Wenger's warning likely to fall on deaf ears

LONDON, Dec 15 (Reuters) A warning by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger that foreign investment could jeopardise the future of English clubs is likely to fall on deaf ears in the Premier League.

The Frenchman's reservations about the loss of tradition in clubs founded in the 19th century, and the distortions in the transfer market caused by the arrival of foreign billionaires are easy to understand.

These new investors, the Gunners boss feels, may not have the long-term interests of the clubs at heart but be more motivated by the opportunity to make a quick profit.

Wenger himself helped changed traditional English preconceptions about diet and training routines when he moved to England a decade ago and has long been accepted as one overseas import to have had a generally positive influence on the English game.

But when even he says that a club as established, rich and successful as Arsenal could struggle to win major honours in the future if they could not compete financially with clubs benefiting from huge foreign investment, then the warning signs should be heeded.

Football clubs were once a vehicle for wealthy local businessmen to win friends and lose money; exchanging status in the town and the stadium for a somewhat lighter wallet.

Like rattles, rosettes and halftime results given on alphabet billboards at the side of the pitch, such patronage now looks consigned to a bygone era.

ROVERS RETURN In recent times the late Jack Walker was a notable exception.

A Blackburn Rovers fan, since a boy he later spent much of his personal fortune built up from his involvement in the steel industry to fund their transformation from a long lost sleeping giant in the lower reaches of the league to become English champions in 1995.

However, the football business has changed dramatically in the decade or so since then.

Chelsea were a good league side at the turn of the millennium, but were never strong enough in depth or consistent enough to challenge the Manchester United-Arsenal duopoly.

They were also 80 million pounds (7.3 million) in debt.

The 2003 takeover by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich transformed Chelsea who have now won the last two titles and can offer wages and transfer fees to attract the best players in the world to a re-built Stamford Bridge. When the founding family roots of West Ham were torn out by the sale last month to an Icelandic consortium, Upton Park fans gave new chairman Eggert Magnusson a warm welcome.

Tradition is nice enough. But seen from the pork pie end of the game, a foreign investor willing to spend money on the ground, team and bank balance counts for a great deal more.

LIVERPOOL NEXT? Liverpool are likely to become the next club to fall under foreign ownership after Dubai International Capital (DIC) expressed its interest in an investment which British newspapers have put at 450 million pounds.

Newcastle United, the symbolic heart of ''Geordieland'' in the North East could well follow soon.

But fans are unlikely to revolt.

Whether or not Sameer al-Ansari, DIC's chief executive, knows the words to ''My Liverpool Home'' or ''Ferry 'Cross the Mersey'' will not matter much to the Kopites if there is the prospect of a new 60,000-seater stadium and a large fund for Rafael Benitez to spend in the transfer market.

Ansari, a Liverpool fan who was educated in England, leads a state-owned agency which in theory has the financial resources to make even Chelsea look like paupers.

''It's definitely not about becoming a rich man's plaything,'' Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry in a column on the club's Website this week.

''It's about taking Liverpool FC to the next level and securing the future of the club for the next hundred years.'' Liverpool's talismanic captain Steven Gerrard, a Merseysider born and bred, is already preparing the ground with the Anfield faithful, saying that fans ''have got every right to be excited''.

HUGE DEBTS Even hostility from a section of the fan base can be absorbed by a new investor.

A campaign against Malcolm Glazer did not prevent the American tycoon from buying Manchester United in 2005 and the expanded Old Trafford is still selling out with 76,000 seats available.

''Love United, Hate Glazer'' stickers are still visible near their ground. But the substantial debts levered on to the club by the 790 million pound buyout is largely forgotten at the moment because United are top of the table.

Whether fans are happy or not, the government will not interfere in the issue of club ownership.

Sports minister Richard Caborn made it clear in a recent interview with Reuters that it is how well clubs are run, not the nationality of their owners, that counts.

With a substantial hike in the Premier League television rights starting in 2007-08, English clubs will continue to be an attractive investment.

And someone, somewhere, in the sleek offices of a financial institution, is probably burning the midnight oil right now, working out just how much to offer for Arsenal.

REUTERS