‘Team England’: We Wish!

Several commentators have come out this week and said how much the England football team can learn from the Team GB’s Olympic successes. Perhaps we can, but the real lesson is that success in sport at the very top level requires a genuine desire from the people in charge, the funds to do it and the implementation of a long-term plan (remember the Olympic revolution in GB started over 15 years ago when we only won one gold medal in Atlanta, 1996).

The funds are definitely there, England being the richest football nation in the world, but too much of them will end up in the wrong hands. Not just agents and players’ salaries but also in the hands of the three archaic organisations that run English football that are still packed full of failed businessmen and fuddy-duddies. To be able to implement any lessons learned from the Olympics, English football needs to first reform the way its run from top to bottom – something RTG feels is right to campaign on.

UEFA Financial Fair Play Update

We’ve already made reference to Ed Thomson’s article on FFP in which he shows quite clearly how far both City and Chelsea are from meeting the current criteria. Chelsea may have netted £50M + from winning the Champions League, but they have reportedly already spent £64M this summer. Either Roman Abramovich has a scheme up his sleeve to address the already huge losses that he continues to bankroll on Chelsea’s behalf or he feels confident that, using the smoke and mirrors of accounting rules, he can circumvent UEFA’s new rules. Let’s face it, every single bank and international corporation have been thumbing their noses at fiscal regulations throughout the world for years. What hope do UEFA have?

Name That Ball

Try to keep calm if at all possible but excitement is brewing as Adidas announce the shortlist of names for the actual ball that is to be used at the 2014 World Cup and voted for by fans. So far Carnavalesca, Bossa Nova and Brazuca are in the running. As discussed in Andrew Jennings’ excellent book ‘Foul’, Adidas, through its founders and sister company, ISL, played the significant role in the now publicly acknowledged bribery of FIFA’s top brass including Brazilians Joao Havelange and Ricardo Teixeira.

Given also that the 2014 stadium construction has been hampered with numerous corruption enquiries can RTG suggest a more appropriate name for the ball - The Backhanderao?

Big Up to Brazilian Football Supporters

On top of the now customary corruption and bribery involved in construction contracts for major football tournaments, the Brazilians have also had labour disputes which has caused consternation to FIFA’s monitoring officials. However, a less reported delay was not so widely publicised. At the Maracana, fans protesting at the introduction of luxury corporate boxes caused further disruption to the construction.

Poder para o povo!

Not Back to Square One. Back to the Drawing Board.

Now you didn’t book that flight did you?

Austria and Switzerland Euro 2008 will undoubtedly be a poorer tournament for the lack of English supporters who usually outnumber most other countries by a considerable margin. The bar owners in those countries will most surely be cancelling their orders for their new Mercedes and wiping away a little tear. Perhaps the street cleaners may allow themselves a little smile.

So at RTG we are left once again pondering the whys and the wherefores and where we go from here. The usual bullshit will be spouted and frankly we’re too depressed to even bother getting annoyed about it. Safe to say already we’ve heard, “Oh David Beckham should have been on from the start”[Desperate]. “What if John Terry had been fit?” [Pointless]. “Stupid Rio for getting himself suspended”. [Scapegoat]. You can fill in the rest of the “if only” crap should you so wish. [Injuries][Pitch][Yadda…Yadda…Yadda].

Now we have a chance to put something right. England has the richest league in the World. It has the best players from around the World. Arguably it is the most exciting in the World if somewhat lacking in true competition. The English supporters are surely the keenest in the World and the resources available to the FA are second to none. In England we also have a massive desire to do well which is why we get so upset when we fail to reach our potential.

The time for talking about “passion” and picking managers and players based on how hard they can stick their fist in the air is over. Now is the time for a radical rethink about how we develop players and to build for a long-term future. It is time to start using our brains at all levels of the game. Sadly this approach has never been in abundance in English football. It was clear last night that when things started to go wrong we had neither the intelligence nor ability to work out how to put it right. This is especially true after Crouch’s equaliser when the only surprise was that it took 12 minutes for Croatia to go back in front.

Being optimistic, we have all the ingredients in this country to put things right. Being pessimistic, and given that we have had these ingredients for years, we are still searching desperately to find the recipe for success. However, the spectre of Brian Barwick flying around Europe trying to cajole people into the “impossible job” does not inspire confidence. Let’s at least hope that he improves his neck wear! Time and time again, over the last 40 years, it has been shown that the FA is not structured or organised for success. Until this is done, expect many more days like today in the next 40 years.

Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events

• A step in the right direction? Possibly. Wayne Rooney is studying for GCSE's in English and Maths. It will not only make him comfortably one of the most educated English players but with such a large bank balance it has a modicum of common sense about it.
• In order to help pay for the New Wembley, the FA staged an NFL football game. How ironic that one of the most damaged areas of the pitch played a crucial part in Croatia's first goal. It was announced just a few days beforehand that the FA were going to re-lay the pitch at a cost of £100K next month. A month too late perhaps.
• How delighted RTG was this week to be granted the opportunity on Sky Sports to watch highlights from the North London Golf Classic - featuring both memorable and highly forgettable former Arsenal and Spurs players pitched against each other on the fairways. This is yet more ridiculous over exposure of football, and all that goes on around it. RTG has always believed in a dedicated football channel run by the FA for supporters so Sky subscribers don't have to subsidise this type of crap.

The Right Time to Change the FA

As expected Sepp Blatter got his proposal through to end the continental rotation policy for World Cup hosting. The FA and several bandwagon jumping politicians leapt to advocate the English candidacy for the 2018 tournament. Needless to say England were immediately installed as favourites by the bookies bolstered by the apparent support of such luminaries as Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer. Like most English supporters, of course, we are gagging to see a major football tournament on these shores again.

This morning's papers have given estimates as to the cost of a winning bid to be anything between £12-£15M which, if true, would seem to be good value given that the five votes the England 2006 bid secured, cost £10.75M. But, hang on, this is an estimate from English sporting administrators and a British government. The 2012 Olympics original total cost was estimated at £2.5bn and, despite a concerted PR offensive to obscure costs, is widely believed to be currently somewhere between £8bn and £12bn. So, a miscalculation of a factor of between three and five times. Based on that, we should expect that the real 2018 World Cup bid will cost in the order of £40M-£50M.

Frankly, RTG can't give a toss what it costs (within reason), so long as England wins it. However, RTG does not have a lot of confidence in the FA to deliver. Take the 2006 bid where the voting took place in 2000. By all accounts, England had agreed previously with Germany that they would do a quid pro quo deal whereby Germany's support for England's Euro 96 bid would be reciprocated by England's support for Germany's 2006 World Cup bid. Although, Bert Millichip, who was the England negotiator for this arrangement, apparently slept through this part of the meeting. Whatever happened, in hindsight, England were never going to win the 2006 bid as shown by their first round voting elimination after a paltry five votes (out of 24 cast). This despite several large financial inducements made to various national football associations in order to procure their votes.

The only conclusion RTG can find for this ludicrous decision to make the bid was for a load of suits at the FA to go on one big jolly around the globe at what is ultimately the supporters' expense. Indeed, if reports are to be believed, ex-players who fronted the bid were making more money than they ever did as full-time professionals (£400K split between Sirs Charlton and Hurst). Little wonder that there is already an orchestrated media campaign by certain parties to ensure their names are in the hat for the next round. Hic! Shhhorry.

Some people might say that the 2006 bid provided a good 'dry run' for future bids. In this case, this was clearly not so. The perception amongst voting associations was that England had 'done the dirty' on Germany and that their programme of financial incentives was underhand. This included funding Peter Withe as manager of the Thailand national team, a friendly against Saudi Arabia, Manchester United's participation in the farcical FIFA 'World Club Championship' amongst others. The bottom line is that, if anything, this actually damaged England's reputation in world football. Imagine the damage and embarasment that would have been caused by a half-finished Wembley Stadium!

Frankly, that £10.75M could have been spent a lot more wisely on the constructive development of English football. Why, for instance, with the total dearth of English management talent in the country, is there no official FA-backed management academy? We appear to be wedded in this country to the belief that only top level ex-players can successfully manage a team. One wonders what would have happened to an English Mourinho or Wenger. But that's the subject of yet another debate.

For several years, England has been the richest footballing nation in the world. We should be a superpower in football given the financial backing and a population of 50 million people. But as already stated in previous RTG posts, we have not come close to winning anything apart from 1990. It is clear the archaic FA is neither structured nor staffed to be able to take advantage of England football's financial muscle.

Surely this bid represents the ideal opportunity to restructure the whole game within England to, not only successfully win the bid, but also win the World Cup!

Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events

• Various reserve teams slogged out the fourth round of the Carling Cup over the last two days. Unusually, the fifth round, ie the quarter finals, feature Premeirship only teams and, indeed, three of the big four. RTG leaves you to draw your own conclusions as to the significance of this because we're not really sure.
• Congratulations go out to Petr Cech for winning his libel case against Kelvin MacKenzie and the Sun. Mr MacKenzie claimed in his Sun column that the Cech family dog had attacked his own dog whilst out on a walk. Once again it has been shown that the Sun and Mr MacKenzie write lies and manipulate the truth. The trouble is they have an enormous impact on football. It will be hard to get things changed for football in this country with the vested interests of News International and its sister company BSkyB. Especially grateful to Cech for being brave enough to take on the Sun and a fine gesture to donate his 'substantial' damages to charity.

Do We Not Like That?

In a throwback to the bad old Graham Taylor England days, we are left contemplating various permutations for qualification to Euro 2008. So if Macedonia beat Croatia, and then we beat Croatia by a three goal margin or Israel draw or win against Russia and then we beat Croatia - we're through! Never going to happen. RTG hopes you took our advice from our September 6th posting not to book your flights to Austria or Switzerland.

Of the scenarios above, according to the form book, we are most likely left relying on Israel to get points off Russia. Let's take a look at the likelihood of this for a moment. We've already discussed in this blog last week how influence and interests of wealthy football investors appear shrouded in confusion and potentially detrimental to competition in the sport. Roman Abramovich is a major contributor to the Russian national team and is believed to bankroll Gus Hiddink's salary. He also 'found' the funding for the new Russian national stadium. Strangely, he doesn't seem able to afford to put underfloor heating in the stadium but we'll gloss over that for now.

But his influence also extends to Israeli football. He attempted to purchase Hapoel Tel Aviv in 2005 but was advised, given he is owner of Chelsea, not to do so. Consequently he persuaded his wealthy, close friend, Lev Leviev, to get involved with Israeli football and buy them instead. He seems to be most comfortable when he surrounds himself with Jewish/Russian cronies anyway. Take Avram Grant and Pini Zahavi as clear examples of this. Whichever way you choose to look at it, he clearly has major connections with both Israeli and Russian football. Can we really expect an Israeli team who are already out of the competition to go all out for victory? We don't think so, nor do we expect Croatia to lose to Macedonia.

Let's make no excuses for England's failure last night. We've heard a lot about "lack of passion" and "wanting to wear the shirt" ad nauseam from the pundits but the bottom line is we have not been good enough in what should have been a comfortable group. We made a promising start last night against Russia where we attacked and defended comfortably, and managed to take a one goal lead into the half-time break. But Russia's tactical changes saw us retreat further and further back until we were left looking like a bunch of clueless hoofers.

This has been a worrying trend right back to the Euro 2000 tournament where we were brutally exposed in our inability to keep possession of the ball. In his defence Sven Goran Eriksson must have realised this from the onset of his tenure because he turned us into a long ball side, capable of qualifying out of a group but shown wanting against the better sides. Last night we could blame Robinson, Rooney, plastic pitches or the ref if we wanted but, the way we were playing last night, it seemed inevitable that Russia would score again once they had equalised. The talent is there no doubt but the tactics and the intelligence to win important matches are not. Gus Hiddink out thought Steve McClaren completely and in an interview last night said that he knew that if you put the English defence under sustained pressure they would struggle to cope. And struggle they did.

Where do we go now? We've already discussed the problem lies deeper than just the manager but Steve McClaren clearly has to go. Who to replace him? Is there somebody out there with the tactical know-how, winning attitude, skin of a rhino and ability to get the best out of English players? Ole Jose!

Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events

• The BBC have been preparing, over the last week, for announcing redundancies to recover a £2 Billion deficit. Here's some suggestions to recover part of the debt: 1. Concentrate on acquiring the sport in the first place and don't pay the useless, ex-footballers, but with no brain pundits - e.g. Alan (I'm so Mary Popiins, my wife makes me do this) Shearer, Ian (the louder I shout, the more people believe my credibility) Wright and several others who don't add anything to our coverage to make it worth the expense; 2. Keep your serious football reporters and get rid of Chris Hollins who seemed to spend the whole of Germany 2006, at our expense, reporting on anything but football. What on earth do WAG massages and making Black Forest Gateaux have to do with World Cup football? 3. Gaby Logan - why? 4. Stop sending Five Live's Nicky Campbell to every major sporting occasion just for us to have to listen to him recounting his previous evening's corporate (also at our expense) entertainment over breakfast. Do the BBC, or any TV company for that matter, not understand the basic supply and demand laws of economics. There are millions of people willing to do presenting jobs out there. The desire to do the job should pay for itself.
• The collective intellectual footballing brain that is the Sky Sports pundit team, suggested one solution to England's qualification woes is to 'bring back David Beckham'. Well, when he gets his place back in the LA Galaxy team perhaps it might be a 'solution' (?@!*@??&*) worth thinking about. Solution? It's too late to help us now thanks chaps but you keep spouting out the first thing that comes into your brain rather than giving any serious thought to something that might be worth hearing.
• Sammy Lee, despite being the early favourite, was not the first Premiership manager to get the boot this season. Just goes to show that promoting second in command to overall General doesn't seem to work. FA take note...........hmmmmm.

England Further Away from the Prizes Than Ever

It is now just over 41 years since England had its finest footballing hour when we won the World Cup. Now in 2007, and with only two losing semi final appearances in all competitions, we find ourselves further than ever from being able to make realistic bids to win any tournament.

In 1974 when we failed to qualify for the World Cup, and with the subsequent failure to qualify for the '76 Euros and '78 World Cup, many reasons were put forward to explain England's failings:

1. Lack of appropriate coaching at grass roots and other levels
2. Poor 'technique'. Yes this was the moment when that term became standard excuse-speak in footballing pundit circles
3. Too many non-English players. Don Revie, when England Manager, was quoted as saying that his effective pool of players available for selection numbered 54 only!

Surprise! Surprise! These exact same issues are still put forward today. But now add to that:

1. Even less English players available (with Scottish, Irish and Welsh players being replaced by everyone on the planet). And many of those that are available are, or have been bit-part squad players - Joe Cole, Steve Sidwell, Peter Crouch, Sean Wright-Phillips, Glen Johnson, Scott Parker, Jermaine Pennant.
2. Less kudos associated with appearing for your country. Look at the early retirements of players such as Scholes, Bergkamp, Carragher, Shearer. Take the example of Frank Lampard's early 'taxi' home (actually a hired private jet) from the England squad after being dropped from the first team.
3. The diminishing authority and effectiveness of the FA. It is interesting that in 1958, a post Munich Manchester United team released Bobby Charlton for an England friendly tour rather than playing him in a European Cup semi final.
4. The fewer number of pupils playing football in schools coupled with lack of facilities.
5. The continuing absence of a policy on youth development as illustrated by the demise of the FA school of excellence after years of debate over its requirement in the first place.

We're not saying anything here that hasn't already been written and discussed at great length elsewhere. But the underlying point is this. For the generation that grew out of the post-war optimism of 1966, it was still a Britain of empire that was accustomed to being the best at what it set its mind to. That included football. The tragedy is that, in 1974, we still clung to the hope that English football would get to the bottom of its problems, sort them out and move on to another victory.

But in 2007, those who can remember those days, now find themselves not only contemplating the possibility of never seeing it happen again in their lifetime, but that of England moving even further away from ever achieving it. Yet, there have never been more financial resources available to the powers that run the game to address this problem. However, when you read Sir Trevor Brooking's pessimistic view of the future for the development of young players via the club academy system, it doesn't appear that the FA have either the will or the competence to do anything about it.

If, unlike the British Empire, football should survive another 1000 years, we have to contemplate the fact that 1966 was, and will remain, it's finest hour. If it is not, then it really will owe so much to so few!

Reclaim the Game - The week's Events

• Well done to the Football Supporters Federation on finally persuading the government to reconsider the reintroduction of terracing (safe standing). Though a black mark for them for not updating their website at time of writing. The majority of those who back the campaign appear to believe that this will mean cheaper prices and a return to good atmospheres in grounds. Sadly we believe neither will actually be achieved. In the short-term, the most likely outcome is that we'll end up paying £40 plus to stand at a game. In addition, most club owners seem reluctant to reconvert seating areas they paid to have installed already. It's good that a body has managed to sway government opinion on behalf of the football supporter. But as we have already stated, decisions made by people who run football clubs tend to be made for their own benefit, not those of suporters.
• Alan Hansen's appearance. Now a beard? The mystery deepens.
• Predictions are rife. Will England beat Israel and Russia in their forthcoming "must-win" games? Do you want our prediciton? Well let's just say, we don't think you should book your flight to Austria or Switzerland next year.