Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,366
The Guardian kicked off their coverage https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ountdown-transfer-news-and-more-football-live of tomorrow night's game with a weird opinion piece https://www.theguardian.com/comment...ern-football-manchester-city-champions-league by someone who isn't a sports journalist. He generally writes about music.
Had anyone from their sports section cast an eye over this moan of consciousness, they could have perhaps informed him that although Man City have previously been charged with FFP violations and are under FA investigation for multiple breaches of rules, the team that he is putting his support behind has also been fined €4,000,000 by Uefa, this season for breaches of FFP rules: https://www.besoccer.com/new/psg-inter-milan-and-juventus-fined-by-uefa-for-ffp-breaches-1178833#:~:text=Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan,European football's governing body said.
He suggests that clubs can be rehabilitated, bizarrely giving the example of Chelsea who he hated when Abrahamovic was winning things, but forgives now, not because Boehly is more financially responsible, but because his massive and reckless spending hasn't led to a successful team.
He complains that UK broadcasters have shown AC Milan more this season than his beloved Aston Villa: a fact that says less about UK broadcaster's choices and more about Aston Villa's dour, cynical anti-football. I think that the Villa thing might be the key. The whole article may be enjoyable if read in a stereotypical moaning depressed Brummie voice.
Yes, City winning everything is a bit galling for everyone else, and yes their financial advantage is a huge part of this, but its not all of it. The people who have spent the fortunes at City have spent it in the most effective way. They got in the best coach in the world and bought players who could play the football that he wants to play. They may have dominated the English competitions, but this could be their first ECL win. Putting aside how it was created, as a purely sporting entity, this team has been something special for a few years. It has been, in asthetic terms, the apogee of how the game should be played. It's failed in previous years against some effective, but very uninspiring teams. It needs to win this weekend in order to not go down in history as the Jimmy White to Chelsea and Madrid's Stephen Hendry.
I'm not going to defend the Nation state ownership of football clubs, but whilst accusing the English fans who may want them to win of parochialism, he doesn't even seem aware that financial doping is a worldwide issue that has been impacting the game for generations. Real Madrid, that he would like to have seen knock City out in the semis, have won more European Cups than any other side in history because they were, first Franco's, and then the Spanish Royal family's team, and so enjoyed financial advantages from Spanish banks that were not available to their competitors.
This article annoyed me far more than it should have done. It reads like a rejected submission for nineties WSC and yet got published, presumably because he already has a job with them and enjoys access that far more talented and thorough sports journalists don't. Certainly I'll be at the front of the queue for the chance to condemn those stupid, rapacious capitalists who tried to steal football away from us all a couple of years ago, but I'd be condemning all of them, not just the ones who annoy me because they regularly beat my team.
Had anyone from their sports section cast an eye over this moan of consciousness, they could have perhaps informed him that although Man City have previously been charged with FFP violations and are under FA investigation for multiple breaches of rules, the team that he is putting his support behind has also been fined €4,000,000 by Uefa, this season for breaches of FFP rules: https://www.besoccer.com/new/psg-inter-milan-and-juventus-fined-by-uefa-for-ffp-breaches-1178833#:~:text=Paris Saint-Germain, Inter Milan,European football's governing body said.
He suggests that clubs can be rehabilitated, bizarrely giving the example of Chelsea who he hated when Abrahamovic was winning things, but forgives now, not because Boehly is more financially responsible, but because his massive and reckless spending hasn't led to a successful team.
He complains that UK broadcasters have shown AC Milan more this season than his beloved Aston Villa: a fact that says less about UK broadcaster's choices and more about Aston Villa's dour, cynical anti-football. I think that the Villa thing might be the key. The whole article may be enjoyable if read in a stereotypical moaning depressed Brummie voice.
Yes, City winning everything is a bit galling for everyone else, and yes their financial advantage is a huge part of this, but its not all of it. The people who have spent the fortunes at City have spent it in the most effective way. They got in the best coach in the world and bought players who could play the football that he wants to play. They may have dominated the English competitions, but this could be their first ECL win. Putting aside how it was created, as a purely sporting entity, this team has been something special for a few years. It has been, in asthetic terms, the apogee of how the game should be played. It's failed in previous years against some effective, but very uninspiring teams. It needs to win this weekend in order to not go down in history as the Jimmy White to Chelsea and Madrid's Stephen Hendry.
I'm not going to defend the Nation state ownership of football clubs, but whilst accusing the English fans who may want them to win of parochialism, he doesn't even seem aware that financial doping is a worldwide issue that has been impacting the game for generations. Real Madrid, that he would like to have seen knock City out in the semis, have won more European Cups than any other side in history because they were, first Franco's, and then the Spanish Royal family's team, and so enjoyed financial advantages from Spanish banks that were not available to their competitors.
This article annoyed me far more than it should have done. It reads like a rejected submission for nineties WSC and yet got published, presumably because he already has a job with them and enjoys access that far more talented and thorough sports journalists don't. Certainly I'll be at the front of the queue for the chance to condemn those stupid, rapacious capitalists who tried to steal football away from us all a couple of years ago, but I'd be condemning all of them, not just the ones who annoy me because they regularly beat my team.
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