- Joined
- May 27, 2001
- Messages
- 20,896
- Reaction score
- 530
26 July 2007
Black Cat only wants the cream
By Brendan O’Brien
TODAY Ireland, tomorrow the world. Sunderland’s
attempt to crack the Irish market begins with the
first of three friendlies against Bohemians on
Saturday, but the Republic is just the first step in a
campaign to establish the club as a player on the
global market, according to Niall Quinn.
Other Premiership sides like Manchester United,
Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton have travelled to Asia
and the United States in an attempt to earn their
slice of the corporate dollar and Quinn has similar
plans for Sunderland.
The Premiership will be shown live in 207 countries
next season and, though Sunderland can count on a
passionate 49,000 home crowd, their chairman believes
they must develop a fan base far beyond the 20-mile
radius of the city.
“We are either going to remain small and in the
shadows of that or stick our chests out and see how we
can do,” Quinn said in Dublin yesterday. “Ireland is
very important to that.”
“This is our test case to see if the club can work in
another country. I don’t mean just revenue. I mean
supported, thought of as a good club, a good media
presence and doing things the right way.
“I want people in Cork, Galway and Dublin after they
have been to a match, or one of the marquees on the
history of the club, to come away saying ‘Jaysus,
don’t those boys do all that well?’ If we keep doing
that I’ll try to do it in Scandinavia and wherever.”
Quinn believes that small clubs will be gradually
squeezed out of the picture in the years to come. It
is that fear, he believes, which is feeding the
ever-inflating transfer market in which he and Roy
Keane are attempting to operate.
Quinn is adamant that Sunderland won’t be one of the
outfits shelling out millions on journeyman pros. All
the players signed by Keane so far this summer fit the
manager’s template of young players whose careers are
on the up. Another common theme is they all hail from
Ireland and Britain.
“That’s not exclusive,” said Quinn. “There might be a
player from abroad who fits the bill. This is Roy’s
department but we’re putting the structures into
Europe to see it our way and not the way of the
agents, because they are having an absolute beano at
the moment.
“They’re like estate agents that own half the property
or, in West Ham’s case, it looks like all the
property. The market will sort itself out. It always
does but we won’t go out and buy players who don’t
deserve to wear the Sunderland shirt.”
Quinn uses former player Kevin Ball as an example of
the player the Sunderland fans want to see at the
Stadium of Light. Club player of the year for seven
seasons, he was unheralded outside of Wearside, but
adored in it.
The no-nonsense approach is one they admire and, in
Keane, they have the market leader. Quinn points to
the episode when Keane ordered the team bus to depart
minus latecomers Anthony Stokes, Toby Hysen and Marton
Fulop as one that crystallised the fans’ faith in the
new regime.
“Before players used to drive up in their Ferraris and
if they won or lost on a Saturday it was a case of ‘ah
well’,” said Quinn, who believes Keane could well
eclipse his glittering playing career with his
achievements in the dugout.
“Roy raises the standard for everybody, be it the PR
people, the players, his coaches, even me. Everything
has to be right. Those are the standards we have now.
“There’s no obstacles in front of him now. There would
have been when he was a player and that was
frustrating. He has everybody lifting the bar. Roy can
be as good a manager as he was a player.”
Every journey starts with a single step and first on
the agenda is negotiating their return to the
Premiership with enough success to have a second stab
at it and then a third and so on.
But don’t ask the chairman to make any predictions for
the campaign to come. “Francis Lee took over Man City
when I was a player and I scratched my head when he
stood up on a soapbox and told everybody they were
going to be bigger than Man United in three years.
“The first mental note I took there, was that if I
ever took over a football club, that was the last
thing I would say. That was the rock he perished on.
Two years later they were two divisions lower.
Predictions are bulls**t.
“What’s important to me is the bank manager saying at
the end of the year ‘well done, you have another year
in the Premiership’ and see the TV money coming in.
“I know Roy Keane doesn’t talk about predictions but
if you caught him at a weak moment and said he could
finish one place above (relegation) I know he wouldn’t
be happy. That’s the nature of the guy.”
Black Cat only wants the cream
By Brendan O’Brien
TODAY Ireland, tomorrow the world. Sunderland’s
attempt to crack the Irish market begins with the
first of three friendlies against Bohemians on
Saturday, but the Republic is just the first step in a
campaign to establish the club as a player on the
global market, according to Niall Quinn.
Other Premiership sides like Manchester United,
Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton have travelled to Asia
and the United States in an attempt to earn their
slice of the corporate dollar and Quinn has similar
plans for Sunderland.
The Premiership will be shown live in 207 countries
next season and, though Sunderland can count on a
passionate 49,000 home crowd, their chairman believes
they must develop a fan base far beyond the 20-mile
radius of the city.
“We are either going to remain small and in the
shadows of that or stick our chests out and see how we
can do,” Quinn said in Dublin yesterday. “Ireland is
very important to that.”
“This is our test case to see if the club can work in
another country. I don’t mean just revenue. I mean
supported, thought of as a good club, a good media
presence and doing things the right way.
“I want people in Cork, Galway and Dublin after they
have been to a match, or one of the marquees on the
history of the club, to come away saying ‘Jaysus,
don’t those boys do all that well?’ If we keep doing
that I’ll try to do it in Scandinavia and wherever.”
Quinn believes that small clubs will be gradually
squeezed out of the picture in the years to come. It
is that fear, he believes, which is feeding the
ever-inflating transfer market in which he and Roy
Keane are attempting to operate.
Quinn is adamant that Sunderland won’t be one of the
outfits shelling out millions on journeyman pros. All
the players signed by Keane so far this summer fit the
manager’s template of young players whose careers are
on the up. Another common theme is they all hail from
Ireland and Britain.
“That’s not exclusive,” said Quinn. “There might be a
player from abroad who fits the bill. This is Roy’s
department but we’re putting the structures into
Europe to see it our way and not the way of the
agents, because they are having an absolute beano at
the moment.
“They’re like estate agents that own half the property
or, in West Ham’s case, it looks like all the
property. The market will sort itself out. It always
does but we won’t go out and buy players who don’t
deserve to wear the Sunderland shirt.”
Quinn uses former player Kevin Ball as an example of
the player the Sunderland fans want to see at the
Stadium of Light. Club player of the year for seven
seasons, he was unheralded outside of Wearside, but
adored in it.
The no-nonsense approach is one they admire and, in
Keane, they have the market leader. Quinn points to
the episode when Keane ordered the team bus to depart
minus latecomers Anthony Stokes, Toby Hysen and Marton
Fulop as one that crystallised the fans’ faith in the
new regime.
“Before players used to drive up in their Ferraris and
if they won or lost on a Saturday it was a case of ‘ah
well’,” said Quinn, who believes Keane could well
eclipse his glittering playing career with his
achievements in the dugout.
“Roy raises the standard for everybody, be it the PR
people, the players, his coaches, even me. Everything
has to be right. Those are the standards we have now.
“There’s no obstacles in front of him now. There would
have been when he was a player and that was
frustrating. He has everybody lifting the bar. Roy can
be as good a manager as he was a player.”
Every journey starts with a single step and first on
the agenda is negotiating their return to the
Premiership with enough success to have a second stab
at it and then a third and so on.
But don’t ask the chairman to make any predictions for
the campaign to come. “Francis Lee took over Man City
when I was a player and I scratched my head when he
stood up on a soapbox and told everybody they were
going to be bigger than Man United in three years.
“The first mental note I took there, was that if I
ever took over a football club, that was the last
thing I would say. That was the rock he perished on.
Two years later they were two divisions lower.
Predictions are bulls**t.
“What’s important to me is the bank manager saying at
the end of the year ‘well done, you have another year
in the Premiership’ and see the TV money coming in.
“I know Roy Keane doesn’t talk about predictions but
if you caught him at a weak moment and said he could
finish one place above (relegation) I know he wouldn’t
be happy. That’s the nature of the guy.”
