A Phoney Phase to a Phoney Competition – Part One

It’s 17 days since the World Cup final and 31 since England’s exit. The post mortems have been held – and how. RTG was rather miffed that it wasn’t solicited amongst the multitude of vox pop interviews that even had contributions from family pets. This was on top of the interviews of just about every professional player of the last 30-40 years. Admittedly, it was enjoyable trying to put names to faces in Sky Sports News’ endless procession of fat, balding blokes being wheeled out for their jaundiced views of England’s failures.

Now the media’s attention is firmly focused on filling column inches and airtime minutes with news from the “eagerly awaited” transfer window. The dramatic days-‘til-end counter, the claims and counter denials, the will-they, won’t-they speculation and above all – the inaction! Currently, much wind, but no sail (sale?).


“If you offered me 15th place now, I'd take it!”

Wolves' Manager, Mick McCarthy 27th July 2010

Whilst it is not unreasonable that Sky, in particular, should attempt to sex-up the speculation, in support of their huge investment in the sport, this close season, rather like the last one, is proving to be ‘phoney’. There really isn’t that much going on compared to pre 2008 levels.

The credit crunch continues to impact the financial resources available to virtually every club. Only Manchester City, Real Madrid and, probably, Chelsea have or will spend big in this window. The rest of the Premiership, at least for the moment, is merely re-arranging resources with minor net spend. Liverpool, for instance, have taken a couple of out of contract players and single figure million pound players and, reportedly, will have to fund any further transfer activity out of sales. Equally, Manchester United’s two new recruits have been partly funded by sales for a net spend of around £3 million. United have also reduced their headcount by releasing players and loaners.

Manchester City on the other hand has so far spent £75 million – with plenty more in the pipeline. Indeed, it is widely anticipated that they will rack up spending to over £200 million in just two summer transfer windows. One of City’s new boys, the very ordinary Barca reserve, Yaya Toure, is on a contract that pays him around £1 million a month. Let’s put that into perspective. If recent reports are correct, Wayne Rooney has earned himself a rise in his wages that will pay him about 60% of what Mr Toure earns. Or another way, premiership new boys, Blackpool, have just announced their record transfer purchase: for the princely sum of £1 million.

This is a gross distortion of the football playing field and results in a gross distortion of the Premiership as a competition. What chance do promoted Premiership clubs have in this environment? What chance for that matter do other clubs have when one or two fortunate clubs have no financial boundaries? With the ever increasing disparity between what Premiership teams earn and what the rest do, the financial penalties that follow relegation are increasingly scary. Wages are up because one or two clubs are unencumbered in their spending to lure players on over-inflated contracts. Ditto transfer fees. To stay in the Premiership is the prime objective of all but a handful of clubs. Just ask the supporters of Charlton, Leeds, Southampton, Barnsley, Bradford City, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and several others to see what awaits a relegated club who don’t bounce back immediately. Financial implosion and further relegation is the norm.

Is it any wonder then that the amount of defensively minded and over physical games has been increasingly boring football supporters throughout the Premiership over the last few years? Is it any wonder then that English players, in general, develop to be so uncomfortable in possession and the need to distribute that ball at break-neck speed, leads to a less than intelligent approach to the game. With so much at stake it can’t be a surprise to us that teams are going to be negative in their approach and this is a direct result of this phoney distortion of the football market.

In a previous article, RTG had already posed the question about ‘what is the difference between Portsmouth’s overspending – to their financial ruin and relegation – and Manchester City (or Chelsea), who consistently overspend – but just so happen to have an open ended cheque book’? The answer: a 10 point deduction. RTG continues this discussion next week….

The Keeper

…he’s a’puffin and a’pantin in pre-season!

The Keeper wishes to extend his own personal thank you to Tottenham for being the first club to make a stand and ban the vuvuzela from White Hart Lane for next season. Official club sources stated that they were concerned the noise might drown out important safety or security announcements. The Keeper wonders could they mean such statements as, “Put your hands up Harry, you’re under arrest” or “You are not obliged to say anything…” Neighbours Arsenal also followed their rivals soon afterwards in banning the vuvuzela for totally different reasons it seems. Rumour has it they were more concerned they might wake up some of the older patrons from their afternoon slumber in the ‘library’.

South Africa’s Zulu war trumpet was not a problem for Spain and The Keeper heartily congratulates them for their first ever World Cup success and for introducing us to their concept of ‘tiki taka’ football. The new world champions are well worthy of having named their own individual style of the game. In contrast, English players are more normally associated with ‘tacky tacky’, more on account of their terrible dress sense and their appalling taste in tattoos and jewellery. However, not to be outdone, they did come back from South Africa having stamped their own unique brand on the beautiful game, known as ‘humpa lumpa’ football!

Still, at least England did at least make it to the knockout stages unlike France who didn’t even make it past the group stage. It was only after the tournament, however, that the Keeper learned that phrases such as “inept”; “below par”; “too few scoring opportunities”; “over too early”; “lack of belief in the man on top”. were nothing to do with French football but actually describing Franck Ribery’s and Karim Benzema’s performance with the underage prostitute they allegedly procured in 2009 and for which they are now facing charges. It seems Franck Ribery’s own brother-in-law is also facing charges for his part in the procurement of said underage prostitute. Now that really is ‘tacky tacky’.

Post World Cup issues have come to the fore for England too, not least in the withdrawal of sponsorship from long-standing Team England partner, Nationwide. Ever the shrewd business operator, the FA felt compelled to rely on England’s outstanding World Cup performance to hold out on Nationwide for a bit more cash after the event. Little surprise then that the building society chose, not only to pay less money, but actually withdraw from the deal altogether after England’s demise in South Africa. Hope rests on rumours that one of the big internet search engines is waiting in the wings to add their support to Team England. Given the utter shambles exhibited once again in business negotiations by the FA, the Keeper feels the phrase ‘Ho-Hum’ might be more appropriate than Yahoo!

Time For Revolution in English Football

Following yet another dismal England failure in a major tournament, RTG is calling for a complete overhaul in the administration and running of football in this country. No more talk about tiredness, Winter breaks, technical ability or changes to the England management. Unless supporters want the discussion for the next 44 years to mirror those of the last 44 years, now is the time to have the courage to accept that the way the game is run is both archaic and anarchic and totally detrimental to the well-being of not just the national team but football in general.

“They [Holland, Germany and Spain] are the three nations who have won the greatest number of youth tournaments in the last four years. Can all this be put down to mere good luck? I don’t think so. We are witnessing a triumph for technical education programmes, sound management and good governance.”

Michel Platini, South Africa 2010

Currently, there are three distinct bodies running football in this country – all with their own agendas, all with their own objectives and all with an overriding aim couched in corporate rather than sporting terms. Any first year student of management studies could tell you that is a recipe for disaster. RTG believes there must be one body to govern football working to clear priorities and properly set objectives.

South Africa 2010 may not have been the most spectacular showcase for the game of football. But, if it showed us anything about international tournament football, it was that good coaching and intelligent players can produce a team that is far better than the sum of its parts. England, on paper, should have been more than a match for Germany and, man for man, should have stood comfortably shoulder to shoulder alongside the Dutch. However, when the chips were down against the Germans, the England players did not possess the thought-making process to understand what was going wrong and subsequently to put it right. It appeared that, running around like headless chickens and chasing shadows to show the ‘commitment’ and ‘passion’ that are so often quoted in relation to great England players was all they were capable of doing. And, in fact, that is all many simple-minded media pundits and commentators have believed to be required to win matches at this level for years.

Take Germany, as a good example (and why not since they are the most successful international European footballing nation). Following their failure to even get out of the group stage at Euro 2000, they revamped the structure of their coaching and administration as well as requiring Bundesliga teams to maintain a minimum number of home grown talent in each of their squads; together with a raft of other changes designed to help the development of the game. At the same time, England (who also went out at the same group stage) mindlessly contented themselves with a fortuitous single goal victory over the old enemy in one of the worst international matches RTG has ever witnessed.

In a similar vain, in 1976, Australia came back from the Montreal Olympic Games with no gold medals. That led to a root and branch analysis of what was wrong with sport in the country at all levels and ages. Consequently, they have punched way above their weight in every Olympics (and many other sports) since. In 1987, after suffering the humiliation of another comprehensive Ashes defeat, they did the same with cricket – the idea of being second best in their national sport simply not being acceptable. They didn’t lose the Ashes again until 2005. Likewise, English football needs to do the same with our national sport now. To do that it will have to acknowledge that the profit motive can no longer be the main driver behind how the game is run. It needs to set proper objectives and priorities for playing, coaching and governing the game in this country – and it needs to happen now.

Once a single governing body for football in England is established, RTG believes clear priorities for the game must be set out:

Priority 1: Participation. Football is our national sport and maximum participation is good for the health and well-being of the nation. Above all it must be fun to play to get the most out of it and we need to ensure that, at all ages and levels, the best possible facilities and standards of coaching are available - whatever that takes.

Priority 2: The England Team. If the first priority is met then we should be producing better players at grass roots level. But the club structure has to be revised in order that it helps the national team not hinders it. It’s obvious that the Premier League’s objectives could not be further from those of England right now. Clubs develop and buy players, quite justifiably, for their own economical and tactical needs not those of the national side. If available English players are not meeting those needs from the club’s perspective they will choose from elsewhere. And that’s exactly what they have been doing.

Priority 3: The Clubs. RTG has written plenty about this and there isn’t the space to address it fully here. But we need a fair competitive league structure that is not structured around how much money the owners are prepared to bankroll their clubs by or how much debt they feel they can get away with maintaining. The Premier League will argue that more money spent equals better players equals bigger gates. To use the German example again, grounds in Germany are full every week and clubs are not in debt. Likewise, their so-called ‘team in development’ reached the semi-finals of the World Cup – again!

These priorities represent some not insignificant changes. Like Germany, we may have to accept that our club performances in Europe will suffer in the short-term while genuinely talented players come through the ranks. In addition, qualification for the European Championships and World Cups at international level may have to be seen as a bonus rather than a given for a number of years. But removing that expectation from the shoulders of the team may, again like Germany, help them to over-achieve.

Help us to put pressure on the powers that be to reform the game by signing up here. We’ve paid handsomely for these past incompetents both financially and emotionally and we’ve earned our right to have our say.

The Keeper

….is hitting the beach instead of people!

As if England’s ignominious exit from the World Cup wasn’t bad enough already for English fans. We then had insult added to our pain by former Scotland manager Craig Brown. Mr Brown claimed that had Scotland qualified for the finals, they would have reached the quarter finals at least. This from a man who lamely responded after a 2-2 draw with the Faroe Islands with the immortal line “well, we did win the corner count”. The Keeper also recalled that Scotland later managed to lose to the mighty Faroe Islanders. Actually, on second thoughts, thank you Mr Brown, the memory of repeated humiliating Scottish failures to reach the European and World finals has cheered the Keeper up enormously.

Since the days of the sadly missed dishy Des Lynam, the Keeper has noticed that his punditry heirs have scaled ever further heights (or should that be plumb further depths?) in trying to outdo each other with the clever quips and puns. The Keeper’s favourite ‘waiting for the moment, but not worth the breath’ quotes have been Peter Drury’s USA – Ghana post match quip: “bye, bye, America sigh”. Ye-es. Sigh indeed. This was only just bettered in the cheesey stakes by Martin Keown’s comment on Japan’s “the lad Honda – played more like a Rolls Royce”.

TV pundits, however, much like tournament referees and assistants are not beyond reproach and paying for their mistakes. As the tournament progressed, various ‘expert’ panellists were culled from the initial line-ups. One of the first to go, thankfully, was the incomprehensible Emmanuel Adebayor, but much to the Keeper’s chagrin Alan Shearer remained. Now Mary Poppins, as he is known to the Geordie nation, didn’t, admittedly, attempt any cute quips or pathetic puns – to the Keeper’s knowledge – but his monotonous delivery and statement of the bleedin’ obvious was a continuous irritation. However, in response to the rest of the BBC panel’s discussion about Cesc Fabregas’ contribution in Spain’s triumph, he (boringly) told viewers that he had been outstanding “between the sticks” in the tournament and had made “two outstanding saves in the final”. Still Fabregas…..Casillas easily confused as they are only bloody foreigners to boring old Mary. Note: some media pundits were actually promoting him to be next England manager!

And finally, whilst the Keeper is sticking the proverbial boot into media pundits – this time journalists, Diego Forlan was, somewhat controversially, awarded the “Golden Ball” trophy. This, to commemorate him as the outstanding player of the tournament. Whilst admiring of Diego’s performances and his finishing as joint top scorer, the Keeper is perplexed at the overlooking of the handfuls of German, Spanish and Dutch players in favour of Diego. Until that is, it was explained that the assembled journalists in South Africa alone voted on the award. Enough said. Don’t think however, there would have been any controversy caused by the nationality of the “Golden Turd” award winner – any one from a number of Englishmen.