Rooney, Manchester United and Job Loyalty

So Wayne Rooney has been having a poor form lately in football. This was after his dismal World Cup performance earlier in the year. Then some news came out that he had an affair while his wife was pregnant. To make things worse, his form on the pitch did not improve and he was left on the bench for many games. For some of the games, he was not even considered for the bench.

Now, the latest news is that Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney are going their separate ways. After some weeks of denying that Rooney wants to leave, newspapers today reported that Wayne Rooney had asked to leave Manchester United. That's after he had spent almost 6 years at United since moving over from Everton. Job loyalty? Just throw it out of the window. Here comes the mercenary. Well, at least that's how the newspapers were reporting it.

Come on.

Who amongst us dares to say that we have sticked with one company for 6 years? Most people don't even practice job loyalty nowadays yet when soccer players want to change clubs, we suddenly call them mercenaries and blast them for being selfish, money-faced and what nots.

This is incredible considering that many people today do not even stick with a company for 6 years! Most people I know have only been with their company for less than 4 years. In fact, it seems common for people to change companies ever so frequently nowadays. Job loyalty? It seems that people nowadays are no longer loyal to only a certain company. After all, no company today dares to promise its employees lifelong employment. What they can guarantee is lifelong employability and not lifelong employment.

Considering that soccer players have only such a short career span, it definitely makes sense for them to eke out the best opportunities for themselves before they hit the "official" retirement age of 35. To be left on the bench for a season is almost akin to loosing your work experience for like 10% of your working life.

Job loyalty certainly does not exist in work outside football so why do we expect this kind of standards from footballers. Give Rooney a break.

Childhood Memories and Nostalgia

A few months back, I was standing at my previous home compound where my parents still live. I was wandering downstairs with the family when I suddenly remembered that many years ago, I used to roam the playground and the fields nearby with my neighbors. These were my childhood playmates whom I used to meet up with almost every other day to play simple games like catching, hide-and-seek, etc. Over the years, we all lost contact with one another. Today, I can still recall their nicknames and which floors they stayed at as we frequented each other's house quite often.

I stood at the block and looked up. A sense of nostalgia hit me. I wondered what these childhood friends were doing now. I have lost contact with every single one of them. The last time that I saw one of them was more than 10 years ago in late secondary school on the bus. Even during that time, we had already drawn apart as we only stayed in touch till around early secondary school.

Standing there, I felt like going up to each of the house to knock and ask whether so and so was still staying there. After all, I missed those carefree days when we roamed around and I really wondered how they were getting on with their lives. The last I heard, some of them went overseas to study, some went to work, and some... I don't know. I tried looking up to see those houses and whether there were any lights in them. Have they moved out? I don't know. What do they look like today? I also do not know. After all, we were all in primary school during those days.

But I am certain that they had lovely memories about our childhood. And I do hope that we will be able to meet up one day. Unfortunately, there is almost no way to trace where they are now. Even with facebook, I don't even know their surnames or last names to be able to track them down. After all, in the past, we only used our names and were not too concerned about each other's surnames.

Childhood memories. Sweet childhood memories.

Peter Lim - Almost Liverpool Owner.

So the news is out. Peter Lim withdrew his offer for Liverpool after its owners did not revert back on his better offer than New England Sports Ventures (NESV). And NESV are now the proud new owners of Liverpool which just lost 2-0 to Everton. Liverpool now stands at the 2nd last in the English Premier League and are in the relegation zone. Of course, it is still way to early in the season to tell.

I guess it is really a pity that our very own Singaporean billionaire did not get the chance to be the owner of Liverpool FC. Imagine the limelight it will throw on Singapore. A Singapore owner for one of the top football clubs in Europe and England! What a pity. I guess most people underestimate how such things can actually bring so much other untold benefits to Singapore.

For one, readership of this blog went skyhigh during the news of Peter Lim making an offer to buy Liverpool. My readership for this blog hit record highs for a few days consecutively. Too bad the news has died down almost as fast as it started. And I am sure many Singaporean Liverpool fans are sorely disappointed.

I guess we can only think about all the "what ifs" now.

Perhaps Manchester United next ? =)

Credit Card Bills

It is amazing how fast a month flies past.

I racked up a hefty amount of credit card bills during the past month paying for a lot of big ticket items. Stuff like road tax and car insurance were all due together and so my credit card bills balloned to way past the $3000 dollar mark.

Looks like this month will be a leaner month for me. Time to tighten the belt and start saving for the year end holiday.

Remisier King Peter Lim Offers $750m for Liverpool

Peter Lim had increased his bid for Liverpool to fend off US rivals. Besides offering to clear the debts of Liverpool, he is also willing to give an immediate cash injection of 40 million pounds for the football club to buy new players. His bid is also attractive as it does not require an financing.

This comes amidst a bitter court battle over the sale of Liverpool. The other two bidders are New England Sports Ventures (NESV) and Mill Financial (a US hedge fund).

Mr Lim is the son of a fishmonger and is revered in Singapore financial circles for being an extremely savvy investors. Known as the "remisier king", he amassed a large fortune and had a winning touch in various companies - the biggest being that in Wilmar International which grew from $10 million initial investment to close to $2 billion today.

He however has business relationship with Manchester United and has the sole rights to own, operate and develop a chain of the famous club's restaurants across Asia. Whether he will give up the venture remains unknown.

The fate of offer will however depend on the court battle that is currently being waged between Liverpool's owners and chairman. The Liverpool owners want to stop the sale as they claim the price is too low. If the court rules in favor of the current Liverpool American owners, the club is likely to go into administration and will lose even more points in the Premier League.

Being a savvy investor, Peter Lim certainly must know what he is doing and while English media and fans are wary of the bid, Singaporeans here are cheering that our very own local hero could potentially own one of the biggest sporting clubs in English football history. Others have however questioned whether that money could be invested in the ailing local soccer scene which would benefit in a big way from that amount.

As Andy Ho, president of the local Liverpool supporters' club says: " This will put Singapore on the world football map."

Peter Lim Makes Offer for Liverpool

Former remisier king has made an offer to buy over Liverpool.

Well done! Our very own Singaporean billionaire who can afford to buy over a well-known English football club. I wrote about Peter Lim some time back under this post.

So how will this impact me?

Well, just yesterday, I saw my blog views on this blog jump to over 2000 page views in a single day just on that post alone.

I guess the hype about this new potential owner of Liverpool has got many people Googling his name and landing up on my blog.

AIA Agent's Insurance Scam

Another scam has hit the market. This time in the insurance industry again. It is like...AGAIN??


It is not surprising that in my first post in IMSavvy, I decided to write about whether one can trust your financial planner. I wrote that post because I cracked my head hard to think of a posting that would truly be timeless in a certain way. And I have been proven right in a certain sense. There are definitely conflicts of interests in the financial advisory business where the salary model is that of a sales business (i.e. commission based). A lot of unethical people lurk in the insurance business where the entry into business is easy and the rewards are high.

No matter how hard you try to argue that there is no conflict of interest, this conflict of interest will exist.

But I guess in the AIA agent's case, this has been brought to a whole new level. Selling non-existent insurance products! Who is to blame? Surely not AIA. Which insurance company can actually stop its agent from selling non-existent products? This is just an outright scam and the agent involve just lacks the ethics. It could literally happen anywhere and it is just unfortunate that this happened in the insurance industry AGAIN.

So what can the consumer do?

Simple. Just make sure that whatever contract you sign is really legal and is from the insurance company. Letter heads can be faked and so can many other things if the agent is out to cheat your money.

Another way is to not pass hard cash and when in doubt, call the customer service for info (yes, please get the customer service number from the website and not from your "trusted" agent)