Says Michael Gannon
It was the day football died. The day the beautiful game lost its soul.
There were f loral tributes laid outside Leicester’s stadium and Elton John turned up with his piano with a hastily re-jigged version of Candle in the Wind. Goodbye Claudio... The entire nation has been under water from the rivers of tears shed over poor Ranieri getting the bullet from Leicester City.
A scandal, a disgrace, an absolute liberty. How could they? The baw’s well and truly burst.
You’d think Leicester City’s Thai owners took Ranieri out the back and gave him the bolt gun rather than just his jotters. Hold on, let’s go back a wee bit. Football’s lost its soul? That’s got to be a joke. You need to have a soul in the first place before you can flog it.
You could get that weird German autopsy dude with the hat from the telly to slice the game open in search of its heart and all he would find is a black hole and a swinging brick.
Like deep south guitar legend Robert Johnson, football reached their crossroads a long, long time ago and traded what passed for its soul for a fistful of dollars.
There is no point in singing the blues now.
This might come as a shock to some of the misty-eyed deluded folk who think otherwise, but football is a business these days.
Fanciful notions about loyalty ended up in the contract in the Devil’s back pocket.
Businesses operate in the here and now, the past belongs in museums and on DVDs that get stuck on after six cans and a 4- 0 humping at home.
And Ranieri was failing with the here and now.
Leicester were going down. They’d lost seven of their last nine games in the Premier League. They hadn’t scored a league goal in 2017.
The manager had burned through £80million in the summer on transfers yet a few months on the dressing room was in disarray.
When the squad are telling the men in suits the gaffer’s lost the plot, then it’s over. Simple as that. There is no way back.
There’s only one conclusion and sacking 28 players – unfortunately – is not an option.
Of course it was harsh. Ranieri pulled off one of the greatest miracles in sport last season.
Steering the Foxes to the title was incredible and the entire tale will be the stuff of legend for years to come.
Thirty years from now we wi l l be watching documentaries about the last 18 months.
But Leicester don’t want the credits to be rolling up with scenes of them relegated to the English Championship one season after their greatest glory.
The fans probably wouldn’t bother, mind you. I’m sure there are plenty who would have taken going down in another Faustian pact that secured them the Premier League crown.
That’s not how boardrooms think though. Especially in the EPL when it contains businessmen from all over the globe who get their mitts on clubs to make big bucks. Leicester fans can’t complain. When the Thai owners came in they knew the deal.
Ranieri wouldn’ t even have been in the job had it not been for another ruthless corporate decision. Nigel Pearson got City promotion to the top f light and kept them there.
Yes , there was some unsavoury stuff involving his son off the field but his reward for staying in the promised land was his P45.
At least this way Ranieri gets to go on his feet rather than crawl on his knees. He gets to exit with his reputation and hero status in tact and a £ 3million payoff in his hipper.
By martyring the Italian they have frozen a moment in time. He’ll be back doing half-time raffles in years to come, he’ll get a stand named after him and he’ll never have to buy a Peroni in the city again.
The way it was going he was taking them down and there would be no guarantee of getting up. He would stagger on until next Christmas and the fickle fan brigade would be calling for his head.
This way he can leave with it held high.
No one is saying it’s not unsavou r y or moral ly r ight . But footbal l doesn’t do morals any more.
The players who stabbed their boss in the back after he guided them to their greatest triumph wi l l be the ones in front of the c a mer a for that documentary in 30 years and they will have to justify their actions.
They will need to explain how they went from the nation’s sweethearts to the country’s arch villains.
But spare us the hypocrisy. Spare us Jose Mourinho turning up with CR on his tracksuit and bubbling about the great man.
This is the Mourinho who branded Ranieri an old duffer who wasn’t smart enough to learn English.
The bold Jose should know better. He won the league and got his jotters the next season. So did Roberto Mancini and Carlos Ancelotti.
It happens. Ranieri’s achievements were greater at Leicester but so was his fall. It’s one thing not retaining the title, heading for relegation is another.
There is no soul. Only fact. Once you set standards, you need to maintain them, otherwise Elton digs out his piano and the candle gets blown out.