Being a true scoundrel, the framing of an argument is Richard Scudamore's last defence of his gross mismanagement of what is known to him as "My League" and, to the rest of us, as the English Premier League (EPL).
Following the 'revelation' that Portsmouth's Real debts stood at £122 million, Our Great Leader was caught between defending the EPL brand while ensuring that the deserved total meltdown did not occur at Pompey - not because of any concern for that particular club but due to the contagion of the EPL brand.
Once the FA Cup Final Parachute Payment had been secured, Scudamore was free to frame - his favourite frivolity.
Our Great Leader decided that the key charge being laid at his door was the misallocation of television monies around the EPL clubs.
Not only is this not an area of particular concern, nobody actually believes it to be of particular concern.
And, on top of that, his maths were murky even so...
The key charge relates rather to the imposition of a no-holds-barred version of psychopathic free market capitalism that has not only destroyed the integrity of the game through allowing and indeed encouraging the colossal influence of bookmaking money but also the turning of a blind eye to a steady stream of inappropriate owners and sponsorship deals.
Media distortion and the selective release/leaking of information form the bedrock of the ScudamoreWorld Illusion.
Take the recent legal action taken by the Premier League against Ofcom.
Not only has this story been carefully airbrushed in the media controlled by either the Murdochracy or the EPL, additionally any public utterances on the matter have been hidden away with apparent good news and positive spin mixed in.
So, throughout the media window covering Ofcom's enforcement of a more Realistic market price on the BSkyB packages, any mention of Scudamore's legal challenge was always adjacent to the sweetener that, finally, the Premier League were going to take some action against the conveyor belt of charlatans that have recently been invited to the top table as owners - in future, state terrorists, banned lawyers, illegal arms dealers, casino owners, underground bookmaking organisations, sovereign wealth funds, leveraged buyout scams and other strata of ScudamoreWorld's Great And Good will have to operate behind the secrecy of a suitably locationed shell company in a new reinforced fit-and-proper-persons-test-plus.
Leaks are always an active ingredient of Scudamore's smoke and mirrors.
Selected journalists are given their coups in return for complacent imitations of journalism; whether it is the holistic strategy to destabilise the FA or the ongoing battle for power with UEFA, there are those who will always oblige.
Below we list what we feel are some of the major charges regarding the abuse of English football by Scudamore and those behind him.
It is not complete.
When dealing with such rampant and systemic murkiness, nothing can ever be complete...
But, in any balanced area of concern, such a damning list of indictments would be enough for a man to the honourable thing.
We break the charge list down as, like landlady's cake, the more it is divided, the easier it is to get through.
* The 39th Step - The ludicrous idea for a round of EPL games to be played in various gambling locations around the world - imperial corruption at its finest.
* The List of Inappropriate, Illegal and Criminal Owners - Thaksin Shinawatra, Carston Yeung, the Glazers, Abramovich, Gaydamek Snr and all others involved in Ponzimouth FC, Hicks and Gillett, Usmanov and Kroenke, Ashley, the Icelandic nonsense at West Ham etc etc.
* Shirt Sponsorship/Club Sponsorship by Bookmakers - Next season, SBOBET, the Far East betting firm that were involved in a legal battle with the Telegraph Group over allegedly rigged markets, will have their name on two, possibly three, EPL teams - West Ham, West Brom and Cardiff City. 188Bet, another Asian concern, have sponsorship arrangements with five EPL clubs. Elsewhere, Wolves, Sunderland, Tottenham are all similarly sponsored.
* Debt - 60% of ALL the European club football debt is below the line of EPL clubs. Portsmouth are on the verge and Hull City may soon be joining them in ScudamoreWorld Chapter 11 - Parachute Payments for Psychopaths.
* The Falling Attendances - No matter how ScudamoreWorld or the individual clubs doctor their figures, attendances are falling in England's top flight. Virgin Money reckon that 25% of season ticket holders are considering not renewing for the next round of spectacles.
* Suspect Structures Relating to the PGMOB - Referee selection, bias, linkage of certain officials to certain bookmaking organisations, the opaqueness of all matters relating to this key area of the 'sport', the refusal to introduce video technologies that would limit the institutional and bookmaking abuse of match outcomes, the promotion of a lackey, Kipper Riley, to replace Wart Face.
* Destabilisation of the FA - the Real governing body of football in England - Targeting independent voices on the FA Committee. Attempting to gain control of the England team and all the betting opportunities thereby associated. Creating momentum to make the FA Cup a midweek competition as the bookmakers would prefer.
* Murkiness Not Meritocracy - The shit always rises to the top as Sir Dave Richards amply and repeatedly proves. Everything that this man has ever done has failed, yet he is still allowed to rottweiler away on behalf of the powers that be.
* Inability to Assess the Real Financial Template - Our Great Leader: "... and now we're out of the other end of the cycle"; Scudamore thinks that the Recession/Depression is over and that easy money times are just around the corner. How unstrategic is that?
* Fake Integrity Campaigns - The Daily Telegraph and the Premier League teamed up, as is their wont, to target those evil Asian bookmakers who were accepting bets on Premier League Reserve matches. The markets were briefly dropped but are now returned in all their murky glory. You could even bet on Buxton versus Kendal Town the other week. Ah, but the publicity machine has moved on...
* Introduction of Champions League Play-Offs - Described as "hare-brained" by Sir Ferguson. Dead in the water.
* Biting the hand that feeds it - ScudamoreWorld are taking action against the government to try to prevent any reduction to their top line while, at the same time, defending the hierarchy which allows the HMRC to come considerably behind more deserving creditors like arms dealers and the underworld when clubs evolve to their corrupt maturity.
In summation, the Murdochracy and ScudamoreWorld are directly or indirectly responsible for the conversion of our national sport into an international betting medium - a hyperreality only marginally linked to the original game.
Of course, although these people would claim otherwise, all of the above is accepted and regarded as imaginative business practices within ScudamoreWorld itself.
They are more concerned about the expansion of their power base.
In this arena, there are three big opponents to be encountered - the government, the State, Ofcom, the public, us, and UEFA and the nascent European Super League, and FIFA and the control of the game in Asia.
The first area is problematical as there are those who are having their sport stolen off them who are aware, miffed and attitudinal.
In the big scheme of things, this is an irrelevant lobbying group though.
Horseracing, which the football betting model is based on, survives with half a dozen bewildered souls at Uttoxeter and a £20 million off-course market for each race.
It is of no consequence that nobody is there to witness it.
Indeed, in very fixed markets, this is a positive advantage!
The second area is perceived as the prime battleground within ScudamoreWorld.
Platini is working hard to both eliminate the unsustainable financial structure of the leading English clubs and utilising some very imaginative real-time tactics to trim short-term incomings to those clubs.
Many of the leading clubs themselves are moving towards the Reality of the European Super League as it makes financial sense in every way to play Barcelona rather than Burnley.
This demolishes the ScudamoreWorld model and hence the war.
Sometimes the individual skirmishes take on a positively Old Etonian air of silliness. For example, the EPL is the only European league that programmes matches to clash directly with Champions League events.
Wilful posturing...
...but ultimately impotent.
The tertiary area is dependent on other matters to be discussed at another time.
If one instance of late sums up ScudamoreWorld, it was the initial fracas following the announcement by Ofcom that the Murdochracy's railroading of the lumpen proletariat was to be ended.
Scudamore produced his figures.
If punters pay less for Sky, grassroots funding for the sport will be compromised.
Some figures to chew on...
Amount spent by Premier League annually on grassroots funding for the game £12 million.
Amount the Premier League gives to EPL clubs £790 million.
Amount handed over the table (rather than under) to agents £71 million.
Amount paid to Our Great Leader, once again above rather than below, £1.535 million.
Scudamore has fronted this massive campaign to Spectacularise our Sport into the Arena of Casino.
The conclusion of the Premier League title race is as neohyperreal as Britain's Got the Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice.
Picture Scudamore, playing with his pilliwinkies in his bath tub, strumming to himself...
"I started with nothing, but now I got something..."
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