英伦广角 2009-01-18 Issue 142 足球届难抵金融危机

And this is a pièce de résistance. This is Ferenc Puskas, Real Madrid cheered, as they won against Eintracht Frankfurt.

John Ryan peruses 1 a lifetime fascination 2 with football.

I have a passion for my hometown, for Doncaster Rovers. I said I would do it when I was twenty. So you know that was a calling for me really, but if it was a business decision, I wouldn’t touch it with a barge 4 pole.

He’s dragged his club from Conference to Championship, pouring in perhaps five million pounds of his own money. It is a familiar story, but never more pertinent 5.

Apart from saying Man city, I think, the cold wind of recession is, is reaching every club.

Doncaster Rovers is debt free thanks largely to Ryan, but too many aren’t and the banks are wanting their money back.

In the next few months, you’ll see, you might see some big casualties, I mean who knows, but here when Woolworths can go bust 6, you know, 99 years in business, who knows.

These are treacherous 7 times for football clubs. When Doncaster Rovers emerged from non-league, its wage bill was 800,000 pounds. Now just over 4 years later, it is five million pounds, almost 60% of the club’s turnover 8.

As with so many others, the challenge for Doncaster Rovers and for their chairman John Ryan is for the club to sustain itself financially. Here at Queens Park Rangers 9 they have not just one, but three very wealthy individuals on board, but they seem suspiciously prudent 10.

Amit Bhatia represents those wealthy men, Flavio Briatore, Bernie Ecclestone and Lakshmi Mittal, each of whom have lost significant sums in recently months. So far even they have spent less than two million pounds on five players in the transfer window.

As I travelled with the team to its way matches and speak to a lot of different club boarders that, that owners are affected 11 and they are probably you know have less of appetite to spend than they did 12 or 18 months ago. And in some cases, they have no appetite at all.

Q.P.R. have premier 12 league ambitions but they are pledged to build in patiently. And football it would seem in general is slowly coming round to that view. When the January transfer window began in 2003, 33 million pounds was spent in the Premier League alone. Four years later that spending had doubled, but just one year later in 2008, that figure had almost tripled again to 175 million pounds. Unless Manchester City get their man, the figure this year is expected to be down. But at Q.P.R. the belief is that old habits die hard.

We may see a year or two of, you know may be less spending, but I think eventually we will go back to times when money is paid for quality, and that’s something that’s always happened in football.

Back in Doncaster, however, John Ryan believes recession could prove to be football’s savior.

In a strange way, might bring it back to reality. I think that’s a problem with football. It lives in this fantasy world.

Manchester City’s large ass 3 creates perhaps a dangerous illusion. Football has hit lean times. No question.

Ian Dovaston, Sky News.

I wouldn't touch somebody/something with a barge pole.  (British & Australian informal) also I wouldn't touch somebody/something with a ten-foot pole (American & Australian informal)

something that you say which means that you think someone or something is so bad that you do not want to be involved with them in any way If I were you, I wouldn't touch that property with a barge pole.