Top 5 worst football club owners

Just as there are millionaires who buy clubs to make them bigger, investing a lot of money, there are many others who end up causing a lot of damage to the institutions due to their own interests and mistakes.

It is interesting since in some cases, in the first instance, it seems that the arrival of an important investor can be beneficial and even bring good things that the club has not experienced before, however, with the passage of time, reality hits the door and the clubs and their fans are the ones who end up suffering the consequences.

Peter Lim (Valencia CF)

The Singapore tycoon became a millionaire working as a stockbroker and investing in palm oil, property, health, etc. Lim, over time, has diversified his investments and one of them took him to football. In the summer of 2014, Lim bought 70% of the club's shares that belonged to the Valencia CF Foundation and thus became the club's largest shareholder. The tycoon did not leave good first impressions since Lim is a close friend of Jorge Mendes and from the beginning the hand of the Portuguese agent began to be seen within the club, starting with the hiring of Nuno Espírito Santo as manager, a client of Mendes.

In that first season, there were a couple of interesting signings such as Enzo Pérez or Rodrigo Moreno and the team managed to retain several of its figures such as Dani Parejo, Nicolas Otamendi and Diego Alves, leading to a fourth place in the league. From there, the club entered a whirlwind of changes of players (many represented by Mendes) and managers, a lot of irregularity in the results and a lot of discontent on the part of the fans. At one point, Valencia became a selling club, which diminished its competitiveness and affected its sporting results, leading fans to start protests and demonstrations against Lim. Curiously, the Singaporean is also a shareholder in Salford City along with former Manchester United players and the management can be considered good.

Abdullah Al-Thani (Malaga CF)

He is a Qatari sheikh, a member of the country's royal family who manages a huge number of companies of different kinds in nearly 30 countries around the world. In 2010 he acquired the majority shareholding in Malaga CF and quickly began to invest in the club, hiring an internationally renowned manager such as Manuel Pellegrini and several high-level players such as Joaquín, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Santi Cazorla, Nacho Monreal, Isco, Julio Baptista or Enzo Maresca, to mention a few. Al-Thani led an almost total change of the team and many things within the club.

Málaga became a feared team in Spain that managed to qualify for the UEFA Champions League thanks to fourth place in the 2011-12 league. In that Champions League, the Malaga club reached the quarterfinals, being eliminated against Klopp and Lewandowski's Borussia Dortmund by 3-2 on aggregate. That Dortmund team would eliminate Mourinho's Real Madrid in the semifinals and lose in the final to Bayern Munich.

From there, there was a huge budget cut and Málaga had a progressive decline that has taken the club to the third tiers of Spanish football, even though they at the moment are back in the second tier.

Bernard Tapie (Olympique de Marseille)

The Parisian was a businessman who was characterized by recovering companies that were in a very bad economic situation or directly bankrupt and recovering them, Adidas being his best work in that sense. In 1986, Tapie took over Olympique de Marseille and quickly began investing a lot of money in big-name signings. The French businessman was ahead of the stereotype of the millionaire who buys a football club today.

OM became France's strongest football team in a very short time, winning Ligue 1 on 4 consecutive occasions between 1989 and 1992. Their dominance in France made the Champions League become Marseille's goal, something they achieved in 1992-93. Later, it would become known about the 1993 French football bribery scandal, where Tapie contacted players from Valenciennes, Marseille's rival in the match prior to the final of the 1993 Champions League, so that they would let themselves win.

It was later revealed that there were several other OM matches where Tapie did something similar, the case would finally end with the Parisian imprisoned and with the club relegated.

Glazer family (Manchester United)

The American family began to be part of the group of shareholders of Manchester United from the beginning of the 21st century and progressively increased their share of shares until they finally became majority shareholders. The fact that the Glazers had put the club itself in debt to be able to buy those shares was one of the reasons that led the Red Devils fans to repudiate the Americans to the point that one part decided to form their own club, FC United of Manchester.

Until 2013 (when Sir Alex Ferguson retired), the club had not suffered so much from the poor management of the Glazers since the figure of the Scottish manager was capable of compensating for certain shortcomings. From that year onwards, changes in managers and leaders, poor decisions, unsuccessful signings, poor planning, etc. began. Currently, the club is fighting to enter the Champions League positions although it is not a real candidate to win the Premier League.

Suleyman Kerimov (Anzhi Makhachkala)

The Russian billionaire bought Anzhi Makhachkala in 2011 and quickly decided to make a significant investment in the club, which was supposed to cover the signing of great players and managers as well as infrastructure and a new stadium. In the 2011 winter transfer window, Roberto Carlos, Boussoufa and Diego Tardelli arrived, to name a few, and six months later they signed Balázs Dzsudzsák, Yuri Zhirkov and the star signing, Samuel Eto'o, who became the highest paid player in the world at that moment. Shortly after, Dutchman Guus Hiddink would also arrive as manager.

The club even played in European competition and was considered one of the most competitive teams in Russia, but this was not enough for Kerimov, who continued signing renowned players such as Lassana Diarra and the Brazilian Willian. The results were not as expected and the Russian magnate began to make budget cuts that led to the great figures he had signed beginning to leave the club. As if it were a snowball, these departures led to sports results getting worse and the situation was increasingly complicated. To this must be added a series of accumulated debts that ended with Anzhi disappearing.