Mike Newell stood up and exposed some aspects of the corruption in English football - he was recently sacked as Luton manager and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. Of the individuals and clubs fingered by the resultant BBC Panorama programme, there has been no action over Allardyce, Redknapp, Middlesboro, Liverpool or Arneson and Kevin Bond was given a manager's post at Bournemouth (one of Redknapp's stable of teams). The only other casualty of the affair has been Newell's former chairman at Luton, Bill Tomlins, who has stood down following sacking Newell after admitting to having made irregular payments to agents himself. Orwellian or what...? As we have stated previously, the Quest investigation into bungs is a whitewash and, by only focusing on transfers in a two year period, a very selective whitewash at that.
Bob Woolmer (remember him?) stood up and decided to expose the corruption in cricket. He was consequently sacked as a member of the human race and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. The death is being quietly buried by the media. Of the individuals and teams investigated by Mark Shields of the Met, there has been no action against the illegal betting markets in South Asia and their bookmaking accomplices in London and Gibraltar, nor any action against members of the Pakistan team nor, indeed, anyone else. In fact, from Sky and the commentators at the deserted Caribbean grounds, there is no indication that the World Cup has been tarnished at all - there have been several major betting coups since the Pakistan/Ireland game with the Bangladesh versus South Africa merely being the most evident. And, by the way, who decided it was a good idea to charge West Indian fans a month's wages to watch a fixed cricket game?
A whistleblower stood up and exposed an English manager of placing £12m of bets on Premiership matches with Victor Chandler International (VCI) in one season (an average of over £30K on every match in the season). VCI sacked the individual and his sort will never cast a shadow over the game again. Nobody was ever investigated regarding the illegal betting due to the preemptive strike by Max Clifford and the High Court. This particular manager and his club are still heavily involved in the global football betting markets.
People in six hundred cities worldwide marched against the illegal war in Iraq prior to it's instigation. Half a million deaths later and these people will never cast a shadow over the world again. Despite some posturing, there has been no global institutional punishment over the invasion and occupation and we have Bush and Blair structuring their respective legacies, their psychopathic disorders preventing them from seeing the reality of their actions. Meanwhile, Cheney banks his Halliburton war booty.
Newell and the whistleblower are down the dole; Woolmer and a whole load of soldiers and citizens are pushing up daisies. The psychos don't worry cos they are burying deep their diplock gold.
If football is a substitute for war then the Theatre of Dreams has equivalence with the Theatre of War. Corruption, manipulated events, psychopathic behaviour, warped economics, inside information as a competitive advantage, abusive power hierarchies, hidden agendas, numerous catch 22's, masonic cells, Clausewitz and Sun Tzu. War and football have their elites and generals and businesses and markets and working class men to do the fighting/playing. Rape and pillage become post-match domestic violence and hooliganism. The Economics of War have become the Economics of Football.
Football has always had issues related to sectarianism, racism, violence, regionalism, bigotry, nationalism, homophobia and hooliganism. Indeed, these are societal issues. Countries like England that have virtually entirely changed their fan base at a top flight level in the last fifteen years may now have less hooliganism in the Premiership but such attitudes haven't disappeared but merely migrated to the lower divisions and numerous town centres countrywide. Fifteen years ago, nobody knew what the flag of St George was but now Manchester's cemeteries are covered with competing red crosses and tricolours.
The shareholder capitalist tsunami has dropped it's template onto this already dysfunctional sport. Greed, power, corruption, massively liquid global betting markets, cartels, monopolies and, above all, profit have become the sole outputs. At times during the really dull games, I find myself daydreaming and my eyes gravitate towards the neon moving advertisements and I know that the game is up. Recent rule changes have prevented players from doing anything remotely spontaneous like putting on a mask after scoring (now specifically outlawed), displaying a t-shirt with a birthday message to your child is also now thankfully not allowed and neither is removing your shirt altogether (a goal, after all, merely being a close-up logo opportunity) nor celebrating the goal with your supporters. Presumably we can't have anything related to the real soul of football getting in the way of the marketing and advertising strategies of the businesses and private equity people who have taken over the game (wishing a teammate a quick recovery from a major injury = bad; Rooney 4/1 to score next goal with Fredbet = good).
The beautiful game does not need to be in this capitalist form. The beautiful game will die as a result of the strategies now in place. Skybet's "it matters more when there's money on it" has become an omnipresent and omniprescient statement regarding the state of the game and, whether inadvertently or deliberately, adequately describes the impact that money has had on football - devaluation. Now games only matter thanks to the money.
Thanks to Murdoch and an almost endless list that won't be missed etc etc...
