Tek wrote:

kiwiarab wrote:

“However, I don’t understand some of the intensity. Sure, Tony made mistakes. We all made mistakes and, ultimately, I’m the one who runs the club. I should be taking a lot of that blame. It just didn’t work out. But it wasn’t because we didn’t try.“I don’t understand some of the animosity and, frankly, I don’t think it’s justified.”

I read this the other day and was speechless. 

I keep hearing he's a 'nice guy' etc.

I sense a bit of arrogance from the man with these comments, not for the first time either.

I also don't believe he is as naive or green as people seem to think. His Golf course purchase a good example.

Sold the land for a profit, which he described himself as an 'opportunistic purchase'. I don't think there was ever any intention to build a golf course on that land. He and his cronies didn't/don't have the finances for that, unless it was some Ponzi scheme where hundreds of investors were financing the build.

I think he bought the land with the intention of selling it for a quick buck down the line. Which he has.


 

 

A business that ignores its customers is likely to fail. Ogren did just that. Fans advised him that we were not good enough to stay up and showed our dismay at Fat Tony.

He ignored all of this and insisted "Tony is my man". He took the fans as fools and begged for our money, taking us for fools.

Months later, we're relegated at a whimper. Fat Tony fucked off and Ogren now has to invest more money to help guide us back up at the 1st time of asking.

Imagine if the arrogant bastard just listened to the punters eh?

Imagine he properly invested in the squad in January and brought in players that would have kept us up?

Also, he gave the Trump campaign money, absolute trumpet.

David_Blunkett wrote:

Can remember if it was Twitter or a fans message board where I raised the fact he was supporting the lunatic bastard Trump and was given grief for it,

Now, I get America is a two party system, you're either for or against, but when that oompa loompa, arsehole cunt is your poster boy, then things are fucked up.

I notice he's also sold his St Andrews Golf investment and he also had a partner there, who appeared to go off piste.

To be as rich as he apparently, you can't be thick, but you can be overly trusting as we've seen to our cost.

He genuinely seems a nice guy, I think he's developed a feeling for the club, but as posted above, you can't simply just latch on and be one of the guys, I firmly believe, as we see in many clubs, where American owners take over, they simply don't get it.

I'd love for a couple of proper United supporting guys to be in charge, but...........

We as fans really would have to temper what we think is acceptable/realistic, If we're paying the 6th best wages, getting good crowds etc then pushing for top 6, maybe top 4, good cup runs is what we should expect.

But you'll get seasons, like last where most folk based on initial signings thought we'd be ok, we'd be up there and it all goes wrong, we can't just expect guys to throw millions away on us, when there's almost absolutely zero chance of a tangible return for what you put in.

Throwing 1000's a week into a black hole chasing an almost  unattainable dream is idiocy, 5 proper trophies in 114 years, well, 115 now is a fucking embarrassing return.

You'd have to be off your nut to invest, lose the sums currently involved and take on the grief it entails.

 

This is pretty much where I'm at.

North American sport just doesn't have the passion and tribalism that Scottish football does. It's just not a matter of life and death to the vast majority of fans of hockey, baseball or "football" over here. They have a moan when they lose and a pint when they win. When a local derby game comes around (e.g. Edmonton Oilers vs Calgary Flames) then passions get a bit more aroused, but that only lasts about 3 days until the Atlanta Thrashers roll into town for the following game and nobody gives an arse.

Ogren won't have seen anything like our reaction before, so it's not surprising that he doesn't understand it and thinks it's over the top. Having said that, the personal abuse stuff is over the top, IMO - whether it was directed at Thompson or McNamara or Asghar or whoever. If we have a strong argument that someone should not be in the position or job they're in, sticking to the argument is the most effective way to cause change. Calling guys names just detracts from the strength of the argument. So if it's the personal abuse that Ogren was referring to, I have to agree with him.

David_Blunkett wrote:

Canadian Arab wrote:

I was crucified on twitter for questioning his judgement after records showed he had made a financial donation to Trump's 2020 re-election campaign. Understandable donating to the 2016 campaign, but when someone has spent 4 years confirming they are an ignorant, racist, corrupt, hate-motivated, narcissistic arsehole, it showed very poor judgement (IMO) to publicly support the twat again. A lot of folk were happy to accept Ogren's money and overlook his politics, and told me in no uncertain terms. But it had little to do with his politics - bad judgement is bad judgement, and it raised a lot of red flags for me.

Can remember if it was Twitter or a fans message board where I raised the fact he was supporting the lunatic bastard Trump and was given grief for it,

Now, I get America is a two party system, you're either for or against, but when that oompa loompa, arsehole cunt is your poster boy, then things are fucked up.

I notice he's also sold his St Andrews Golf investment and he also had a partner there, who appeared to go off piste.

To be as rich as he apparently, you can't be thick, but you can be overly trusting as we've seen to our cost.

He genuinely seems a nice guy, I think he's developed a feeling for the club, but as posted above, you can't simply just latch on and be one of the guys, I firmly believe, as we see in many clubs, where American owners take over, they simply don't get it.

I'd love for a couple of proper United supporting guys to be in charge, but...........

We as fans really would have to temper what we think is acceptable/realistic, If we're paying the 6th best wages, getting good crowds etc then pushing for top 6, maybe top 4, good cup runs is what we should expect.

But you'll get seasons, like last where most folk based on initial signings thought we'd be ok, we'd be up there and it all goes wrong, we can't just expect guys to throw millions away on us, when there's almost absolutely zero chance of a tangible return for what you put in.

Throwing 1000's a week into a black hole chasing an almost  unattainable dream is idiocy, 5 proper trophies in 114 years, well, 115 now is a fucking embarrassing return.

You'd have to be off your nut to invest, lose the sums currently involved and take on the grief it entails.

 

 

Have to say the political angle of these posts seems a bit odd to me.

Ogren deserves plenty criticism for the way the club has been run via Asghar, and even since Asghar left there has been plenty to criticise actually.

Politics is neither here nor there when it comes to running a football club. The bald snake Stevie Thompson was an ardent independence supporter and, was in the papers speaking about the opportunities Scottish Independence would have brought for people and the Scottish game in the build up to the indy ref.

Admittedly don't know if he sank any money in to the Yes campaign but the whole "build a better Scotland" being parroted by a con artist and a man taking the money and running would give plenty ammunition for anyone who has even so much as glanced at the news in the last year or so. That's not even mentioning the questionable judgement in many other areas by the man who represented the Yes campaign in the televised debates.

For me, plenty to criticise, but equating political opinions with a person's ability to run a football club seems a bit off.

Being a useless c*** doesn't have a particular political persuasion!

Edit:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/13180280.dundee-united-chairman-thompson-backs-yes-vote/

Last edited by Morphman (22/8/2023 7:42 am)

Morphman wrote:

For me, plenty to criticise, but equating political opinions with a person's ability to run a football club seems a bit off.

I said in my comment that it's not the political opinion or stance that was the issue. It was the fact that a non-football decision made by Ogren (i.e. a decision to send financial support to Trump in 2020) showed such a massive lack of judgement that it raised a huge red flag about his critical thinking and about what else he may show incredibly poor judgement in. It isn't just the case that he votes Republican and I never would - that would be a political disagreement and would have little impact on his ability to run our club.

I didn't think Steven Thompson was a likeable individual - I met him once or twice and didn't take to him. But I also understood that he was not willing to watch the money his Dad had made be frittered away, and many times he said the club needed to be self-sufficient. I can't disagree with that at all. When that transfer window happened (GMS was always going, Armstrong was the one that hurt), and people were understandably angry, put yourself in Thompson's shoes. Hundreds of people on social media, supporters of the club that his family had sunk a significant amount of money into, calling him a baldy snake and directing a ton of personal abuse at him and his family. People had a right to be angry.

But what is the personal abuse going to achieve? My opinion - and this also speaks to Finn's comment about personal abuse being justified - is that human nature would make it more likely that Thompson would be more inclined to try and screw the supporters on his way out, if he had the chance, rather than leave the club in the best state he could while also recouping some of the money put in. The same goes for Asghar. If I'm Asghar, I'm looking for an opportunity to give us fans a kick in the balls as I leave. That doesn't mean I disagree with any of the opinions that he was not doing his best for the club, he was arrogant, he was a charlatan, he was only in it for himself etc. etc. But stop to consider the possibility that the personal abuse allowed Asghar to tell Ogren that it was simply a personality clash, possibly related to his former (?) relationship with Sevco.

Maybe, just maybe, Ogren would have taken the fans more seriously and may have pulled the plug earlier if what he had been presented with were factual arguments devoid of emotion?

I don't know if that would have happened. It's just a thought. But I'll stick to my belief that personal abuse is not going to improve the eventual outcome for the club or the fans.
 

Along with Canadian Arab, I wasn't trying to come over as overly political, folk are free to back, support, champion whoever they like.

I was following on from his bit about the 2020 re-election bit.

And that I simply find the support for Trump baffling, I get that he's the guy most of his party will probably back, but he's a horrible, horrible, nasty divisive bastard.

At some point, someone has to step in and say this isn't who we want as the face of our party, the one the rest of the world will see?

It was more about judgement calls in who he financially backs, tied in with how we perceive things went with United and on face value, reading about the golf, it reads like for all his wealth and obvious business sense, there appears to be a lot of naivety
.

I was also quite a few beers deep at that point and I get in rant mode.
 

Last edited by David_Blunkett (22/8/2023 11:01 pm)

Canadian Arab wrote:

But what is the personal abuse going to achieve? My opinion - and this also speaks to Finn's comment about personal abuse being justified - is that human nature would make it more likely that Thompson would be more inclined to try and screw the supporters on his way out, if he had the chance, rather than leave the club in the best state he could while also recouping some of the money put in. The same goes for Asghar. If I'm Asghar, I'm looking for an opportunity to give us fans a kick in the balls as I leave. That doesn't mean I disagree with any of the opinions that he was not doing his best for the club, he was arrogant, he was a charlatan, he was only in it for himself etc. etc. But stop to consider the possibility that the personal abuse allowed Asghar to tell Ogren that it was simply a personality clash, possibly related to his former (?) relationship with Sevco.

Maybe, just maybe, Ogren would have taken the fans more seriously and may have pulled the plug earlier if what he had been presented with were factual arguments devoid of emotion?

I don't know if that would have happened. It's just a thought. But I'll stick to my belief that personal abuse is not going to improve the eventual outcome for the club or the fans.
 

I get what you are saying and ordinarily would agree.  However, we could all see that Asghar was going to cripple the club, even kill it, if he was left in charge.  Even then Ogren still only saw the writing on the wall far too late.  I'm not sure Asghar could have done any more damage on the way out or once out than he caused on the inside.  Maybe the personal abuse was over the top (indeed I have no doubt some was - but not exactly Old Firm levels).  That Ogren speaks of the levels of animosity is enough to convince me that this played a part in his decision - even if he, incorrectly, thinks it wasn't justified.

I will give you the Sevco argument though.  I have no doubt that Asghar would have used that line if he thought it could explain away genuine concerns.  Just in case Ogren reads this, I'd make it clear that our fan base has no issue with someone who is associated with Rangers coming to Tannadice and genuinely working for our club and the best interests of it.  Some of our best players (and coaches) over the years played for Rangers before they came to Tannadice and in some cases moved the other way.  Most of them continue to be held in the highest regard by the United support for what they have done for our club.  The fact that Asghar was a Rangers fan would have played absolutely no part in anyone's assessment of him if he genuinely was working hard for our club and wasn't a charlatan pulling the wool over the owner's eyes.

Ultimately no a lot going to happen short term.
Goodwin got to be an improvement on  The Fat Controller having Ogren's ear.

It all smacks of Ogren being duped, Emperor's new clothes style - which is what I have always thought.  

Canadian Arab wrote:

Tek wrote:

Folk getting caught up in things like Ogren being a Trump funder. Sorry, but wtf cares. 

I want the owner of my club to show good judgement Tek, because he's the one making decisions that have a major impact on my club.

It was not surprising to me that his horrific judgement in donating to Trump's re-election campaign was followed by horrific judgement in numerous football decisions that ultimately got us relegated. That includes his judgement to trust Asghar.

 
But every owner has made the horrific decision to buy a Scottish football club, so I can't see how it is possible an owner has perfect judgement.

All we can ever hope for is to get lucky, and when we do that it last long enough that it has lasting impact

Tek wrote:

Trump won the election though.

So, i suppose you could argue in this instance Ogren made a good decision to donate.
 

We're talking abut the 2020 election that Trump lost to Biden, Tek. Ogren donated to the 2016 election, which is fair enough as we didn't know how big a c*nt Trump was at that point. But he also donated to Trump's 2020 election bid, at a point when the whole world knew what Trump stood for.

Please tell me you're not one of those folk that claims Trump won the 2020 election! 😂 👀

Canadian Arab wrote:

Please tell me you're not one of those folk that claims Trump won the 2020 election! 😂 👀

I was talking about the 2016 election.

I have no idea if the 2020 election was rigged. 

It's been done before and not so long ago. So not without the realms of possibility i suppose.

Biden just as nefarious a figure as Trump is after all.

Probably even worse.
 

Finn Seemann wrote:

It all smacks of Ogren being duped, Emperor's new clothes style - which is what I have always thought.  

 
I think Ogren was duped. I remember when Ogren stated that 1) The club could be consistently profitable, 2) We could just sell on our best youth talent (and keep regenerating) and 3) Be successfully, I began to question his business acumen.

He always struck me as someone whose money was burning a hole in his pocket.