Jerry Jones, the Texas tycoon to whose £800million second home no fewer than 45,000 boxing fans will flock on Saturday night to watch a Filipino fight an African, is urging the rebellious supporters of Manchester United and Liverpool to rally behind the Americans who have taken over their beloved clubs.
As the unrest grows around Old Trafford and Anfield, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys took time out from fine-tuning a phenomenal event in his new stadium to reassure two armies of English protesters that his fellow US entrepreneurs will get it right.
Opposition to the Glazers at United and Messrs Hicks and Gillett at Liverpool is escalating by the week but Jones says: 'Do not doubt for one moment that American businessmen as successful as these gentlemen understand the culture they have bought into. They get it, all right.'
The hundreds of millions of pounds in debt taken on by the new owners of United and Liverpool is at the core of the controversy but Jones himself is accustomed to dealing in high finance and coming out ahead.
Having completed the stupendous arena in which Manny Pacquiao, the Philippine phenomenon, is about to defend his world welterweight title against Ghana's Joshua Clottey, Jones says: 'Logically nobody should be allowed to spend $1.2billion on a stadium but I was given that credit line so I ran away with it. 'It will be the same in England. Once the stadium or the team is finished being built then, no matter what the cost, there are no more questions, no more problems.'
The Cowboys play in the new best stadium in the world and provide the economic base from which a stream of additional events raise the profit, like the one tomorrow which is entitled: The Event. So it might prove if Pacquiao-Clottey raises prize-fighting to a higher dimension, changing the way big fights are staged.
Promoter Bob Arum says: 'We need to capture new generations of boxing fans and you can't do that solely on television, nor in casinos where only high-rollers can pay the ticket prices.
'The working man cannot afford to go to the fights in Las Vegas. Yet the way to attract a new young audience is by getting them to go see a big fight live, a fight like this one. In person, as part of a huge crowd in an electrifying atmosphere. Once they've experienced that, they're hooked.'
Cowboys Stadium makes Wembley look like Loftus Road. Might we tempt Jones to come and do something similar in England?
'No,' he says. 'At an enterprise like the Dallas Cowboys the perception has to be that you are completely focused on the one job. The fans deserve nothing less.'
Pacquaio and Clottey promise to raise a storm of a fight to give boxing a new direction. Of course, had Pacquaio and Floyd Mayweather Jnr not fallen out this could have been the richest fight of all time. If that one ever happens here then the House that Jerry Built will be opened up to its capacity (for boxing) of 120,000. Let's get it on.
Source: dailymail.co.uk
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