Italian PM Laments Football’s Warped Morals

“Football should be stopped for two to three years. It is not a proposal by the government but a question I am asking as someone who was passionate when football was still football. It’s particularly sad when a world which should be an expression of the highest values – sport, youth, competition, fairness – turns out to be a mass of foul play, falsehood and demagoguery.”

Mario Monti, Italian Prime Minister

Words of wisdom from Mario Monti, Prime Minister of Italy, in response to yet more match fixing and corruption allegations within the Italian game.

As RTG has written previously, the more money that floods into the game, expect to see more corruption – a situation not helped when the world’s governing body is one of the worst culprits.

Olympic Sponsors Pick GB Team

Adidas are one the major sponsors of the summer 2012 Olympics. It has embarked on a major ad campaign featuring David Beckham as its ‘main man’. Some of the ads seem to have it as a given that David Beckham would feature in the GB football team.

It wouldn’t be the first time that a sponsor has chosen a team. In France 1998, Brazil had to bow to contractual obligations with Nike that meant that Giovanni had to feature in the team, despite bad form and not deserving his squad place. Brazil obliged by playing him in the first half of their first match against Scotland. He wasn’t seen again in the tournament. Infamously, in the final, it was said that a clearly not-up-for-it Ronaldo played also only at the insistence of Nike.

RTG would love it for GB to do well in this tournament, but a lot of our passion for it will evaporate if it’s viewed as another corporate vehicle promoting its products and celebrity at the cost of sporting endeavour. There are many, many better choices than David Beckham.

UEFA Financial Fair Play Update

In June 2010, RTG wrote a piece about UEFA’s impending Fair Play Rules. Further details have since come to light which have clarified some of the rules. Firstly, we bemoaned the fact that the ‘carpet baggers’ like the Glazers, Hicks and Gillettes of this world, would still be allowed to continue to undertake highly leveraged buy-outs of football clubs. We now understand that this is not the case.

The amount of debt allowed by any club will be limited to the annual turnover of the club. Currently, both Chelsea and Manchester United fail this test. This explains United’s reported effort to make shares available on the Singapore stock market - a move that will turn that debt into shareholder equity but without the business restrictions that a London placing of the shares would entail.

Secondly, the ‘sugar daddy’ element, which up to now has seen Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour financially dope their teams over the last few years, will also have restrictions in place. At the time of our first article, it was widely reported that any extra investment could be made as long as that investment was turned into equity and not debt. Again, this is not the case. UEFA have clarified the rule and there will be a gradually reducing level allowed, thereby progressively curtailing the ability of such sugar daddies to influence unduly transfer markets.

The real test, though, will be in the ability of UEFA to control and monitor its own rules effectively. Given how British football authorities have failed so categorically to enforce simple tests of ownership rules, RTG is really not confident. The real indicator will be to see how this summer’s transfer dealings go. If half the rumours that abound are true, then both Chelsea and Manchester City will embark on yet another transfer splurge. If so, you can bet that they are not the slightest bit worried by Financial Fair Play despite both failing by miles to meet the terms of the new rules.

Gary Neville Is Our Mate

Following the appointment of Roy Hodgson, some of the media immediately laid bare their disappointment by poking fun at Hodgson’s rhotacism (yes RTG had to look it up also) – “Bwing on the Euwos”, screamed the Sun.

Gary Neville immediately tweeted: “Disgusting headlines, good journos under pressure writing pieces for their mates and a certain paper needs putting out of circulation”. Rightly, Neville has gained a worthy reputation for his insightful and honest punditry on Sky Sports but he must have forgotten that the Sun is a sister company to Sky, both being owned by News International. Let’s not forget what happened the last time a Sky pundit, Andy Gray, crossed News International during the phone hacking scandal. Biding their time, News International waited for Gray to slip up and took their revenge.

RTG can’t believe that Neville didn’t fully comprehend the implications of his tweet and we are, therefore, all the more impressed by him not being kow-toed to the evil empire that News International is. But watch your back Gary!

Hodgson – The Smart Choice

Finally, the FA has appointed the next England manager; Roy Hodgson. Vastly experienced and erudite, by English football standards, he was chosen ahead of Harry Redknapp, the football media’s choice, and by extension, the ‘people’s choice’. Whilst the selection process appears to be a bit of a mystery, it seems that Redknapp didn’t even appear to be in the running. Of course, rumours abound about the enmity between him and Sir Trevor Brooking costing him any chance of a successful appointment to the post.

However, it is clear that the prime qualifier for the job was to be English. With that in mind, Roy Hodgson is the right choice. It may be true that Hodgson’s main trophy winning feats occurred on the continent but he has a successful track record, at least, winning many championship titles and cup competitions throughout Europe. He also turned an international ‘minnow’, Switzerland, into the number three FIFA-ranked international side. Redknapp, on the other hand, has just one FA Cup credit to his name with what turned out to be a ‘financially-doped’ Portsmouth. Arguably, Hodgson taking Fulham to the Europa Cup Final was a more impressive feat than Redknapp reaching the last eight of the Champions League with Tottenham.

Many people, especially in the media, have voiced their extreme disappointment that the ‘people’s choice’ didn’t get the job. Given the experience when the last ‘people’s choice’, Kevin Keegan, was appointed, thank god this time we didn’t.

Cheat! Cheat! Cheat!

Those of us who can recall the playing days of Rodney Marsh and Francis Lee in the 1960’s and 70’s, will know that today’s commentators bemoaning players’ diving to gain penalties, as a modern blight, are totally wrong. Usually those same commentators betray their Little-Englander instincts by adding that diving was a direct import that came with foreign players and that all us solid British types would never have gone down this road without the lessons taught by and learnt from foreigners.

At least one of them, Gary Neville, had the balls to state quite categorically that diving had been commonplace amongst players that he played with and against. And he included himself, as well as naming English icons such as David Beckham, Wayne Rooney and Steve Gerrard as all ‘going down easy’. However, Neville went on to differentiate going down without contact and going down with contact. The former being a cheat, the latter as not cheating. Needless to say Sky Sports, who had broadcast his views, was inundated by supporters appalled by his easy dismissal of the practice as part of the modern game.

Again, those of us who have followed football over the last few decades could certainly attest to numerous incidences of players winning penalties with little or no contact. RTG can even recall a teenage ‘butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth’ Gary Lineker doing his aquatic acrobat stuff with Leicester City. It can also recall Glenn Hoddle specifically encouraging a raw Michael Owen to learn the dark art of diving to ‘improve’ his game at a press conference in France ’98. Michael certainly learnt quickly, as he found Argentine legs to plunge over in that World Cup and the next one. That the first one was balanced by an earlier equally dubious Argentine penalty is beside the point.

The real question is: does it happen more often than it did? With multiple cameras, better technology and rolling 24 hour coverage, more dubious cases are more able to be spotted, highlighted and endlessly debated nowadays. We just don’t have the data available from previous eras. Sadly, therefore, it is a question of which RTG can only provide an answer based on anecdotal evidence and experience.

Yes it is more common, but then with potentially multi-millions of pounds at stake resting on one incident, it’s really not that surprising. What has changed is that, increasingly, modern players, pundits and supporters see it as ‘professional’ and a ‘duty’ – as illustrated by Neville’s recent public pronouncements.

There has been some wild talk of retrospective punishments for divers using the camera technology available now as routine at Premiership grounds. But until someone comes up with a camera that measures the force of a push and the brain waves of intent, no current technology will solve the problem. Retrospective refereeing is frankly an area we should not go down at all for reasons that RTG will cover in a later piece.

No, the real danger in redefining the modern morals of sport is best shown by a story from American Baseball. In 1994, the top batter for the Cleveland Indians, Albert Belle, was accused of using an illegal corked bat. One umpire removed the bat for testing, locking it up safely in the umpires’ room. One of Belle’s team-mates, Jason Grimsley, acting the cat burglar, broke into the umpires’ locker room and replaced the tainted bat with a legal one. The deception was easily spotted by the fact that it looked totally different and had a totally different player’s name on it. The dim-witted Mr Grimsley was treated as a hero by fans and colleagues alike and Mr Belle got a paltry minor ban. Hmmm…dim-witted sportsmen….sounds familiar.

This relaxed view of cheating has led directly to wide spread performance enhancing drug use within baseball. It has directly affected results and the record books. RTG is not saying that football will go the same way, if it hasn’t already, but collectively we need to address this moral issue. And fast.

But then who amongst us England supporters would genuinely complain if Ashley Young’s 89th minute dive wins us the European Championship this summer? RTG would like to think that it would bother us.

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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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