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Tom Davies looks at clubs experiencing difficult times

Beware rich men bearing loans might well be the cautionary mantra of this decade, and the latest to discover the perils of debt are Wycombe Wanderers. Fans’ joy at promotion from League Two has been tempered by a rancorous summer in which managing director Steve Hayes has been accused of bullying the supporters trust into giving up its shareholding to grant him outright control. Hayes, who also owns the rugby union club Wasps, with whom Wycombe share Adams Park, wants to shift both to a 20,000-seat new stadium, to be operated by a separate stadium management company.

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Tom Davies looks at three more clubs in crisis

One of the genuinely encouraging success stories of recent seasons has been Stockport County, rescued by a fans’ takeover three years ago, promoted via the League Two play-offs last year and well placed in League One until a recent slump. However, the realities of running a club to budget could yet overwhelm County, with lingering debts threatening to push the club into administration before the end of the season and a familiar search for investment becoming the priority.

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So, the big-money takeover didn’t happen. As Charlton fans go back to what they know, Tom Green takes a rueful look at recent events

The announcement, when it came, was blunt. “The board of Charlton Athletic plc was today informed by Zabeel Investments that it will not be proceeding with the proposed acquisition.”

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An English football club is now the must-have accessory for discriminating billionaires from all around the world – but does this trend make any financial sense? David Wangerin wonders if there is enough cash – and enough optimistic fans to part with it – to sustain the current booming revenues

“As a global brand,” the Independent claimed recently, “the Premiership is becoming sport’s equivalent of Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.” Can this be true? Certainly the success of fizzy-drink manufacturers and fast-food restaurants is not measured by trophies. But as the level of financial interest spreads across the globe, the league’s international reach seems to be rapidly approaching that of the junk-food leviathans. Curiously, much of this interest has not originated in traditional footballing strongholds, but in the game’s equivalent of the emerging ­markets – and America in particular.

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New owners and a new ground loom for Liverpool. Robert Fordham reports

“In a strange way, it was also oddly reassuring. The whole soap opera signalled that, even as European Champions, Liverpool Football Club could still act like an unsophisticated local diners’ club or a parochial village-hall committee. We were still more of a flawed community than a slick corporation.” This (along with the player staying) is the bright side author John Williams finds in the surreal saga that saw Steven Gerrard come so close to leaving Anfield six weeks after lifting the European Cup. But the club Williams has followed all his life are on the brink of the biggest overnight change in their history. Slick corporation here we come.

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