Don’t lumber taxpayers with the cost of sorting out football corruption

SIR – Following the lurid revelations from the football industry, we can now expect a demand for a public inquiry.

Can we be sure that it is football (which clearly is awash with money) that will pay the millions such an inquiry will cost, and not the beleaguered taxpayer? Ian Mathie Fenny Compton, Warwickshire SIR – For too long football has been the spoilt child in the family, and it is time to impose the discipline it deserves, to try to save it. Nigel Double Peterborough SIR – They think it’s all over – it is now. Richard Allen Hampton Hill, Middlesex SIR – There seems to be a growing culture in which anything is acceptable, provided you don’t get caught.

When you are caught, it is just bad luck, requiring judicious management SIR – In the manner of self-serving, corrupt individuals in positions of power, Sam Allardyce clearly believes he has done nothing wrong. He cites his downfall as being due merely to a “lack of judgment” – in not realising that the people he sought to profit from were undercover reporters. Diana Anderson Sidmouth, Devon SIR – Why are transfer fees normal in the football industry? Elsewhere, an employee decides to move employers with no recompense for the previous employer, which may have invested in training for that employee.

With large sums going to agents, it just adds costs for the fans who already pay high ticket prices or satellite television subscriptions. Stephen Green Weymouth, Dorset SIR – What is the economic, legal or ethical difference between an overseas billionaire owning a premiership football club whose main asset is the “ownership” of the 30 or 40 players on its books and a partnership having a third-party interest in the income or transfer value of a player? David James Colby, Isle of Man SIR – In his lovely book English Journey, published in 1934, J B Priestley wrote: “Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game; the heavy financial interests; the absurd transfer and player-selling system, the lack of any birth or residential qualifications for the players, the betting and coupon competitions, the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the press...”

Yes, he was writing about football. It appears that things have only got worse. Mike Low Weston-super-Mare, Somerset