more outlandish players will join; soon many fans won't even be able to get into the stadium because of increased demand. Many would say we've already reached a point where supporting a football club has become nonsensical and arbitrary.

 

Ultimately LCFC are on track towards becoming just a brand, an empty shell, of a privately owned company that employs professional athletes that otherwise have no connection to Leicester or it's fans.

 

I don't understand how you can detach the team from the corporate side of things when they're a direct consquence of it.

If friends, family and large supporters groups decided to support Hinckley AFC where some of their mates would play, while the KP is half empty and atmosphere is dull... would you not rather go support Hinckley?

All these hypothetical scenario's are giving me a headache. 

 

Your points are all made up of 'what ifs?' guesswork and assumptions - so I'm not sure the merit in debating them really.

 

It is what it is and whatever you, me and the gatepost think is pretty much irrelevant. Whatever happens will happen, and in the mean time I'll just go on supporting the team. No point getting stressed over something we've got no control over IMHO

[shen]

@ian_marshall

Great post.

 

I sympathise with your views and from a neutral perspective I would agree that I'm maybe a little harsh towards the owners. 

As many have said, we could have had much worse!

 

In truth, it doesn't matter who the owners are. The ethics/morality could have been questioned whoever it was. Because there are quite a lot of sources out there, we get far more information about our owners and their companies than we would otherwise have had. The same goes for the public scrutiny players and other celebrities are faced with. It just means anything and everything will filter through to the masses and we have to choose how to deal with that information.

 

The innocent until proven guilty principle is admirable, but I find it's often used to excuse oneself from expressing an opinion.

I want to reiterate that I don't claim the owners are guilty of the things I mentioned, just that the sheer number and weight of the accusations along with some testimonies make me skeptical.

[shen]

19 minutes ago, Izzy Muzzett said:

All these hypothetical scenario's are giving me a headache. 

 

Your points are all made up of 'what ifs?' guesswork and assumptions - so I'm not sure the merit in debating them really.

 

It is what it is and whatever you, me and the gatepost think is pretty much irrelevant. Whatever happens will happen, and in the mean time I'll just go on supporting the team. No point getting stressed over something we've got no control over IMHO

Sorry about that. I try to use metaphors and examples to explain myself, maybe excessively so.

 

I'm interested in why you support the team and why it's important to you that it's Leicester City specifically. When you said you'd follow the team anywhere under any circumstances, then it seems you'd follow any club as long as they were called 'Leicester City Football Club'. I don't buy the 'in our blood' thing, as following this club is obviously something you and I have learnt and become enchanted by.