Why on earth buy a football club?
The quip goes that it is relatively easy to take out £1m by being the owner of a football club. All you have to do is first put in £2m. Since the English Premier League was formed in 1992, football finances have boomed to the extent that £1m is now small change. However, it is still the case that buying a football club is unlikely to yield much of a return. Despite the significant TV and other commercial revenues, football clubs in England's top flight still struggle to break even. This is ironic, given the goal of setting up the Premier League was to stabilise club finances. According to the latest Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance, only half the clubs in the Premier League made an operating profit in the last football season (that is, profits not including net transfer expenditure). In the lower divisions where revenues are a fraction of that of the Premier League, the situation is not pretty. In the Championship, which is the second tier of football in England, only three clubs made an operating profit last season and only five made a net profit once player trades are taken into account. English clubs are in high demand from foreign investors, with 11 of the 20 Premier League teams currently owned by foreigners. And 13 out of the 24 teams in the Championship are also foreign-owned. So, given the appalling financial returns, why do people buy football clubs? [...]
Kenyan Golf captains need to up their games
For a long time now, you the captains, the de facto club CEOs, have actively contributed to the decline in the quality of the sport in Kenya. These captains have neglected one of their key roles — that of promoting better and better standards of golf. Most captains nowadays are judged by how many golf competitions they organise, how many sponsors they can attract to their clubs. Although these tasks are important, they have advanced them at the expense of quality. This has sacrificed good quality golf at the altar of quantity golf and yellow tees. One of the ritual that should continue being upheld is the Monthly Mug, the most sacred of amateur golf competitions. This is a competition where Monthly Mug winners are accorded special stools at the bar, with their own special mugs, and celebrated and revered. Winning a Mug in any division used to be a must for any golfer, a ritual that should continue to get the nation’s golf sport back on track [...]