NET DEBTS

It was as close as expected, surprisingly interesting, a fascinating contrast in styles. And, like the Premier League (PL), “right to the wire.”

But Chelsea’s victory over Manchester United by net-debts of £619,632,000 to £604,602,000 won’t console their fans, their sacked manager, or their first recipient of a losers’ medal in Moscow…er…Peter Kenyon.

The Champions League final was especially good for a final. And every credit to the players – even Florent Malouda…ish. However, recently-published accounts for both finalists show it to be largely on credit, their combined gross-debt figures topping…ulp…£1.5 BILLION (United actually having the higher gross-debt…but I couldn’t let them win everything).

Try picturing £1.5bn. I’m reminded of the American billionaire who’d never get to bed if he stuffed his money under it because it was accruing interest faster than he could climb (hopefully an apocryphal tale, though, as Tom Hicks demonstrates, you can’t tell with American billionaires).

United’s debt repayments just might be similarly insurmountable. Among the aspects of football’s ‘new realism’ which fail to bat eyelids is that United have budgeted for third-place in the PL (that this is low-risk is an indictment of PL ‘competitiveness’) and the Champions League (CL) knock-out stages annually, their ‘worst-case scenario’, presumably. So a repeat of 2005/06 – failure to even reach the UEFA Cup from their CL group – would ruin their financial plans.

This failure is unlikely…at least until Ronaldo gets sold…or gets a career-ending testicular tackle after one stepover too many. But Milan’s failure to reach next season’s Champions League is a reminder of the possibilities (and, PL chief Scudamore, of Serie A’s greater competitiveness?).

The less people like United, the more they play on their debts, ‘they’ say. “That David Conn’s a City fan” said a United-supporting friend of the Guardian journalist who’s doubted the Glazer family from the start. But United themselves know the risks, hence the gargantuan PR-exercise accompanying their 2006/07 accounts.

CEO David Gill’s announcement of United ‘riches’ in January was gargantuan spin, like Chelsea counterpart and United predecessor Kenyon’s ‘club record turnover’ alongside £75m losses a month later. Some supporters, including many claiming to have ‘worked in finance’, bought Gill’s ‘richest club in the world’ line. One wonders who they worked for… and when their employers went bust…

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EVERYBODY DOES IT SO WE MIGHT AS WELL

Alan, Alan, Lineker, Lawro (Cuthbert, Dibble, Grubb!) all agreed. The Premier League was forty shades of terrific this season. “Right to the wire” was their mantra. Lineker said the final day was so big, ‘Match of the Day’ needed three pundits, not two, to say…er…exactly the same thing as each other.

Briefly, they visited our planet, highlighting the cavernous and widening gap between Premier League and Championship: “Sunderland spent 45 mullion tae survive” noted Hansen, talk of money broadening his Scottish accent. But Lineker moved away from the issue with his annoying habit of segueing between games with inanities. “It’ll be interesting” was his take on the Champions League final…is he that unconcerned? While the potentially fatal imbalance at the top of the domestic game, worth an entire ‘Inside Sport’, got…”OK.” A more inappropriate word you could not find.

It was ‘English’ football wooing the world, 200 million watching Portsmouth/Fulham according to Jonathan Pearce, which seems unlikely, especially after an hour of his commentary. Tevez and Ronaldo adorned the cover of ‘When Saturday Comes’ under the headline ‘English rule in Europe.’ Clearly ironic, even without Tevez’s speech bubble: “Blimey, wot a turn-up!” Hansen and co. meant it.

Still, the best team won. And the worst came last. Derby needed snookers before Paul Jewell arrived. But at least Billy Davies won a game. Jewell’s transfer activity clearly had Championship football in mind – why else buy Robbie Savage? Yet his team put the Southern League Championship in mind.

Darren Moore – the worst player ever in England’s top-tier – wasn’t Jewell’s fault. Plenty of those “not fit to wear the shirt” against Reading, according to crowd and manager, were. Jewell made an impressive stab at TV punditry, in-between managerial jobs. He should get back to it.

Derby nearly beat Newcastle twice, which sums up Sam Allardyce’s season. Newcastle’s worry now is more long-term disunity than long-ball; their current management structure is near-designed for it. And alleged spats between owner Mike Ashley and Keegan aren’t the headline problem.

Chairman Chris Mort is the relatively normal one (he’s new, you can tell). The Sun’s headline after Keegan’s ‘million miles away’ outburst was: “Chairman hits back at Keegan.” But Mort actually said: “I thought Kevin’s comments were quite sensible” and maintained that line (he also stressed Newcastle wouldn’t ‘do a Leeds’, i.e. running-up £35.5m debts and blaming Jackie Milburn…there, that’s my weekly Bates-dig sorted).

If Ashley is as furious with Keegan as reported, he and Mort may have a problem. Meanwhile, ‘Director of Football Dennis Wise’ remains a phrase to chill the blood.

Branding Yakubu Aiyegbeni a “panic” buy by Everton wasn’t universally popular. Or, admittedly, right, though I still maintain they paid £2m too much. He and his team exceeded expectations, while entering ‘plucky’ territory too often against the ‘top-four’ (Liverpool’s Goodison Park robbery excepted) to suggest they’d shift any of them soon.

Moving stadium may fund a ‘top-four’ push – Tesco don’t need the money quite as much. But Evertonians must ponder whether eternal “You’re not scousers anymore” chants are worth it.

“…” overstates Tottenham’s league campaign. Nonetheless, Ramos’s signings were ideal dead-wood replacements. And PLEASE can Championship-bound Nottingham Forest and Leeds take back Championship class Michael Dawson and Aaron Lennon respectively?

Sacking Sven would expose Thaksin Shinawatra’s impatience and football ignorance in equal measure. Yet its neither the crackpot decision people claim nor a ground-breaker for an authoritarian politician. Manchester City have been dreck since Christmas, with only Micah Richards’ injury as part-mitigation. And if a full-back, however good, has that effect…

Had City been newly-promoted, a different perspective could be applied, though not by Thaksin, I suspect. But fourteenth to ninth – at £7m-per-place – is mediocre. When Noel Gallagher once said City’s hopes of European qualification rested with the Fair Play League, people laughed and agreed. Thaksin doesn’t get the joke. Mind you, when people question whether Thaksin is ‘fit and proper’ because of one spiky managerial decision (as yet untaken) rather than murky human-rights and financial ones, that’s no joke.

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WIGAN ATHLETIC v MANCHESTER UNITED - Just champion

Sunday 11 May 2008

Already crowned Right Result title winners, Manchester United completed their domestic programme in style with a win at Wigan Athletic. The final day win should have been even more emphatic as United should have been awarded a second-half penalty for Titus Bramble’s trip on Paul Scholes. Whether the former England midfielder should have still been on the field of play at that stage is debatable but outside of the Right Result remit.

The Right Result is a 3-0 win for Manchester United.

SUNDERLAND v ARSENAL - Nearly champion

Sunday 11 May 2008

As far as the Right Result table is concerned, Arsenal finished the season as runners-up to Manchester United. Although it wasn’t a final day cliffhanger, the Gunners ended their campaign with a victory at Sunderland. The only disappointment was that another of Arsene Wenger’s young guns was denied a first senior goal. On his Premiership debut, 18 year-old Mark Randall had his strike wrongly ruled out for offside shortly after replacing Emmanuel Eboue.

The Right Result is a 2-0 win for Arsenal.

KEN BATES HA HA HA

It was no surprise that Ken Bates was scathing of the Independent Arbitration Tribunal that last week systematically dismantled his arguments against the Football League’s fifteen-point “condition” on Leeds’ League One membership. The tribunal were scathing too. “No authority to act”; “Misconceived proceedings”; “No credible explanation nor convincing excuse for their unreasonable delay” said the report. Unfortunately for Bates, these comments referred to Leeds, not the League.

Little wonder he’s been so bullish, if misguided. His status as the biggest w***** in English football is coming under domestic (John Batchelor, Keith Haslam, Rupert Lowe, Richard Scudamore) and overseas (Tom Hicks, Thaksin Shinawatra) threat. Calls for the resignations of League chairman Lord Mawhinney and his board for “totally disgraceful” behaviour are contemptible, even by Bates’ gutter standards. But these guys have set new standards.

Bates continually railed against Leeds ‘double’ punishment for entering administration last season, as soon as relegation to League One was otherwise assured, publishing his ludicrous ‘real’ League One table in the programme, with Leeds’ points deduction airbrushed in true Stalinist-manner. Even in response to the tribunal’s “unequivocal support” of the League, Bates was claiming “moral victory” – a first, surely, and a last, surely.

Bates claimed: “We have been penalised…for adhering to the League’s policy of paying all football creditors”; “the FA dragged their feet, we asked for arbitration for six months”; “the League admitted (we) did nothing wrong”; “we lost on a technicality”; “all the financial failures were down to previous administrations” and “my wife said: ‘we lost the battle but won the war.’”

In order, those statements are: untrue, untrue, laughably untrue, preposterously untrue, untrue (if Leeds accounts to June 2006, the only ones before administration, are to be believed) and…well, his wife’s probably biased (and her career as a military strategist should be put on hold). But even she must sometimes think: “Ooooh, Ken, not sure about that.” She’d certainly not read the tribunal’s report.

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FAR TOO LONG, FAR TOO LAX

As an attention-grabber, it was tops. “Liverpool to be scrutinised by the Government” screamed the headline, bringing visions to mind of Tom Hicks’ breakfast cereal flying to all parts if he read it.

In announcing the altogether dryer prospect of an ‘All-Party Parliamentary Football Group’ (APFG) inquiry into football’s corporate governance last week, chair Alan Keen mentioned “case studies in governance” (zzz) but woke everyone up with “…including Liverpool FC.” Never mind that Liverpool is being personality-driven into the ditch and that its board structure is neither unusual nor, with Hicks in-built minority, all bad.

Actually, few headlines screamed. And without the Liverpool reference, the “new look at corporate governance structures” would barely have made the ‘news-in-briefs’ next to the Rugby League in southern editions.

It’s a “new look” because the APFG has been down this road before. And got lost. In 2003, they began a nine-month investigation which produced a “comprehensive” report – ‘Football and its Finances”, published on February 11 2004 and…rubbished by its major targets on February 12. “There has been slow, or no, progress on the majority of the group’s recommendations” lamented Keen last week. Hence the new inquiry.

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READING v TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR - Judgement Day

Saturday 3 May 2008

Saturday was Judgement Day in the world of the Right Result. Manchester United were confirmed as champions while Reading and Birmingham City will join Derby County in next season’s virtual Championship. To add an additional nail into Reading’s coffin, they should have suffered a heavier defeat than the critical single goal setback against Tottenham Hotspur at the Madejski Stadium. Having taken the lead, Spurs should have had their lead doubled in the first-half as Steed Malbranque’s goal that was ruled out for offside should have stood. The outstanding Right Result issue for the final day of the season will be the final Champions League position with Liverpool trailing Everton by one point.

The Right Result is a 2-0 win for Tottenham Hotspur.