What Price Justice?

When Harry Redknapp walked free from court last week not only did it set a chain of events in motion that saw the England Manager lose his job, it led to reports in the press that the trial itself had cost £8m.

Soccer Business' collegues Football Franchise tweeted on Friday: So an £8m 5-year investigation to find that someone who was accused of fiddling tax on less than 200 grand was innocent #moneywellspent and we were far from the only ones to share those views.

In fact so fierce was the outcry that the HMRC released a statement last week denying that the court case had cost anywhere near that much and instead insisting that the actual cost was somewhere in the region of £1.3m, indeed it further suggested that the £1.3m figure also included the trial of former Pompey Chief Exec Peter Storrie, who it emerged had been acquitted of similar charges last year.

A spokesman was unequivocal: “There's been a lot of nonsense talked about the cost of this investigation to HMRC.” They told press, with their figures coming in at around £300,000 apparently. The other million comes from barristers fees, which in Dec 2011 stood at just over £944,000.

So the question begs itself: What price justice? And does it actually matter how much it costs to see justice done?

You can see why people got vexed by this. The investigation into Redknapp has gone on for five years and was all to do with the sort of sums that Carlos Tevez takes home per week.

But, is that the point? Surely you don’t want to get into a situation where you are looking for value for money in justice and cases don’t go to court because you can’t afford to see it through?

However, on the other side of that you do have to wonder if, in these times of fiscal hardship and cutbacks and budget deficits whether it should have taken five years to investigate something and bring it to trial – especially when you consider the fact that Storrie had already been cleared (that detail wasn’t reported – and rightly so, for fear of prejudicing the court case).

Personally I am inclined to think that, when all things are considered, the cost of things isn’t important when it comes to the law. You can’t get in a situation where people think to themselves “I can get away with this because they can’t afford to investigate.” And the actual cost of the crime – as we have pointed out already, in this case it was considerably less that what some Premier League players earn in a week – shouldn’t really be a consideration.

Of course, in this particular Messrs Mandaric, Redknapp and Storrie have been vindicated in their belief of their innocence and are free to carry on their lives. That being the case, it easy to point fingers and suggest that money has been wasted. But I wonder if that had been said if the Spurs boss and the Sheffield Wednesday owner were in prison this week?

If the HMRC are to be believed, rather than the more lurid reports, then the £1.3 million is a tiny, miniscule drop in the ocean compared the bank bailouts, or MP’s expenses. Or indeed just over a sixth of what the outgoing England Manager was paid – and probably just about what he received as a pay-off.

I wonder if ‘Arry will be cheaper when he takes over?

Managing To Make Money From The Players

It is not for us –for all sorts of reasons – to speculate as to the guilt or otherwise of Messrs Mandaric and Redknapp.

But there is one thing we can speak about, which has become common knowledge as part of the evidence is the issue of managers receiving part of the fees for selling players to other clubs.

Redknapp, it emerged, received in the region of £200,000 for selling Peter Crouch to Aston Villa in 2002, and these payments are common place.

They were written into his contract, so just be clear, I am not suggesting in any way that anyone to do with the transfer acted improperly and the payments were perfectly legal and above board – but were they right?

Is it not a conflict of interests, or more accurately, can a conflict of interests not be suggested? For example, to take Peter Crouch since he is the named player in the deals, if Crouch was scoring goals and Portsmouth were going for Promotion and a club comes in with a big bid, does the manager – in this case Redknapp - keep him in order to further those promotion prospects, or does he recommend the player be sold for personal gain?

As James Lawton put it in The Independent last week: “The practice in general opens up the issue.”


“At what point,” argues Lawton. “Might a manager, conscious of the uncertainties of a results-oriented business where pressure on the jobs of even the most distinguished operators has never been so great, be tempted to put his own interests before those of his club, and by extension, the fans who supply its lifeblood?”


And isn’t that the crux of the thing? Is it right that this is allowed to happen?


Redknapp isn’t the only manager to benefit in this way, of course. It appears that Dario Gradi’s fabled Crew Alex production line also produced plenty of cash for him as he personally benefitted from the transfers of the likes of David Platt, Robbie Savage and Dean Ashton. Gradi’s presence on the board at the Alexandra Stadium on Gresty Road further exacerbates the situation.


Although the Italian is no longer the Manager of the now League Two side he still retains his right to a percentage of player transfers out of the club – and with the likes of Nick Powell and Max Clayton currently starring for the England U-19 side he may well be getting to top up his ISA again soon.


There are, I am sure many within football who cannot see what the fuss regarding these payments is about. In his aforementioned piece in The Independent last week, Lawton quotes “an experienced football administrator” as saying: “The system can be justified... a manager, who has no kind of job security, does a good job, makes the club a huge profit on an individual player, so why shouldn't he have his share? Like the bankers do when they improve the figures.”


Although even here this person agrees that there is a potential for wrong-doing to at least appear to be done. "The potential problem lies in the possibility of some managers and players maybe being tempted to collude over their short-term interests rather than the long-term ones of the club.” Which is an interesting way of putting it.


The issue at hand here is not whether these payments are legal and above board – they clearly are – the issue at hand is rather they are right.


And if that is hard to quantify, then what might be harder to do is to decide whether to allow the practice to continue. At this point, now these payments are in the public domain, do the authorities need to have a look at what is going on here and perhaps act accordingly, before this rather murky aspect of football business really get too far out of hand?

Feeling Blu In The Blue Square

If ever you needed a remainder of just how precarious the business of professional football is then the events of last week at two conference clubs have shown us.

Darlington have grabbed all the headlines thanks largely thanks to the dramatic nature of their rescue by two fans right as the deadline to stop them falling into extinction. The money will grant them a three week stay of execution and everyone at Football Business wishes them all the best.

However it isn’t just Darlo that are right on the brink. Kettering Town have had a tempestuous last few years and that came to a head in the last few weeks with a very odd chain of events.

First, Manager Mark Stimson who had only joined in September (himself the third boss in a matter of months) but left after the club was placed under a transfer embargo. He was replaced by Mark Cooper, a man who had much success at the club in his first spell (and ironically had left Darlington in October).

That was on January 4th but just three days later Cooper was already “considering his position” at Nene Park. It turned out that when he was appointed he was promised funds would be forthcoming and the embargo would be lifted. This did not happen.

The players meanwhile hadn’t been paid for a three months. Cooper showed his displeasure at this and said: "There's only so long they [the players] can keep [playing while not getting paid in full], to keep putting your neck on the block when you have got bills to pay and children to feed and I have sympathy for them.


"Kettering, in non-league terms, is a big club. It's gone backwards. It needs help quickly. Things need to change or there isn't going to be a club."


If that is not bad enough, it was to get a lot worse. Last week Cooper announced his role as Manager was “on hold” as he and the players had “had enough” of the situation as it was.


On Thursday the club faced a potentially key day. There was a hearing at which the club faced a charge of “failing to pay football creditors.” They were fined £3000 and were deducted three points (although this was suspended until Feb 28th on condition that the club has paid all its debts by then.


Chairman Imran Ladak – a man who appointed Ron Atkinson as Director of Football and Paul Gascoigne as Manager in the past lets not forget – is confident that the club can have a future: “I do believe this result means the club is in better shape. And, like I said, there were certain people waiting on the outcome of this hearing.”


And it is to be hoped that these “certain people” can take the club forward in a way that they have not been for a while.


The Chairman of the Kettering Supporters Trust, Mark Severn isn’t quite so sure, saying to Ladak in an email that: “"This is perhaps as deep as it [the club] can get into crisis before extinction.”


While Severn thanked Ladak for his efforts on the club’s behalf, others are not so sure. A “Show Ladak the red card” campaign has been running – one of the posters for this has been seen in the dressing room at club’s ground, which tells you all you need to know.


In the meantime experienced defender Ashley Westwood took charge after Cooper refused and although his (possibly temporary) reign began with a defeat against Wrexham, they did win a game this week – their first for a while, by beating Gateshead.
What the future holds in store for either Darlington or Kettering remains largely unclear, but it is certain that the fans of those clubs – just like countless others before them – are going to be ones that are hardest hit by this.


The players too have much to ponder, whilst it is sometimes difficult to feel any sympathy for the highly-paid millionaires of the Premier League who go off an a sulk (Carlos, I thinking of you here) and indeed when we think of footballers we often think of them as all earning thousands a week, but that is not the case at this level. These are normal blokes, under the same pressure as the rest of us.


And the servants of Darlington and Kettering deserve better.

Who Will Win What In 2012?

It’s that time of year again when people make their predictions for what will happen throughout the year.

Before Christmas I nailed my colours, as it were, to the Manchester City mast – and since I did they have stuttered slightly, losing at Sunderland and drawing at West Brom.

But I thought it would be fun, if for this first blog of 2012 we looked at who might go up – and down – throughout the four divisions.

Starting with the Premier League, I will stick by my Man City prediction. If losing to Sunderland and drawing at the Hawthorns is as bad as it gets then that’s hardly a crisis, is it? The other side of Manchester will be second, with United – despite their current defensive issues – seeing off Spurs, who will end third.

None of the main contenders for fourth spot are all that great at the moment, but I will back Chelsea to continue their transition by pipping Arsenal for the last Champions League spot.

At the bottom the bottom five have got cut adrift and it does look increasingly likely that the final three to go down will be from those. However, strange things happen in the second half of the season – ask Blackpool and Burnley fans and they will tell you that being halfway at Christmas counts for nothing – but it does seem that both Norwich and Swansea have enough to survive.

It is tempting to say that the bottom three might stay as it is, but oddly, I think Blackburn could, despite all that’s been said, get out of trouble, and instead it will be Wolves who get sucked in. Simply put the Wanderers are overly reliant on Steven Fletcher for goals and although the signing of Emmanuel Frimpong is a fine one, Wanderers stay at the top may well be coming to an end.

Joining them in the championship next term will be Wigan – who seem to be finally running out of time, and quality – and Bolton, who have seen their talisman Kevin Davies finally wane and will surely lose their star centre back Gary Cahill this month. QPR are looking dodgy too, but they are highly likely to be active players in the January window. However, if they don’t sort out their abysmal home record it could be that Neil Warnock’s stay as a Premier League boss is just as brief as it was when Sheffield United were at this level with him at the helm.

The Championship is notoriously difficult to predict and seems even more so this season. There are just 15 points separating Reading in fifth from Nottingham Forest who are third from bottom. This unbelievable fact means that anyone who goes on a run during the second half of the season could make the play-offs, while on the flip side any team that loses from could struggle very quickly.
Having explained my predictions might be so bad, I will still make them. West Ham will take the title with Cardiff finally achieving promotion after so many years of trying. Current leaders Southampton are having a blip and don’t seem able to last the course, but look good for the play-offs, where I think Reading will join them, along with Birmingham who will be the team to emerge from the pack. Currently 14th, they have two games in hand and an unbeaten home record. If they can sort out their away from, as well as not suffering from fatigue after their Europa League exertions haven’t taken to much out of them.

At the other end Coventry look doomed, and Doncaster, despite signing a whole host of players including El Hadji Diouf and Pascal Chimbonda will join them, with Millwall, who are really struggling to score goals completing the relegated trio.

Charlton already look to have League One sewn up, with the two Sheffield clubs battling it out to join them. Wednesday might just have a little bit more than United – especially if they keep their star winger Ben Marshall on loan.

The relegation spaces are just as tight and although Chesterfield look doomed and probably Rochdale too, it really could be any of seven or eight teams who finally drop, Yeovil have been flirting with relegation for a year or two and it could be their year to go, along wither perennial yo-yo club Wycombe.

Milton Keynes, Huddersfield and Carlisle will be other teams to contest the play-offs and although Stevenage have done superbly to be in the top six going into the new year it is difficult to see them sustaining their challenge.

Another former Conference team, Crawley, is setting the pace in League Two and with the resources at their disposal they should have enough to take the silverware. Whether Cheltenham and Southend can say likewise is open to question, which could let the likes of Shrewsbury – who were cruelly robbed last season by a goal that didn’t cross the line – and Swindon, who have assembled an eclectic squad under maverick boss Paulo Di Canio, avoid the white-knuckle ride of the play offs.

As always, the real scramble in that division is to avoid the fall into the conference – a division from which it is increasingly hard to return it seems. Plymouth are currently bottom, but finally have some stability so will gather enough points to keep their league status and Northampton, who are in the other relegation place, have a new Manager in Aidy Boothroyd who should navigate them clear too.

Dagenham have been on a horrendous run and don’t have the resources to compete it seems, while Hereford, who have been constant strugglers for many seasons, will join them.

So there you have it. Soccer Business predictions for 2012. I will re-visit these in May just to see many I got right (or wrong).


Premier League:

Winners: Man City
Second: Man Utd
Third: Tottenham
Fourth: Chelsea

Relegated: Wolves, Wigan, Bolton

Championship:

Winners. West Ham
Promoted: Cardiff Playoffs: Southampton, Middlesborough, Reading and Birmingham

Relegated: Coventry, Doncaster, Millwall

League One:

Winners: Charlton
Promoted: Sheff Wed
Play-offs: Sheff United, Huddersfield, Carlisle, MK Dons

Relegated: Chesterfield, Rochdale, Yeovil, Wycombe

League Two:

Winners: Crawley
Promoted: Shrewsbury, Swindon, Cheltenham
Play-offs: Southend, Cheltenham, Gillingham, Oxford

Relegated: Hereford, Dagenham and Redbridge.

The End of The Road For The Glory Of The Cup

As I write this, a mate of mine is in Turkey watching Stoke City play Beskitas.

It is the last game of the Europa League group stages and this mate of mine has been to three away games so far in the groups and the qualifiers.

Last week Stoke boss Tony Pulis announced to supporters that he was going to play a weakened team in the match. His side are already through to the last 32 and tonight’s result doesn’t really matter.

He made this announcement he said “so that fans who were going to Turkey knew that a full strength side wasn’t going to be played.”

Leaving aside the arguments surrounding this – it’s a load of nonsense for two reasons: 1) Travel plans would have been made way in advance of this (as another football supporting friend said about a trip to Barrow to watch his team “its not the sort of place you go by mistake.”) and 2) The fans that are going to Turkey 11 days before Christmas are the sort of fans who live for their club and wouldn’t care less what team was picked.

It does lead me to question something I have been thinking for a while: Are cup competitions pointless these days?

Gone are the days when the FA Cup was the biggest sporting event of the year, the Carling Cup is an inconvenience to most clubs and the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy (the only chance, most lower league clubs get to play at Wembley has been treated with contempt, most notably by Sheffield Wednesday boss Gary Megson, who got round the rules that teams have to play six of the team from the previous week by making three substitutions in the first 10 minutes of a game with Bradford.

This weakened team issue is not a new one, in previous Europa Leagues Gary Megson again – this blog is not attack a man I have a lot of time for – rested his Bolton squad ahead of a crucial relegation battle and Martin O’Neil gave the Aston Villa youth team a run out, ironically enough before a game with Stoke. Villa were gunning for a place in the top four at the time and they were two up in that game with the Potters with two minutes left. Unbelievably they were pegged back to 2-2 and ended up staggering home in the rest of the season.

Similarly Spurs attitude to the Europa League has been disdainful at best and downright disrespectful at worst, with a succession of young players have played and Tottenham are more or less out of the competition.

Of course, you can’t blame the managers. Well all know that at Premier league level the monetary rewards are massive, but that is equally true lower down too. Taking Sheffield Wednesday as the example, there would a lot more money, long term in the club beginning their rise back up the leagues than there would be in a JPT final win.
Manager’s often say they want to win every game they play, but do they? Would Harry Redknapp care if Tottenham lose tomorrow? Would Tony Pulis mind too much if Stoke lose tonight?

And if the answer is no, then how much longer – really – do the cups have left?

Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves - Largely Because They've Got To

The BBC Sports Personality of the year award (SPOTY for short – when did that happen?!) shortlist was announced last week and it caused tremendous consternation.

It turned out that there were no women in the running for the award, which lets be honest is a total disgrace.

There was – rightly – much outrage at decision. Great Britain has four world female champions, Chrissie Wellington, the world leading tri-athlete, rower Kath Grainger and swimmers Becky Adlington and Kerri-Anne Payne. None of these ladies appear when there are places for the likes of Andy Murray. Not really very clever on the face of it.

There was also much discussion about the way the decision was made. Leading Newspapers and magazines were asked to name 10 sports people each, from which the shortlist was created.

Somebody thought it was a good idea to let Nuts and Zoo vote in this cross-section and therefore it’s hardly a surprise that these magazines didn’t cast many votes for women is it?

Women themselves veered from calm – Kerri Anne Payne tweeting “Thank you so much for all your tweets! We don't need awards just the support from the Great British public! So keep it coming :)" To more outraged, with Wellington saying it was “disgraceful.”

Even BBC presenters criticised the list, with Gabby Logan saying the shortlist was “backward” and Claire Balding joining her.

So it appears on this issue the BBC got it wrong, but doesn’t that rather miss the point?
Isn’t this issue symptomatic of a much bigger problem and one which the venerable former Paraolympian Tanni Grey-Thompson touched on when she told BBC Sport wouldn't want tokenism and I wouldn't want a woman to be on the list just because she was a woman,"

"But I think you just look at where the nominations have come from and that highlights another problem really - only 2% of media coverage in sport goes to women.

"Women just aren't on the minds, whether it's editors or in some case producers, it's just not there ... you're fighting against the system all the time where it's the big sports all the time that get the recognition."

But really, how hard should it be in this day and age for a women to get recognised for her sporting achievement? Wisden, the cricket bible, picked Charlotte Edwards as one of their Five Cricketers of the year in 2009 and in doing so she became the first women to get that accolade. The English women’s cricket team has been one of the best in the world in recent years and yet their T20 matches in the summer were played before the men’s games at the same venues later in the day. So that some of the finest sports people in the world at their particular discipline were reduced to playing almost as a warm-up act like some young, up and coming band at a festival. The same fate is to befall the female footballers at the Olympics.

The people behind this scheduling (I saw a chap from the England and Wales Cricket Board defending it earlier in the year) say that it is to give greater exposure to the sport, but to me, having the games going on while people are streaming in through the gates to watch a “big” game later, says – at the very least implicitly – that the women’s match is somehow not as important, some sort of second-class event.

And it is this form of almost institutional sexism that needs to be dealt with before we can past the bluster of last week.

Last week was in actuality a pretty good PR Coup for the BBC. SPOTY has been on the wane in recent years and is no longer the staple of the festive season that it once was, and at least people are talking about it again.

What’s the old line about all publicity being good publicity? I’ll bet if you asked them candidly, the BBC can’t believe their luck.

Gary Speed 1969-2011

The shocking events of Sunday morning mean that all other ideas for blogs this week might seem pointless and rather trivial.

Sometimes, just sometimes Football isn’t the most important thing in the world and the tragic passing of Gary Speed aged at just 42 proves that.

The inquest into his death starts today and it would be entirely wrong of us to speculate as to what happened. But what we can say with certainty is that Gary touched lives far beyond the fans of the clubs he played for.

Everyone, from fans, players, his friends and family has been left shocked and stunned at his loss and the tributes have been both moving and fulsome.

He was a model professional for club and country and one of the greatest – perhaps the greatest -  goalscoring midfielder’s of his generation. Here was a man who lived a quiet life with his wife and two sons, who was never in the tabloids and who appeared happy. Speaking on the BBC, Mark Lawrenson said his abiding memory of Speed was how “normal he was.”

He was also a dedicated professional footballer. He embraced the new thoughts on diet and fitness a long time before they became prevalent in the game only the most dedicated and fit of players can still be playing football into their 40’s as Speed did in a career that spanned over 20 years.

And what a career it was! Playing 677 league games for Leeds – with whom he won the league in 1992 - Everton, Newcastle, Bolton and Sheffield United, he also scored 103 goals.

A boyhood Everton fan, he jumped at the chance to sign for them in 1996 after eight years at

Elland Road

, and whilst at Goodison Park he scored the winner in a Merseyside derby. It took £5.5m to get him to the North East and St James’ Park, and it was here that he enjoyed the second most prolific spell – playing over 200 games for Newcastle.

He was nearly 35 when he left there to move south to Bolton in 2004, but far from winding down he managed three and a half years more in the Premier League playing another 120 games before moving to Sheffield United as Player-Coach.

It was whilst at

Brammall Lane

that he took his first steps into the Management Career he had always seemed destined for, taking over in the hot seat after Kevin Blackwell was sacked in September.

He was only at the helm for a matter of months before his beloved Wales came calling. Speed had been the Captain of the National Team had played 92 times for his country. He was appointed at the Welsh National Manager on December 14^th 2010 and he was slowly turning the fortunes of the country around, declaring his “pride” at the way his team had played despite the loss to England and since then they have recorded three successive wins for the first time in three years, including a 4-1 friendly win against Norway which Speed himself declared as “sensational.”

Sadly we will never get to see just how good a manager he could have made.

His last public appearance was as a pundit on Football Focus on the BBC on Saturday, when he gave no impression that was worried about anything. Making plans to visit Alan Shearer at his home this weekend and thanking host of the show Dan Walker for having him on. Tragically he will never be on again.

Amongst the many moving and warm tributes to Gary came from his friend Robbie Savage, who was in tears on the news when he said: "I loved him as a friend, his wife is beautiful, he had a lovely family, he'd do anything for anybody.

"I idolised him, he was one of my heroes in life, he's been there for me, someone I spoke to every week…this guy had everything, a beautiful family. He had a caring, loving family and was doing great at his job. Why has this happened?

"He was a larger than life character, he's got a great family, his father Roger travelled all around the world to watch him and he's left behind two beautiful, beautiful boys. It's just so sad.”

Everyone at Soccer Business echoes those thoughts and our condolences and good wishes are with his family and friends.