PROPOSED ARTICLE FOR PUBLICATION
FOR THE ATTENTION OF ANY LEGAL EAGLES ON THE BOARD.
This is the first draft of an article I hope to have published that will feed through onto NewsNow in the near future. As the title in the piece suggests, it is MY view.
I would would appreciate any views as to whether you think there is anything in the proposed article that has the potential to cause me problems in a legal sense, as I have a rather large mortgage-free mansion that I have no wish to hand over to the lawyers. Hopefully I have avoided the bear traps.
I have left off for the moment any reference to any City websites until such time I have received feedback from all. I am inclined to mention all, or none. The reference in any event was only 'Readers of 'xxx' will be aware of my recent postings on this subject. Updates will follow on all of these sites in due course'.
Football’s Dirty Secrets revisited: the view from Burns Towers
Panorama’s 2006 programme ‘Football’s Dirty Secrets’ rolled back the Premier League’s duvet and revealed a number of rather large skid marks on the bed sheet. Although the covers have been pulled back in place the stench remains, despite the best efforts of Lord Stevens’ Quest enquiry team. In the meantime the football authorities hold its collective nose and look the other way. It twas ever thus.
But now we have a fresh scandal developing that the Premier League is desperately trying to stop turning into another Ashley Colegate. This is to do with Manchester United’s pursuit of Dimitar Berbatov on transfer deadline day just gone. Almost every UK media outlet suggested Tottenham Hotspur only received an acceptable bid from one club for the player, and that club was not the one who had pursued Berbatov throughout the summer. Whist Tottenham gave Manchester City permission to speak to the Bulgarian, their chairman David Levy was widely reported as stating United did not have permission. Despite this, United’s officials, including the manager met Berbatov, discussed and agreed personal terms and conducted a medical. To round things off nicely, press reports went so far as to suggest David Gill, was present for at least some of these discussions; Gill of course being both United’s Chief Executive and the Premier League’s representative on the main board of the Football Association. The end result was as everyone expected; United got their man, albeit at a heavy price.
But what price? Again, press reports suggested United had been forced to come to a BSE agreement with Spurs, in so much they had to pay a Bit of Something Extra to stop the London club reporting them to the Premier League for an illegal approach for the second time in a month. Nobody but the officials of the two clubs know the full truth of this, but questions remain unanswered nonetheless.
The Premier League proclaim they are unable to investigate the Berbatov transfer, but how can that be so? After all, Premier League rules are approved and sanctioned by the Football Association, who insist on a general tapping up rule being included by all leagues that fall under its jurisdiction - which is why one often hears of local clubs being penalised for misdemeanours of a similar nature.
However, and if you’re reading this Lord Triesman, this is the big story - Premier League clubs have got together with the Premier League board to largely opt out of their rule K3 which covers the area of ‘tapping up’ - they have agreed, without informing you, that allegations of tapping up will only be investigated if and when a club makes an official complaint. Which is why they were unable to investigate the Berbatov allegations in the first place - their secret agreement prevented them from doing so.
This agreement might seem to the man on the Clapham Omnibus to be little different than the same type of hidden side agreement characterised in the West Ham/Carlos Tevez affair. He could perhaps be forgiven for thinking the Premier League board had agreed, behind closed doors and completely off-record, only to uphold rule K3 in extreme circumstances and in the process given the more powerful clubs carte blanche to tap up at will.
We are left in the grotesque position that if a manager appeared on Sky Sports News and brazenly admitted to tapping a player up; even perhaps going as far to boast his club had paid the other not to report the incident, there would be no prospect of a Premier League investigation as the other club had been paid up so would not therefore make a complaint. Pass the sick bucket please.
So since the Premier League have rendered themselves incapable of enforcing their own rules the Football Association have been asked to step in. Let us hope they have the moral fibre to investigate why Premier League clubs have been allowed to largely opt out from the tapping up rule that all other clubs in the English game are subjected to. And also, of course, conduct an investigation into whether Manchester United made an illegal approach to Berbatov.
