Whenever someone in authority starts getting all morally righteous on your ass, you can be sure they have something to hide. "Never trust a religous son of a bitch - said William Burroughs - they'll always fuck you over in the deal. Why? Because they know they've got God on their side"
I don't know whether Rick Parry, or any of the other con artists ...sorry, moral guardians of our national game... at the Premier League go to church or not, but how else to explain why they think have a holy dispensation to piss down the backs of everyone in football, and then tell them that it's raining.
Take the shambles over the West Ham "investigation" last season, and now the Tevez transfer. Why did they investigate West Ham over the Mascerano and Tevez transfers in the first place? It was common knowledge who owned their contracts, long before the move took place. So why allow it in the first place? There was never any need for an investigation... all they needed to do was pick up the papers.
And what a holy mess they made of it when they finally got around to doing something about it. Was it an illegal deal or wasn't it? If it was the sanction was in the rule book already, and the Premier League had sufficient precedent to justify a points deduction. Their excuse at the time appeared to be that they thought it unfair to condemn West Ham to almost certain relegation, but when has that ever stopped them before?
Now they are sticking their oar into the Tevez - Man Utd deal. Why for God's sake? Because they have painted themselves into a corner over their original decision not to dock West Ham points. They KNEW who had the rights to the Tevez contract, regardless of whether the Hammers had torn it up. Can they seriously say they believed that made the slightest bit of difference to who owned the player? NO. No more than I can tell the Halifax that I don't have to pay them any more mortgage payments because I have "torn up" their contract with me.
So now, far too late, and for entirely the wrong reasons, they are our moral guardians again. Pushing West Ham into a legal battle that could end up costing them as much as their original fine. Leaving Man Utd and Tevez in limbo so that the game's "integrity" can be upheld.
And how are we to understand this sudden urge to moral action? Are the Premier League trying to make up for past sins - of omission and commision? Or maybe they have been collectively hit by a Damascene conversion? Only they, and their God, can know. But if they are feeling they urge to tackle the sinners in our game, why don't they tackle some of the really dubious issues that are clouding the image of the Premier League? Like allowing [allegedly] corrupt dictators to buy a club with other people's money? Or allowing so called tycoons to buy English clubs with other people's money - landing them with a mountain of debt into the bargain?
I'm sure the premier league could find a way to sanction the Tevez deal if they wanted to. Just as they were happy enough to let Mascherano go to Liverpool, even though all the same issues applied to that player. If they want to do the decent and Christian thing over this sorry mess, why not just forgive everyone involved and let us try to forget that this ridiculous episode ever happened. The Premier League would do well to stop looking for motes in other people's eyes, and give some serious study to the bloody great plank sticking out of their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment