How long does it take for a Football Club to fail

[tasslehoff]

Genuine question and I am not being bitter here.

I am just keen to understand the effect of populist football fans and the possible wayning success of a club.

I will use Liverpool as an example but we could arguably use anyone that is in a similar situation.

There is a % obviously that support a club as it’s their local club and their Dad does etc, however I think it’s a given fact that a % (large or otherwise) will have and still follow Liverpool because of their success.

With the exception of the Sky money, a football club is successful based on it’s successes (Man City / Chelsea being the notable exceptions)

The question is, How long does it take a Previously successful football club to become a “normalâ€￾ regional football club. How long does it take the fair weather fans to migrate, for the ground not to be sold out every week if, you are Mid-table or worse.

It’s really interesting to think, that in many ways it’s a snowball effect, less revenue = less chance of investment, less success on the field = less cash and so on.

Are there examples of this in the past, not necessarily the complete finical meltdowns and relegations etc?

 

[davek]

Not sure about meltdown of a huge club to mid-table mediocrity...yet. But there's certainly slippage of Liverpool to a tier below the elite, that's for certain. The evidence is right there in their commericial muscle now - that Adidas snub was monumental in symbolic terms, and Carlsberg's failure to continue sponsorship too. And they face even more stiff competition with the City star rising to hold onto the peripheral or 'flaneur' followers in far flung places...something that'll be magnified in fact for all English clubs now that the Bundesliga is begining to make an impact in south east Asia.

Added to that you have the present Liverpool owners who really only want to get to a point where they can sell that lot on with a huge mark up and without going through the messy business of improving infrastructure for Liverpool, and it all adds up to a club hurtling toward the oblivion you outline.