As the fallout from the Tevez scandal continues, the compromised individuals are desperately out there spinning their proprietary and highly defensive webs of deceit - step forward Richard Scudamore with an attempt at a conciliatory interview with BBC Five Live and Eggert Magnusson who agreed to provide several minutes of his very valuable time for an encounter with The Guardian.
As these two characters attempt to create a spectacular society reality that does not implicate themselves or their organisations in illegal activities (which is slightly tricky when one looks at the evidence), they are being forced above ground to face an admittedly pliant media.
Football Is Fixed are not captured media and we are not allowing these operators a free ride to authenticate their dodgy dealings. In addition to numerous posts over the last few weeks and months defining the illegalities and targeting the defendants, we wish to unravel their rather pitiful attempts as sleazing their routes away from the contaminated criminality of their own making.
Magnusson reckons that his wealth comes from biscuits. This cute and cuddly persona is a mask. The vast majority of Magnusson's wealth came from the brewery he established in Leningrad/St Petersburg after the Iron Curtain was drawn back. Magnusson also used his power base at the Icelandic FA to lever a personal destiny within UEFA and FIFA and, additionally, our contacts in Moscow inform us that Mr Magnusson was not an unknown entity in the betting circles that are omnipresent in Russian football. If this latter link has substance then West Ham have been purchased with the profits of two industries based on the exploitation of addiction but that isn't so good on a PR level as being established on the crumbs of digestive biscuits.
In his briefing to The Guardian, Magnusson states: "I was never concerned that the ruling would go against us... in this affair it has often been forgotten that the player [Carlos Tevez] was always registered with West Ham." Magnusson's justification for this portrayal of squeaky-cleanliness is based on two factors - firstly, the Premier League did not give West Ham United a points deduction and, secondly, the Hammers received £2 million ($4 million) as a transfer fee when Tevez moved to Manchester United (although this protracted certainty of a transfer is still snailing its way towards completion as I write). Sure, the player was registered with West Ham, but illegally via the use of Third Party agreements. This point was highlighted quite clearly by the High Court when consideration was given to Sheffield United's case against relegation. Furthermore, the £2 million transfer fee is a farcical and deceptive ploy to try and disguise the rampant illegalities perpetrated on behalf of the Hammers and the Premier League. To put it simply, if West Ham had received no fee at all for Tevez then this would be total proof of the existence and acceptance of Third Party arrangements by the Premier League. By insisting that MSI and Kia Joorabchian give West Ham this minimal transfer fee, the manipulators are able to hide behind a pretence of validity. MSI have already received assurances from Man Utd that they will be paid £10 million for the next two seasons loan period PLUS a further fee should United choose to make the transfer permanent. With the inflation in transfer fees, this latter payment could be as much as £20-25 million. So, in totalisation, MSI will get £30-35 million of which a mere £2 million goes to West Ham. So the question Mr Magnusson should be forced to answer is this - if Tevez "was always registered with West Ham", why did West Ham accept such a pittance for their star player?
We've already previously stated as fully as we are able, with legal restrictions, the reasons supportive of Richard Scudamore being levered out of his post but his Five Live appearance took the biscuit (sic). For somebody who would prefer to keep as low a profile within the game as possible, grab a load of this fatuous nonsense. "What made this an unbelievable story was an unbelievable series of events... it is unscripted drama and one of the things that makes football so interesting but, in other ways, it looks like a road crash in how some of the events appear."
The story certainly incorporates an unbelievable series of events from the perspective of any external viewer of the scandal but the "story" is totally believable. The Premier League have circumscribed their own rules and then, just for good measure, circumscribed these very same rules again. Scudamore has been caught self-harming and his description of the affair appearing like "a road crash" is an apt piece of psychological self-profiling. Scudamore attempted to spin out the facts from a scandal and other external vehicles of reality certainly created the pile-up in which poor Mr Scudamore's reputation was evidently a casualty.
As we have already stated, sack the man...
Finally, we would like to take you back to the final day of last season when West Ham United required a victory at Old Trafford against the mighty Manchester United in order to retain their Premiership place. Prior to the game, Ferguson assured Neil Warnock (manager of improperly relegated Sheffield United) that his team would put up a professional performance which is the exact opposite of the insider trading angle on the event which emanated from the Theatre of Dreams. Apparently, Ferguson telephoned Warnock post-match to apologise for his team's moderate efforts but a midfield of Solskjaer, Richardson, Fletcher and Carrick is slightly less awesome than Ronaldo, Giggs, Scholes and Carrick.
West Ham won 1-0 with a Carlos Tevez goal and one has to wonder whether the outcome of this game formed a part of the eventual transfer arrangement between Man Utd, West Ham Utd and MSI which, despite the presence of three parties, is actually (in the eyes of the Premier League, at least) a two party arrangement with around £30 million disappearing into the ether of the offshore criminality of Joorabchian - a man facing an arrest warrant in Brazil over money laundering.
Its a beautiful game...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
