smart businessmen go in with realistic expectations – in sports, you have to cater for a certain amount of risk. Glazers would have accounted for United finishing outside the top four for 1-2 seasons but not for United being relegated – Sunderland’s backers would have taken a long-term approach and banked on local support as opposed to putting all their hopes on promotion and then stability.

When bust arrives, only the weaker businessmen who aren’t prepared will cash out. Football, as it globalises, will be a bigger and bigger business in the years to come, so we probably won’t have to worry about the lack of takers.

I think what really hits the nail on the head is the Dan Jones quote:

“The wave of new owners are successful businessmen in their own right, often bringing past experience of operating large sports organisations to their new clubs (…) Importantly, they are also likely to be more business-focused in their approach to managing their clubs than may have been the case in the past” (…)

More and more people out there are starting to take football for what it has become: a business. If there’s anything the last decade of take-overs has proven, it’s that that you don’t need to be a football fan to be a successful football club owner.

The danger is, as you have hinted, that once ‘bust’ arrives, these business-oriented people will ultimately be left with a simple business-minded choice: get out while they’re still ahead. The ones who’ll end up paying the price: the fans. Until the next takeover.