Yesterday Gordon brown waded into the debate about Football League clubs taking on too much debt.

In the past decade football clubs such as Leeds United sink down the leagues because of finicial mismanagement. Leeds had a business plan which depended upon Leeds qualifying for the European Championship to finance loans, only problem was Leeds United didn't qualify for the Champions league, defaulted of loans, had to sell their best players, went bust & because of all this before any of the fans knew it Leeds sank from the top flight of English football to the third tier. Leeds United seem to be now having something of a renaissance & beating Manchester United in the third round of the FA cup & there are now ironically financial worries concerning Manchester United.

Manchester united are probably the biggest sporting club brand in the world & have enjoyed the success expected of that lofty status. Thing is a few years back the Glazer family who had previously owned the NFL team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers bought Manchester United but did it on credit totally about £500m. Macolm Glazer & family have taken the biggest football club in the world who were making the biggest profits of any competitive sporting club to the clu sports club with the biggest debt. Manchester unit might be the biggest porting club in the world but it now has a £700m debt as I write this & it's a debt accumulating interest & a debt that needs servicing, yes Manchester United might be a massive brand 7 many pundits think Man U will weather any storm on being able to trade upon that brand, but I'm personally not sure, that's a massive debt to serrvice for what is essentially a sports club & there's only so much manchester United can trade on the Man u brand.

Though on the pitch Manchester aren't having best of seasons, they're still near the top of the Premiership & will qualify for Europe. Portsmouth F.C though are at the foot of the English premiership currently & no doubt going to be relegated, of course the finicial troubles off the pitch that have hit the headlines. Portsmouth F.C are basically in finicial meltdown, it appears the club owes just about everybody other then myself money & the club is to face a winding up petition in the courts next month. This is a club that only a couple of season ago won the FA Cup & now could be going out of business.

Liverpool F.C, a club that has had great history when its come to European club competition, but a club which could do a Leeds United. A few years back like with Manchester United the club was bought by American business men & like with manchester United the club was bought with debt. Last year there was a 'restructuring' of Liverpool's debt & now on the pitch the team are struggling to qualify for the champions league, money from which Liverpool probably need to service debt. If a club the size of Leeds can sink then so can Liverpool.

Thing is this finicial mismangerment of football league clubs is nothing new, I remember ITV Digital! The business plan for ITV Digital makes the Leeds business plan of 10 years ago look like a sure thing. ITV one of the major commercial broadcasters on terrestrial television, set up iTV digital as a rival to the BBC's partnership with Freeview & other digital providers. They assumed that people would buy the digital box bot to watch top flight football but second, third & fourth tier football. I know some pretty football mad people but none would spend over a £150 on a digital box so they can watch  second rate football. Obviously ITV thought that people would as they had done with the satelite broadcaster SKY when they purchased the rights to televise top flight football (the Premiership) back in the early 90s. Yeah well Sky wasn't just sold on live football but sure no denying that the number of Sky customers did go up after they purchased the live rights to televise Premiership mastches, because people are willing to pay to watch top flight football, not opay over the odds to watch second rate football. Because ITV Digital thought people would buy their digital boxes to watch second rate football they paid well over the odds for the rights to broadcast second rate football & well when they went bust, a lot of the clubs that where depending on the television money to plug oles in their budgetds struggled or sanked. There's a saying about eggs hatching & chickens which comes to mind.

Some libertarians might say its no business of government to be telling a sports club how to run its affairs & I'd be in complete agreement, but Gordon Brown is right too many clubs have been bought with leverage & are saddled with too much debt. But have no fear libertarians there's not going to be any government bailourts for footie clubs.

Though Gordon is right, he's also a damn hypocrite, because let us not foreget he's the prime minister who's been in charge of a government with now the greatest amount of debt then any previous British government. Who got this country into so much debt, who was ultimately responsible....Gordon Brown. Its reckoned by 1013 the national debt of this country will rise to 93% of national GDP, If you were paying over 90% of your income to service a credit card debt you'd be thinking of declaring yourself bankcrupted. Before Gordon starts lecturing to football clubs about getting into debt maybe he should take a look at the state of ther government's fininces & finicial mess he's got us all into.