Post by QPR Report on Mar 13, 2010 21:24:14 GMT
Sunday Times March 14, 2010
The 15-point plan for League life after Brian Mawhinney
Rod Liddle
SEVEN years or so ago it was announced that Dr Brian Mawhinney would become chairman of the Football League, the very moment I wondered whether to cultivate an interest in basketball, or maybe curling, and ditch football altogether. Mawhinney was a hardline Presbyterian Conservative with an inveterate loathing of smoking, drinking and pornography. Hell, I wondered, what is there left for us all, if those pleasures are to be denied? And how could it be worse? Only if he had come out as a jihadi and a supporter of Leeds United, then all the boxes would have been ticked.
Mawhinney is leaving this month and it slightly pains me to write that his tenure has been exceptional, certainly when compared with the administrators of the Football Association and the Premier League. But he should not be damned with such faint praise; Mawhinney applied a certain rigour and realism to the stewardship of our league clubs. The Championship is now a more popular league than Serie A.
Mawhinney had no small task, with the overwhelming majority of clubs forever teetering on the brink of financial oblivion; and yet during Mawhinney’s tenure, despite predictions that scores of them would go bust, only poor Chester City (until last week, in the Conference) have succumbed. Clubs with ideas above their station — Leeds, Southampton, Crystal Palace — were whipped into line with stringent points deductions, even if we don’t know for sure who owns some of them, while Cardiff may also soon feel the crack of the whip. The smaller clubs have struggled through, thanks to clever marketing and a bit of cash coming from television, although the disparity with the Premier League grows every year. Whispers from within the Football League suggest that there are still too many clubs, per se, and that the level of debt is too high. The incoming chairman, Greg Clarke, who lost a few quid when he was running Leicester City, has already warned clubs that this will be a perilous decade, because in hard times, spending on clubs is “discretionary”.
Maybe, although not as discretionary as you might think. By and large clubs tend not to fold. So here are a few things he might do:
1. Root the clubs in their local community. Make councils and the Inland Revenue preferential creditors when clubs go into administration. Make other clubs the least preferential creditors; they know what they’re getting into.
2. Redefine what is meant by a “fit and proper person” to own a football club, so that it means “a fit and proper person”, rather than a Serbian war criminal with lots of money, as at present.
3. Ensure the name of every shareholder of every club is known; let it be open and transparent.
4. Hire some underworld figure to do away with a) Ken Bates b) Peter Ridsdale c) anybody who thinks it might be a good idea to own QPR. This is self-explanatory, isn’t it?
5. Ensure that people who buy clubs have the money to do so, rather than being deranged fantasists with a sense of destiny or money launderers.
6. Increase the amount of money channelled towards youth training schemes at league clubs. Demand a tax on transfers from league clubs to the Premier League to help pay for this.
7. Reduce the number of players available to clubs on loan each season: the more league clubs are dependent upon their own youth teams, the stronger football will be.
8. Limit the proportion of turnover that can be spent on players’ wages and transfer costs to that which would not embarrass any other sector of the economy.
9. Demand that clubs give their fans a greater say in all decisions that directly affect them, except in the case of Newcastle United.
10. Get tough with the filth. Don’t let the police dictate when matches should be played and start querying the bizarre amounts of money demanded for policing even the most trouble-free fixtures. Kick up hell when they insist games should be all-ticket, or that away fans should collect their tickets from motorway service stations at four in the morning.
11. When League Two clubs hire balding Swedish managers who stack the dishwasher before having sex with television celebrities, take a particularly close interest in the business plan and the veracity of promises of investment. Especially if they sign Sol Campbell.
12. Let fans smoke if the stand is only partly covered. Tell stewards to stop being so officious. Make sure the bars are well stocked. Ban foam hands, klaxons, Mexican waves and wrong ’uns dressed as tigers, lions, bees, swans, monkeys etc.
13. Insist upon club involvement within the local schools. Every club should run football schemes for kids.
14. Ban the sale of Chelsea or Manchester United shirts from club shops. Yes, Northampton Town, I’m talking about you.
15. Resist the temptation to further re-name the various divisions under the illusion that it makes us feel better when Millwall have lost to Hartlepool in a “League One” fixture. It’s not. It’s the third division.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/rod_liddle/article7060932.ece
The 15-point plan for League life after Brian Mawhinney
Rod Liddle
SEVEN years or so ago it was announced that Dr Brian Mawhinney would become chairman of the Football League, the very moment I wondered whether to cultivate an interest in basketball, or maybe curling, and ditch football altogether. Mawhinney was a hardline Presbyterian Conservative with an inveterate loathing of smoking, drinking and pornography. Hell, I wondered, what is there left for us all, if those pleasures are to be denied? And how could it be worse? Only if he had come out as a jihadi and a supporter of Leeds United, then all the boxes would have been ticked.
Mawhinney is leaving this month and it slightly pains me to write that his tenure has been exceptional, certainly when compared with the administrators of the Football Association and the Premier League. But he should not be damned with such faint praise; Mawhinney applied a certain rigour and realism to the stewardship of our league clubs. The Championship is now a more popular league than Serie A.
Mawhinney had no small task, with the overwhelming majority of clubs forever teetering on the brink of financial oblivion; and yet during Mawhinney’s tenure, despite predictions that scores of them would go bust, only poor Chester City (until last week, in the Conference) have succumbed. Clubs with ideas above their station — Leeds, Southampton, Crystal Palace — were whipped into line with stringent points deductions, even if we don’t know for sure who owns some of them, while Cardiff may also soon feel the crack of the whip. The smaller clubs have struggled through, thanks to clever marketing and a bit of cash coming from television, although the disparity with the Premier League grows every year. Whispers from within the Football League suggest that there are still too many clubs, per se, and that the level of debt is too high. The incoming chairman, Greg Clarke, who lost a few quid when he was running Leicester City, has already warned clubs that this will be a perilous decade, because in hard times, spending on clubs is “discretionary”.
Maybe, although not as discretionary as you might think. By and large clubs tend not to fold. So here are a few things he might do:
1. Root the clubs in their local community. Make councils and the Inland Revenue preferential creditors when clubs go into administration. Make other clubs the least preferential creditors; they know what they’re getting into.
2. Redefine what is meant by a “fit and proper person” to own a football club, so that it means “a fit and proper person”, rather than a Serbian war criminal with lots of money, as at present.
3. Ensure the name of every shareholder of every club is known; let it be open and transparent.
4. Hire some underworld figure to do away with a) Ken Bates b) Peter Ridsdale c) anybody who thinks it might be a good idea to own QPR. This is self-explanatory, isn’t it?
5. Ensure that people who buy clubs have the money to do so, rather than being deranged fantasists with a sense of destiny or money launderers.
6. Increase the amount of money channelled towards youth training schemes at league clubs. Demand a tax on transfers from league clubs to the Premier League to help pay for this.
7. Reduce the number of players available to clubs on loan each season: the more league clubs are dependent upon their own youth teams, the stronger football will be.
8. Limit the proportion of turnover that can be spent on players’ wages and transfer costs to that which would not embarrass any other sector of the economy.
9. Demand that clubs give their fans a greater say in all decisions that directly affect them, except in the case of Newcastle United.
10. Get tough with the filth. Don’t let the police dictate when matches should be played and start querying the bizarre amounts of money demanded for policing even the most trouble-free fixtures. Kick up hell when they insist games should be all-ticket, or that away fans should collect their tickets from motorway service stations at four in the morning.
11. When League Two clubs hire balding Swedish managers who stack the dishwasher before having sex with television celebrities, take a particularly close interest in the business plan and the veracity of promises of investment. Especially if they sign Sol Campbell.
12. Let fans smoke if the stand is only partly covered. Tell stewards to stop being so officious. Make sure the bars are well stocked. Ban foam hands, klaxons, Mexican waves and wrong ’uns dressed as tigers, lions, bees, swans, monkeys etc.
13. Insist upon club involvement within the local schools. Every club should run football schemes for kids.
14. Ban the sale of Chelsea or Manchester United shirts from club shops. Yes, Northampton Town, I’m talking about you.
15. Resist the temptation to further re-name the various divisions under the illusion that it makes us feel better when Millwall have lost to Hartlepool in a “League One” fixture. It’s not. It’s the third division.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/rod_liddle/article7060932.ece
