Game for vultures
> Football really has to get a grip and protect the goose that laid its golden egg
EVEN BEFORE a ball is kicked in a much-anticipated season, football is facing familiar foes: an owner and an agent, both of whom are trying to steal the spoils and the show from two of English football’s most famous clubs.
Stan Kroenke and Mino Raiola are chalk and cheese as characters but what they have in common is their greed and chosen prey. ‘Silent’ Stan is the big cat who gobbles up sporting institutions; Raiola the vulture who picks them clean.
This week, Kroenke bought 100% of Arsenal, a move that the respected Arsenal Supporters Trust (AST) described as “a dreadful day for the club”.
Raiola, meanwhile, tried to sell Manchester United’s most expensive player Paul Pogba to Barcelona – without the club’s permission.
Although a section of United’s support might be wishing Raiola had succeeded(!), it does not diminish the effrontery of the man in attempting to pull off such a deal against the club’s wishes.
It is only two years since Raiola helped himself to the scarcely-credible chunk of £41 million (RM205m) out of £89 million (RM445m) for bringing Pogba to Old Trafford in the first place. And to do so at a time when their manager Jose Mourinho is crying out for players to come in, not stars to leave, is provocation on an epic scale.
In highlighting the game’s major problems and the need for clubs to wrest control back from these ruthless predators, two celebrated quotes from two celebrated old men come to mind.
The NFL franchise was the biggest sporting institution in that mid-west city and in Missouri (Kroenke’s home state). But that didn’t stop him shifting it, lock, stock and two smoking barrels, to Los Angeles, some 2,000km away. After promising not to do so, of course.
It ripped the heart and soul out of the city which is taking a class action against him.
There were demonstrations as you’d expect from a place which mustered