One of the first players I recognized in England was Ian Rush in the eighties. A player who used to hide in the shadows of the match for 89 minutes and 59 seconds giving the 21 players on the field the chance to showcase; then before the referee’s final whistle hammers the players’ eardrums, Rush rush and strike. He was my father’s favorite and I remember my father ignoring all the match scenario and only waiting for the Rush moment that change the game. The player’s quality made that appreciation infectious. 

I can’t say I was a Liverpool fan at any time -which make this article an opinion of an outsider rather a judgment of an expert. But from Ian Rush to “you’ll never walk alone” to the uniquely refreshing red jersey and the culture surrounding the club and the city, from the Anfield , to The Beatles leads any observer and football follower to respect this amazing club in world football. 

The early nineties witnessed the birth of the English premier league. The new competition was structured to meet two interrelated needs: Competition and financing. Yet, handing the competition management to the division clubs’ corporation prevented the ability of the football Association to tune the development process and maintain stability - that’s if we assume that they would have had enough vision and awareness in that matter. The result was an inflated drive to create competitive clubs regardless of any club resources and abilities to meet the challenges of competing to win the title or reach the European competitions. The traditional strategy of creating a club good enough to survive in the first division for few seasons needed to build a more competitive club was not appropriate anymore. The possibility of getting relegated for a season to enhance the team building and prepare a successful comeback became an unacceptable nightmare, because the huge return in the Premier division makes it almost impossible for any club that relegates to catch up later on. 

If your club’s financial returns were not sufficient to meet the competition demands, you had one of three options: Loans, Acquisition, or death. None of the English clubs proved suicidal enough to avoid barking after destructive loans or strip to tempt wealthy buyers. The only flag up the hill was the competitiveness needs regardless of the price paid, or lack of fulfilling. 

Football clubs became too fragile to acquisitions that a clash on a horse between an owner and a coach led to selling the wealthiest club in the Premier league to a buyer who paid the price demanded through taking loans, much of which were secured against the club's assets. In other words, a buyer who was financially poorer than Manchester United, still succeeded to buy the club - for free.

Chelsea in the other hand felt no need to check the books of Roman Abramovich to figure how he made his fortune before handing him the club. He may not be as amazing as one of their ex-owners like Elton John but he can make the fans sing by creating a competitive squad. That’s all what is needed. Manchester City knights were willing to go as far as offering the club to the likes of Thaksin Shinawatra. The uniqueness of each club faded under the new business oriented approach and there were no more fans, but customers.

Liverpool had more reasons to be aggressive while seeking their competitive spell. The club’s records were threatened by the dominance of Manchester United in the new league format. After the amazing era of John Smith ending 1990, the club lacked the suitable leadership to engineer the club and meet the challenges of the new league (EPL). 

In 2004, David Moores decided to sell the club. Yet it took him three years of inappropriate bids (including a bid from the one and only Thaksin Shinawatra himself) to find the right buyers. Inspired by Roman Abramovich model at Chelsea, and Malcolm Glazer’s tale at Manchester united, George Gillett and Tom Hicks stepped in and bought the club. 

The new owners of the club a club recently won the Champions’ league were welcomed by the fans and the coach. The expectations were high and everyone had the belief that Liverpool success in Europe will extend to dominate the English League again. I do believe that the crisis started there.

No one can argue that it is insane to sell a great football club to someone who has absolutely no idea not only about the history and the culture of the club, but even the game itself. It is true as well that the conflicts between Hicks and Gillett were destructive and served the club no favor. Yet, the main reason leading to fans upset was the team’s performance. In that matter, it is hard to blame the owners for being the reason why the team collapsed. The list below can give some indications:

Josemi, Xabi Alonso, Antonio Nunez, Luis Garcia, Fernando Morientes, Bolo Zenden, Scott Carson, Godwin Antwi, Mauricio Pellegrino, Besian Idrizaj, Peter Crouch, Jack Hobbs, Pepe Reina, Miki Roque, Mohamed Sissoko, Paul Anderson, Antonio Barragan, Robbie Fowler, Mark Gonzalez, Jan Kromkamp, Gabriel Paletta, Fabio Aurelio, Ryan Crowther, Martin Hansen, Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt, Nabil El Zhar, David Martin, Astrit Ajdarevic, Craig Bellamy, Alvaro Arbeloa, Daniel Pacheco, Alex Cooper, Fernando Torres, Andriy Voronin, Jordy Brouwer, Francisco Duran, Sebastian Leto, Ronald Huth, Gary Stevens, Daniele Padelli, Mikel San Jose Dominguez, Javier Mascherano, Daniel Sanchez Ayala, Jermaine Pennant, Gerardo Bruna, Yossi Benayoun, David Amoo, Lucas, Damien Plessis, Andras Simon, Emiliano Insua, Dean Bouzanis, Charles Itandje, Krisztian Nemeth, Ryan Babel, Lauri Dalla Valle, Martin Skrtel, Emmanuel Mendy, Andrea Dossena, David Ngog, Vincent Weijl, Philipp Degen, Vitor Coutinho Flora, Peter Gulacsi, Robbie Keane, Zsolt Poloskei, Diego Cavalieri, Albert Riera, Nikola Saric, Christopher Buchtmann, Victor Palsson, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Glen Johnson, Alberto Aquilani, and Chris Mavinga.

A coach who buys 70 players for a club like Liverpool in 5 years is a confused coach who has no idea what he wants, or what his team need. I will not go as far as claiming that Rafa Benitez spent £229m on players, because he recovered some through selling the players he bought. Yet, that’s only a financial evaluation that must not cover the fact: Benitez created a chaos. Such Chaos cost the club money (transfers and salaries), and it damaged any chance to create any harmony in the squad. That’s a need if you want to win any titles. This habit started long time before the new owners’ arrival. The difference was that during the first seasons there were no expectations. That’s the environment where Benitez can do magic. When the club won the Champions’ league and welcomed the new owners with the likes of Mascheranos and Fernandos the expectations rocketed high, and Rafa suffered a panic attack leading him to continuously change players and tactics, and fighting with managers and criticizing everyone else, but himself. Some may argue that there are some players who were bought for the reserve team but the question is how many of the mentioned players served the first team later on? 

Nowadays, with more businessmen running clubs, as businessmen, the role of managers became vital. It is true that Liverpool owners were unwilling to keep on financing Rafa Benitez “Football Manager” antiques forever, but if we compare the effectiveness and budgets of coaches like Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson, one can only wonder what would have happened if one of the mentioned would have been in Benitez shoes. The coach is the hostage of his team’s results and if he was able to achieve anything in the last few seasons he would have been able to dictate his conditions on the club owners. The owners made a bet on the coach and the squad he structured and when the bet failed there was no way to recover. 

With the team underperforming and the owners lacking any charm and vision, it was a matter of time before the fans revolt. At the end of the day, competitiveness is the ultimate goal. There was no way back from there on.

Everyone who was involved in the acquisition in the first place carry the main responsibility for how the story ended. Some of those figures started Liverpool’s mess long before the arrival of the new owners. There should be strict guidelines governing this matter. Liverpool is neither the only victim nor the first one to fall. Portsmouth is another example. Manchester United already stands in the queue. One can only wonder what will happen if Abramovic failed to rejuvenate the aging Chelsea and the list is long. 

Then there is a coach who failed to create a project and present a vision leading to Permanente success and forcing the owners to adopt. 

In the English Premier league, managers role nowadays exceed their team building responsibilities on the field to their role in club building in the offices through contributing in the creation of the club business and football module. Genius technicians place is on the Assistant manager bench, while managers need to act as innovators.

Hicks and Gillett were just two naïve gamblers in a bad Casino; putting their bets in a game they don’t know its rules. They lost their money and were thrown out of the door for new wealthy candidate to take their place. Only time will tell if the new owners will start by setting rules and guidelines or will just lead the club to another gamble.

From Manchester and Arsenal, to Liverpool and Chelsea across the English Premier League the term “bandwagons” rings in every direction. From Juventus and Roma to Milan rivals the claim that “there are no glory hunters supporting our club” is a claim written on every supporter chest and echoing in each corner at Serie A. And let’s not start talking about La Liga, and mainly the two poles of FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.  Bandwagon fans and Glory haunters, Who are those people?

"A bandwagon fan is a phrase used among sports fans and sports writers to describe a fan that only roots for popular and successful sports franchises, then when they fall and are unpopular they switch to the new team. Sometimes people may change teams due to many factors, such as bad management, scandals involving the team, poor draft decisions, or unfavorable conditions in the current residence (which often could cause them to adopt their hometown's rival team as their own)... Bandwagon fans are usually despised by fans who consider themselves die-hard". (Source)

Before getting into the threat this slice of football fans can present for big –popular- clubs, it is relevant to go back in time to figure how the big-popular- clubs became big and became popular. It usually starts with one or handful football entrepreneurs collecting players and organizing a team like many in the city or the region. The team develops and shows enough promise to be recognized by the neighborhood that starts following the team regularly. At that early stage, if the team fails to secure continuous improvement, the followers start to vanish, attracted by other clubs with more potential in the same surrounding. The club ends up being one of numerous small clubs worldwide with few hundreds of followers competing on local minor rivalries and unrecognized competitions. 

If that small team succeeds to satisfy the followers hunger to victorious joys (A.K.A. results) dipped in the bragging opportunities to tease those living across the street, it sets the cornerstone to win over the followers hearts. With time good memories, cultural and social concurrence starts to tie the fans and the club more. That’s when temporary failure becomes more forgiven. It is no more this street club against the club of another street, but the club that represents the City best against the clubs of other cities. The more the club succeeds, the more its fan base expands the same way it was initially created: Results increase awareness. Awareness makes more people interested. Interest creates addiction. Addiction structure loyal supporters, added to the support inherited from father to son originated in that small street, then through the City, the nation, and worldwide. 

I am not sure if the term “Bandwagon” is originally offending. I am not an expert in English terminology. But if we use it with good intentions and based on the definition and argument above, there are two kinds of club followers: Ex-bandwagons outcome (Loyal fans), and current bandwagons (fan base contenders). So called bandwagons are people who became interested in the club when the club proved capable of bringing pride, joy, and satisfaction. Some of them became loyal fans and the rest decided to aboard the ship when the wind started to blow in another direction. But there is an important question here. Is it only about the people? It seems that the club has nothing to do in this matter, which is not the case at all. 

To understand the clubs’ role and responsibility we need to consider the club as any other firm, organization, or business. If you own a restaurant, you invite people to visit and try your food. If the first time they visit you fail to satisfy them, you are done and dusted. If they leave your restaurant smiling and praising, you can be sure they will come back again. But it will take more than just few successful trials before you can consider them as loyal customers. They need to enjoy some more lunches and dinners, to start recognizing the staff faces and names, to feel comfortable with the way food is served and the food diversity available, and most importantly start sharing the nostalgia of the memories they share with that restaurant. When they become that loyal, then they will forgive you if for once the launch was overcooked. A bit too spicy. Or the service was not up to the expected standards. During trial period they forget you. When they become loyal, they forgive you.

That’s how clubs create fan bases. Like loyal customers. Using marketing terms, clubs successful period is the marketing campaign. Bandwagons are the leads. Permanent supporters are the loyal customers. Successful periods -full with titles- act as marketing campaigns. It generates leads and increases awareness and attractiveness. Leads may visit your showroom because your marketing campaign was successful. That’s your opportunity brought to you on a golden plate. Now it’s your job to turn the leads to loyal allies. If they end up visiting your showroom without buying anything, then it’s your fault not theirs. If they buy just to get advantage of the offers promoted through the marketing campaign then you are lucky because that will buy you more time and extend your opportunity to do your homework. If they vanish the moment the marketing campaign cycle ends, that’s because you –as a club- failed to show more interesting features about your club/business beside titles/offers. You failed to create a more personal/human-like relation with them. You failed to make them aware that your club is so special in many ways that bring even more pride to its fans than titles. 

If they jump out of your ship when your club wins no more, don’t call then glory hunters. They are so, because you failed to show them the glory lies behind supporting your club, regardless of the titles won or lost.