Greed sees clubs wage war on FA

13 April 2012

Surrey deserve to be county champions because, yet again, they have proved to be the most professional outfit - on and off the field. Apparently this professionalism has made them disliked by other counties who are still stuck in the dark ages. It is no surprise that people are comparing them with Manchester United.

I don't suppose the team will mind too much about being called the 'Manchester United of Cricket'. The big difference, though, is that Surrey have achieved their success without their best players who have been on duty for England. United, on the other hand, have done their best to stop their players turning out for their country.

I like the fact cricket puts country first and that the administrators recognise that the game in general needs a successful England team. Compare that attitude with that of greedy Premiership bosses who only see England as a money-making opportunity and now want a slice of the Football Association cake. They have seen the FA make millions out of clever marketing - something they have not done because clubs are too selfish. When it was suggested that the Premiership should open shops across the world selling all the teams shirts and memorabilia, you can guess what Manchester United's reaction was.

Since the World Cup, millions have poured into the FA coffers, money which goes mostly to grass-roots football. Even so the Premiership clubs still want to get their grubby hands on it.

There is now even talk of the FA being forced to pay the players' wages for the time they turn out for England. Why should the FA cough up because the clubs choose to pay their players silly money? This would amount to stealing from the poor to give to the rich and would certainly bankrupt less well-off national associations like Wales and Ireland. Ryan Giggs's wages alone would probably amount to the Welsh FA's entire annual budget.

I hope the FA tells Premiership bosses to get stuffed and to sort out their own finances before they start stealing the FA's money.

Scots won't lose belief in fairies

I made sure I bought a Scottish newspaper this week to see what they were saying about their heroic draw with the mighty Faroe Islands.

It did not make for happy reading. "Faroes 2, Fairies 2", "Faroes farce" and "worst since 1872" is just a taster of the reaction to Scotland's most embarrassing moment since their last one.

What is most amazing, though, is the reaction of some of the big whigs at the Scottish Football Association. They are telling anyone who wants to listen that they were opposed to the appointment of Berti Vogts, implying he should go now.

It beggars belief that they can blame Scotland's current plight on their new German manager. The real reason is the decades of neglect of Scotland's grass-roots game and the failure of Rangers and Celtic to produce home-grown talent. Scotland's loyal Tartan Army have been sold short, but what surprises me is that they still bother to support their so-called team now they have become the joke of world football.

The leader of the Inverness branch of the Tartan Army explained it to me the other day. He says half of the people who follow the team abroad actually hate football and only go for the experience of travelling. "What about the other half ?" I asked. Quick as a flash he said: "Och they're too pissed to notice."

Sport's stupid sods

Cricket seems to be copying football's trick of selling off lumps of playing surfaces to gullible punters. But why on earth would anyone want to pay good money for a sod of Lord's earth? Don't people realise that grass is regularly cut?

The idea that you can have a piece of the pitch that W.G. Grace once walked on is just as ludicrous as assuming that a piece of Wembley is the very spot where Geoff Hurst scored one of his goals. Apparently somebody claimed to have paid £20,000 for his bit - forgetting that the Scots had ripped it up years ago and the real spot is now growing in the backyard of a bloke's house in Govan.

The only good thing about the MCC sell-off is that the money coming in means that my membership subscription won't have to go up so much.

Time to go, Howard

What is Howard Wilkinson still doing at the Football Association? He should have been dumped years ago - or at least when Sven-Goran Eriksson took over. He has a grand job title of technical director but Sven rightly thinks he'd be better employed directing kids across the road. He tried to block Sven's appointment of David Platt and seems to want to have his say in medical and coaching appointments. If I were Adam Crozier, I'd be trying to force him out.

Rio deserves Sol treatment

I hope Rio Ferdinand gets as much stick going back to Leeds as Sol Campbell did on his return to White Hart Lane. Fans loyally support their team only to see players stab them in the back by moving to their bitter rivals. Given that Ferdinand has made a few million pounds in the process, I hope no one feels sorry for him and that he just takes on the chin all the stick he'll rightly get - not literally I hope.

Forget the formbooks

Like me, Lee Westwood can't wait for the Ryder Cup to start. He's completely fed up with being asked by journalists about his poor form in the run-up to the big event. Some have even suggested he should drop out and make way for in-form players like Justin Rose.

They say that if we are to have any chance of beating the Yanks - which we haven't - then we should be picking our best player. Of course, the whole problem has arisen because of the postponement of the match exactly a year ago. It was rightly decided then that the players originally picked from both sides should play in the rescheduled fixture.

The fact is that the Americans are in exactly the same position as us. Some of their players are having miserable runs of form.

David Duval has not exactly been playing well and Hal Sutton has missed more than half the cuts of tournaments he has entered this season.

This year's event will be even more emotionally charged than usual because it will be a reminder of the terrorist attacks on America. You can forget about current form and I bet that Westwood plays as well as anyone.

By tonight most of us will probably have had enough of a reminder of what happened a year ago today.

I, for one, will want to do something else - like sit back and watch the Premiership highlights. But I won't be able to because some nobody at ITV has decided it would be insensitive to show football today.

So although it's okay for Spurs to play Fulham tonight we're not allowed to see it on television.

Where is the logic in that?

MORE ABOUT

Bankruptcy

Greed sees clubs wage war on FA

Read More