Tonight 9pm BBC2 Lord Sugar Tackles Football

[adrian29uk]

As former Spurs chairman Alan Sugar probes the business woes of English football, a picture emerges of a murky but lavishly gilded hall of mirrors. The Premier League has average annual losses of £27 million per club, in a league whose income is around £2 billion a year. Yet the appeal of the game means vastly rich people keep buying clubs, loading them with debt and hoping for the best. Sugar talks to players, managers, and executives before offering his own draconian blueprint. It's sobering, but for light relief look out for a young Alan Shearer with a very sad moustache.

http://www.radiotimes.com/ListingsServlet?event=10&channelId=105&programmeId=184939566&jspLocation=/jsp/prog_details_fullpage.jsp

 

[APACHE]

Sugar talks alot of sense about the dealings inthe PL. When he was incharge at THFC, or thought he was, I think he was shocked by what he found was going on behind the scenes.

 

[Beach Hut]

Should be interesting

 

[bob monkhouse]

Been looking forward to this

 

[Kazenga <3]

he was on talksport this morning promoting it, sounds interesting.

 

[Lush]

In ten. Hope it's good.

 

[Beach Hut]

Should be as he does talk quite common sense at times, business wise.

 

[Titanic]

Nothing earth-shattering so far.

 

[Titanic]

Fantastic flying volley from GUS!

 

[beorhthelm]

interesting recounting of ITV about to trump Sky and Sugar himself tipping off Sky, who came back with an even bigger offer.

did he cause the future problems, which saw Sky take the game off terrestrial then need to pay even more to keep it

 

[Bigtomfu]

Absolutely nothing unknown or mildly interesting.

The only thing worth watching it for is Sugar's unique take on things. (As an ex-chairman and chief negotiator for the first ever non terrestrial TV deal.)

 

[sam86]

Meh, bit of nothing TV.

Dave Whelan comes across very well.

 

[DerbyGull]

Worth watching for Sugar and Whelan

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Can't imagine it was worth watching at all. Football already chewed him up and spat him out when he was chairman of Spurs.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Didn't tell us anything new whatsoever. Wages are high. Wow. Clubs are overspending. Amazing. Debts are huge. Well I never.

The only good bits were Gus Poyet's goal and Harry Redknapp telling Sugar with an entirely straight face that he doesn't like agents and hasn't a clue what any of his players earn.

 

[krakatoa]

The truth will all come out about Dirty Harry one day.

 

[DT Withdean]

The criminal trial vs Harry is set.

Mandaric and Harry maintain that Mandric/PFC 'gifted' their employee Harry $295,000 via a Monaco bank account.

HMRC/CPS find this rather strange between employer-employee or owner-employee, hence the prosecution fr tax/ni evasion.

Didn't Chesterfield in have trouble with the tax system by under-declaring gate receipts/tax thereon?

 

[eastterracemike]

Didn't tell us anything new whatsoever. Wages are high. Wow. Clubs are overspending. Amazing. Debts are huge. Well I never.

The only good bits were Gus Poyet's goal and Harry Redknapp telling Sugar with an entirely straight face that he doesn't like agents and hasn't a clue what any of his players earn.

Absolutely - usual bbc docu rubbish - took an hour to say what could have been said in 30 minutes.
The joke of it was that the ultra capitalist Mr. Sugar is decrying a system in which players and agents act in a free market to maximise wages so what is wrong with that ? No solutions offered except that there will be clubs failing if they don't manage their business properly - just what happened to the banks.
Luckily we seem to have a realistic manager and a sensible chairman . Incidentally you can't blame Murray at all for his pursuit of a better living - its the way it works.

 

[APACHE]

If you want to know more about how certain people have operated in the PL and what Sugar said then, read BROKEN DREAMS BY TOM BOWER. It was never questioned in court so certain people must have thought, best leave well alone and some big names are in it. Some of it makes the Archer affair look small time and yes our friends at the FA and FL are in it.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

The criminal trial vs Harry is set.

Mandaric and Harry maintain that Mandric/PFC 'gifted' their employee Harry $295,000 via a Monaco bank account.

HMRC/CPS find this rather strange between employer-employee or owner-employee, hence the prosecution fr tax/ni evasion

Will be interesting, there have been rumours swirling around Redknapp for years for various reasons, but nothing ever sticks to old 'Arry. I know he got some money off the City of London police for some technicality surrounding his arrest or the warrant to raid his house.... but its nonetheless odd, don't you think, that he never successfully sued the BBC about that documentary that alleged he liked a bung. Considering how adamant he was that it was all lies I mean. Why not take it all the way to court?

There must be loads of corruption about in the game, especially amongst the old school types. Football looks after its own though, so nothing will ever change.