If the Premiership League was a person then there is no doubt that it would be considered to be a serial solicitor. And when I say solicitor I don’t mean in the context of a lawyer but rather, in the context of a hooker.
The announcement made yesterday that the Premiership intends to extend the season by one game to be scheduled for warm foreign climes starting in 2011, just reinforced the belief that when it comes to money nothing will stand between the Premiership and the possibility of collecting another pound note.
The Premiership proposal would have ten additional matches played on one day in January with the draw rigged to ensure that the top five teams do not play each other. The Premiership expects cities throughout the world to bid for the “privilege” of hosting these games that involve teams from what porn-king and reluctant Birmingham City owner David Gold calls the “the greatest league the world has ever known.”
The initial reasons put forward for intensely disliking the proposal – an unbalanced league, a rigged schedule, even greater fixture congestion – are all valid and in most situations would be grounds to mercilessly ridicule the poor sod that hatched the idea. However, none of these compelling arguments will stand in the way of the Premiership pushing forward with the scheme.
After all, what has fairness got to do with it when more money can be made? Particularly when you have a system that now needs an ever increasing amount of cash to feed a seemingly insatiable appetite. Any denomination, any source – no questions asked.
Of course, in support of the Premiership announcement we again read of the totally fictitious 1B people that watched the Arsenal vs. Manchester United league game at the end of 2006 - a number unjustifiable by logic and research but apparently quite reasonable to the fertile imagination of a Premiership P.R. hack.
What’s more we are told the NFL, NBA and NHL all do it so why not the Premiership? These leagues do it for a number of reasons – one of which is they are trying to sell sports that clearly the rest of the world could not give a toss about.
These foreign based match ups should be considered demeaning and a sign of weakness rather than one of strength.
A case can also be made that the foreign audience does not actually have an appetite for the Premiership – their appetite stretches to perhaps five or six Premiership teams.
Despite the tone of the self serving announcements the fact that the Premiership intends to ensure that a top five team will be at each of the venues is a clear admission that they know that the core appeal of the Premiership is limited to the usual suspects.
As for the others - toss some money their way and make supportive comments about selling more Birmingham City jerseys to the folks in Miami and that should satisfy them. Rather like the way the Premiership has gone over the last decade. Who cares about winning when mediocrity can be so profitable? Danny Blanchflower called it the “Glory Game” for most it has become the “survival but still make gobs of money game.”
And so is this move inevitable? Probably not. Because no matter how self important the Premiership has become and no matter how insatiable its appetite for money, it is still a midget when set against Big Daddy – FIFA.
After the early headlines had grown stale late Thursday someone got around to asking FIFA what they thought of the proposal. Reuters reported a senior FIFA source as stating "The statutes of FIFA are quite clear, so from a first glance it would seem the Premier League will find it difficult to get their way."
Behind the bureaucrat-speak there are a number of powerful reasons why the Premiership’s idea to conquer the globe is in for a rough ride. First off it is difficult to come up with one national association – even the FA as will see later - who would or should be in favour of this proposal.
How many associations are going to willingly accept the Premiership juggernaut rolling into town, giving prominence to conflicting sponsors, taking attention away from the domestic league and then leaving a few days later with a suitcase of cash that wasn’t spend on supporting the local product?
Then you have sanctioning and jurisdictional issues regarding players, security, officials and a host of other logistical details. All could be overcome given the existence of goodwill on both sides. But how much goodwill can you expect when confronted by a modern day Robin Hood-in-reverse intent on taking from the footballing poor while further enriching pampered players and robber-baron owners?
Beyond possible “host” associations the other associations especially in Europe are not likely to embrace the proposal either. The mammoth income enjoyed by English Premiership clubs already threatens to tip the balance of power between the big five associations (an argument could be made that it already has) and any threat of additional income flowing the Premiership’s way would not be considered as a positive move by the likes of Italy, Spain, Germany, and France.
So these national associations are far more likely to campaign against the idea than sit on the sidelines even though they may initially make some glib semi-supportive noises – just in case.
The implementation date of 2011 is also interesting and should the Premiership eventually succeed and receive FIFA approval there is always the possibility that some residual resentment might surface when the twenty-four man FIFA Executive Committee vote later in 2011 to award the hosting rights to the 2018 World Cup. Is that really a risk worth taking for the Football Association?
But more important than any of these reasons is that if this idea goes ahead and is implemented then a massively important precedent will have been set. Initially it will mean that other leagues will be free the try the same thing with the possibility that patchwork schedules will become the norm rather than an original small exception.
However, far greater is the potential for such a move to be used to engineer a European league or ultimately a Global league.
The G14 may have disbanded just a few short weeks ago but that does not mean that their power base and ideas have evaporated never to return.
UEFA and FIFA know that an Escape Committee could easily be reformed if the scent of more money is in the air and a precedent such as the Premiership is seeking is at hand. So in the end the Premiership can study and fine tune their proposal all they want but do not expect it to be given the green light by FIFA.
Before we get to the articles I would like to thank all those who stop by on a regular basis and those who contribute. The response each week continues to amaze me as does the respect shown for others opinions…….most of the time!
A new professional league for India. A potentially massive market but the chances of besting cricket with the next couplke of generations is probably zilch to nil.
Match-fixing allegations being passed to Interpol from UEFA and tucked away is a mention of the Intertoto Cup being scrapped when the tournaments are changed for the 09/10 season.
Normally in a situation where a team has already qualified the youngsters can look forward to a run-out. However, Gabriele Marcotti thinks that as far as Milan is concerned it is the squad’s old-timers who will get the nod on Tuesday against Celtic.
There was a question on the blog last week about Paul Robinson. In this article Stewart Robson looks at how Robinson and others have fallen behind their foreign counterparts.
You can find the draw information by federation tucked away near the bottom right hand corner of the page . As I mentioned at the end of the show last night it is seems curious that UEFA seeding is based on the FIFA rankings from November 2007.
Concacaf however, has opted to use May 2007 which is prior to this past summer’s Gold Cup. Anyone smell a rat? (Africa is using July 2007).
Country (May-Nov) Mexico 1-1 USA 2-2 Costa Rica 3-7 Honduras 4-3 Panama 5-5* Trinidad & Tobago 6-10 Jamaica 7-12 Cuba 8-8 Haiti 9-5* Guatemala 10-13 Canada 11-4 Guyana 12-11 St Vincent & Gren. 13-9
* tied for 5th. (Should the tie breaker not have been the respective penalty kick shoot out records?)
I’ve never put any credence into the FIFA World rankings but if there are to be used for seeding purposes surely then the most current version should be used.
The draw for this season's Champions League was made earlier today and, as normal, it generated some interesting match ups. However, foar more interesting was UEFA President Michel Platini's vision for the future. He unveiled his proposal to revamp the competition from the 2009/10 onwards.
One of comments made by Platini is that "We need to ensure football is more balanced so that the rich do not become much richer. If another proposal is better than my philosophy that is fine but I doubt they will come up with something better. Unless someone comes up with a fabulous proposal we will decide on mine."
So can you come up with something better?
Personally I don't see anything wrong with using the domestic cup competitions as a qualifier for the Champions League. After all it's not so long ago that we had the European Cup Winners Cup competition that was normally regarded as second only to the European Cup.
When it was scrapped seven seasons ago the Cup Winners spots were tipped into the unwieldy UEFA Cup. I see Platini's proposal as righting a wrong. The proposal could also boost domestic cup competitions across Europe which I can't see being a bad thing. Guaranteeing a group spot for the sixteen top European leagues also gets two thumbs up from me.
The Saturday final idea I really like as well as the stadium size and capacity. The suggestion for the UEFA Cup gives it a more dominant knock out flavour rather than the dominant and unbalanced round robin.
As for scrapping the bookmaker inspired Inter Toto Cup - would anyone notice if it was scrapped? It doesn't even serve a purpose for bookies anymore as technology has brought games from other parts of the globe "closer".
Another packed weekend of action with league titles decided, the Dutch Cup going to Ajax after an extended penalty shoot out, relegation fights continuing across Europe and Glenn Roeder resigning his position at Newcastle.
Premiership is suing YouTube over copyright infringement.
Meanwhile West Ham may find that they are sued into oblivion.
But Ian Bell contends that the likes of Wigan are missing the point.
On Friday’s FSR we mentioned that FIFA/UEFA might not take of any civil court action by Premiership clubs against West Ham to well.
Amy Lawrence looks at how the Premiership has changed as it reaches 1,000 games. Based on 380 games being played each year I can't work out where the number 1,000 comes into it. On the other hand one of the responses that lists the Premiership nightmare eleven is fun to consider. Who would be in your nightmare eleven for the 2006/07 season and you might also want to select a manager?
Philip Cornwall looks at the value of the Premiership at birth.
Patrick Barclay looks at Manchester United on what turned out to be the eve of their ninth Premiership title.
Guy Hodgson’s review of the City – United derby is worth reading for the first three paragraphs alone.
And remember to nominate your dogs and stars from this week’s televised games.
This is a follow up to some questions that arose after I mentioned the income generated by the Champions League.
Here are a series of links that you might find interesting. UEFA distributes Champions League money based on a number of different criteria including final position, television revenue generated in the country of each entrant(s), points gianed in group play, and performances in the qualifying stages. It also looks like this money is distributed through the national associations which can be confusing. It is not wrong then to say that the national associations receive money from the Champions League, however, the national associations have to them move the money to the clubs.
UEFA also distributes money generated by the European Championship with all countries benefiting at some level.
As the FIFA link shows each national association received $1M per year in the last 4 year cycle - one of the prinmary reasons why small countries vote for Sepp Blatter. the GOAL project funding is another.
With the amount of "guaranteed" money being spread around to "national" associations you can see one of the reasons why Gibraltar is so eager to join UEFA/FIFA.
I received a question about the seedings for the group stage. The best internet site I have come across that details in the inner working of the UEFA seeding system and the co-efficients is authored by Bert Kassies. It is an impressive piece of work.
With the final thirty-two now decided you would have to rate Levski Sofia's (first Bulgarian side to make the group stage) defeat of Chievo as a major surprise as well as Ajax blowing a late lead and going out to FC Copenhagen.
FC Copenhagen contains some names that should be recognizable to many. Tobias Linderoth (ex-Everton), Marcus Allback (ex-Aston Villa) and Jesper Gronkjaer (ex-Chelsea) have all spent time in the Premiership. Goalkeeper Jesper Christiansen was with Rangers in Scotland while Razak Pimpong played for Ghana in the World Cup. Canadian Atiba Hutchinson, who will surely play in one of the big three leagues in Europe within the next couple of years, just signed for Copenhagen this year after spending two seasons with Helsingborgs of the Swedish league.
Here is the country-by-country by pot breakdown of the 32 teams that will be drawn on Thursday and last season's make up.
Country pot 1 pot 2 pot 3 pot 4 Total Last Season
Spain 3 0 0 0 3 4
Italy 2 1 0 0 3 4
England 3 1 0 0 4 4
France 0 2 1 0 3 2
Portugal 0 1 2 0 3 2
Holland 0 1 0 0 1 2
Germany 0 1 1 1 3 3
Scotland 0 1 0 0 1 1
Romania 0 0 1 0 1 0
Greece 0 0 2 0 2 2
Russia 0 0 1 1 2 0
Belgium 0 0 0 1 1 2
Ukraine 0 0 0 2 2 0
Bulgaria 0 0 0 1 1 0
Turkey 0 0 0 1 1 1
Denmark 0 0 0 1 1 0
Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Norway, and Slovakia all had teams in the group stage last season but for 2006/07.
It has not been easy for non-Italian soccer fans to follow the specifics of the scandal that has engulfed Italian soccer the last few months. I have pieced together from various sources the charges, the original punishments, the appeal punishments, the reaction and finally my take on the present situation.
In some cases, the information has been paraphrased or the tense changed.
The Background and Charges - Juventus, Fiorentina, Lazio and Milan.
“How did this investigation begin?
Police, looking into an alleged betting ring wagering on matches in the 2004-05 season, heard a suspect boast that he had a close relationship with Luciano Moggi, the Juventus general manager at the time. This was not true, but police tapped Moggi’s phone and heard him trying to influence the appointment of referees. The transcripts were handed over to the Italian FA in September and were leaked in May after it became clear that there was little likelihood of further action.
Who is also involved?
Five other clubs — Siena, Reggina, Messina and Lecce in Serie A, plus Arezzo in Serie B — have also been indicted but, because they did not qualify for European competition, will be dealt with later.
Will anyone be jailed?
Not at this stage. This was a sporting court, but it means the threshold of proof is lower than in a civil trial or criminal trial.
What were the clubs and individuals accused of?
Attempting to fix a match, fixing a match and failing to report match-fixing or similar “unsporting” behaviour.
Why are Juventus facing the most severe penalty?
Lazio, Fiorentina and Milan stand accused of far lesser crimes. Milan had a consultant who made idle boasts to linesmen. Fiorentina were victimized by match officials controlled by Moggi until the club agreed to stop campaigning against the Juventus general manager, at which point they got a few favourable decisions late in the season and avoided relegation. Lazio lobbied league officials, but there is no evidence that they spoke to anyone involved with referees.”
The Times
“Alleged that Moggi and Giraudo set up a system of influence and corruption whose tentacles reached everywhere, a structure based on threats, intimidation and patronage whose main purpose was to favour Juventus and their allies.
The transcripts of these conversations unveiled the sheer size of Moggi’s operation. There were no bribes or brown envelopes, the evil genius of the system lay in the fact that it was all about influence peddling. Moggi is alleged to have essentially controlled Franco Carraro, the head of the Italian FA, and the two men charged with assigning referees, Pierluigi Pairetto and Paolo Bergamo. The phone taps show Moggi would freely discuss the referee assignments with them, effectively deciding which referee would get which game.
At the same time, it was made clear that a referee’s career would suffer if they made mistakes which damaged Juventus. They would be suspended or sent to officiate in Serie B. In one case, Moggi went even further, underscoring the degree of impunity he had acquired. Following a controversial 2-1 loss to Reggina, he burst into referee Gianluca Paparesta’s dressing room, berated him, then locked him inside before disappearing with the key. On the other hand, those that did Moggi’s bidding would be rewarded with prestigious matches and even spots in Uefa’s list of officials. And those officials who were deemed “untouchable” – like Pierluigi Collina and Roberto Rosetti – were generally kept away from Juve.
As a result, they generally received a helping hand from officials, both directly and indirectly. Teams who were due to face Juventus the following week were regularly hit with a hail of red and yellow cards, ensuring players who were one booking away from a suspension would miss out against the bianconeri. Indeed, during 2004-05, 25 players were suspended the week they faced Juve.
Moggi’s system was so refined that it was used to damage his enemies too. When Fiorentina returned to Serie A in the 2004-05 season, the Florence club had big plans for change. However, allegations claim Moggi saw the club as a threat and Fiorentina were systematically victimized by referees to the point that, as late as April 2005, they faced the threat of relegation.
The allegations also claim that wire-taps suggest there was a deal with Fiorentina officials, whereby the club would drop its campaign for reform in exchange for “better treatment” from referees. It’s unclear whether Fiorentina accepted, though the record books show that they won eight of a possible 12 points in their last four matches to avoid the drop, at a time when the Viola stopped talking about reform.”
The Sunday Herald
The Original Verdicts and Verdicts on Appeal
“A brief rundown of the original sentences and again after the appeals verdicts were delivered.
Juventus Relegated to Serie B with a 30-point penalty – reduced to relegation to Serie B and a 17-point penalty Stripped of last two titles Handed three-match home ban Fined 120,000 euros
Fiorentina Relegated to Serie B with a 12 point penalty – remain in Serie A with 19 point penalty Deducted 30 points from their 2005-06 tally Handed three-match home ban Fined 100,000 euros
Lazio Relegated to Serie B with a 7 point penalty – remain in Serie A with 11 point penalty Deducted 30 points from their 2005-06 tally Handed two-match home ban Fined 100,000 euros
Milan Deducted 44 points from 2005-06 tally – reduced to 30 points from their 2005-06 tally Remain in Serie A with a 15-point penalty – reduced to an 8-point penalty Handed one-match home ban Fined 100,000 euros
Qualify for 3rd round Champions League subject to UEFA acceptance.
Club officials Luciano Moggi (ex-Juventus) banned for five years Antonio Giraudo (ex-Juventus) banned for five years Adriano Galliani (Milan) banned for nine months Leonardo Meani (ex-Milan) banned for two years and six months Andrea Della Valle (Fiorentina) banned for three years Diego Della Valle (Fiorentina) banned for three years Sandro Mencucci (Fiorentina) banned for two years and six months Claudio Lotito (Lazio) banned for two years and six months
FIGC officials Franco Carraro (ex-President) fined 80,000 euros Innocenzo Mazzini (ex-Vice-President) banned for five years
Referees and officials Tullio Lanese banned for two years and six months Pierluigi Pairetto banned for three years Gennaro Mazzei banned for six months Pietro Ingargiola cautioned Massimo De Santis banned for four years Paolo Dondarini cleared Gianluca Paparesta banned for three months Fabrizio Babini banned for six months Claudio Puglisi banned for six months”
Channel 4
The Reaction
“Juventus' former general manager Luciano Moggi and other club executives were found guilty of conspiring with referees and linesmen to rig games during the 2004-05 season.
Italy's system of 'sporting justice' offers one more level of appeal for the club, the Chamber of Arbitration of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), before they can turn to a civil court
"It would have been OK to have Serie A with penalty points and maybe one, not two, of our titles revoked and they shouldn't have removed us from the Champions League," said Cobolli Gigli of Juventus.
Of the four clubs charged, only AC Milan, who had their sentence reduced allowing them to play in the qualifying round of the Champions League next season, have said they will not be appealing the decision.”
The Guardian
Giovanni Cobolli Gigli, the president of Juventus, was equally pugnacious. “We are very disappointed and we refuse to be turned into scapegoats,” he said. “We don’t understand why we’ve been treated more harshly than everybody else. You can be sure that we will appeal in the strongest possible terms. We owe it to our fans and to our shareholders.”
The scandal — the biggest in the history of Italian football — centred on what prosecutors called a “pathological web of influence-peddling” skilfully manoeuvred by Luciano Moggi, the former general manager of Juventus.
With the support of the highest echelons of the Italian FA, as well as an array of agents and journalists, Moggi effectively controlled a number of referees, promising career advancement to those officials who favoured his club and “punishing” others with relegation to minor matches and lower leagues. Fiorentina, Lazio and Milan had faced lesser charges and the court was persuaded that their misdeeds were a means of sel####efence against Moggi’s “system”.”
The Times
But the cut on appeal has met with an angry reaction around Italy. "This is not a hard punishment, this is a bland punishment," said Alessandro Vocalelli, the editor of the Corriere dello Sport. "This is a message that nothing happened but actually a lot happened - the biggest scandal in Italian football happened, and lots of referees and individuals got banned for five years."
With only the tapped phone calls as evidence, much wrongdoing is a question of interpretation. The evidence on Lazio, for example, points at one disputed game.
Rules of the Italian Code of Sporting Justice only require the clubs to appear to be trying to fix a game. No actual evidence of money changing hands is needed to condemn them.
Oddly, a delegation from the Turkish football league were in Rome yesterday, to observe how the Italians had dealt with their probe and to make recommendations to the Turkish FA. Denizlispor are accused of rigging a game last season to avoid relegation. "An inquest will be held," promised Kemal Kapulluoglu, the Turkish FA's vice-president”.
The Daily Telegraph
My Take
Juventus is very lucky still to be in any league let alone getting away with relegation to Serie B and a 17-point penalty. The level of manipulation grossly exceeded that of Genoa at the end of the 2004/05 season and they were demoted the equivalent of two divisions to Serie C given that their promotion to Serie A was rightfully annulled. They have got off very lightly.
Fiorentina and Lazio’s original sentences – in comparison to Juventus and I stress the words in comparison – seemed overly harsh to me. The appeal verdicts do not seem out of line however.
It seems commonly accepted that in Milan’s case there was no systematic attempt to influence games on an on-going basis. In fact, their “attempt” was a bit comical given that the focus was on an assistant referee. A sort of poor-man’s attempt compared to Moggi. Perhaps it could be argued – actually it was argued – that the penalty deduction was too high. Maybe – but I do not believe they should have been reinstated to the Champions League and I hope that UEFA refuse to accept their nomination.
In terms of perception the reduction of sentencing on appeal gives the overall impression that the four teams involved have been let off lightly – and in some cases they have. However, if the original sentences had held up we would heard and read less furour.
One last thing. When posting comments please keep to the facts and away from hatemongering, stereotypical comments and overall ignorance. As one poster pointed out, there are many other juvenile boards that you can post ill-conceived and hateful rhetoric on - so smarten up or my finger will gravitate to the delete button.
No nation or league should consider what has happened in Italy as unique to that country. Dig deep enough and ever country has their skeletons.
Keir Radnedge apportions the blame for card happy referees to where it belongs - FIFA.
Larry Rohter writes in the New York Times about Brazil’s politics and football.
This Globe and Mail article takes up the issue of a two referee system.
The UEFA website takes a look at Ukraine's Artem Milevskiy, the cheeky chappy who took the second penalty kick. The first player I remember pulling this stunt was Antonín Panenka with the winning penalty for Czechoslovakia against West Germany in the1976 European Championship Final.
Tony Cascarino writes about his first-hand experience of taking peanlties in a penalty shoot out at the World Cup Finals for the Republic of Ireland.
