It's yet another four-all draw...
Both Rupert Murdoch and Leonard Blavatnik are worth $4.0 billion.
The match that will determine the future of world football is on the verge of becoming a Reality.
Can Setanta be saved by Blavatnik?
Is the Murdochracy on the wain?
Following our recent disclosure that BSkyB, the Premier League and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) are working closely together, will the Premier League support the Murdochratic monopoly or seek to preserve a duopoly in English Premier League television coverage?
What will all this mean regarding control of the nascent Super League?
Is Richard Scudamore truly a spectral emanation from the grave?
All those questions (and more) will be answered in this post...
As Setanta has been falling into its constituent parts - two private equity houses, a small stake for Goldman Sachs and a whole bunch of minority shareholders - it is one of the 'minnows' that has stepped in to potentially save the broadcaster.
Leonard Blavatnik, Len to his mates, is a Russian-American who resides in Britain, where he is the 6th richest person.
He is as well off as Rupert and, additionally, much more choosy about how near the bottom of the barrel he sinks in order to service his good fortune.
Oil, chemicals and aluminium have been the basis of this fortune.
Proof that Blavatnik is less of a bottom feeder comes from his range of academic appointments at Cambridge, Harvard and Tel Aviv Universities.
Furthermore, being on the board of directors of the Eurasia Group is an excellent, if slightly dodgy, location to monitor global and systemic trends.
Blavatnik is guaranteeing the future of Setanta by producing the required bridging loan while a more concrete deal is determined at the table.
In a normal league, this potential takeover would be seen as a positive sign of the health of the brand.
Why is this advancement not perceived in this way in the corridors of Richard Scudamore's mind, otherwise known as Premier League headquarters?
To answer this question, we first must check if you know your history.
BSkyB outbid Setanta for the 2010-13 Premier League rights winning five out of the six packages on offer, with such auctioned victory guaranteeing the Murdochracy all of the major encounters while Setanta was left to procrastinate on Rory Delap's throw-in and yet another Michael Owen-based underperformance from Newcastle.
At the same time, the Murdochracy was establishing a similarly abusive template in Italy and Germany - both Serie A and the Bundesliga are about to have the integrity of their leagues destroyed forever, in return for oodles of Diplock Gold.
Furthermore, the unholy trinity of Scudamore, the Murdochracy and Mohammed Bin Hammam worked together on the latter's reappointment as president of the AFC.
As you might remember, the campaign was marked by the viciousness of the underhand tactics piloted by our triumvirate.
Bin Hammam was labelled "a dictator" for his part in such shenanigans after he falsely released information to FIFA that his opponent was buying votes when, in fact, this proved to be a simple coincidence of opposites in that it was Bin Hammam who was undertaking the buying of ballots all along (think of his gyrations over the critical Malaysian vote).
Sepp Blatter was so concerned about such irregularities that he took along a Swiss notary when he attended the announcement of the re-election of ScudamoreWorld's man.
As Chung Mong-Joon, a vice-president of FIFA, stated at the time: "... he is now acting like the head of a very uncivilised organisation... It looks like Mr Hammam is suffering from mental problems. I want to advise him to consider going to hospital... Asian football is now suffering from a serious lack of transparency, democracy and rule of law."
That would be the impact of the tentacles of ScudamoreWorld then.
Anyway, back to the plot proper...
One week back, the ruiners of our sport were indeed sitting on a comfortably monopolistic nest - control of three of the major European leagues and the Asian Champions League, with the demise of Setanta ensuring omnipotent control for the Murdochracy in 2012 when, suitably, the Premier League rules allow for one broadcaster to have exclusive rights to Premier League matches.
Once Spain is bought out, the Murdochracy would represent a very hyperreal threat to both FIFA and UEFA and the latter's plans for a European Super League.
Indeed, the next phase had already been implemented with the Premier League having given "free-to-air" rights for Premier League matches in India, Brazil and Africa - merchandise, tours, spin-offs, the 39th Step, that sort of free market thing...
How neat and tidy do you wish for your psychopathy to be?
Before Blavatnik appeared on the scene, there was a very revealing development in this scandal.
Quoting the Financial Times: "This [the apparent collapse of Setanta] is obviously a material change: the market is clearly failing. We think this makes it obvious that Ofcom should call in the Competition Commission and do it quickly."
In response, BSkyB argued that it does not have undue market power in pay-tv and the Murdochracy rejected the need for intervention.
As, in 2012, BSkyB would be marketing ALL six Premier League packages, Rupert's nose grew markedly longer following this statement.
BSkyB consequently refused Setanta a £50 million cash advance against an agreement to screen 46 Premier League games, an act that had seemed to push both Setanta and several Scottish Premier League teams over the brink.
Then Len appeared on the stage...
But, in the immediate term, the Premier League, and hence the Murdochracy, hold the aces.
In order to put a complicated deal together for the takeover of Setanta, Blavatnik's team require time for due diligence etc.
Consequently, the money to save Setanta will not be in place by tomorrow (Monday) morning. This allows ScudamoreWorld to pull the plug on Setanta despite salvation being just around the corner.
What will Richard and Rupert do?
One might hope that they allow time for the commercial process to unveil.
Exactly as they are doing at Portsmouth FC, in fact.
As a related aside, we bring you up to date with the nonsense at Pompey.
Apparently, it was Sir Richards of the Premier League who introduced Thaksin Shinawatra to Peter Storrie, the Portsmouth executive chairperson.
Once the story broke in the tabloids (after we were already on the case, incidentally), Sir Richards adjusted his and our neorealities with a sneaky: "At this stage, the Premier League don't know whether he [the smiling assasin] is involved."
A ScudamoreWorld DoubleReality.
The Premier League then gave us one of its weirdo wordings to explain the situation to the annoyances who monitor the murky workings of power: "The previous owners of Manchester City and their associates are well known to the owners and executives of Portsmouth FC from their time in the Premier League."
And from meetings regarding the takeover of Portsmouth too.
The point is that the Premier League are willing to contort themselves into all manner of unethical gyrations to service the power of the Pompey entity, but are they willing to be equivalently accommodating with Setanta?
A City analyst states: "The Premier League believes football is like crack cocaine. They are wrong."
And, he is correct.
If Setanta survive, and with equality of financial power, the Murdochratic takeover of our great sport will be severely compromised.
Given their historical tendency to destabilise anything that they do not directly control, football would truly be on the rocks.
Crack cocaine, on the rocks... geddit?
This is actually a very funny joke and we wish for you to stop for a proprietary snigger at this point...
We thank you.
Premier League football has morphed into Žižek's chocolate laxative model.
To recap.
A firm in the US has launched a chocolate bar that cures constipation, even though the constipation itself was originally caused by the consumption of chocolate.
So it is in ScudamoreWorld.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
