Repulsive greed consumes English football Gamedownsouthdied with Claudio and Piegate
STOP all the clocks, cut off the BT Sport subscription. Football should be i n mourning today. Bury the coloured scarves, swap flags, banners and terracing chants for black ties, glum faces and mumbling hymns.
This weekend hundreds of thousands of supporters will converge on football grounds across England, a ritual they have come accustomed to over generations, but there will be something different this time round.
As of this midweek, the soul has gone from the game. English football as we once knew it is dead.
No longer can we speak of the ‘romance of the FA Cup’, or look at the Premier League, supposedly the best in the world, as some shining light for us all to marvel at and gasp in wonder.
After this week, there is nothing left but greed, desperation and a repulsiveness that tells of a game that has become an out-of-control monster that will very shortly consume itself.
Speaking of consuming things, let’s jump to Gander Green Lane, Sutton, the setting for the first of two fatal blows dealt to a once-fine institution that is English football.
With big guns Arsenal arriving in the FA Cup, all eyes were on this little team and their moment of glory. They may have lost 2-0, but the immediate story was all about how well Paul Doswell’s team performed, how the whole place had been swept along by the majesty of the event and how the club would be all the better for it.
Then an obese man on a bench ate a pie, and all that positive publicity and momentum was snuffed out in one gulp. Bookmakers had placed odds on sub goalie Wayne Shaw eating the calorie-laden treat and he duly obliged. No matter what he did it for, it was a tasteless act.
Nothing is sacred anymore, it seems.
We then jumped forward a couple of days to the news that Claudio Ranieri had been sacked by world superpower Leicester City, not even 24 hours after they lost their Champions League last 16 first leg away tie in Seville. That was the final straw. What the Italian did for that club was nothing short of a miracle when you consider they were relegation fodder before he guided them to the Premier League.
Imagine Hamilton Accies winning the Premiership (stop laughing) and times it by 100. You’d still not be close.
For him to be dismissed after just nine months is disgusting. If you had said to any Leicester fan a year and a half ago ‘You can win the league next season but you’ll get relegated the following campaign’ they’d have bitten your hand off. They’re not even down yet, either.
The 65-year-old is one of the most loveable characters in the game and it was clear he had taken Leicester to his heart. There was talk he’d lost the dressing room, but the success he delivered will never be replicated. Ranieri’s Leicester will be the biggest romance in Premier League history, that should count for something. Sadly, it doesn’t. This is the reason so many are becoming disenchanted by English football and its greed. Loyalty is of no value.
I did chuckle when I saw Mark Warburton’s name on the short list for the job. It is the man on the other side of Glasgow who is the prime candidate for the job given how he transformed Swansea, Liverpool and Celtic.
For now though, let’s be grateful our crackpot of a game is the more civilised cousin of our bampot neighbours south of the border.