We Only Beat This If Everyone Speaks Up!

Last night during the Champions League game between Chelsea and Genk there was some pretty distasteful chants from a section of the Chelsea crowd about Anton Ferdinand.

Football Business does not intend to repeat the chants here (they are freely available elsewhere if you want to have a look what was said) but we do join Chelsea in condemning it.

A statement from The Blues said: “The chanting was wholly inappropriate and we don’t condone it.”

What I will add, though, that it could have done with Andre Villas Boas condemning it as well, he claimed, in the best traditions of Mangers to have not heard anything as he was “concentrating on the game.”

I am not having that excuse. We all know – and no doubt you have been at games yourselves – when player x or manager y has been urged to “give us a wave” by the crowd and, largely without exception they do. The crowd cheers and the game carries on.

So please, don’t insult our intelligence by claiming not to hear stuff.

That attitude, though, in a way does encapsulate what’s wrong with the attempts to fight racism in the game. It is too easy to claim you haven’t heard stuff – easier certainly than confronting things.

Of course giant strides have been made in the last couple of decades. When I first started going to football in the mid 1980s black players were subjected to some fearful abuse. George Berry – he of the giant afro – famously ate a banana he had thrown at him at Millwall. He also went to remonstrate with a fan who shouted abuse at him on another occasion. Those instances and what I am sure were countless others like them are mercifully rare these days.

The great irony in all of the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand incident that sparked all this off was that it happened in the Kick It Out fortnight of events. Much of the credit for the virtual eradication of racism in the game belongs with the Kick It Out organisation. The campaign – which we are happy and proud to support – has worked tirelessly to champion the cause.

I am sure they would agree with me, though, that the key phrase in the last paragraph was “virtual eradication”. And whilst its unlikely that racism in football – just as in society, which football has always largely reflected – will ever be ended, it certainly will not be while crowds think its ok to sing and chant in the way Chelsea did last night, when the manager “doesn’t hear anything.”

As Edmund Burke once noted: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

It is perhaps something we should remember.

Help Football Business Help Movember This Month

At Football Business not only do we want to help you run community 5 and 6 a side league to help everyone, we also like to do our bit too.

That is why we are both pleased and excited to announce a massive charity initiative for November.

Throughout November any profits we make will not be going to us. No siree.

Instead all our profits throughout November are going straight to the Movember appeal!

Movember, in case you didn’t know, is a charity campaign that seeks to raise money and awareness for Men’s Health, notably Prostate and Testicular cancer.

The way they do this is to get men (Mo Bros) to grow moustaches.

The scheme is worldwide and is backed by many top sports stars.

Everyone in the world probably has their own story of how cancer has touched their lives. In my own family we have lost many close family members and I wanted to do my bit to help. A lot of the lads in the football-business.co.uk office have signed up to be Mo Bros and the board of Directors have very generously and very kindly agreed to support us by donating all the profits we make next month to the charity.

There are no gimmicks, no catches, just charity. And moustaches.

So help us by telling everyone you know about what we are doing, and if they want to buy a 5 or 6 a side football franchise in November they can do it safe in the knowledge that they are helping the fight against cancer.

And that we look even dafter than we usually do!

Team GB: Any Place At The Games?

Something very weird happened at the Football Business Offices last week.

Something so odd, so utterly bemusing and strange that I didn’t quite understand the magnitude of what had happened until about an hour later.

Even then I tried to deny it, but it is inescapable.

And it is this:

Arsene Wenger said something and I thought: “he’s got a point.” In fact, I didn’t just think “he’s got a point” I thought, “yes, you know, what Arsene said is right.”

This isn’t a trivial matter as far as I am concerned. Agreeing with Mr Wenger isn’t something I do lightly, it isn’t something I like doing and it is something I hope I don’t do again.

But last week when the Arsenal boss said about Olympic Football: “it’s not a real tournament.” I thought to myself ‘he’s correct.’

The reason for the comments to come out last week, you suspect was that last week saw the announcement of the Coaches for the 2012 football tournament. Stuart Pearce will lead the male team, with Hope Powell at the helm of the ladies side.

It’s a job that – for Pearce – appears fraught with problems. The Scottish, Irish and Welsh FA’s don’t want their players selected for any “Team GB” for fear that any moves to do that could see their autonomy within FIFA eroded, so it might be that Team GB is effectively Team England – although Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey have declared their hope to play.

And it is the latter that has vexed Arsene. He doesn’t want his players burnt out in what he considers a pointless competition. And, although I do not share the cynicism of a lot of the country for the event and am tremendously looking forward to it, I agree with the Arsenal boss: football has no place there.

In fact, I don’t recall ever watching an Olympic Football match if I am honest, and I am sure I am not the only one.

Football – or for that matter tennis – have no business being in the games (tennis is different matter – it shouldn’t exist full stop). I remember seeing the eminent cultural Professor Ellis Cashmore say that “any sport for which the Olympics wasn’t the pinnacle” shouldn’t be at the competed for at the Games, and its something that makes sense. Are we to believe that Gareth Bale grew up dreaming of the chance to play for Team GB when he was a boy in Cardiff, or did he want to win the Premier League, Champions League or the World Cup for Wales?

Therein, surely is the difference. Usain Bolt would have dreamed of winning Olympic Gold, so do amateur boxers, cyclists, rowers, swimmers and countless other sports men and women. That’s why those sports belong to the gold medallists and football doesn’t.

Team GB must complete of course. Hopefully it will have players from all four Home Nations in as it should, but whether the sport in general should be there is an entirely different matter.

The rest of what Wenger said was:  “For me, the Olympics is for track and field, basically.”

And, as someone who loves the idea of watching the Olympic boxing tournament, or minority sports like Weightlifting I profoundly disagree with that premise.

Disagreeing with Arsene Wenger. My world makes sense again.

The Stupidest Idea Ever?

There have been two big Football Business stories this week.

One has been bubbling for a while and it is something we have talked about before on the Blog. Namely Overseas TV rights.

Last week saw Ian Ayre, Managing Director of Liverpool saying that he wanted an end to clubs all receiving the same money for games overseas no matter how many times they were on. He was pretty blunt (one of the comments reported was: “who tunes in from Kuala Lumpur to watch Bolton?”)

There has been debate about how the comments symbolised Liverpool’s move from Bill Shankley’s socialist roots to the modern, capitalist new world that football now inhabits – further distancing itself from his working class routes. And while, in fairness to Ayre, there is some merit in what he says: Liverpool are on the TV more than Bolton so it can be argued they should be getting more remuneration for this, it is a premise that we at Football Business wholly disagree with.

One of the strengths, surely of English Football (as opposed to other countries) is that we – just about – sustain over 100 professional clubs, and one of the ways we do that is by collective bargaining. In fact, the overseas TV deal is surely the only thing that is equitable about the Premier League and it must stay that way.

The other is even more stupid. In fact, it must rank as perhaps the single most stupid suggestion that has ever been uttered. A story emerged on Monday from the League Managers Association that some of the Premier Leagues foreign owners wanted to abolish relegation. The LMA’s Chief Exec Richard Bevan explained that these people wanted to move to an American Franchise type system of a closed shop.

Encouragingly this idea looks already dead in the water. A host of football people have lined up to ridicule it. Sir Alex calling it “suicide,” Dave Whelan, the Wigan Chairman, saying in today’s Guardian that he would “resign from the Premier League” if it happened and Venky’s Group – the owners of Blackburn Rovers – releasing a statement yesterday explaining: “We believe that the EPL's success is, in large parts, down to its ability to create such excitement for all who follow it, fans, players and staff and of course we the owners.

"We see no reason why anybody would feel it necessary to change the current format of the competition and are proud and privileged to be a part of such a great League.”

Without core support any plot – if there even was one– to ruin (and that’s not too strong a word for it) our great game will never get off the ground.

We all know what promotion and relegation brings to a league. We know how it has improved the competitiveness of Cricket and Rugby – indeed we always encourage our Franchisees to start more than one division because even in 5 and 6 a side football people want to go up and they want teams who deserve to go down to do just that.

Football is, was and must always be meritocracy. And, actually despite all the hot air this week, I am sure it always will be.

Howards Way - Will It Be Plain Saling For The Aussies

With due apologies to all our readers in Wales who probably don’t want to think about rugby right now, there was a story related the oval ball that our eyes here at Football Business last week.

Pat Howard, the former Leicester Tigers player and coach was appointed as General Manager of Cricket Australia.

Australia, you probably don’t need reminding – but lets do it anyway because its fun – have slip down the Test Match rankings and sit now amongst the also-rans. In the wake of the Ashes disaster in the winter Cricket Australia have conducted a review of how they intend to get back to the top of the world. And the man they choose to help them implement their vision for that is Howard.

Reaction to the appointment is mixed. A quick look at the Cricinfo website and you will soon see comments that are typical: “Would Rugby appoint a cricketer?” Says one. “When baking bread we appoint bakers to the job, you should consider the same approach. I think for Rugby Union he would be great,” reasons another.

And that, generally, is the attitude of most sports people too as well as the public. That we don’t understand because we haven’t played the game – or in Howard’s case the right game.

The man himself was unequivocal in his excitement: “It is a great opportunity for anyone in sports leadership,” he commented. And surely it’s the last two words in this sentence that are the key.

It’s not like they have appointed a bloke off the street to do the job. It’s not like they have come up to me and said: “go on then, have a go.” Pat Howard has been a superb coach, he has played top level sport and he is steeped in experience. Are we really, in sport, so insular that we don’t believe skills can be transferable?

To take the argument down to a really simple level, I drive a Ford Focus. That doesn’t mean, though, that I am unable to drive any other sorts of car. The beauty of experience is that those experiences can be used elsewhere. For example, in Football Business we have franchisees from many different walks of life. Some ran businesses before, some did not. Some are young, some are, shall we say, more mature – its not like we say that people are precluded or can’t run a business because they haven’t before and to judge Pat Howard before he has had the chance to do anything is bizarre.

There is a saying that “if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.” So credit Cricket Australia for thinking outside the box.

As an English cricket fan I would be lying if I said I wished him well, however. Bitterness is also a transferable skill.

Friendlies Fired - Because Players Are Tired

There is an article today in the Daily Mirror that explains how Blackburn Rovers co-owner Balaji Rao has personally paid the expenses of three Blackburn fans who went to India to watch their team’s friendly in Pune last week.

The story highlights how Rao, who had paid for nine other fans to go, heard the story of the other three and paid for them too.

Tremendously laudable from the under-fire Indian Chicken magnate and more power to him. Football Business is always behind moves to make football more affordable and more accessible to fans.

But the real question which still begs itself is this:  Why were Rovers even there in first place?

Of course we already know the answer to that – money. The same reason that Manchester United and Manchester City went to America to play pointless games in the summer. The same reason as the Emirates Cup exists, and all those other ridiculous games take place every summer. Some sort of nonsensical “brand awareness” exercise.

Of course, Blackburn’s case is a little different, given the nature of the ownership there, but really was it the best planning to take the squad out to India for a friendly in the International Break?

Manager Steve Kean is just about public enemy number one in that part of Lancashire – more demonstrations against him are planned, and along with Steve Bruce, he is the real “dead man walking” of the Premier League and I’ll bet you that despite his outward positivity for the trip he is secretly fuming at having to go. But, as we all know in a job, we all have to do what our boss tells us ultimately so go he has.

There is nothing (ok very little) that annoys us at the Football Business HQ than players/managers and everybody else bleating about players being tired (you might have noticed we bang on about it on blogs). And that being the case, please can we make a plea:

If anyone, player, manager and above all Chairman at Blackburn Rovers uses the excuse that the players were tired/leggy/jaded (delete your cliché as appropriate) then we all have the right to scream “YOU WENT TO INDIA!!!”

In an age where Manager’s and players complain about too many games and view the Carling Cup (you know, proper silverware) as a distraction to be avoided, doesn’t it strike you as bizarre that a squad can – in its week off – fly halfway round the world to play basically what amounts to a kickabout?

If they are that desperate for match practice then we know of a Thursday night league in the area we could sell them at a knockdown price!

Same goes for Liverpool and Rangers by the way, who meet for who knows what reason next Tuesday – what is that, a consolation for teams that didn’t get into the Europa League?

I wonder what sort of team either side will put out, and I wonder who will care in the slightest. I have just checked the Rangers Website and prices are an eye-watering £18-25! Anyone who goes to that game deserves a medal!

There’s loads of 5 a side leagues on a Tuesday too – get out and play in one of them instead.

Hard Working Players - Dont Make Me Laugh - Just Ask Delroy

Last week on the Football Business blog I wrote a piece about overseas TV rights. In it I quoted Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex had talked about the demands on his players and said: "You get some ridiculous situations when you're playing on Wednesday night in Europe and then at lunchtime the following Saturday. You ask any manager if they would pick that themselves... there'd be no chance."


I was thinking about those comments on Sunday when Stoke boss Tony Pulis (who had last month talked about how pampered his players were compared to those Welsh Miners who died in the awful tragedy and said he wouldn’t use tiredness as an excuse) said “it was mentally tough to play three games a week” and admitted his players “looked leggy.”


It’s not without precedent of course, we are coming to that time of year when Steve Bruce (for it is always him) will witter on about needing a winter break when faced with a “crazy” Christmas schedule and there are countless other football figures will talk about “too many games” and how things are “unfair.”
When I was thinking about these moaning, bleating football figures the name Delroy Spencer popped into my head.


Don’t worry if the name means nothing to you. It didn’t to me until about three weeks ago when I was watching boxing on TV.
The main fights had finished early, so they showed something from the undercard. The fight they picked was a Super Bantamweight clash between Paul Butler (a highly rated youngster) and the aforementioned Delroy.


They brought Delroy’s record up on screen before the bout. He is 43, which was the first thing that caught my eye – he must be phenomenally fit to make that weight at that age (I am slightly younger than that and haven’t been that weight since I was about 10!)


Then there is his record. That fight against Butler was the 139th of a career that can hardly be described as glittering. Of the previous 138 he had been victorious just 12 times. Losing 121 and drawing the others.
He lost this one too – on points with the younger, faster man winning every round – but that’s not the point. Promoters up and down the country know they can rely on Spencer to give his best whenever he’s called upon.


And he’s called upon a lot. A quick scan of Boxing Website Boxrec shows that most weeks Delroy is gloving up to fight some young prospect or other and good luck to him.
That is what these football managers need to understand (as well as the players in the wake of the Carlos Tevez affair), that for every person in the stands that would give their right arm to do what they do, there is somebody else who plays the game for the love of it (or at least very meagre wages.)


And those – and those even lower down the football food chain, those who play Sunday league, or dare we venture, 5 and 6 a side football are the sort of people who can – and should – feel insulted every time someone says footballers work too hard.
Delroy Spencer could to. But he’s in Scotland and Doncaster in the next three weeks if you fancy watching him – he’s fighting two lads on their debuts, so he’s probably too busy training for his next bout to care.