I spent over a decade watching my two sons playing football on a Sunday morning. My partner and I willingly paid large fortunes in subscriptions and match fees to enable them to do so. At home games, parents were responsible for putting up and taking down the posts, running the line and often refereeing. Rarely, if ever, did the boys get the chance to use a changing room either, often travelling home soaking wet and freezing. That was the price that needed paying. Much of the money we paid went to the FA. Turns out they’ve been saving up my money for all these years and this week they handed it all to Sam Allardyce.
Everything that is wrong with football – and god knows there’s enough that’s wrong with football – has been brought back to the surface, yet again, and if Stoke chairman Peter Coates really thinks that football is “cleaner than it’s ever been” then, quite frankly, he’s an idiot. As if we needed reminding, Allardyce was set up by the Daily Telegraph and was exposed as being what is technically known as a greedy bastard, trying to fill his boots financially from other dubious sources whilst having to struggle by with a mere £3 million a year from the FA for being England manager. Now I learn that for the 67 days “work” Allardyce did for the FA before being sacked by mutual consent he has received over £1 million. A fair chunk of that has come from me and I’m mad about it.
A fair chunk of it has come from footballers all over the country who pay in order to play and this is something long forgotten by those at the top end of the game, players, administrators, owners et al. The gap between even lower league professional players is bigger than it ever was. Not I am not expecting professional footballers to get to their home games via First Bus – I wouldn’t wish that on anyone – but flash cars and flash houses are not the sole preserve of the Premier League. I remember speaking to someone who referred to a player as “only” being on £2k a week, when other players were on £3k. Now £2k a week is not much compared to Ya Ya Toure who is on £300k a week, but it’s rather more than most of us take home ever seven days.
With children playing on the worst pitches with minimal or non existent facilities whilst the pampered professional league just rakes in ever more money is properly a result of unfettered and unregulated market forces, with everyone else relying on the pittance that trickles down. Football is beginning to eat itself.
Allardyce was not a popular choice when he was appointed England manager and his reputation was not exactly squeaky clean in the first place. It is not as if the FA were getting a man whose reputation was as clear as the driven snow. You ask anyone in the football business and you will find someone who is regarded in the same way as Harry Redknapp, who, for legal reasons, must be described as the most honest and decent man to have ever sat in the dug out.
For how much longer will we put up with football the way it now is and will always be? The top flight is almost a different sport in a parallel world. Every single Premier League player is either a multimillionaire or has in the short term capacity to be one. The most mediocre player – and there are plenty of them in the Premier League – will never need to work again once their mediocre journeyman careers play out.
Meanwhile, our children will run out on pitches that have to be cleaned of dog shit before the game kicks off, without even the most basic changing facilities and at the ever increasing expense to their parents and volunteer coaches.
Don’t, whatever you do, feel sorry for Allardyce. He is stinking rich and he lost his dream job because of his insatiable greed. When he gets over the disappointment for having been caught, he will have the lifestyle that others will only dream about. And don’t believe he is the only one. There are plenty more like him.
