The new Wembley Stadium is the most expensive sports stadium in the world coming in at around £1 billion ($2 billion) about 45% of which is public money - professional fees for lawyers alone reach over £150 million. As a comparison, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff cost £125 million and the Stade De France £190 million (at 1999 and 1998 prices respectively) while the rival bids for an English national stadium were around 40% of the cost of the new Wembley. This staggering price has been created by ineffective governorship by Multiplex (the construction company), Wembley National Stadium Ltd (WNSL) and the British government.
WNSL is a wholly owned subsidiary of our highly ineffective and politicised Football Association (FA) and their inability to collaborate and compromise has been a constant drain on resources while Multiplex were simply out of their depth once they had been selected in a rather opaque tendering process. The government, as ever, has to share much of the blame. The insistence that the national stadium be in London was typical of the rampant centralisation of all valued projects in England and, by choosing the capital rather than the regions, the government charged every single person in the country an extra £5. Regeneration of the regions and creative urban regeneration do not form a part of the government's hidden manifesto. As an example, when Manchester attempted to host the Olympic Games, London's support was conspicuous by it's absence. Compare this with the efforts made by the great and the good to bring the games to London and the difference in attitude of the government is obvious. Already (five years prior to the event), the Treasury and the Department of Culture Media and Sport are expecting the cost of the games to be FOUR TIMES the original estimate of £2.35 billion. Indeed, the centralisation of prestige projects while the regions get the nuclear power stations and act as the testing ground for the social impacts of the super-casino is the standard national template in England.
Anyway, back to Wembley... So, we accept being ripped off again and we tolerate this centralisation because we expect that, despite the cost and time overruns and the highly ineffective management of the project at all levels, a professional venue for the global game has been created. Really?
Within sixty seconds of the game starting, it was evident that £1 billion does not necessarily mean that a suitable pitch can be created. The ball bobbled all over the place throughout the game undermining any hope of a sporting spectacle - Ronaldo may well have been tired after a long season but a poor pitch is a great skill leveller. It is surely pertinent that the only decent team move in the whole game was that which led to Chelsea's winning goal and, here, the ball was volleyed between players avoiding the dreaded turf. One month ago, Alan Shearer played a five a side game at the new Wembley and stated that the pitch simply wasn't up to the task. Did WNSL replace the surface? What, and spend yet more cash, of course not... The imperative was rather to overcharge the true fans with ludicrous ticket prices that meant that the first FA Cup Final at the stadium was nowhere near sold out while allowing freebies to all insiders. The spectacle that the FA desired turned into a damp squib which, considering the massive amount of manipulation undertaken by the FA to ensure a Man Utd/Chelsea Final, is scandalous (even from their perspective). Despite the myopic noises suggesting that the new Wembley had been worth waiting for, this is just spectacular society spin. It wasn't. There was a colossal global audience for this turgid entertainment (sic) and, if Jorge Valdano thought the all-English Champions League Semi Final was like watching "a shit hanging from a stick", what on earth did the man make of yesterday?
The last two FA Cup competitions have taken on degrees of manipulation beyond the standard nonsense that we have come to expect. Numerous previous posts have correctly predicted and itemised these machinations and yesterday was another piece of revenue for my Trading Team but the competition has been entirely devalued.
One incident summed up the whole event. Essien fouls Giggs/ Giggs scores/ Bennett gives nothing (neither a goal nor a foul by Essien nor a foul by Giggs). The reality had to be one of these things as the ball clearly crossed the line. Plastic Paddy Lawrensen immediately earned his consultancy fee from the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) by studiously avoiding the evidence with a progressive retraction from "excellent refereeing by Bennett" to "it didn't cross the line" to "even if it did cross the line, it was a foul by Giggs" to "the ref definitely got it right" - is he paid by the quote?
Of course, the utilisation of goalline technology would have solved the issue but we are repeatedly told that such technology cannot yet be created. NASA can send probes into space that are able to utilise the gravitational effects and solar system positioning of our celestial neighbours to visit several other planets and their moons on one journey but determining whether a football crosses a line is, apparently, still beyond our modern science.
Give me one week with an applied physicist and an IT person and we could create a system that works for goallines and offsides. This is absolutely not complex. The dynamic for a truly meritocratic game is once again trumped by the requirement of the manipulators to maintain as much control on outcome as possible in the hands of our beloved Mr Bennett or whoever else happens to be selected to shape our realities.
