Liverpool FC Forum

skatesy wrote:Look at those pictures of the stadium. Looks like the original outline. This makes me happy 

There you go Saint , SHINY indeed mate.

Igor Zidane wrote:

heimdall wrote:

stmichael wrote:

heimdall wrote:Oh FFS, we are not Leeds, they were idiots who spent way more money than they could ever hope to recoup, their banks should never have allowed it. We are a much bigger club with far more stable revenue, we will not go down like Leeds. This refinancing is actually not so bad although I would stil prefer to see a takieover by DIC, although them having to sell assets to be able to afford us is a bit worrying. 

You need start living in the real world mate. Put simply, it's a real threat if we don't start performing on the pitch.

People will say that the likes of Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday are big clubs and it was shocking to see them slide so much, but we're Liverpool - the most successful british club of all time. If we ended up imploding it would just be incredible, considering the size of our fanbase and the potential of the club.

It would really interest me to see how many of the "supporters" would actually stick with us if we did end up like Leeds. They had an average capacity of about 40,000 when O'Leary was there, and now it's something like 25,000.

You guys really are a depressing bunch of know it alls, explain to me please, "in the real world", why we would go into receivership if we failed to make the champions league one season. Are Manure also on the same tightrope? If not why not?

Don't kid yourself mate ,Man utd would be in serious sh!t if they didn't make the cl . They made a profit of £49million last year and £40million of that had to go to the interest payment on there loan.

puroresu wrote:

inglis5 wrote:I couldn't find this posted anywhere else, interesting reading -

"Why Liverpool fans are wrong to suck up to DIC
DIC is part of one of the world's most undemocratic regimes - does the Kop really want that on its conscience?
James MontagueJanuary 25, 2008 11:05 AM
As Liverpool stuttered to an unconvincing draw with Aston Villa on Monday night, their fans held banners proclaiming 'Yanks Out, Dubai In', sang songs attacking Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and all-but-begged Dubai International Capital to rescue the club's soul. To no avail: Hicks and Gillett are about to secure a £350m loan to refinance their takeover, and the prospect of DIC taking over at Anfield now seems remote. To most Liverpool fans, this week's developments are a disaster. But perhaps they should be seen as a blessing. Because while DIC might be more wealthy than Hicks and Gillett, they carry a lot more baggage too.

DIC is the investment arm of Dubai Holding, a wholly government-owned company that has interests in everything from logistics to island building. And by government-owned, we mean almost solely owned by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the absolute ruler of Dubai, vice-president of the UAE and one of the richest men in the world. Which is the problem. The ethical probity of who buys your football club has been brought in to sharp focus by Thaksin Shinawatra's capture of Manchester City. And when you start to strip away at Dubai's gleaming façade and phenomenal economic growth, one fact glares out: if DIC bought Liverpool, the club would effectively be owned by a dictator. A benign dictator, but a dictator nonetheless.

I'll come clean up front. I have a special affection for Dubai, having lived there for 2½ years, writing for Time Out magazine. And a good time it was too. The sun shone, wages were tax-free, life was good. But soon it became clear that the protestations that Dubai was a liberal, free enclave in the Middle East weren't all that they were cracked up to be. Articles were regularly censored or pulled so that they didn't upset the Sheikh. "You can move around the edges," one editor told me. "But you cannot question Sheikh Mohammad's vision for Dubai".

One piece on Dubai World's purchase of P&O - another Sheikh Mo funded initiative that caused a political storm in the US - almost got me the sack. But that's the problem when you live under a system where one man, ultimately, has absolute power and can take your business off you at a moment's notice: everyone walks on eggs shells to avoid antagonising him.

In fact the UAE is one of the most undemocratic countries in the world, in the same bracket as Cuba and North Korea. Dubai makes up one of seven Emirates ruled by their own royal families. Limited elections were held recently but they were for the largely meaningless Federal National Council and only covered 1% of the 800,000 strong national population. The last index of democracy by the Economist placed the UAE 150th out of 167, two places below that paragon of democratic virtues, Zimbabwe.

Still, for the lack of democracy, you have the Dubai economic miracle to point to. Sheikh Mohammed must take enormous credit for transforming a sleepy little pearling port into one of the richest patches of land on the planet in a few decades. The problem is that Dubai's mega-structures and glitzy, eye-catching projects are built on the backs of an army of grossly exploited migrant workers. Allegations of non-payment of wages, passport confiscations, physical abuse, non-existent healthcare coverage, awful pay and appalling health and safety are rife among the UAE's half-a-million construction workers.

I saw the conditions first hand in the summer of 2006. In a camp on the outskirts of Dubai, a few minutes' drive from the gleaming opulence of the Burj Al Arab hotel, construction workers building the Dubai Mall (the largest and most expensive mall in the world) at the Burj Dubai site (the tallest and most expensive building in the world), sat 10, 15, 20 to a room. Most had come from the Punjab and earned less than £75 a month for back-breaking work in up to 50-degree heat, six days a week. Raw sewage leaked from overhead pipes into the filthy communal bathroom and kitchen. One Indian man, with tears in his eyes, told me he was suicidal because he couldn't return home. He'd taken out a loan against his family's land back home to pay for his visa, as most of these men had done. If he went home, his family would be homeless. The employers knew this, he said, and drove down wages accordingly.

Conditions had got so bad that riots began to break out on the site and Human Rights Watch published a scathing report on labour abuse in the Emirate. "One of the world's largest construction booms is feeding off of workers in Dubai, but they're treated as less than human," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North African director at HRW. "It's no surprise that some workers have started rioting in protest. What's surprising is that the government of the UAE is doing nothing to solve the problem."

A draft labour law was introduced last year but according to HRW it is just a drop in the ocean and key areas, like the right to unionise, have been ignored. Violators of labour laws are rarely punished in any case due to insufficient monitoring, although the negative publicity might now be getting through to the very top. "Sheikh Mohammed is embarrassed by the criticism that the labour issues have drawn," Nicholas Labuschagne, an executive at Dubai Holding, told the US magazine Architectural Record. "We're hoping we can show some very significant progress within the next six months."

But by far the most disturbing story emerged at the beginning of last year. Sheikh Mohammed and his brother, along with others, were served with a class action lawsuit in Miami for their part in the alleged abuse of underage child camel jockeys. (The case was dismissed on the technical ground that the US courts did not have the jurisdiction to try it). The Sheikh is well known in horse racing circles. His Godolphin stables in Dubai are world famous and he hosts the Dubai World Cup, the world's richest horse race every year. But his penchant for camel racing is less well known. According to the Ansar Burney Trust, a charity that brought the issue to the world's attention, boys as young as four were kidnapped in their thousands from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan and forced to ride in camel races. The lighter the jockeys, the better. So the boys were systematically starved and beaten. Others, it is alleged, were raped or beaten to death and buried in a shallow unmarked grave in the desert.

Camel racing in the UAE is huge business, with the top camels changing hands for millions of dollars, but the revelations of the boys' conditions forced some action. Child jockeys were banned and replaced with robots. But according to the Ansar Burney Trust, thousands of young boys are still unaccounted for and unborn children are smuggled into the UAE and Qatar to breed the next generation of jockeys.

You can poke holes in anyone's character given a long enough stick. But the vociferous calls from the Anfield Kop for a Dubai-led rescue mission smack more of desperation than a desire to reconnect with the club's core values. Hicks and Gillett may have made some stupid mistakes, but do they really compare that badly to an owner tainted by controversy and who apparently has little interest in football, only in furthering the cause of Brand Dubai? Sometimes, it's better the devil you know."

I, like everyone else, have been horrified by recent events but I think this obsession with DIC is unhealthy. I seriously doubt if things would be any different... I've said it before, the world of football has changed, it's now big business, we may not like it but times are changing and Liverpool must change with them.

Its actually very true.  Dubai and the UAE is no different to the rest of the Arab world and most of the Islamic World.  Dubai is ruled by a wealthy dictator who is propped up by the West.  While the West seems to paint Dubai as a great example to the rest of the Islamic World and its economic model as a blueprint for the Muslim world in reality this economic model is no different to the capitalist model promoted by the west which has brought nothing but misery to millions world over.  Dubai is nothing but a rich mans playground where the regime continues to do anything to keep its rich visitors happy. Nightclubs, Bars, alcohol drugs all easily available in Dubai.   The local man in the street does not see this amazing so called wealth which is generated.  Like the article says the regime has allowed the people to think of non arabs as inferior.  The gulf state arabs seem to think that certain jobs are below them and thats why dubai has so many migrant workers.  Muslim or not they are seemed as a lower class and are housed in the worst accommodation and paid less.  However this is all ok to the West does not mind dictators as long as they are on the west's side and as long as they are investing the wealth in Western countries.  Its really a sad state of affairs but god willing the Caliphate will return soon and the dubai u see today will be no more.

   

LFC2007 wrote:

Igor Zidane wrote:

heimdall wrote:

stmichael wrote:

heimdall wrote:Oh FFS, we are not Leeds, they were idiots who spent way more money than they could ever hope to recoup, their banks should never have allowed it. We are a much bigger club with far more stable revenue, we will not go down like Leeds. This refinancing is actually not so bad although I would stil prefer to see a takieover by DIC, although them having to sell assets to be able to afford us is a bit worrying. 

You need start living in the real world mate. Put simply, it's a real threat if we don't start performing on the pitch.

People will say that the likes of Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday are big clubs and it was shocking to see them slide so much, but we're Liverpool - the most successful british club of all time. If we ended up imploding it would just be incredible, considering the size of our fanbase and the potential of the club.

It would really interest me to see how many of the "supporters" would actually stick with us if we did end up like Leeds. They had an average capacity of about 40,000 when O'Leary was there, and now it's something like 25,000.

You guys really are a depressing bunch of know it alls, explain to me please, "in the real world", why we would go into receivership if we failed to make the champions league one season. Are Manure also on the same tightrope? If not why not?

Don't kid yourself mate ,Man utd would be in serious sh!t if they didn't make the cl . They made a profit of £49million last year and £40million of that had to go to the interest payment on there loan.

Their pre-tax profits were in the region of £56m, i.e. after interest payments.

The Manhattan Project wrote:Trying to get H/G out is pointless now.

H/G need to build the stadium and provide for new players.

Rafa needs to get it sorted on the pitch.

The fans need to cheer on the team.

The Manhattan Project wrote:Trying to get H/G out is pointless now.

H/G need to build the stadium and provide for new players.

Rafa needs to get it sorted on the pitch.

The fans need to cheer on the team.

The Yanks are counting on 40,000 fans like you - willing to buy the and let them ruin our club. And I don't need to put my point in bold to make it clear. 

TwelthMan wrote:

The Manhattan Project wrote:Trying to get H/G out is pointless now.

H/G need to build the stadium and provide for new players.

Rafa needs to get it sorted on the pitch.

The fans need to cheer on the team.

The Yanks are counting on 40,000 fans like you - willing to buy the and let them ruin our club. And I don't need to put my point in bold to make it clear. 

The Manhattan Project wrote:It's not going to work.

Everyone needs to pull together. H/G need to support the manager, Rafa needs to bang the players heads together to convince them to actually win games rather than drawing them, and the fans need to support the club and players.

The "Let's Get H/G Out" protest fizzled at the Villa game. A few banners and little else.

It's time to move on.