PRESS TO PLAY

Criticise journalists at your peril, even if you are one. Guardian scribe Nick Davies’ book ‘Flat Earth News’ drew accusations from rank hypocrisy to treachery for suggesting that journalism was over-reliant on PR and sensationalism – describing the transfer of press releases into news as “churnalism.”

Meanwhile, relatively un-reported, Man Yoo’s communication’s director Phil Townsend lambasted fellow sports-hacks for “exaggerating…the most minor” Old Trafford stories and writing about United “every day (when) there isn’t a story every day”, concluding “impact is more important than facts.”

Pots and kettles went flying in response - Townsend’s own attempts to portray Man Yoo’s accounts as justification for the Glazers had produced the most furious spinning outside Muttiah Muralitharan’s test-career. Barry Newcombe, Sports Journalists’ Association chair, pinpointed one manager “picking and choosing who he speaks to…boycotting a broadcaster which pays public money to cover (them.)” Guess who.

BBC sports editor Mihir Bose cited the twin-terrors of control and profit hindering journalists: “All sports governing bodies have realised they have a product. They want to control it and realise money. (Information) is becoming a business proposition.”

Football is deemed especially guilty, comparing unfavourably with gridiron’s dressing-room access (“no flak, no spokesmen, no assistant managers” – Newcombe, on about Sir you-know-who again). Even rugby “offers daily access to players”, not necessarily a good thing – imagine daily access to Ashley Cole.

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MADLANDS

It’s mad in the Midlands. While London and the North-West fight for the Premier League title and planet Jupiter’s Richard Scudamore fights for…God knows, the Midlands football ‘scene’ has been undergoing permanent revolution which, to the relief of some, has avoided publicity’s glare and scrutiny.

Leicester’s re-interpretation of ‘Manager of the Month’ may need its own article. Meanwhile, Derby fans could be forgiven for a sense of deja-vu. “Derby left in dark over new owners” was the title of an article on last month’s US-fronted takeover…and an article about their last-but-one takeover in 2003.

Fans hope the parallels stop there. For while General Sports and Entertainment (GSE) were talking “iconic worldwide brands”, the legacy of 2003 was moving to West Midlands County Court because of problems finding “unbiased jurors in Derby.” Details, like Leicester’s next ex-manager, soon.

Mystery, not illegality, surrounds GSE. Business journalists said GSE was “doing its usual job of deal-brokering” for “un-named American, Chinese and Korean individuals” for whom they’d “acquired” the…ahem…”Derby County Rams.”

“It’s not a matter of secrecy” said Derby ‘president’ Tom Glick, who needs to look up ‘secrecy’ in the dictionary. “They’re not interested in a public role.” However, someone must know their identities or how could the FA apply its ‘fit and proper persons’ test?

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HOWAY THE LADS

“How big is the Newcastle job?” “Massive?” “About the size of Wales?” “Alan Green’s ego?” These days, all you can be sure of is that it is too big for Kevin Keegan.

They say you should never go back, of course. But if Newcastle United had been like…THIS in 1982 and 1992, he’d never have gone there in the first place. Newcastle has always been enough to straighten anyone’s perm. Now…well…Keegan won’t fail just because “you should never go back.”

“Keegan out” was the half-joking cry in the bar where I watched Newcastle’s second-half capitulation at Villa Park. “He’ll have walked out already” followed Villa’s fourth goal, the expectancy being an empty seat when TV cameras inevitably turned to Newcastle’s dug-out in search of a white-haired, European Cup winner with Liverpool who wasn’t Terry McDermott.

Someone else said that Keegan would still be there because he needed the money. As well as providing oodles of free publicity for Keegan’s Glasgow ‘Soccer Circus’ (an “interactive football attraction” apparently) earlier this season, the BBC’s anodyne ‘Inside Sport’ provided almost its first publicity. Until then, “What’s Keegan been doing since he left Man City?” would have silenced any conversation.

And vital publicity it was. Start-up costs put a seven-figure dent in the Keegan finances, around the time of the Circus’s opening in West Glasgow’s Braehill district in September 2006. And latest accounts, both financial and spoken, suggest the venture is still costing.

Keegan isn’t exactly poor. Martin Peters may have been ten years ahead of his time on the field. But Keegan was twenty years ahead off it, never short of a product endorsement or the fee to go with it. However, facts rarely clog up the works of football’s rumour mill. So once his Newcastle signing-on fee and portion of his £2.85m annual salary had paid for the Circus, “Kevin Keegan” would suddenly be not “good enough for the job” again, Wembley October 8^th 2000, revisited.

His effectiveness thus far has been as smokescreen for the madness enveloping the club under sportswear billionaire owner Michael Ashley, alongside time-tellingly regular statements from chairman Chris Mort emphasising the “need for stability.” For instance, how many top clubs in this fiercely, globally capitalist football era find their shirt sponsors nationalised? In Venezuela, maybe..

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THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

Sepp Blatter’s frightening non-equivocation about the Premier League’s (PL) ‘International Round’ (“it’s abuse”) would normally sink any footballing venture, even one involving three of the world’s five richest clubs – and wasn’t it indicative of PL arrogance that they didn’t think they needed FIFA permission? But Richard Scudamore has two hopes of seeing his plans succeed. No, not those two.

One, that a Swiss court case curtails Blatter’s FIFA presidency (watch this space). And, two, that what Rupert Murdoch wants, he usually gets…apart from a smack in the mouth.

Murdoch had to be involved, with new media rights up for grabs. The Independent’s Stephen Glover wrote last Monday that papers were reporting the sale of football’s soul, except for the Sun’s “Premier League football…to conquer the world.” But Murdoch’s idea all along?

We’re only sure of “the likely possibility that the Australian-born tycoon may in some way be connected” – the Telegraph, hedging bets furiously. However, News Corporation directors like Sir Rod Eddington don’t approach Scudamore with world-domination enterprises without Murdoch’s say-so and STAY News Corporation directors.

Everyone’s had a secondary agenda, except fans. They’ve just said a proper league fixture-list (i.e. the same one for everyone) should have 21 casting votes against changes “unanimously-backed” (or not, as it transpired) by 20 PL chairmen. But in a world where £8m beats £7m regardless of consequence, ‘proper’ doesn’t matter.

Scudamore’s secondary agenda is his career. Last summer, it seemed American club-owners wanted ‘one of their own’ running the league. So Scudamore’s had voices in his head all week screaming: “push this through, limey, or you’re history.” Little wonder he’s been talking cack.

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SMILES NILE-WIDE IN OTTO PFISTER’S FORTNIGHT OF FUN

Maybe you really had to be there. Newspaper feature-writers turned into Bill Bryson immediately on setting foot in Ghana for the 2008 African Cup of Nations (ACN). Tales of sun, sand, singing, smiling Nottingham Forest strikers. Articles usually paid-off with “The football? That was horrendous??” Except it wasn’t.

It was almost as wonderful as generally perceived. Some eulogising was borne of relief that this ANC “edition” wasn’t as turgid as some international events – the 2002 ACN, for instance. But if Africa’s tournament needed establishing ahead of the fast-devaluing Copa America (increasingly reliant on domestically-based players), Ghana ’08 did it in numbers. And the best team won. Euro 2008 could scarcely be better.

This hasn’t permeated the thicker skulls among European club management. Mass debates on when the ACN ‘should’ be held were Euro-centricism at its worst. Whether in Ghana in January or Tunisia in April (2004) is down to Africa’s needs - climactic, financial etc… Although, if they held it conveniently for…say…a European mid-winter break…

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ROBOT CAMEL JOCKEYS

As ever, no use turning to BBC’s Alan Green. His insight into Liverpool’s financial travails equated to don’t know, don’t care. “I’m no financial expert,” confirmed the commentator who regularly has to ask Graham Taylor what’s going on.

But despite the forests laid waste by its media coverage, the Liverpool saga is simple. Two Americans borrowed money to buy Liverpool, borrowed again to repay the loan and will make Liverpool repay that loan. OK?

The sub-plots have provided the complexities…and the entertainment. And if the borrowers are as irony-free as many Americans appear, these sub-plots will be lost on them. The major irony is that Liverpool fans had the choice of serial borrowers or human rights de-activists, after months decrying…er…serial borrowers (Glazer) and human rights de-activists (Thaksin), leaving die-hard Scouse militants supporting a Dubai dictatorship’s takeover-plan.

Some revelations about Dubai’s ruling Maktoum family would sit comfortably in a Chris Morris spoof (and I’m convinced Morris is behind them). The Economist’s ‘index of democracy’ has Dubai two notches below Zimbabwe. And allegations of mass exploitation of migrant-workers have been trumped by those of child-abuse relating to the family’s camel-racing interests. Child camel jockeys (yes!) have been banned as a result and replaced with…ROBOT…camel jockeys. Hilarious, if it wasn’t so awful. The borrowers’ financial-creativities are trifles besides.

Hicks is so distrusted (Gillett’s recent silence being top-notch PR) that you half-wonder if the ‘O’ in ‘Thomas O. Hicks’ is a clumsy (Al)Fayed-style affectation to appeal to Liverpool’s Irish affinities. Not that unpopularity phases him – even if Gillett HAS voted ‘go now’ in some local-paper polls.

He certainly has no Liverpool affinities, what friend of George W. Bush would? He funded Dubya’s election campaigns for Texas governor and leader of the free world. And his 1999 purchase of Texas Rangers baseball team netted minor investor Bush $15m – the club’s value increasing in part due to its new, taxpayer-funded, stadium. Hicks also benefited from $50bn-worth of debt-led takeovers before Liverpool (not always benefiting the companies).

The danger signs for Liverpool were immediate. Dallas Morning News sportswriter Tim Cowlishaw warned: “He knows nothing about soccer…he will view it as an investment.” “Work to start the new stadium in 60 days” (Gillett, February 2007) became work to start breaking promises in 60 days. And six months ago, Hicks’ deal with investment bank Goldman Sachs to ‘roll’ their loans into one – secured against Liverpool’s assets – foundered on Goldman’s insistence on increased personal investment. This one loan was sixteen times Liverpool’s operating profits. Twice as large as Glazer’s loans-to-operating profits ratio.

Critics were muffled by PR-machines, Champions League success and £26m on Torres. And some dealt with themselves. One American supporters-club member was withdrawn from a SKY interview after “telling the producer Hicks and Gillett were two-bit hustlers. It wasn’t the narrative the PR agency paid for.” No kidding.

“AFC Liverpool” notions foundered on lack of protest experience among fans. FC United and AFC Wimbledon’s founders had years of it – their clubs’ continuing success a testament. So ‘Shares Liverpool FC’ was a positive. The idea of fans organising and funding large buy-outs needs testing. Finding 100,000 Liverpool fans with £5,000 spare each IS a test. But they can’t have better leadership than Rogan Taylor, who has spoken more football-sense than I’ve had hot dinners, since the post-Heysel formation of the Football Supporters AssociatioN.

Many clubs, from Real Madrid to Rushden, are mutually-owned, with one shareholder, one vote a common practice. And the shares non-tradeable. “Enormous potential” was the Supporters Trust movement’s take on SLFC. One practical problem, though. Hicks says the club is not for sale (and who would doubt his word?), even at the £500m which would ‘earn’ him ten times more this year than the most over-paid Premier League prima-donna).

The startling number of Hicks-apologists among football fans (i.e. ANY) would doubtless disapprove. On the Guardian’s web-site, of all places, someone asked: “Do people want Hicks to use his own money (to buy Liverpool)?” The response “Why not?” was deemed “moronic.” That near-billionaire Hicks shouldn’t offload costs onto fans or should be judged on his benefit to football not his bank balance was dismissed as quaint.

“You borrow money to buy a house” they cried, presumably someone else paying their mortgages. Which reminded me of a joke. An old man complaining: “£3.50 for a cup of tea??” A young man answering: “Well, I didn’t INVITE you, Grandad.” Supporters’ money funds core club activities NOT their takeovers. But if the Guardian is a guide, such takeovers could become the new orthodoxy. (With better timing than the actual tackle, Jamie Garragher’s penalty-giveaway at Upton Park landed Liverpool outside the European qualification places. Should they end the season there, whither the borrowers’ business plan? The question remains rhetorical).

Because “football is a business and these financial requirements will introduce better management into football…it will be in everybody’s interests to have a well-run club.” Liverpool undeniably required such discipline. Despite the Champions League runs, the borrowers inherited debts of at least £44.8m (reference to which does nothing for CEO Rick Parry’s cascading popularity-rating, Parry already painfully-perched “on the horns of a dilemma” after his support for the borrowers brought them to Anfield instead of DIC).

But that quote came from 1997, ‘justifying’ stock-market flotation. And while, on an abacus, the theory had legs, in the ‘real world’ Hicks-apologists bang on about, it got taken out at the knees. The uncertainties which provide football’s major appeal proved too much for a certainty-hungry stock market.

And they will for American billionaires “building the value of the brand.” Because the brand could be Man Yoo (and no sane person can rely on Michael Dawson every week, speaks an angry Spurs fan)…or Derby. “There’s no reason why we can’t make Derby an iconic worldwide brand” declared new owner Andy Appleby, ignoring the league table.

The borrowers’ charge-sheet extends beyond the above. Gillett’s ignored, Glazer-esque statement that the new stadium’s “upgraded supporter experience” would be “factored into ticket costs” (an upgraded spending experience?). Hicks’ mid-summer nod to his domestic audience: “People are worried I might take money from Rangers to go to Liverpool. But it’s the reverse.” And his breathtaking financial misjudgement: “Liverpool is going to throw off lots of money.” He was right to wonder why Liverpool “threw off” £26m for Torres and dropped him every fortnight, but still…

Not to mention their original offer document’s ‘assurance’ (too late) that debt-interest payments “will not depend to any significant (my italics) on the business of Liverpool.” On one’s definition of ‘significant’ hangs the view that Hicks planned all this all along.

It’s ending in tears already. When a plan involves “the richest club in the world” (Man Yoo) sucking up to Saudi Arabia BECAUSE…THEY…NEED…THE…MONEY…, that plan is NOT working. Hell awaits.

WHICH NEEDS NO FURTHER COMMENT:

Despite he not having kicked a competitive football in four months, David Beckham’s non-inclusion in Capello’s first England squad was deemed more newsworthy than Robert Green’s (how many Villa games DID Capello watch?).

So fortunately, there was considered opinion to hand when the media went looking on Thursday: “He’s a strong character, he’ll bounce back. He’ll get his 100^th cap,” said one.

And the source of this insight? Elton John.

Which needs no further comment.

‘MotorMurph’ is written by Mark Murphy

ABOUT FOOTBALL

I’m writing about football this week. Not mismanagement or mis-managers. Football. Hope you enjoy it. Though North Londoners “may find some images disturbing.”

It’s a frightening (for me) twenty-one years since I first saw Spurs and Arsenal in a League (“Littlewoods”) Cup semi-final – a three-game epic, the emotional scars from which have barely healed in N17.

Twice, Arsenal were “one-nil down, two-one up”, according to the song, “that’s the way we won the cup” in 1971, beating Liverpool despite Bob Wilson’s temporary allergy to near-posts. And modern Arsenal naturally produced a more expansive version (“two-nil down, three-two up”) to beat Spurs in last year’s “Carling” Cup semi.

So when Arsenal went “one-nil down” at the Lane last week, I feared the usual. A fear magnified as the relief at Denilson’s injury (sorry, nothing personal) dissolved when Cesc bloody Fabregas warmed up. Oh bliss to be wrong.

During the eighties, Spurs had been better than Arsenal, briefly. Hard to envisage in colour, but true. Even Arsenal’s famous 5-0 at the Lane in 1978 (Mark Kendall at one post, Liam Brady’s shot flying inside the other) was avenged goal-for-goal in 1983.

By 1987, both teams were in the ascendant and would have challenged for European places if there’d been any, post-Heysel. Arsenal were even displaying title credentials – George Graham pulling them up by David Rocastle’s boot-strings, Martin Hayes briefly becoming Ted Drake.

Meanwhile, Clive Allen was breaking Greaves’ non-alcohol-related Tottenham records, spearheading a successful 4-5-1 formation under David “Chimbomba” Pleat (dear readers, he once had a clue).

Allen grabbed a hat-trick in Spurs’ 5-0 quarter-final replay rout of West Ham (leaving a not-so-happy Hammer work-colleague muttering, correctly: “2-0 would have been an injustice” all the way back to Seven Sisters). And, predictably, scored the Highbury first-leg’s only goal – landing flat on his back from some height in celebration, yards from the North Bank.

Spurs should have scored more – same as this year. Gus Caesar, an 80s Titus Bramble, floundered in Allen’s wake. And some Spurs fans departed the Clock End uneasy at 1-0 – they’d have turned into the “Highbury Library” at 1-1. But it was a perfect 21^st birthday for me, a dozen-games-a-season Lilywhite, seeing Spurs win at Highbury (the only time I’ve done so). Pity it ultimately mattered not a jot.

Having won at the Lane in the league (2-1, natch), Arsenal were still in it – if they could stop Allen. However, for much of the second-leg’s first-half…they couldn’t. It was only Allen 1 Arsenal 0 at half-time. Yet Arsenal were now long-odds against. Enter Spurs’ tannoy announcer.

Some say he earned a winners’ medal (Caesar’s, generally) after detailing Tottenham’s ticketing arrangements for the final…”SHOULD we get there.” He was merely reading from the programme – plus the “offending” words – alongside equivalent Arsenal arrangements. But a Gooner-friend re-iterates this tale about every fortnight (guess the text HE received last Tuesday) – Arsenal players and fans allegedly riled by the announcer’s presumptuousness.

But surely Viv Anderson’s equaliser was more influential? I mean, Viv ANDERSON?? And after Niall Quinn made it “one-nil down, two-one up”, Spurs clung on through 90, then 120, minutes. Gooners cheered, however, when Pleat won the toss for play-off home “advantage” (away goals?? Foreign muck).

The play-off was Allen v. Arsenal again. And, after two glaring misses, Allen went one-nil up again after half-time. Enter Spurs’ goalkeeper.

Whisper it, but Ray Clemence was rubbish for Spurs. From 1981’s Charity Shield to…here. Arsenal deserved to win. But Clemence’s re-make of Hampden Park 1976 – nutmegged by Dalglish for Scotland’s winner – caused the decisive goals. “One-nil down, two-one up.” Again. (At least Arsenal re-iterated the “one-nil down” line in the final, erasing “Liverpool never lose when Ian Rush scores” from football’s lexicon).

Subsequently, Arsenal have lorded it, winning about half a million trophies to Spurs’ two. I once even suggested every Arsenal player was better than every Spur. “Lineker’s better than Caesar,” my Gooner-mate graciously acknowledged.

Last year, Arsenal’s semi-final line-ups said it all about the different footballing planets the clubs inhabited – spelling trouble for football, with only five places separating them in the Premiership.

This year spelt J-U-A-N-D-E-R-A-M-O-S. Only sporting director Daniel Comnoli’s player-selection meddling (the prosecution resting Prince Boateng) maintains any astronomical gap.

Arsenal, however, have remained football’s worst losers – even without the painful Ashley Cole. Managing director Keith Edelman storming out twenty minutes from the end last week. Emanuel Adebayor echoing a nation’s thoughts – though not actions, the fool – telling Nicolas Bendtner “I’m only on ‘cos you’re shit.” Wenger one notch above claiming five lucky breakaway goals.

For Spurs, echoes of their 5-1 semi-final win over Chelsea in 2002, ushering in a reversal of fortunes against the Blues. No wins in 26 games beforehand, one-in-15 since…ah… AND Spurs were “Graham-Polled” in the final, the slick-haired serial-booker doing the “Mike Riley” (“no penalty”) late on.

Still, 5-1, eh?

WHICH NEEDS NO FURTHER COMMENT
Thurrock and Havant & Waterlooville brought forward their league game to ease Havant’s fixture congestion (seven games in three weeks). All protagonists – Thurrock, Blue Square League – were happy. Havant’s Justin Gregory was suspended for one match, so he couldn’t play at Anfield for, surely, the only time in his career.

No, repeat, NO rules were broken. A four-man FA “regulatory-commission” decided it was fixture-list manipulation.

They are poor humans. Hopefully one day, their dreams get crushed. Except they probably lack the heart to have dreams.

One side did break FA Cup rules at Anfield. Rule 15 (a): “Each team…shall represent (their) full available strength.” Liverpool fielded Leiva Lucas and Charles Itanje. Liverpool are in the Premier League.

Which needs no further comment.

On BBC1, at Mansfield’s FA Cup-tie, Carlton Palmer said: “Keith Haslam (Mansfield’s owner) has done a terrific job over the past 15 years and built a new stadium.”

In his match commentary Steve Wilson said: “The ground has only three sides. And a reduced capacity for safety reasons.”

Mansfield have never been lower in the Football League.

Stags fans said, in unison: “Carlton Palmer is a *****r.”

Which needs no further comment.

‘MotorMurph’ is written by Mark Murphy

CLASS TREACHERY

Man Yoo Chief Executive David Gill is right. There’ll always be people criticising the club that makes him a millionaire. So why make it so easy for us? I mean, Ferguson’s lost it. It seems he literally doesn’t know what’s going on around him. Lambasting United’s New Year’s Day crowd for not being loud enough when his team weren’t being good enough. And lambasting the media for allowing supporters right-of-reply.

Of course, Ferguson has ‘previous’ with the media – it’s why Carlos Queiroz is famous. He hasn’t spoken to the BBC since they transmitted a 2004 documentary rightly questioning United players’ relationships with Elite Sports Agency (prop: Jason Ferguson), relationships quietly terminated in the programme’s aftermath. And SKY got banned, episode 94, from a recent press conference merely for interviewing United fans’ representatives.

There’d been none of this before Glazer. Ferguson once declared himself a “bridge between club and fans…supporting fans in their causes,” including opposition to Glazer. Now, FC United are “promoting themselves” and “thought they should have a say in the running of a football club”, an oddball criticism of a fans-run-club such as FC United. He denies fans’ role in defeating BSkyB’s 1998 takeover bid, contradicting the Monopolies and Merger Commission, which rejected the bid partly because of fans’ campaigning. And: “The independent supporters and FC United are not the conscience of the club.” He couldn’t be more wrong if he’d said: “Ken Bates – lovely fella.”

Naturally, when Glazer became owner, Ferguson became quieter – you don’t diss the man with the P45 near-at-hand, just ask Kevin Blackwell. But he could have stayed quieter. As it is, the former Clyde-shipyard union-activist has returned “class traitor” to our vocabulary. A disgrace. (There goes this web-site’s exclusive Ferguson interview)…

In mitigation, Ferguson is not alone. Gill is mutating into his other-worldly predecessor Peter “Chelsea rule the world” Kenyon in his worship of the bottom line. Changing his view of Glazer – for one and a half million reasons a year – from “no sensible person could support them” to “they’re excellent owners, true to their word” via the untrue “they’ve invested in the team.” And, apparently, they’ve “not sought credit” – which will surprise a variety of money-lenders.

United are the world’s richest club, by 12 euros, only once future Nike sponsorship is snuck…sorry…”factored” in (for that reason alone?). But the Glazers have surpassed many of their own targets. £245m turnover was a specific target…for 2010. While pre-tax earnings and matchday income targets have been exceeded by 2-5%.

Yet this, from a season only another treble could outstrip, will hardly make a dent in United’s debt. Interest payments match all but relative pennies of post-tax profits. Much-vaunted transfer outlay has been partly deferred. And headlines like: “United plan could bleed fans dry” expose where the money’s really coming from (not that Ferguson’s reading).

A repeat of, oooh…say, 2005/06 and profits wouldn’t cover three-quarters of the interest. The transfer expenditure Gill cites ad nauseum is 30% of the £70m headline figure – thanks to staged payments for Nani and Anderson and obligatory complexities surrounding Carlos Tevez. “So instead of £70m, United have spent only £20m already” said the Independent’s Nick Harris.

But the 20,000 fans who ‘went’ to the Coventry Carling Cup-tie without necessarily leaving home made a viable contribution. Hence Gill’s delight at the impact of ticket-price-rises on next year’s projected income, alongside thanking the Glazers - like a penny piece had come from their pockets.

Everything at United has taken an above-inflation price-hike. And that money is vital, whatever their projected Korean income. Ferguson can’t have his beloved crowd-noise “when everyone is boosting profits until the moment of kick-off”, Jim White noted in the Telegraph, surveying a half-full Old Trafford at 2.57. “Secondary spend” Gill romantically labels it.

“Fans as customers” isn’t cynical comment on United’s strategy. It IS their strategy. It says so, in parent company Red Football’s 2005/06 accounts, page ONE. And ‘customers’ don’t bounce down aisles chanting “Tesco, Tesco”. So the equivalent won’t happen at United. If you want your salary paid, Ferguson, live with that.

And it’ll get worse. Take the Glazers’ “word” on ticket-prices. An uncharacteristically-baseless David Conn Guardian article concentrated on their alleged price-promises to government, ignoring the 54% rise “by “2010” promised in their business plan, alongside a commitment merely to be “competitive.”

They’ll have spotted Arsenal’s 20%-higher matchday-income from 20%-lower crowds. And if Emirates seats are £94, £93 will be “competitive” as soon as supply-and-demand allows. Again, in the business plan: “Premiership teams in the North…have been viewed as having a lower-wealth fan-base (but) the gulf is not enormous (and) tickets have been undervalued.” They don’t disregard the North/South divide, as critics claim. They believe it barely exists.

Some will never see the takeover “as a good thing even if we win ten Champions Leagues-in-a-row” Gill complains, understanding nothing of the appeal of “competitive” sport. For any club to so dominate would be unhealthy, even – to use the only language Gill does understand – gate receipts. The fiercely competitive Ferguson would surely baulk at a job so uncompetitive, unless he’s gone really bad.

But even on Gill’s terms, United’s figures are barely adequate – though the ‘hard-of-thinking’ have swallowed the hype (like ‘Pat’ on the Manchester Evening News web-site, spouting such rubbish about the accounts you suspect ‘Pat’ is short for ‘Patsy’). The Glazers admitted that top-three finishes and the Champions League knock-out stages were annual essentials – confirmed, and more, by these figures. Another 2005/06 simply mustn’t happen.

The portion of debt not currently dumped on United - £138m borrowed at 14.25% - will be when market conditions allow. Another £19m to find each year, unless United can attack the main debt the way they did Newcastle.

Fan loyalty therefore remains fundamental. Talk of 333 million fans worldwide is, handily, cheap. And United “must harvest every opportunity” (Gill). But how many “harvests” can these millions gather? Unless merchandise is of too poor quality to last a season, they won’t be annual (why do I feel like I’ve just given someone an idea?) or reliable. Defeat to Lyon will destabilise this ‘fan-base’ more readily than those who actually went to the Coventry game.

They also need to be more ‘loyal’ than the billion ‘potential’ viewers worldwide of Arsenal/United coverage this season, 90% of whom found something better to do. Otherwise risky trips to Saudi Arabia mid-season for £1m will become the norm.

However, what appalls most is Ferguson and his disdain for fans who suffer institutionalised exploitation as thanks for their efforts. If anyone/anything has earned the right to act so arrogantly, it’s Ferguson and his career– from Dunfermline’s (Dunfermline’s !!) 1960s European campaigns to last year’s title. But no-one has earned that right, not even Ferguson.
‘WHICH NEEDS NO FURTHER COMMENT’: Five Live’s Mark Pougatch recently questioned Birmingham chairman David Gold on the damage the Premier League’s foreign-recruitment policy/frenzy was doing to the England team. “Not our responsibility” Gold insisted. Pougatch fired back with the League’s mission statement: “…to develop playing talent that will provide international success with the England team at all levels.” “It’s on your web-site!!” he screamed incredulously. “Not our responsibility” Gold persisted, in the face of the evidence.

Which needs no further comment.

‘MotorMurph’ is written by Mark Murphy

MORE FUN AND FROLICS IN THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE

The national press confined it to their archives. But Coventry’s pre-Christmas takeover has only just happened – on two levels. As sort-of-predicted in this column, Ray Ranson, backed by “SISU Private Equity Funds”, struggled to get the 90% of Coventry shares ‘his’ deal demanded (the remaining 10% would then be compulsorily repurchased). Minority-shareholders, holding 28.6% of the shares, were mysteriously reluctant to swap their financial outlay and voting rights for SISU’s “non-voting, non-participatory” shares…and a penny.

January 7^th was the, unexplained, deadline for shareholders to return certificates. And City ex-Chairman Joe Elliott wanted it all over by Christmas. But along with the usual practical problems with share registers - deaths not notified (football hardly a priority at such times), addresses out-of-date - the required 62% of minority-shareholder support wasn’t forthcoming. Cue emotional blackmail.

Ex-director Michael French handed a debut to the “If you don’t hand over your shares, the club will die” line. And Ranson added: “It is irrelevant what people paid…in administration the shares would be worthless.” As worthless as the shares SISU were offering instead – an irony which escaped him.

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ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACHES

English football has nothing to learn from foreign billionaires about financial chicanery. Take Mansfield Town-owner Keith Haslam. Football should be in his blood. His father Harry was a long-serving manager, nearly signing a young Maradona for Sheffield United, they say. Junior’s execrable record at Mansfield suggests he was adopted.

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