Hypothetically Speaking

Just imagine some industry which attracts two diverse set of investors, say Group A and Group B (lets not affix any nationalities to them at this time). Group A are financial investors, typically aggregated through a hedge fund and come with a short to medium term horizon, their approach is to find an investment vehicle, ideally a cash cow which is stagnating or hasn't yet reached its maximum commercial potential, put in as little capital as possible and leverage the company with debt, grow revenues, take cash out through dividends and then make a killing in valuation after a point exit. They aren't necessarily structured to be able to pump in money into the business since their original investments are heavily dependent on lenders and their investment horizon is typically short to medium term. These investors usually have a basket of investments and tend to do very well even if some of their investments don't turn out to be profitable.

Group B are long term players.  They are there to  make money too but their approach is radically different, in the sense that they are not very worried about investing heavily in a small or a new company in an emerging industry and they back themselves to build it up to a level where it is world class. There is risk here that their investments can go bad too but they're backed by substantial expertise and a long term plan. And if things go wrong they have the resources to be able to course correct. Their typical approach is to have a sustained investment phase where they build capacity, quality which eventually leads to market share, revenues and valuation.

Add to the mix a third group, say Group C. They have no skin in the game, they own nothing. They're politicians/professional managers who are masters of establishing control over companies where the ownership is fragmented in such tiny pieces that no owner has any semblance of control. They may be career politicians or senior management (employees) of allied businesses to this industry. They thrive on faction politics and have a limited time at the helm no skin in the game. They sit at the big table by virtue of their position and not necessarily their wealth. They have no ability to financially impact their companies but represent their own ambitions or that of their employer.

While there may be merits and demerits to all three sets of investors. Which set of investors benefit the underlying industry the most? Group A bringing low investments and are looking to effectively flip the company for a profit?  Group C whith no skin in the game? Or the guys who are in it for the long term and are ready to invest for the future? 

Lets just say that in an industry dominated by Group A and C could nacent successes of Group B be a big threat? Now what would they (A & C) do if they had the ability to write the rules of engagement? What if they had a control of the regulatory bodies? What if they had a control of the media and hence the narrative? What would the concept of "fairplay" mean to them?

Would they criminalise the practice of loading a company to its brim with debt or the practice of sustained investments? Would they like a level playing field for smaller competition to thrive and have a bigger share of the pie? What would they outlaw?

How long would companies survive under their management? Does the industry itself have a future?

Sometimes I wonder about these questions...and frankly so should you.

The White Crow of European Football

 So I saw a white crow once. It was there, looking nonchalant on a parapet wall somewhere in New South Wales, Australia. It looked like a crow, it even caw-ed like a crow but my brain couldn't process it. How? Was my mind playing tricks? Was this some sort of a bird that looked like a crow? Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Why aren't people around as fascinated by it? Was this a rare albino? 

Where I come from "a white crow flying upside down" was a metaphor for the ultimate fib. Because, well, crows were black (duh) and they don't fly upside down. 33 years of conditioning had led me up to that point where I was gobsmacked. Mind you we were in a picturesque location and everyone else was taking in the beauty of what surrounded us but all I had eyes for was that damned bird in front of me. Pretend crow, my mind said. Can't be real. 

I am always reminded of this incident in my life whenever I enocounter an article in the European press about Manchester City that talks about "state ownership" or "sportswashing" or "bottomless pit of money"  or "not here for the love of football or for profit" or a narrative about fake commercial revenues. Because it reminds me of my conditioning that didn't allow me to believe what I was seeing.

The narrative that a large part of the world sees is that that of a prince from the middle east, a football fan and a canny businessman, who bought Manchester City in 2008 and built it into a franchise that is known for eye-catching football and has become a global football conglomerate. A textbook case of a longterm plan and impeccable execution. If this was from any other industry (and any other promoter) City's story would be taught in the Ivy league business schools as a massive success story.

I feel that there is a lot to learn from the City model from establishing a great team of executives with a shared vision, investment in long term infrastructure, attracting the right football personnel, ensuring that they connect strongly with the City brand so the club is not a victim to the famous revolving doors that are the transfer windows. My favourite aspect of City's blueprint is the City football academy (CFA). At a time when most big clubs were shirking away from spending money on their academy and just relying on attracting good players from smaller clubs, CFG invested a whopping $300 Mn on their academy. Most successful businesspeople know that quality sourcing is always the secret of any profitable enterprise and City had put that idea in place in football. Within a few years the academy has not just churned out stars like Foden, Delap, Angelino, Garcia etc but has also been a strong source of revenue for the club. This way City has the pick of the top talent in the best football academy in the world and has a steady revenue stream through player sales. So simple and effective that you'd wonder why others didn't replicate City's investments.

But if you were a regular consumer of football news from The Guardian or The New York Times or The Independant or Der Speigel or even the Associated Press, you would have a very different perspective of Manchester City. You are rather bound to think that it's a "Sportswashing project", it's "state-owned" by one of the "worst human rights abusing nations in the world" who can just spend their way to success and no one else can compete against them and worst of all "Sheikh Mansour is really just a rubberstamp he isn't smart enough". Thats what the news media tells you with every article or tweet. But are these allegations aren't grounded in reality? What evidence has been provided for these allegations? Is evidence required at all? 

For me, the allegations sound incredibly convoluted and strange. For instance, if PSG and Newcastle United could be bought quite easily by Soverign wealth funds, why would City be bought by an individual as a proxy for a state? And which state is going to buy a club to "Sportswash" their reputation through a hidden ownership structure? I mean the whole purpose is defeated isn't it? The people behind such a crazy plan have to be incredibly dumb, shouldn't they? 

The Russia World Cup was clearly a sportswashing project, it aimed to show Russia as a global superpower economy, with Putin strutting front and center and being fawned by admiring media from both home and abroad (lookin at you, Barney Ronay). It was aimed to showcase a very different Russia from the authoritarian state that it was perceived to be and it worked. Because the world began to overlook the invasion of Crimea and the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight 17 (just a month before the World Cup a group of independant investigators concluded that Russia was behind the 2014 Malaysia Airlines incident where 298 people died). All these atrocities wiped from public memory. Also wiped out were the ghastly treatment of the LGBT community under Putin's Russia.

So what has Abu Dhabi washed? What image has Abu Dhabi projected in the last 14 years of City ownership? I honestly don't know.

As far as human rights go, lets face it there is a lot of improvement to be done in recognising migrant worker rights across the globe. Workers from Asia and Africa are treated very poorly and I respect organisations like the ILO who are working on ground to improve the situation. UAE is also involved in two wars the one in Libya and the one in Yemen. Both brutal. Both supported and partnered by the US and the UK. I dearly wish for a peaceful and a more equitable world but I also realise that its far from it and unless there is a direct evidence of abuse by Shiekh Mansour (of which there has been no whisper even) how is it even relevant from the perspective of Manchester City? 

So back to the white crow, multiple researches have suggested that western world has had a long history of stereotyping of the rest of the world. Generations have been brought up with the notion that people from the middle east are violent, untrustworthy, abusive to women, they've lucked out because of their oil reserves & not hardworking or smart.  There is also a habit of seeing the whole region as a homogenous group sharing similar characteristics. Anyone who has travelled there or read about the middle east in any length would know that these stereotypes are far from reality. UAE has been one of the countries which has been a leader in effecting these social changes. For instance with regards to women's rights, the percentage of secondary school education for women stands at 78.8% vs 82% for the UK, Teen pregnancies are 6.5/1000 births as compared to 13.4 in the UK. 61% of the government staff are women and the UN gender inequality index ranks UAE at 35 in the world, far higher than most of its regional peers. (None of it relevant as far as City goes but offered to rebut the notion that this is some sort of hell on earth as projected)

In the UK, Sheikh Mansour is less popularly known as the person who bailed out Barclays Bank (which has a 16% market share of the overall banking business in the UK) during the heights of the financial crisis in 2008 and had made a handsome profit on the transaction. This is clearly not a simpleton who has lucked out due to oil and is a proxy for his elder brother (like you would assume if you read anything by Nicholas McGeehan). For Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Manchester City is probably one of the smallest investments he handles and more of a pet project than anything else. 

City's financials has most heavily scrutinised by the UEFA given the threat they pose to the cartel clubs and their commercial tie ups as a marquee name with ownership from the middle east is obviously going to be heavily concentrated in the region. Its natural. Plus Man City has become a profitable club over the last 4/5 years and had a lower net transfer spend compared to their regional rivals such as Manchester United.

I am sure that I am selective in the facts that I've shown, that's my bias towards City at work and I am sure that most journalists and rival fans who read it must be shaking your head at the above facts, and that, is your bias at work.

As an outsider to the European echo chamber, I have yet to see a cogent argument with facts and figures about any of the criticism that City regularly face (and may I say intensely face just before a Liverpool game) and most of the coverage appears to reinforce an instrinsic fear/wariness linked to a region, which is why I am convinced that its xenophobia. Maybe these journalists and opposing fans realise it, I am sure some of them do, but I think most of them are like me gawping at that white crow, not being able to process what their eyes can see and trying to find answers in their conditioned minds. 

The end. Let me know what you think :-)

(Apologies for any grammatical errors, I haven't had the time to edit)

Human Rights - A Rant

The last 3 years has been a journey where I've tried to understand the visceral hate that the Football media has had towards Manchester City and its owner (strictly singular). This I used to believe was a corporate PR war, it may well be, run by cartel clubs who have been struggling to compete with City's efficiency on and off the field. 

The effectiveness of this campaign always made me doubt myself and my research many times. Am I looking at it as a fan? Am I cherry picking facts? Am I seeing greys where the actual reality is black and white? While there may be evidence for some or all of it, I've also realised the deeply fractured nature which seperates how the world sees atrocities and abuse. That weighs on my mind and that drives my urge to respond to hypocrisy of many journalists and fans of other clubs.

I totally get the need to protest capital punishment that Saudi Arabia meted out to it's prisoners a few days ago, I get the need to protest the horrors of the Yemen war or the Libyan war. But it is also important to note the reasons for these wars (and not the atrocities of  war effort itself, there is no justifying that) is an existential one for these countries. The Arab Spring movement in the middle east 11 years ago was in large parts to bring in more conservative Islamist regimes in power. But the fact that these movements are focussed on stopping the modernisation of the Middle East is something that one never reads about.

In 2015, a series of US aeriel bombing raids decimated a hospital in Kunduz, this hospital was run by Médecins Sans Frontières. Days prior to the attack MSF had clearly given accurate location of the hospital to the US authorities. The US helicopter gunships continued to bombthe hospital for a while half an hour after the US authorities received an SOS phone call from the MSF. 42 people died and 30 were injured. Now attacking a hospital is in direct contravention to the Geneva convention hence NATO and other bodies said that they are investigating this attack but all of those haven't turned up with no findings, President Barack Obama apologied for the attack and called it a mistake. The US officials claimed (and this claim was widely carried in the news outlets) that they were targeting terrorists holed up inside the hospital (after initially claiming that this was collateral damage), this infact is a public admission of a war crime. Reading this made me realise that wars are portrayed in different ways. The unjustifiable can be justified basis who does it.

What this does is it creates an image of two distinct parts of the world, one a cultured civilised and peaceful world and the other run by primitive barbarians who are out of control .  This perception is revealed by the cognitive dissonance that many feel when one highlights the realities of the countries in the Middle East. 

Another clear example of this dissonance is in the writings of Barney Ronay of The Guardian He  writes in 2018 about the Russia World Cup  in an article titled "How Absurd to Boycott World Cup when Russia is so bound up to our economy" where he dismisses the Human Rights abuse in Russia with "No nation has a monopoly on acts of brutality, which history suggests are pretty evenly shared around". A practical take for sure.  But when you consider his numerous articles regarding UAE and Manchester City, he calls the club and it's ownership as "deliberate and systemic, a macro-level manipulation of sport's status as the greatest shared global spectacle" and as "the way sports is used to launder reputation, to gloss a human rights record, to wash a little blood away". Neither has he or The Guardian addressed this seemingly hypocritic postions nor have they rectified the inaccuracate portrayal. (City isn't owned by a state, UAE has a much larger trade relationship with UK than Russia etc).

Let's face it, war is always the worst option to settle any issue. It only destroys lives of many, destabilises economies and ends up creating political vacuum and anarchy. So if so many countries are actively engaged in war and war crimes then tell me again who is morally superior to whom? But the approach by journalists and some of these Human Rights activists appears open ended and not to be designed to remedy the wrongs or to improve the morality of goverments in the middle east. Instead it looks like a way to score political points (Why else would someone back the right wing Al Islah in the UAE?) and to use tragedy as a way of achieving private goals. 

I mean if your objective was to ensure that prisoners are treated well or to ensure humanitarian assistance is provided to those in a war zone, you would protest, lobby, collaborate and work on measurable outcomes. I have yet to see any of this in action either by the media or their human rights "experts" they seem to rely on.

And that moral superiority. Now for anyone living in Europe or America may think they live in a modern utopia but the sheer magnitude of atrocities committed on their behalf by their governments in the past, near past and why even right this minute, is actually quite staggering.

Half a million people dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, the well documented torture of men women and children in so many locations, the ravaging of natural resources of the middle east and Africa, leaving their people in abject poverty are the daily realities of life for over a hundred years.

None of the above crimes and the criminals involved have been brought to justice. With the wave of a magic wand the horrors inflicted by Belgium in Congo have been erased from public memory, today Belgium is one of the world's leading advocates of human rights. What of its own history? What has that country done to try and rectify the gross injustice? Even today you could get chocolates shaped like hands in Belgium, which most don't know is inspired by their policy of cutting hands of the Congolese people, millions of them. I don't know about you but that disgusts me.

There are very few countries that can lay claim to any kind of a moral highground that passes scrutiny. Just read up about what your country has done to its neighbours or its own minorities and the sharp glare of reality will make you flinch.

So, every country is bad. What now? That maybe the question. My view is that if we do not acknowledge our own gross inequities how can we begin to right the wrongs elsewhere? So, fight for the rights of the migrant workers, but do it with the intention to make their lives better, not to gain political or PR mileage through their suffering. Protest the war in Yemen or Ukraine with all your heart and mind but also do not neglect those fleeing the war from Syria or Palestine or China. Look at how ravaged African nations are because their lives have been upended to make the lives in the Western world better. 

No one comes out of this smelling of roses. And that is important to acknowledge because without that the narrative justifies injustices faced by many in the hands of these so called morally superior countries and turn a blind eye to their suffering. 

Or acknowledge that your reasons to attack a football club owned by a Middle Eastern prince is for political or partisan reasons and human rights is just a means to an end. 

Apologies for the rant it's been building up in my heart and i needed an outlet to let it out. 

A New Hope

I'm trying this format out for a change. Hopefully from a place where I'm not stalked everyday by some sweet old lady (and her two sidekicks) who cannot seem to let go. 

This blog isn't meant to be serious but some light-hearted writing from my phone. So be kind.

Let's get the show on the road!