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TAKLKING SPORT: Beautiful game has no bottom line
UNLESS Sheffield United, (as one mischievous or thoroughly deluded supporter emailed me last week), rock the footballing world by unveiling Tim Cahill before tonight's transfer deadline, then the biggest story of this summer's window happened a fortnight ago.
But far from being a major coup for the npower Championship, Craig Bellamy's move to Cardiff City has simply laid bare everything that is wrong with the English game. (Although Barcelona, who continue to collect players despite being up to their neck in debt are doing their bit to prove La Liga is best).
In a business where the average life of his divisional counterparts has now pitifully dipped below 18 months, I don't blame Dave Jones for paying scant regard to the bottom line. After all, having arrived in the Welsh capital nearly six years ago, the odds, at least, suggest that he won't be much longer.
Nor, given the obvious commercial benefits on offer, am I entirely short of sympathy for Cardiff's embattled board of directors. In a scramble as ruthless as the one for the FA Premier League, it's understandable that those with even half a chance of securing promotion look to seize every advantage they can get.
Sean O'Driscoll alluded to this fact when, before seeing his Doncaster Rovers team beaten 4-0 by Bellers and Co, he bemoaned the fact that the sport's enfant terrible hailed from south Wales rather than South Yorkshire.
O'Driscoll, having fashioned an exciting squad on relatively meagre resources, demands the utmost respect. But, in this instance, he is guilty of a great mis-judgement. What really sticks in most supporters' craws is the fact that Cardiff captured someone capable of almost single-handedly propelling them into the top-flight at a time when they were laden with unpaid debts.
Mind you, such small details only seem to bother us when they directly affect our own clubs.
For a country teetering on the brink of a financial precipice, we are remarkably imprudent when it comes to money and the not-so-beautiful game. Flicking through the pages of one Sunday newspaper last weekend, I counted six stories explicitly stating that said chairman should show some ambition by 'putting his hand in his pocket.' Including one who has already pumped 95m into the coffers.
It's the same yardstick fans also use to gauge an owner's intentions. Yet, unless there is some suggestion of impropriety, I rarely read an explanation of where the dosh is going to come from. Simply that it has to be spent.
Those of us who live in the real world, (i.e. on the other side of the advertising hoardings), aren't allowed to drive a shiny new car if we can't pay for the tax disc. Can't buy a house if we are incapable of keeping up with the mortgage.
What football needs is a credit-rating system where clubs must convince an independent body that they have the means to honour a transfer before it is sanctioned. It would save football folk from themselves and provide some much-needed transparency.
Got a view? Leave a comment below.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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