Last evening at the Savoy in London, Henry James Redknapp was honoured by the Football Writers Association for his twenty five years in management.
We would like to take this opportunity to question what Mr Redknapp is being 'honoured' for?
His betting activities?
The ownership of over ####################### houses in London and the south coast - that is a purchasing rate of one per #### throughout his managerial career?
His ongoing police case involving money laundering and bungs?
The fake FA Cup triumph courtesy of ############################?
The utilisation of ############################################# by teams under his management?
Or all of these things, perhaps...?
Please tell us.
We deserve to know.
The 'honour' was bestowed on a day when, in a live Sky event, certain Tottenham insiders short-sold their team in the match against Wigan Athletic.
There is something quite apt about these two neohyperrealities occurring on the same date.
In this post, large amounts of which are for subscribers only, we address the corruptions in yesterday's match at the JJB Stadium, we provide an overview of the very real inadequacies in Redknapp's management skills and we examine the behaviours of the man in the transfer market.
Instead of being crowned as some type of superheroic overachiever, Redknapp should rather be regarded as a bog standard boss who employs ###########################
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Wigan v Tottenham
This match, being programmed on the day of the title decider, was always likely to be a very hot market.
Indeed, two of the largest insider gambling consortia targeted the match from market opening in Asia. Large amounts of fake money went on Spurs in the hours after the markets opened in the Far East. This is a standard trading tactic to provide disinformation to the market, and the perpetrators were taking advantage of the beginning of the Chinese New Year window to, hopefully, catch the Asian market makers off balance.
On the morning of the match, the market changed and a one-way gamble of some magnitude was placed on the hosts. The gamble was global and featured support of Wigan at both Draw No Bet and -0.0.0.5 on the Asian Handicaps in the Far East, and on the Fixed Odds markets in Europe.
The immediate pre-match period was interesting.
Mr Redknapp stripped Jermaine Jenas of the club vice-captaincy and suggested to the player that he would soon be on his way out of the club.
Having really helped morale with this little cluster bombshell, Redknapp followed this up with implanting a 3-5-2 formation on the team, hence creating tactical uncertainty into the mix as well.
And so to the match itself.
The match had nil-nil written all over it as two poor teams struggled to provide entertainment. Then, after 57 minutes, everything changed.
Heurelho Gomes rushed from his area and cleared a rare Wigan attacking foray. In doing so, he developed a calf-strain. He clearly wanted to come off and signalled this concern to the bench. Yet, despite Gomes being unable to dive, or to move at speed, or his inability to kick the ball, Redknapp elected to keep him on the pitch despite having two further substitutions available and a quality reserve keeper on the bench - Sanchez Cesar was previously at Real Madrid and Real Zaragoza.
Now why would Mr Redknapp make such a self-destructive decision?
Quoting Tim Rich in The Guardian: "It seemed strange that Redknapp did not bring off his goalkeeper, Heurelho Gomes, who appeared to be suffering from a hamstring injury. Judging from his facial expressions, Gomes does not hide pain well, although Redknapp commented that he "had his own reasons" for not removing him."
We are sure that he did!
As Paul Doyle added in the same rag: "What must Tottenham's back up keeper Cesar be thinking? He can't get a game even when the first-choice is grievously wounded."
For the 35 minutes remaining in the match, Redknapp was repeatedly seen on his mobile, hand covering his mouth, taking a real interest in events on the field of play as he demonstrated that managerial professionalism so worthy of honouring.
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The gamble was landed.
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As for the Tottenham fans who had travelled to Wigan expecting that their team might be playing a competitive game, who cares?
After the match, Redknapp blamed everything on the players - "its the players that have got us into this mess" - and followed on with a variety of snide comments about the squad that he had inherited from Juande Ramos, a vastly superior manager to Redknapp.
Transfer Strategy
Don't get me wrong, Redknapp is a good judge of player.
Unfortunately, the quality of the player is not the only variable taken into account when a purchase is to be made by one of his clubs.
He prefers working with certain agents eg Willie McKay, the bookmaker, agent and racehorse trainer who has even named one of his racehorses after Redknapp.
He also has an inability to perceive the larger financial picture when undertaking any of his proprietary transfers.
Lets look at his full impact on Portsmouth FC.
In that they are owned illegally by Arkadi Gaydamak and that Peter Storrie, one of Redknapp's co-defendants in the City of London police case, is the Director/Executive Chairman of the club, it is difficult to feel any compassion for such an outfit.
But Portsmouth FC have been abused by Redknapp...
... and then some.
When Redknapp left for Spurs, he returned almost immediately to receive his freedom of the city in honour of his alleged triumph in winning the FA Cup for Pompey last season.
This was a fake triumph as we have posted before.
He also left Portsmouth in a financial hotch-potch of considerable proportions.
90% of turnover was going to cover the wages of the players that Redknapp had purchased, the club were one of the least fit in the Premiership, they were already out of the League Cup, were on the verge of exiting the UEFA Cup and were severely underperforming in the league.
Moreover, there was the case of Benjani who had been illegally sold onto Manchester City by Willie McKay.
When footballers move between clubs, they are cup-tied if they have been involved in any of the cup competitions earlier in the season.
Why does this not apply to managers?
For Redknapp is now benefitting from the quality of the squad assembled by Juande Ramos and Spurs are both in the League Cup Final and in the UEFA Cup second phase.
And the man has the barefaced cheek to claim that he has been hard done by.
Juande Ramos is one of the best managers in European football - check out his considerable achievements at Sevilla and the fact that he is now the manager of the biggest club in the world, Real Madrid.
This is all a slightly higher threshold of achievement than winning one fake trophy in a quarter of a century with Bournemouth, Southampton, West Ham and Portsmouth.
Having ripped off his former club in a variety of manners, last week Redknapp returned to steal Jermain Defoe for a knockdown price taking advantage of the poorly constructed contract put together by himself and his advisers when he was Pompey manager.
And even this transfer stank.
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As a fitting finale to a fake financial deal, Defoe claimed a £700,000 loyalty bonus from Portsmouth for not requesting the transfer himself.
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Redknapp is also interested in buying Pascal Chimbonda (agent: Willie McKay) and David James (agent: John Colquhoun). ###########################################
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Much of our analysis of corruption in both football and financial markets comes across a similar structure - nepotism.
Individuals who have grown up in a familial setting already within the inner football sanctums are significantly more prone to make criminalised choices when faced with life choices. The old adage that one generation makes the money, the next spends it, while the third becomes Alexandre Gaydamak holds true.
Many of the extended ################ networks in English football have this familial component.
So we have Harry Redknapp and Jamie, Frank Lampard Senior and Junior, John and Kevin Bond (Redknapp's assistant at Spurs and the only individual to be sacked in light of the exposures in the BBC Panorama bungs programme), #######################
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This is no different than the behaviours of, for example, the Murdochracy or Kerry Packer, the Oxbridge/public school network, Tony and Hillary Benn, Karamanlis and Papandreou in Greece, the leading country in the world very nearly managing to achieve a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton succession in a manner more attuned to the Mubarak's in Egypt, the al-Assad's in Syria or, for that matter, Kim Jung Il in North Korea.
Nepotism and cronyism is non-meritocratic and creates corruptions, criminalities and inefficiencies in the boardrooms of power.
Keeping it in the family is a non-competitive monopolistic practice.
But Redknapp just keeps laughing all the way to the bank (and the estate agents). His extended familial linkages become stronger by the month. Harry is manager at Tottenham, his son Jamie is on the coaching staff at Chelsea where he operates closely with his relative Frank Lampard. Meanwhile, Frank's father is involved in the takeover of Watford by Chelsea, and Redknapp himself still enjoys input to events on the south coast through Storrie and James.
Next weekend, the main Sky televised offering is Tottenham versus Portsmouth.
Turn on.
Tune in.
Drop out.
Whatever market hyperreality determines the outcome of the match, one thing is for certain - the match will be a market driven extravaganza and ###############
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