The world, I know, is waiting for me to pass judgement on the Sam Allardyce affair, or Sam-Gate as the red tops will doubtless call it. Well, I do have a view. The England manager was set-up by journalists in what was effectively entrapment and proved what a greedy bastard he is. Allardyce was lied to, he and his advisors fell for it and he put money before any principles he might have had. No one comes out of this well, but Allardyce comes out of this worse than not well.
I do not have access to his bank account, but I would imagine Allardyce is a millionaire many times over and could easily afford to retire. His salary as England manager is believed to be some £3 million a year, which is some £57k a week, pretty well double the average annual salary in Britain. He is not down to his last few pennies so why on earth did he even think of meeting up with Telegraph reporters to rake in another £400k? In his England job, he’ll ‘earn’ that in seven weeks. How much money does a man really need?
I had no real objection to Allardyce being given the England job. Whilst he has never managed the very top teams – these jobs are reserved for foreign managers – he has still had a good career. He is known to be a clever and innovative coach, he is a good motivator but now this.
Many of his comments, about Gary Neville, Prince William and various others are largely what many other people think. The difference is, of course, that we say these things in the pub and it doesn’t matter a stuff what we think. Allardyce is the England manager. Things are a bit different for him.
I quite like managers who have opinions. Generally speaking, managers speak in cliches and with totally predictability. This is why I so like Jurgen Klopp who calls things like he sees them. He just happens to do so in public. You just can’t go round saying the sort of things Allardyce said to people he didn’t know, or maybe anyone at all.
The most damaging part of the whole sordid affair is the reference to the third party ownership of players and how you can get round it. Allardyce’s comments are unforgivable and there is no point in him apologising for something he obviously believes to be true. He probably meant all the other stuff he said too, so what would his apologies mean there, then? Nothing.
My guess is that the Telegraph has another bucket of shit to tip on Allardyce in tomorrow’s paper because that is the way of journalism works today. Their ‘investigation’ has been going on for 10 months and the next stuff will do for the England manager sometime this evening and we will go into the next international break with a caretaker manager.
I’m not sure I have a great deal of respect for a newspaper that gets its stories by such underhand means but then they have exposed the unpleasant side of a man who wants to manage the national team.
His credibility and reputation shot, Allardyce has to go. Even the FA won’t be able to save him after this. Nor should they try to.
