Perspective: Patrick Barclay/The Times
November 2, 2009
Tony Finnegan’s wake-up call over ‘fit and proper’ professionals- Patrick Barclay, Chief Football Commentator Do not underestimate Tony Finnegan, who said last week that he would find a new club for Marlon King, the striker sacked by Wigan Athletic after being sentenced to 18 months in prison for hitting a young woman so hard that she suffered a broken nose and split lip.
Finnegan, remember, is the agent who, in January last year, persuaded Wigan to hand a contract worth a reported £2 million a year to a footballer who barely impinged on our consciousness — didn’t he have a promising Coca-Cola Championship season with Watford once? — and who, in his 15 Barclays Premier League appearances for the club, seven as substitute, was to score one goal, a penalty, before being loaned to Hull City and then Middlesbrough, at neither place being frequently mistaken for Didier Drogba.
So credit Finnegan for a proven grasp of the mixture of stupidity and cynicism with which football is often run. But please, on this occasion, let the game disappoint him. Let it reject the simplistic argument advanced on Friday by Arsène Wenger when the Arsenal manager spoke of forgiveness and said of King: “When he has paid his sentence, some clubs, if they want, they will take him. He is an individual and, if you do what he has done, the fact that he has played football has nothing to do with it.”
Wenger may have been thinking of Tony Adams, whom alcoholism obliged to spend two months in prison after a horrifying driving offence; as Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996, Adams confronted his disorder and went on to become a more than respectable member of the profession, captaining Wenger’s sides to two Doubles. Or of Eric Cantona, who, having kicked a spectator in 1995, paid the price through a long ban and community service and went on to further honours with Manchester United.
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But these were people worth rehabilitating; people who seemed to have absorbed their lesson. Eminent people, too, though I do not subscribe to the view that King should be discounted because he is an unmemorable player. Even if he were as good as, say, Drogba, he should be a footballing pariah now we know the full range and persistence of his offending, which includes theft, criminal damage, drink-driving, uninsured driving and, most damningly, a previous assault on a woman who had rebuffed his advances.
If he — or, for that matter, Wenger — deems this harsh, let us swiftly dismiss this argument that the serving of a sentence wipes the slate clean. It would not be so for a drunkenly flashing newsreader, let alone a groping priest or a lewd anaesthetist. They would expect to have to rebuild their lives and so should King. If he had wanted the Wenger concept of justice, he should have chosen a job out of the public eye, even if it paid less. Even Finnegan would struggle to convince us that football has no responsibility to the young and impressionable.
The likes of King and Joey Barton, whose recent interview with Matt Dickinson in these pages offered a depressing insight into why violence dogs him, have no place in it. The FA should be a powerful governing body. If there were a “fit and proper person” test for players — why should directors be singled out? — King and Barton would fail, clearing space for aspirant role models.
Much has been made of the decisiveness with which Dave Whelan, the Wigan chairman, dismissed King. It might equally be asked why he was not as astute as Mohamed Al Fayed, the Fulham chairman, who, upon hearing of King’s history of imprisonment, gave him a wide berth.
How far, then, should social responsibility go? Were Chelsea right to sack Adrian Mutu for a cocaine habit that hurt only his nose, rather than an unfortunate woman’s, and then to pursue him with a £15 million bill for breach of contract? That remains an instance of very rough justice indeed, a perturbingly hard case in a game more often accused of being soft.
Not so long ago, admiring eyes were cast across the Atlantic to the NFL. It has a commissioner, Roger Goodell, who is supposed to provide the smack of firm government and certainly appeared to do so when Michael Vick, acclaimed quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, admitted involvement in a widespread dog-fighting ring. Vick was immediately and indefinitely suspended.
He lost his salary and product endorsements and was sued by the Falcons for more than half of a £22 million signing bonus (it had been used to finance the ring’s betting operation) and, after spending seven months in prison, filed for bankruptcy. No other club approached the Falcons, so they released him.
Within weeks he had signed a one-year deal with the Philadelphia Eagles. It was for a mere £1 million for the 2009 season. Maybe he should change his agent: there is a temporary vacancy in the Tony Finnegan stable.
Debate: Would you be happy if your club decided to sign Marlon King on his release? Click here to have your say.
If you can’t beat them ... Spurs should have moved to the Emirates
If anyone asks you to explain the expression “flogging a dead horse”, point him to Tottenham Hotspur and their determination to press ahead with the rebuilding of White Hart Lane in time for the 2013-14 season.
The artist’s impression of the new, improved, extended stadium is almost a satire in itself. It shows hundreds of happy people milling about the concourse while a single red double-decker roars up the northbound bus lane of the adjacent High Road. There is no other traffic in either direction.
So how have the happy hundreds — not to mention the 56,000 inside — arrived? If they have come by Tube, the station within reasonable walking distance of White Hart Lane must have been completed in record time. If they have taken one of those trains that, even with the ground’s present 36,000 capacity, disgorge you at White Hart Lane station a claustrophobic wreck, they are not as cheerful as we assume.
There are few more handsome and evocative stadiums, but getting to and from it is already a far from pleasant experience. Transport aside, there is hardly anywhere suitable to eat or drink. Adding 20,000 places will simply make things worse, for all the talk of fan-friendliness, community consciousness and so on.
The success of Arsenal’s move from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium has been assisted by a very different environment, especially in terms of transport: there are two Tube stations within a few minutes’ walk and two others, also served by trains, within a comfortable 20 minutes. You can be fed and watered locally.
It is not really the ideal metaphor, but Spurs have missed the bus. They should have moved to the Emirates with Arsenal. It would have helped both clubs; while Spurs have a healthy balance sheet and an inadequate stadium, Arsenal have big debts and a home for the 21st century. In time, with imaginative design, the shared stadium could have become a visitor attraction seven days a week, increasing the prestige of both clubs.
The same could be true, and even more valuable, in Liverpool, but there the notion of a shared stadium has become the common sense that dare not speak its name. Instead, Everton plan a ground that will be too small and Liverpool’s owners trumpet empty promises about a huge one.
My fear is that Liverpool and Everton will, over the decades, become Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United when they could be AC Milan and Inter.
Although much is made of the tribal system in English football, to me it just gets in the way.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/patrick_barclay/article6898450.ece
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