Money! Everyone loves money. Small pieces of paper that skyrocket in value depending on what they have printed on them and having lots of 0s on your bank statement, what's not to love?
Football, now football really loves money. Football is to money like Jesus is to Christians and Lynx is to teenage boys, the thing.
Except, except money is undergoing a bit of a rebrand in football. It is a dirty word, one to be loathed, detested, despised says walking, living, breathing, shrugging French strereotype and failed Blatter challenger Michel Platini.
Michel wants to balance up football, to make clubs live within their means and cut their cloth accordingly - leaving the powers that currently be, be the powers that be forevermore with their already paid-for, cash mountain generating massive stadiums and even larger reputations but unintended consequences and all that.
But poor old Michel is finding the love of dough is rather hard to overcome with football bigwigs (probably) literally being dragged kicking and screaming and greasily sliding to the Financial Fair Play table.
But yet, hurrah, results! Arab embassiesManchester City and Paris St-Germain being fined - the equivalent of stealing from my Kilner jar of pennies but a start nonetheless.
But oh no, hang on, where is this cash going to go? To help grassroots football? To subsidise matchday tickets? To readdress the balance between the haves and have nots of domestic football?
Nope, it is going into a great big massive pot to be distributed out among last year's Champions League and Europa League entrants, apparently.
That's right, the European Club Association has decided the £50m pot would best off be split among themselves - basically the same decision a conference of toddlers would make when deciding what to do with a box of Jelly Babies and Skittles.
So, the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea (as well as Wigan, Hull and Swansea) will receive a slice of around £212,000 to immediately piss away on paying Falcao for one set of weekdays. Glorious.
It is like making a really amazing cream cake and then screwing it all up right at the very end after being forced to substitute fresh cream for sour cream but still keeping the jam.
Some sense appears to reign back here in fair and honest Blighty with QPR's potential £40m FFP fine which would go to charity "rather than the other clubs under an agreement with the Premier League over its solidarity payments" though no word yet if the Premier League intends to apply for charity status in the near future.
The whole problem seems to be different bodies having jurisdictions over their own respective areas whether it be the Premier League, the Football League, UEFA and the ECA with ad-hoc compromises being formulated under the guise of having a 'flexible' system which most certainly wasn't thought up on the hoof and rushed through.
A laudable idea that doesn't quite work in practice, much like Euro 2016 expect for the laudable bit.
Wednesday 10 September 2014
Tuesday 9 September 2014
Wading in on #indref
One rung above the thing Scottish people may well loath most (public-school-educated, southern English politicians telling them which way to vote next Thursday) is any old English person telling them which way to vote next Thursday - 'aye' or 'ach no' to use a lazy, but invitingly easy, stereotype.
So, on we go, two penny-worth time.
There are countless things I'd miss about Scotland if it were to secede- a third colour which brightens up the Unions flag, charity challengers getting an easier ride by walking from Marshall Meadows to Land's End rather than John O'Groats and Twin Atlantic to name three.
But what I think I would dislike the most is having our clearly defined geographic landmass cut into two, separate pieces - much like across the Irish Sea though that was kind of the fault of we English anyway... like in Palestine...and much of Africa....and India and Pakistan....
Anyway, I've never been to Scotland and for all I know there could be a modern day Hadrian's Wall at the border complete with barbed wire, spotlights, sniper lasers and innumerable boxes of clinical, latex gloves to check people aren't smuggling Tennent's Super Strong Lager, heroin and the Daily Record.
But the idea that this landmass is split into two formally different countries feels me with a sadness I just can't quite understand, nor rationalise. It feels like my right arm - a pretty key part I'm sure you'll agree- suddenly deciding it doesn't want to be controlled by me anymore but has the distinct disadvantage of not being able to physically escape short of cutting itself off.
Perhaps a massive canal being built from coast-to-coast might be the solution should the 'ayes' have it next week so Scotland can drift off to shack up with Iceland in one of the most bizarre partnerships imaginable - Bjork meets Rod Stewart or Lazytown creator Magnis Scheving writing a show for James McAvoy.
However, despite the perceived support for the Union in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, we should not be allowed to have a say in the argument - it is the Scots' right to have their say on self-determination and if they say 'aye', what right do we have to hold them back like an older brother snatching back a stolen toy from a younger sibling? "Here you go...just kidding."
But if the Scottish were to vote for independence, there is a huge knock-on impact for the English identity. Being English is a concept I struggle with as apart from placing overwhelming, cloying and ultimately destructive faith in our sporting teams, what separates being English from being British?
If Scotland were to sod off, what we would be? The Dis-United Kingdom? Good Britain? Three loosely-associated countries, two of which probably have more in common with Scotland than they do England? Come to think of it, who would get custody of Wales?! Won't somebody please think of the Welsh.
An 'aye' may well be the springboard for Scottish pride and a reforming of the Scottish identity but an identity crisis would be left for the English - a cynic would suggest that might be a good campaigning tool for amateur Andrew Lloyd Webber lookalike Alec Salmond.
So whatever way you vote on Thursday Scotland, do it for the positive reasons and not the negative.
But if you do go, please take Gillian McKeith with you. Cheers.
So, on we go, two penny-worth time.
There are countless things I'd miss about Scotland if it were to secede- a third colour which brightens up the Unions flag, charity challengers getting an easier ride by walking from Marshall Meadows to Land's End rather than John O'Groats and Twin Atlantic to name three.
But what I think I would dislike the most is having our clearly defined geographic landmass cut into two, separate pieces - much like across the Irish Sea though that was kind of the fault of we English anyway... like in Palestine...and much of Africa....and India and Pakistan....
Anyway, I've never been to Scotland and for all I know there could be a modern day Hadrian's Wall at the border complete with barbed wire, spotlights, sniper lasers and innumerable boxes of clinical, latex gloves to check people aren't smuggling Tennent's Super Strong Lager, heroin and the Daily Record.
But the idea that this landmass is split into two formally different countries feels me with a sadness I just can't quite understand, nor rationalise. It feels like my right arm - a pretty key part I'm sure you'll agree- suddenly deciding it doesn't want to be controlled by me anymore but has the distinct disadvantage of not being able to physically escape short of cutting itself off.
Perhaps a massive canal being built from coast-to-coast might be the solution should the 'ayes' have it next week so Scotland can drift off to shack up with Iceland in one of the most bizarre partnerships imaginable - Bjork meets Rod Stewart or Lazytown creator Magnis Scheving writing a show for James McAvoy.
However, despite the perceived support for the Union in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, we should not be allowed to have a say in the argument - it is the Scots' right to have their say on self-determination and if they say 'aye', what right do we have to hold them back like an older brother snatching back a stolen toy from a younger sibling? "Here you go...just kidding."
But if the Scottish were to vote for independence, there is a huge knock-on impact for the English identity. Being English is a concept I struggle with as apart from placing overwhelming, cloying and ultimately destructive faith in our sporting teams, what separates being English from being British?
If Scotland were to sod off, what we would be? The Dis-United Kingdom? Good Britain? Three loosely-associated countries, two of which probably have more in common with Scotland than they do England? Come to think of it, who would get custody of Wales?! Won't somebody please think of the Welsh.
An 'aye' may well be the springboard for Scottish pride and a reforming of the Scottish identity but an identity crisis would be left for the English - a cynic would suggest that might be a good campaigning tool for amateur Andrew Lloyd Webber lookalike Alec Salmond.
So whatever way you vote on Thursday Scotland, do it for the positive reasons and not the negative.
But if you do go, please take Gillian McKeith with you. Cheers.
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