Post by QPR Report on Feb 28, 2010 7:58:51 GMT
Observer/Paul Hayward
Previous Blog home Mugged and violated, Portsmouth fans must be granted full investigation
The Premier League have to decide whether they are a regulatory body or a secretariat overseeing a free-for-all
The most insidious deceit to invade English football's phrase book in this age of boom and bust is still Leeds United's post-implosion claim to have been "living the dream". They were not. They were living the lie: the one that now stinks like a barrel of old skate at Portsmouth.
It was a feature of Britain's suicidal recklessness in banking, the housing market and Premier League football that problem gambling was recast as entrepreneurship. The "living the dream" defence was filed, of course, by Peter Ridsdale, who is now distinguishing himself again at Cardiff City, Pompey's victims in the 2008 FA Cup final. Ridsdale wanted to be seen as the guy who comes smiling out of a Monte Carlo casino at dawn with lipstick on his collar, champagne on his tongue and nothing in his wallet.
Except that it was never that innocent. Clubs lived the dream all over again, passing ownership along a shrouded line as if it were a Tom and Jerry time bomb, spending next year's money and conning fans with messiah smiles. Of all the untruths we needed to expose as Pompey fell into the hands of the financial ambulance chasers on Friday, the first was that people buy football clubs for the hell of it and simply go giddy before losing control of their business bowels.
This is the lie that gets them off the hook. Time now to fix attention on the why and the how much. Why did Portsmouth change hands four times in seven months? Where did all the transfer and television money go? Around the Premier League, finance directors speculated last week that administration was the last outcome some at Fratton Park would have wanted because it means opening up the books to see who got what, and why.
The influx of FA Cup winning players pre-2008 was matched only in its pyrotechnic impact by the dispersal of those stars when reality bit. Some, such as the chief executive, Peter Storrie, were present for both eras, so their explanations would be welcome, now that Pompey fans no longer sing "there's only one Peter Storrie", as they have even in this wretched campaign.
But for Storrie and the previous owner, Alexandre Gaydamak, who is "owed" (love that word) £30.5m, to be asked these questions, there would have to be a desire by the other 19 clubs to hold football's economics up to the light: to commission a full investigation into the Portsmouth scandal, then publish every word and number of the report. No data protection or companies law cop-outs, just the full train wreck, so every Pompey fan can see how they were mugged.
This is the moment when the Premier League have to decide whether they want to be a proper regulatory body or a secretariat overseeing a free-for-all. While they decide whether to be more like the NFL or NBA in America or stay as the TV deal-makers in a hucksters' paradise they will hope that the punters in Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and Africa have not noticed that one of the 20 masters of the universe hasn't got 30p to use the loo at a London station.
Richard Scudamore, the genius negotiator who arranged the candy rain of huge global TV contracts, is often mistakenly cast as the supremo when he's really the money-getter in a modest London office. Only the clubs themselves can agree to hose out their stables. Scudamore is their servant, not their master.
But he, too, now has a credibility problem as he racks up the air miles. The Premier League is sold abroad as a brand and a concept: a miracle of loan-fuelled expansion. In a feature for the Observer before Christmas he told me: "The last 10 years have been about globalisation. We had a couple of clubs who were known around the world – Liverpool and Man Utd. Ten years on, I go to places in Asia where they can name the Birmingham side, name the Hull side, name the substitutes, discuss the performance of the Wigan left‑midfielder from two weeks ago.
"The foreign owners instil interest in their countries along with foreign players. If Park [Ji-sung] isn't playing for Man Utd and the Bolton Korean guy [Lee Chung-yong] is playing then all of a sudden Bolton overtake Man Utd in the Korean viewing figures."
No one could doubt the success of this new imperialism but it still requires the drama not to serve as a haven for Thaksin Shinawatra or people who want to make transfer money disappear. It must not be, in other words, a puppet show of exploitation and lies.
Change is coming anyway. Uefa's machine guns are trained on English debt, which, according to the European governing body's report, accounts for 56% of the continent's liabilities. What a party that was, though. Portsmouth's fans got a whole day out at Wembley and all they had to agree to in return was the complete violation of their club.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/feb/28/portsmouth-investigation-administration
Previous Blog home Mugged and violated, Portsmouth fans must be granted full investigation
The Premier League have to decide whether they are a regulatory body or a secretariat overseeing a free-for-all
The most insidious deceit to invade English football's phrase book in this age of boom and bust is still Leeds United's post-implosion claim to have been "living the dream". They were not. They were living the lie: the one that now stinks like a barrel of old skate at Portsmouth.
It was a feature of Britain's suicidal recklessness in banking, the housing market and Premier League football that problem gambling was recast as entrepreneurship. The "living the dream" defence was filed, of course, by Peter Ridsdale, who is now distinguishing himself again at Cardiff City, Pompey's victims in the 2008 FA Cup final. Ridsdale wanted to be seen as the guy who comes smiling out of a Monte Carlo casino at dawn with lipstick on his collar, champagne on his tongue and nothing in his wallet.
Except that it was never that innocent. Clubs lived the dream all over again, passing ownership along a shrouded line as if it were a Tom and Jerry time bomb, spending next year's money and conning fans with messiah smiles. Of all the untruths we needed to expose as Pompey fell into the hands of the financial ambulance chasers on Friday, the first was that people buy football clubs for the hell of it and simply go giddy before losing control of their business bowels.
This is the lie that gets them off the hook. Time now to fix attention on the why and the how much. Why did Portsmouth change hands four times in seven months? Where did all the transfer and television money go? Around the Premier League, finance directors speculated last week that administration was the last outcome some at Fratton Park would have wanted because it means opening up the books to see who got what, and why.
The influx of FA Cup winning players pre-2008 was matched only in its pyrotechnic impact by the dispersal of those stars when reality bit. Some, such as the chief executive, Peter Storrie, were present for both eras, so their explanations would be welcome, now that Pompey fans no longer sing "there's only one Peter Storrie", as they have even in this wretched campaign.
But for Storrie and the previous owner, Alexandre Gaydamak, who is "owed" (love that word) £30.5m, to be asked these questions, there would have to be a desire by the other 19 clubs to hold football's economics up to the light: to commission a full investigation into the Portsmouth scandal, then publish every word and number of the report. No data protection or companies law cop-outs, just the full train wreck, so every Pompey fan can see how they were mugged.
This is the moment when the Premier League have to decide whether they want to be a proper regulatory body or a secretariat overseeing a free-for-all. While they decide whether to be more like the NFL or NBA in America or stay as the TV deal-makers in a hucksters' paradise they will hope that the punters in Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and Africa have not noticed that one of the 20 masters of the universe hasn't got 30p to use the loo at a London station.
Richard Scudamore, the genius negotiator who arranged the candy rain of huge global TV contracts, is often mistakenly cast as the supremo when he's really the money-getter in a modest London office. Only the clubs themselves can agree to hose out their stables. Scudamore is their servant, not their master.
But he, too, now has a credibility problem as he racks up the air miles. The Premier League is sold abroad as a brand and a concept: a miracle of loan-fuelled expansion. In a feature for the Observer before Christmas he told me: "The last 10 years have been about globalisation. We had a couple of clubs who were known around the world – Liverpool and Man Utd. Ten years on, I go to places in Asia where they can name the Birmingham side, name the Hull side, name the substitutes, discuss the performance of the Wigan left‑midfielder from two weeks ago.
"The foreign owners instil interest in their countries along with foreign players. If Park [Ji-sung] isn't playing for Man Utd and the Bolton Korean guy [Lee Chung-yong] is playing then all of a sudden Bolton overtake Man Utd in the Korean viewing figures."
No one could doubt the success of this new imperialism but it still requires the drama not to serve as a haven for Thaksin Shinawatra or people who want to make transfer money disappear. It must not be, in other words, a puppet show of exploitation and lies.
Change is coming anyway. Uefa's machine guns are trained on English debt, which, according to the European governing body's report, accounts for 56% of the continent's liabilities. What a party that was, though. Portsmouth's fans got a whole day out at Wembley and all they had to agree to in return was the complete violation of their club.
www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/feb/28/portsmouth-investigation-administration