Toon pariah Ashley is Platini’s poster boy for curb on big spenders
TO AMERICAN pollsters, it is known as the Bradley effect. There is a marked discrepancy at election time between the opinion polls and the actual vote, when a white and a non-white candidate stand against each other.
Folk intending to support the white guy, say they will vote for his opponent, in the belief this makes them appear socially aware. A British equivalent is the Shy Tory Factor. People state they are voting for a more inclusive, left leaning party, for fear of being thought selfish. Then, when nobody is looking, they vote Conservative.
Increasingly that is the relationship between football fans and Financial Fair Play. They say they support it because they think to oppose makes them shallow. They want to be viewed as responsible people of substance — unmoved by the superficiality of expensive forays into the transfer market. So they say the right things — a club should grow organically and focus on youth — and claim to hate parvenu owners, corrupting the league with their cash.
And then FFP pays a visit to their club — and they go nuts. They don’t really want economic conservatism, because where’s the fun in that? Big buys, big plans — that is what really captures imaginations at a big club. Observers call it the Ashley effect.
Another day of protest is being planned at Newcastle United around the match with Tottenham Hotspur on April 19. The last concerted effort drove the best manager in the Premier League, on current form, away from the club, but they are not downhearted.
This one is aimed at owner Mike Ashley. What has he done? He has run Newcastle cost- effectively. He has made the club pay its way. He has played the game as dictated by Michel Platini. He has given the people what they would like folk to think they want.
Except they don’t. ‘Fans want to see money invested in the playing staff,’ said Supporters Trust chairman Norman Watson. His fellow board member, Michael Martin, spoke of ‘a level of profit that should enrage supporters given the state of our squad and the club’s disgraceful lack of ambition’.
‘The kind of summer I’m expecting is one of players sold to generate income to buy new ones,’ he added.
A sensible economic model, in other words. Certainly, not Leeds United or Portsmouth, or any of the clubs glibly cited when FFP is advocated. Newcastle will spend what they can afford. So why the fuss?
Because it’s boring. It’s football as the aerobic arm of accountancy. Newcastle have announced a yearly surplus of £18.7million and Ashley has no intention of spending five times that on the off- chance of moving 10 places up the table. He is UEFA’s poster boy.
‘There is no ambition beyond staying in the Premier League to pick up our share of the enormous TV revenue the league generates,’ read a statement by protestors. That’s right. That’s how it is. That’s what happens when you make the accountant the most important man at the club.
The Ashley Out campaign speaks of embarrassing managerial appointments — omitting to mention that the greatest humiliation for Newcastle is Alan Pardew’s record at Crystal Palace — tacky brand associations, rising debt and falls in matchday revenue associated to a deterioration in league and cup performance.
Yet much of this is inevitable when owners are ordered not to invest. Ashley is a businessman. He likes to make a profit. Football has always demanded more of him, but not any more. Worse, fans have been brainwashed into believing absence of ambition is a good thing. It isn’t.
As FFP takes hold, and the elite become increasingly unchallengeable, many more middling clubs will sink into Newcastle’s torpor. At St James’ Park they want Ashley gone; at UEFA headquarters, he’s the poster on Platini’s wall.