Most club owners are disputable in their own right, no football enthusiasts would jump at the chance to see their darest club taken over by businessmen who just consider it to be another venture for their monetary portfolio.
Passionate club owners do give out valiant effort to delight the fans by employing the right people and deploying perfect strategies that can improve the club by getting results when it genuinely matters. However, it is by no means an easy task
There are club owners or presidents that have posed their club with issues that go beyond minor gripes, make baffling decisions, and sending balanced teams spiraling into a financial black hole.
Let’s take a look at 8 of the worst Club Owner, Chairman or President in club football.
- George Reynolds
George Reynolds’s early days were a story of indigenous crimes that grew until he began embarking on serious robberies and safe-cracking.
After a four-year jail sentence, he was said to have straightened his act and began a very successful business career, amassing a fortune close to $500 million.
In 1999 he purchased fourth division side Darlington FC and become a club owner, with the plan of turning the minnows into a Premier League club. Reynolds’ first order of business was building a $40 million, 25,000 seater stadium for the bottom tier club.
A ground which he named the ‘Reynolds Arena’, building a new stadium can give a club a huge lift, but a 25,000 capacity stadium was just too much and risible for a club with an average crowd of around 2,000, leaving the stadium looking essentially empty.
He was arrested in 2004 and sentenced to jail the following year, having been convicted of money laundering. Darlington was relegated to the Conference and went into administration once more, another relegation made the situation unmanageable.
They left the ‘Reynolds Arena’, moving to a 2,000 capacity stadium which was initially their size and was automatically relegated four times and forced to start a new club under a new name.
- Mike Ashley – (Newcastle Owner)
In 2008, Ashley was shown on live television drinking beer while with the fans in the away stand during Newcastle’s game against Arsenal in London, which portrayed him as an owner who wants to build a healthy relationship with his fans having just bought the club less than a year.
Even though such act was seen as contravening Premier League licensing rules which state that alcohol must not be consumed in sight of the pitch.
Ashley was supposed to be the fans man, the guy who sits with the fans in the stand just like he did when he bought the club, follows the club home and away. Unfortunately, it’s all too good to be true as the owner who once stretched forth the hands of the healthy relationship becomes a bad owner.
He was expected to be the owner who would help Newcastle take the next step and challenge for titles in the Premier League and Europe. Instead, he becomes a public enemy of the fans due to how he failed to manage the club well structurally, and his failure to invest in the squad.
The enmity between Ashley and the fans grows intense when the club got relegated under club legend Alan Shearer’s tutelage.
At the time when many of the fans thought he would find a buyer for the club and denounce his ownership for the club to move forward structurally and success wise.
It’s even got messier to where the fans have to come to the stadium with a placard that reads “Mike Ashley Out” many times.
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- Josep Maria Bartomeu – (Former Barcelona President)
It’s no news that Barcelona is on the verge of appointing a new President, however, the Catalan side cannot forget the terrible tenure of the former President and his board. Bartomeu took over the Presidency when the previous incumbent Sandro Rosell was ousted for corruption and Bartomeu took his role as President which is completely against the club’s statutes.
In the wake of things, Bartomeu called for elections following the club’s second treble-winning season. Having won the election, he surged into power on the back of their treble-winning success. He swung into action by signing Atletico Madrid’s Arda Turan who at that point was still a superb footballer for Los Rojiblancos.
Turan was one of many that came into the club with a huge cost and didn’t fit into the template or the philosophy of the club. With Barcelona under the leadership of Bartomeu, everything that made the Blaugrana a well-respected club worldwide under the leadership of Joan Laporta and the management of Pep Guardiola was slowly but surely eradicated with the bad decision making and irrelevant transfer dealing of Bartomeu.
The prospective board may not know much about the extent of the damage and mismanagement Bartomeu has inflicted on the club, surely when they come on board a lot more would be known.
The former President would go down in the history of the club as the worst President, coupled with the unhealthy relationship he has with arguably the greatest player in the history of the club (Messi).
- Roland Duchatelet – (Carl Zeiss Jena & Ujpest Owner)
The Belgian businessman and politician is the main shareholder of two clubs in the German fourth division and Hungary first division.
He previously owned one of the finest clubs in Belgium Standard Liege which he sold in early 2015, and Sint-Truidense which he sold in 2017 plus a couple of clubs he owned and sold which includes AD Alcorcon sold in 2019 and Charlton Athletic sold in 2020.
When talking about an owner who is seriously despised by his own club fans, the Belgian businessman and politician fit perfectly into that category. In 2016 Duchatelet made headlines after a statement appeared on the Charlton Athletic website, in which some of the club’s fans were accused of wanting the club to fail, in the aftermath of the statement the club’s newly appointed head of communications resigned from her position.
While the Belgian businessman took charge of Charlton in 2014, it took exactly one year before the relationship between him and the fans turned sow. Under his administration, the club got relegated to League One, and that led to widespread protests from the fans who formed a coalition against him.
Duchatelet had a lot of shortcomings and that led to a lot of backlashes from the fans, he sacked six managers during his painful reign and he will always be remembered by the fans for negatives reasons.
If the Belgian businessman and politician is ranked the worst ever owner witnessed in football history, we won’t be wrong because the similar protests that got him sold Charlton also happened to him back in Standard Liege which showed he’s never a leader who has a pleasant relationship with some of the club’s he’s owned.
- Craig Whyte – (Venture Capitalist)
The former Glasgow Rangers owner bought the controlling interest in Rangers from its then majority shareholder David Murray in May 2011, he subsequently put the club into administration in February 2012 and followed by liquidation in July 2012.
Historically, Rangers remain one of Europe’s greatest clubs with huge domestic success and respectable European success.
In their over 121 years of league football in Scotland, the club never left the top-flight, however, after finishing second in 2012 they got relegated to the fourth division of Scottish football as a result of financial collapse under the leadership of Whyte.
While Whyte effectively bought the club with the fan’s money, he didn’t invest a dime from his own pocket and that led to Celtic dominating the Scottish league for a long period, and with over 119 league Championship between rangers, Celtic owned a large chunk of the title.
Before Rangers got relegated under Whyte, some thought the stronghold that both Rangers and Celtic had enjoyed in the league damaged the competitiveness of the league, but the departure of Rangers to the lower division proved them wrong.
Under Whyte, Rangers and the Scottish league didn’t just lose financially, they also lost the Old Firm Derby which brought a loss of interest and revenue for the league.
During Whyte’s reign, he didn’t just ruin Rangers he also damaged Scottish football in many ways, until a new owner came on board to fix things up.
- Peter Ridsdale – (Businessman & Former Owner)
Leeds United has a host of bright young talent on their books and they looked set to ruffled shoulders with the Premier League’s elite for years to come under the leadership of Ridsdale. The businessman Ridsdale became the chairman of his hometown club in 1997 and did enjoy a mouthwatering success in the first four years of his tenure as Leeds United chairman.
Under the administration of Ridsdale, the side from Elland Road reached the UEFA Cup semi-final in 1999-2000, and the UEFA Champions League semi-final in 2001-01.
The relationship between Ridsdale and the fans deteriorated, having failed to fulfill his promises and damaged a lot at the club. Under his stewardship he borrowed £60m against future gate receipts, effectively gambling on the team qualifying for Champions League in successive seasons, which they failed to achieve and led to their super stars leaving the club.
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Following the unpleasant situation of the club, Ridsdale denied all blame and admitted it was a mistake that he allowed the former manager David O’Leary to spend lavishly on players. He also claimed he would have saved Leeds from subsequent relegation to the third tier of English football, and pay back the debt he and his board had incurred in the name of the club.
Unfortunately for him he couldn’t, by the time he stepped down as the chairman in 2003, the side from Elland Road was already owed a debt worth £103m.
In that regard, Peter Ridsdale is up until now best remembered by the Leeds United fans, for his financial misappropriation and relegation nightmares which comfortably put him among club football worst club owner or chairman.
- Maurizio Zamparini (Palermo)
Zamparini is a combination of impatience and exasperation, for the managers and coaches in Italy, he is the craziest figures in club football.
He famously remarked that he would personally execute each member of his squad if they did not improve.
“If my players keep being shi*, I will cut off their testicles, and eat them in my salad.”
Besides his psychotic tendencies, Zamparini has also proved himself to be one of a handful of terrible club owners who fired 30 managers in the space of 13 years. In the 26 years that Zamparini has been a club president, he has changed 41 coaches. Of course, 41, let that resonate in your mind if you’re having a bad day.
Zamparini really set the new standard when it comes to outlandish owner behavior, being outspoken is one thing but being obnoxious is entirely different. For example, in 2016, when he was embroiled in a tax evasion scandal (who isn’t these days?) and has voted to suspend the Serie A season in response. Such bully self-importance.
- Željko Ražnatović (FK Obilić)
Do you think Bartomeu was a terrible president? This is a man who was feared by Slobodan Milosevic, then Serbian leader.
Popularly-known as ‘Arko‘, Ražnatović would certainly be ranked as the worst club owner in football history. Whilst some may have been involved in fraud scams and the like, Ražnatović was an illustrious criminal and a notorious one at that.
Ražnatović was for a long time the most powerful militia leader in the Balkans (Southeastern Europe). He was on Interpol’s ‘Most Wanted’ man in the late 70s and early ’80s for robberies, multiple murders and was later indicted by the UN for crimes against humanity.
The criminally-minded club owner oftentimes made threats to opposing players, and Ražnatović would employed army veterans to sit in the stands with fans, occasionally pointing pistols at opposing players. According to multiple reports, a player was locked in a garage when his team played Obilik.
Ražnatović was assassinated shortly before his trial in 2000, and Obilic has been relegated seven times since, becoming an amateur club.
Honorable Mention
- Ratko Butorovic (FK Vojvodinas)
- Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr- (Liverpool)
- Silvio Berlusconi – (AC Milan)
- Ken Bates – (Businessman & Former Owner Of Leeds United, Chelsea)
- Luciano Gaucci – (Italian Entrepreneur & Former Owner Of Multiple Clubs)
- Jesus Gil (Atletico Madrid)
- David Sullivan and David Gold (West-Ham)
- Sam Hammam (Wimbledon/Cardiff)
- Maurizio Zamparini (Palermo)
