Football Finance

Sense of illegality sadly misplaced in world of sport

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Wherever you look these days, football seems to be in the dock. We cannot comment on the individual cases until they are decided, but it has raised the question: what has gone wrong?

Many will argue that surely football, and sport in general, should have nothing to do with the general law of the land. Sport, as one of our leading writers put it, is a parallel universe where the intervention of the lawyers is an unwarranted invasion of this wonderland. The sentiments could not be more beautifully put, but it is a bit like saying sports and politics should not mix.

This was heard of a great deal when the issue of apartheid in sport came up. The argument was made by the white South Africans. They had an agenda as they knew politics defined the world they, and we, lived in. To suggest sport and politics should not mix was like saying sport should be divorced from society. Sport grows out of society and is as much part of it, if not more so than any other activity.

What has created the impression that sport is different is not only has sport got rules which it calls laws, but we have been told these laws of sport are capable of handling everything. This is particularly true of football. A foul in football is an illegal challenge. Note the word illegality. It suggests something that society at large would consider illegal when it is only a football illegality that may have no resonance beyond the football field.

The John Terry case has blurred the lines between football law and the law of society. Image courtesy of PlayUp

The law of football that really creates the impression of the game being a parallel universe, is the one that relates to a club poaching a player from another club. In football this can only be done through a very tightly defined system. In football, a club wanting a particular player contracted to another club cannot just pick up the phone and ring the player. He has to be approached through his club. Clubs that do not follow the rules can be heavily penalised.

But this is a football illegality. Such rules would be absurd outside the world of football. In the wider society we all live in, if an employer wants someone to work for them they either ring the person up or get a head hunter to do so. There is nothing illegal about that. It is common practise. It is the very special rules of football on transfer that make us believe that football is a country of its own with its own laws. And that is where football goes wrong. The football anti-poaching law is a law of a trade association necessary to run the trade of football. It is something that would not work in the wider society.

What has happened recently is wider society, having for so long let football carry on and administer its own justice, has decided that football authorities are no longer capable of running their world. They need help from the police and judicial authorities just as much as the rest of society. Football’s immunity from wider society and its rules no longer holds.

Football needs to wake up to this reality and adjust its behaviour. If it does not, the game faces problems and more football cases will end up in the law courts of the land.

Football needs to reform to become a real business

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The Harry Rednapp case, whatever the final verdict, has illustrated what we all knew: for all the talk of football being a business, it is still essentially a cottage industry. It has not moved on from the early twentieth century world when it first came into prominence.

That football is big business can hardly be doubted. Look at the financial figures that UEFA has released about the profits and losses made by the clubs and the huge debts they have. In 2010, total revenues for top-flight clubs reached a record €12.8bn, but the increase in revenues was accompanied by record aggregate net losses of €1,641,000,000.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

The amount of muck poured on this competition reminds me of the words Kelvin MacKenzie said to John Major after he had taken Britain out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). As MacKenzie recounted to the Leveson inquiry on the press, as the hapless Prime Minister rang to ask the then Sun editor how he would treat the news, he replied, “Prime Minister, I have a bucket of shit by my desk and I am about to pour it on you.”

Some English managers, like Harry Redknapp, seem to have a similar view about the UEFA Europa League (UEL).

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BBC London Radio

With Jason Solomons, Michael Smiley, Mihir Bose, ‘Cover To Cover’ and Seal.

The Robert Elms show is a celebration of every aspect of London.

Three hours a day, revel in the stories and characters, memories and aspirations which make London such a great place to live and work.

Art, architecture, history, movies, shopping, drinking and dining all carried out to a soundtrack of music for grown ups.

The Robert Elms Show is tailor-made for you, dear Londoner.

Click here to listen to the programme (Note: Section with Mihir starts at 1:36:40.  This programme will only be available until the 26th January)

Click here to read more about The Spirit of the Game

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Reputation potentially in ruins if Ewood Park mess is not cleared up

Things are moving at Blackburn although not in the way that will please their less than happy supporters.

It seems Jerome Andersen, the football agent, who was constantly at the side of Venkys when they bought the club a year ago is no longer the supreme adviser the Indian owners always consult. Indeed they have extended their net of advisers to also talk quite often to Pini Zahavi, the Israeli who is always described as the world’s most important football agent.

A simple reading of this would suggest that this must mean a change of manager. Surely with Zahavi, imparting his particular football wisdom, and all the many friends he can offer as managers, this must mean change is inevitable. Steve Kean’s days are surely numbered.

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