Marching Into The Abyss 2012 Style

The 2012 part of the 2011-2012 season has already given plenty of opportunities for RTG to get blogging. From criminal courts to bankruptcy courts, from racist allegations to resignations, through players refusing to play and then having to play, the first two months of 2012 have certainly illuminated the issues on which RTG has been campaigning.

RTG can’t be the only ones who were astonished by the flimsy criminal case that the tax authorities brought against Harry Redknapp, basically one that rested on his word against another. But it seems RTG is amongst the very few who were even more astonished as to the ethics, accepted as normal by all in court and by most of the media (as far as we know), of managers taking a commission on player sales. Add to that ethical question the fact that this was at the time that the financial implosion at Portsmouth started, and then it should raise alarms for all true minded football supporters.

As if by divine coincidence within a few days of the trial, Portsmouth was put into administration again, ten points were deducted from them again and the administrators now say that it’s very likely that they will fold before the end of the season. Meanwhile, step forward the next England Manager…..Whatever the future holds for Portsmouth, it is clear that their problems were sown by some very ethically dubious dealings and compounded by the continuing failings at the FA in applying their so called ‘fit and proper’ rules on club ownership.

We may complain about the English FA incompetence and we could continue to bleat about the fact that most of its bigwigs are failed business men, but for once the Scottish FA seem to have outdone their southern rivals. The financial mess that Glasgow Rangers find themselves in and the reports and rumours circulating as to some of the irregularities that Rangers owner, Craig Whyte, may have perpetrated, leave even a cynical RTG astounded. How Scottish football could have allowed one of its jewels in the crown to get to this sorry state is a salutary lesson for all supporters – even those that feel they are behind an impregnable financial force field. Basically, there are just so many examples of how football’s administrators throughout the world are either financially corrupt or incompetent – or both.

All this doesn’t bode well for UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules. If football administrators can’t spot “bad ‘uns”, how on earth are they going to work through the smoke and mirrors of financial accounts, offshore companies and subsidiaries to make their fair play rules work? Watch this space because RTG is planning on raising this issue many more times.

On the plus side, racism has been elevated into the football consciousness. Plus side? Well yes. The casual racism as exemplified by the Ron Atkinsons and other little Englanders of his ilk, was never really addressed by football which, as a body, seem to content itself that monkey-noises and banana throwing were a thing of the past. The Suarez case and the pending criminal case against John Terry, whilst distressing to the injured parties and the defendants, gives all involved in football, the chance to debate and address these issues.

On the downside, the Terry race row seemed to give the perfect opportunity for Fabio Capello to jump ship. Now RTG was a great advocate of Capello’s appointment. This was based on the premise of “if he can’t do it, then no one can”. Well it’s clear he couldn’t do it and that he really didn’t want to continue to do it, even for the remaining few months of his contract. Where this leaves England, RTG has written about before and will again in the future. Suffice to say that RTG is not impressed that Capello walked away with a pay-off of £1.5 million – Capello seemingly having a media gag applied, says much also.

These are just some of the issues that emerged/re-emerged since RTG last published. We haven’t even begun to address the Tevez situation and the player power issue, but suffice to say that since we last wrote, football marches ever more steadfastly away from the sport that we love and into the cold spiny embrace of corporate values, marketing plans and incompetent/corrupt football administrators.

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Racist or Not, Media Appoints the Captain

What a strange world that English football inhabits. On the one hand, almost uniquely amongst competitive footballing nations, the English elevate the position of captain to almost mystical levels – much to the bemusement of virtually every foreign manager who plies his trade in this country. On the other, we collectively proceed to ignore totally all the reasons we have for exalting that position to such high esteem in the first place.

Get caught racially abusing other players – more than once – no problem. Shag a team-mate’s girl – par for the course. Actually: you can also drunkenly abuse Americans the day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks; end up in court after a night club brawl where your only argument is “do you know how much money I make?”; defraud the taxman by conducting training ground tours for brown envelopes stuffed with cash; abuse the England captaincy perk of a Wembley hospitality box; publicly urinate in a night spot…RTG could go on...

No, this is not a moralising call for John Terry to be sacked for the above transgressions. As always, RTG will not make a call on something where we do not have all the information. We’ll leave you to decide whether his current performances warrant an England place and whether his captaincy has been a successful one. Interestingly, this aspect has not entered the media debate. We can only go on the information and experience that we have. Ever since the iconic images of Bobby Moore holding aloft the Jules Rimet trophy on his colleagues’ shoulders were published and documented the only good day England football has ever had, English supporters have been gagging for a similar paragon to emerge and wholly get behind. But let’s face it: most modern English footballers give the impression that they could easily figure in the criminal underworld, if they hadn’t been able to kick about a synthetic leather ball rather well. Either that or digging ditches.

The most disturbing aspect of the captaincy issue is that it highlights the hypocrisy endemic within the game, lead by the media. They plug away with their “me-too” views that promoted John Terry into a position in which he should never have been considered, let alone be - England captain - then twice sacked and re-instated him. The betting money now is that he’ll be removed yet again. A similar situation has surfaced with David Beckham’s attempts to get himself picked for the GB Olympic football team. And he’s getting plenty of support from the media and from those more interested in his wife’s shoes than football. None of which has anything to do with sport and being successful at it.

Take this quote from Terry’s statement: (I am proud to be captain of) …“ one of the most internationally diverse teams in the Premier League”. Note the use of the word ‘internationally’ and not ‘racially’ – which would have been more appropriate, but would have drawn attention to that terrible “R” word, from which he is so desperate to escape. This encapsulates it all. First, there is no way that Terry came up with those words. And second, it goes no way to explaining or apologising for his (on his own admission) disgusting words. There’s the rub. More money, more bullshit, more Public Relations offensives – and mark RTG’s words, that is all Terry and Beckham have in their locker.

Increasingly, the game is being run on the hot breath of highly paid PR people and has less and less to do with truth, actual talent and achievement. England (and GB) will win bugger all the longer this continues.

Reclaim the Game from the bullshit and money men!

Roll up. Roll up for the 100 Caps Wembley Showbiz Spectacular!

According to England skipper John (do you know how much I earn in a week?) Terry, Jose Mourinho is the ‘stand out’ candidate for the next England manager. For once, RTG finds it hard to disagree with JT on that. Sadly, however, this is in the same breath as stating he would be willing to sit out the Switzerland friendly in order for David Beckham to win his (in JT’s own words) “very well-deserved 100th cap”.

Much has been said recently regarding the England football team and its current woes. JT’s ‘sincere’ offer undermines his position as captain of a failing football team as he is trivialising the whole wretched situation that we as supporters have had to endure. What exactly is he stating? Beckham is going to play centre half? If so then we definitely haven’t even begun to learn anything from our recent debacle. Why is a captain talking up a player who won’t have played a competitive match for over three months, and only a handful in the last six or seven? The truth is that this situation is not going to happen. So why bother saying it?

Could it be that in an effort to fill Wembley for what is now a meaningless friendly on February 6th, next year, the FA have decided to turn the event into some sort of football celebrity love-in rather than focusing on rebuilding a flagging side? Let’s face it, the economics of filling Wembley with thousands of toilet-licking teenyboppers make much more sense than trying to half-fill it with miserable, disgruntled England supporters, still smarting from the lack of competitive matches to look forward to.

There have been four previous winners of 100 or more caps for England – Billy Wright, Peter Shilton, Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton. As RTG has stated before, David Beckham was once a very fine player. Unfortunately, you can count only a handful of world class performances he has made for his country; most notably, in his total command of the world cup qualifier against Greece, where his last minute effort secured automatic qualification to Japan 2002. It is hard to imagine him, however, in the company of these four greats and perhaps it would be better for the game if he stayed on 99 caps.

Reclaim the Game – The Week’s Events

• Call RTG cynical (and we are), but we believe that John Terry wetting himself and urinating on the floor on the eve of the important Croatia match was not caused by excess drink and exuberance. No, this was a carefully calculated publicity stunt for his rumoured new sponsorship deal with Pampers. OK….not strictly true…..it was Huggies. OK enough!
• Is it RTG’s imagination or has Richard Keys got even more vacuous in his summation of matches on Sky? He appears to take no account of the full 90 minutes and seems to refer constantly to his stock of clichéd points gleaned from the media, no matter what happened out on the field. As hard as Peter Beardsley tried to talk about the game last night (and as hard as we tried to understand the mumbling Geordie), Keys just kept bringing him back to, “Oh Arsenal, they play lovely football don’t they?”…..”Allardyce is under a lot of pressure isn’t he, Peter?”….”Pressure off Allardyce now Peter?”. Thanks Mr Keys but we learnt nothing about football from one of the game's greats thanks to your inane, stage-managed presentation.
• Gretna have made a brave decision this week to agree to postpone their SPL match with Rangers at the weekend to help Rangers’ preparations for their upcoming qualification decider against Lyons. Admirable though it is to see a nation getting behind its club teams in Europe, this adds a distinctly unfair advantage and sets a worrying precedent should the habit be adopted more widely.