StillBluessinceHydeRoad
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 14 Aug 2020
- Messages
- 2,022
- Team supported
- City
"Corruption" conjures up images of gangsters with violin cases carrying out the orders of ruthless mobsters before picking up brown envelopes stuffed with cash from well educated, well spoken millionaires over a glass of single malt. Corruption in football doesn't seem to me to conform to this pattern. I think it grows out of the divisions in the game which were very real and are still very real. In the early years of last century the growth of professionalism divided the game and City were "too professional" for the taste of the authorities. The crisis of 1904-6 was sparked by charges of match fixing by a "gentleman" who captained Villa aimed at Billy Meredith, a professional "superstar". Investigations of City's books found many violations of the rules (!!) which had not been found the year before (!). The club was nearly ruined without any real evidence being produced, but what is just as interesting was that all this worked far more to the benefit of Manchester United than any other club! They won 2 championships and an FA cup with players who had played for City until banned after 1904! This is a theme of English football. There has always been an establishment; it is true that its membership has changed and that Aston Villa are nowhere near the establishment club they were before 1914, but certain clubs have maintained their influence, for some reason, over a long period. Manchester United have always had a cosy relationship with the football authorities, Arsenal emerged in the 1930s (despite their seedy manger) with their carefully chosen aristocratic board and Liverpool have enjoyed a long period of respect while talking platitudinous nonsense. All this has led to a state of affairs where the players of the establishment are held "to play the game" and are, subconsciously or otherwise refereed to a different standard to that applied to the vulgar representatives of a nouveau oil rich club of no breeding. Thus Adebayor is an oik who has taunted loyal Arsenal fans into flattening a steward whereas Henry is an honourable player merely celebrating a goal. Mitrovic is a thug threatening a referee, not at all the same as Fernandes. We can also see it in the way Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United have dominated executive positions in the football authorities. Manchester Cuty are still what they have always been - outsiders to be distrusted and neutered.