Think I'll Buy Me A Football Team

August. High season. A time for work and for jobs. You would think that, but it has not been so. The Balearics have witnessed an increase in unemployment in the hotel sector of 28% during August. It is not the only sector affected.

Twenty-eight per cent. Whatever other statistics may get thrown around about occupancy and spend, this figure is revealing and alarming. There is nothing to take up the slack. The construction industry in the doldrums cannot do it, so where do people turn to? The dole queues are the only answer, and yet many do not qualify for benefit, only for special help. Winter approaches, and the scene is one of unremitting bleakness until the 2009 season. God knows what that will bring. A while back, someone allegedly in the know reckoned that the tourism sector, for which read mainly the hotels, would help to alleviate the employment crisis in construction during the coming winter. It was rubbish then, and it still is.

The only brightness comes in the form of what is anticipated to be a good September. Partly, this may be the consequence of dreadful August weather in the UK and a load of last-minuting. But it will be hotel occupancy on the back of heavy discounts. Cut the prices and there is less money sloshing around for employment. There is some hope for the winter in the form of an initiative between the Tourism Ministry and the European Commission, which will see - supposedly - a hundred thousand tourists coming to the Balearics in the low season from January. Quite what this initiative is I am unclear. Perhaps this was that person in the know had in mind. Whatever it is, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Meantime, in the property sector there has been a fall in house prices in the Balearics of some 7% over the summer. Notwithstanding the difficulties of getting accurate actual house-price values, as I mentioned a few days ago, this decline, while indicative of the general "crisis", is not unwelcome in a market that had overheated through excessively high prices. A question is how much further the price fall will go. A reasonable guess would be that there is still a fair bit more to come. So even with prices in general coming down, now is still not necessarily a good time to be buying, even, that is, if a mortgage could be secured.


AND SO TO FOOTBALL ...
Newcastle United, in the guise of Freddy Shepherd, had a temporary Mallorcan dimension when the club's former chairman was in line to take over Real Mallorca. The club is in the news yet again for different reasons. And what, you may ask, does the Keegan fiasco have to do with Real? In two words - Mike Ashley.

Ashley, on becoming Newcastle's boss, adopted the persona of the fan, going into the stands, wearing the shirt, drinking the beer. He is reviled. Paul Davidson, who is on the point of completing the due-diligence process prior to his acquisition of Real, has said, more or less, that he will be on the terraces and will be a fan.

Ashley is a successful businessman, so is Davidson. The latter has said that he would have nothing to do with the football side of affairs. Ashley has ended up having a great deal to do with the football side of affairs. Businessmen do not invest in anything, let alone football clubs, without exercising control. In Ashley's case, the whole Newcastle experience is turning into a nightmare.

Davidson says that the Mallorca deal will assist in the promotion of the business that has made him wealthy - piping. I don't think I'm alone in wondering quite how. The "Diario" interviewed him the other day and put that very question. It's still not really clear.

I wish Mr Davidson only success, but there is much about the acquisition that raises worries. Professing to be a fan is one thing; being a fan is another. Being a fan is in the blood. Ask a Newcastle supporter. The notion also that somehow Brit expats will suddenly be magicked into being Mallorca supporters and help to fill the ground is spurious. Those expats have their clubs, the ones they watch on Sky or in bars. It's in the blood. And what of the local Real fans? Foreign ownership of a football club in an island where the attitude is every bit as parochial as the Geordie's? Real had a bad first result in La Liga; the club has lost some key players. Last season's seventh may have been the occasional flash in the pan that Real is capable of. I wish Mr Davidson well, but I hope he's observing what's been happening with Mike Ashley.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Average White Band (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBWQZ6tvT-E). Today's title - a line from a song from one of the most successful albums of all time.

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