A rich man's game

It doesn't take a genius to realise that the wallets of professional footballers have been overflowing for the best part of 10 years or more.










Since Alan Shearer's record transfer of what now seems a modest £15m to Newcastle United in 1996, the levels of cash coming into the game, particularly in Britain, seems to have rocketed.

Russian billionaires, American tycoons and celebrity publicists have all had an influence in the games financial growth, but the lions share of the credit, if that's how you want to look at it, goes to an Australian media mogul.

At the Premiership's formation in 1992, Murdoch's newly-launched Sky venture paid the FA £191m over the course of five seasons. From the start of the new season, a total of £2.7bn will be paid over the next three years which will cover almost every medium from terrestrial television highlights and live satellite broadcasting to mobile phone clips and delayed online downloading.
The result is that Premier League player wages are tipped to top a collective £1bn a year, with predictions that the first £200,000 a week player is not far away.

The debate will always rage as to whether such individuals are deserving of such salaries but with those numbers in mind, it's worth taking into consideration the current plight of Leeds United. Guardian football writer David Conn has taken a deep enough look at the financial state of the club and the figures make for surprising reading.

As a result of former chairman Peter Ridsdale handing out cash to players as if it had come with a board game, the club are today contenting with a bill of almost £850,000 to be paid to former players - over £216,000 of which will be heading in the direction of Danny Mills, a player who left the club back in 2003.

Unfortunately, the people responsible for the club's current state are far from the losers in this increasingly sorry affair. A local window cleaning business and mobile DJ will be offered just 1p per pound of the £6,800 they are collectively owed whilst the volunteers of St Johns Ambulance will still be expected to attend Elland Road events next season despite being reimbursed just £1.65 of their £165 expenses claim.

It's not for me to argue how much any individual should or shouldn't get paid and I'll be the first to acknowledge that Leeds United is the very extreme of embarrassing financial mismanagement. I voted with my feet a few years ago, I can't justify to myself paying inflated ticket prices to watch badly managed clubs in an industry that frequently rewards underachievement. The "loyalty"argument that many supporters put forward is pathetic. If any other business in any other industry tried to financially milk them as a customer in such an overt manner, they would take their custom elsewhere without a moments thought.

As unlikely as it is to happen, salary caps would be one of the best things to ever happen to British football. The argument that such a system would have to be Europe wide is true, but I'm yet to find a sport in which salary capping hasn't had at least partial success in saving clubs from themselves and making the competition a better spectacle. The unpredictability of American sports is virtue of a cap system, the Australian NRL likewise and British sports have also benefited from such a system.

In the meantime, supporters will continue to complain about rising cost of Sky subscriptions and increased ticket prices to pay for the latest Portuguese superstar. The chances are though, they'll be complaining whilst stood outside the box office, renewal form in hand.

This week I have been mostly...

...leaving my job.

After five and a half years of retail and pandering to halfwits in the customer service sector, Sunday saw me leave work with a leaving present of a crate of Stella Artois.

That might be a little unfair, not everyone who walks into a high-street retailer is a complete halfwit, but the ratio seems to be getting further weighted in that direction year upon year.

And so it's time for me to move on. After Thursday afternoon, I'll be liberated from the incompetence of Trinity & All Saints College and moving on to the next step, free from 6:30am Saturday morning starts and with a bit more pocket money to boot.

Like with any change, there's bit that you miss and bits that you won't. In many respects the former outweigh the latter but at the same time, those factors wouldn't encourage me to stay in retail or customer services much longer.

What it might also mean though is that updates on here from this point onwards might be even more sporadic than usual!

(PS, I don't travel home from work in a helicopter)

An open letter to all at Sky Sports News

Dear Sky Sports News,


Please be advised that we, the audience, have seen enough of the following:

- Jerzy Dudek's penalty save from Andriy Shevchenko.
- Steven Gerrard's squeaky wailing as he lifts the 2005 Champions League trophy.
- References to how Liverpool came back from 3-0 down against Milan two years ago.
- People queuing in Liverpool John Lennon Airport.
- Statistics on how many planes have left Liverpool John Lennon Airport
- Liverpool fans looking for ticket touts in Athens.
- Features on the bus that was used in Liverpool's 2005 victory parade

Thanks in advance
Michael

You're Fired!

Confirmation has come that America's biggest television commercial will finally be pulled from the airwaves, with NBC dropping the reality TV show 'The Apprentice'.









After falling ratings on the wrong side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump's televised job interviews have been axed after six series, three of which have been shown back here in Britain.

It's in contrast to the same show fronted by Sir Alan Sugar in the UK, which has been a massive ratings success, with last year's contest taking a 27% audience share but that's probably down to how much better the UK version is.

The problem with US shows is the gross overuse of product placement. Friends was notorious for it, the American idol judges sit at their desk with bright red Coca-Cola glasses and The Apprentice is also up there as one of the worst culprits in the book.
You only have to look at the not-in-the-slightest-subtle plugs for a host of multinational companies to realise that you are watching a one-hour collection of commercial breaks. Only iRobot and Casino Royale were more obvious.
The UK version is sometimes criticised on similar grounds, even though product placement is forbidden on UK television, but the instances are limited (even if you are able to read the web address on the side of Sir Alan's rented helicopter)

Part of the problem is blamed squarly at TiVo, that TV recording system that only the American's bought, for encouraging the product placement rise.
The one perk with TiVo in the US though is that it can remove the commercial breaks, giving the viewer an ad-free experience without the need to pause and re-start the VCR. That function in the UK wasn't offered. The commercial broadcasters, understandably, refused to support the system because of the already stringent advertising laws.
As a result we quickly realised that paying £300 and then £10 a month for TiVo was a stupid idea and within 3 years, TiVo left us alone to sign up to Sky+.

I've always been a supporter of the BBC and it's public funding. Anyone who isn't would be advised to compare the two shows and still maintain the same opinion. The American's do mke some good TV shows, Friends, Scrubs, The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy; the list goes on. They also make some decent TV commercials. Unfortunately, it's sometimes quite hard to tell the difference.

Just because I don't want sauce doesn't mean I come from the planet Zog

Buying sandwiches used to be easy. You'd go to the sandwich shop or bakers and they'd make what you want. If you were a sales rep it was even easier - you just bought them pre-wrapped from a petrol station, it was a time of lunch-time bliss.




But then Subway came along and started making things much more complicated.

Firstly, the staff in Subway are called "Sandwich Artistes", which should set the alarm bells ringing straight away. Any firm that considers bread and chicken as an artform is probably best avoided but given that they are littered across Leeds at the moment, it's hard to avoid them.

Queue up in the local bank-esque barrier system and upon reaching the counter, you are presented with a myriad of options. Firstly, there's the bread. You've got Italian, another type of Italian, Wholemeal, Garlic something and something else - all toasted or non toasted.

The the filling - with cheese, without cheese, with bacon, without bacon. By this time you'd be starting to wish you'd not bothered, thinking "I wasn't that hungry anyway".

Then they move you on to another artiste at the 'salads and sauces' desk. My response of "No thanks, just plain for me" is met with complete amazement from the man behind the counter.
"Really?"
"Yes thanks."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"No sauce either?"
"Yes."
"Oh.......OK then."

His face really was a picture.

Buying a sarnie used to be easy. Thanks to Subway, we now have far too much choice. I still don't know what I ended up buying, but it ended up costing me a fiver.

Going Up!

An update on yesterday: Farsley Celtic's second successive promotion was sealed in a thrilling final at Burton last night.





After being 1-0 up after just 15 minutes and then 2-1 down with just 15 minutes remaining, a Simeon Bambrook penalty in the 89th minute sealed a 4-3 victory over Hinckley United to put the West Leeds side in the Blue Sq Premiership (that's the Conference in old money).

It's the clubs third promotion in four years (and in the one non-promotion season, they were cheated by a ludicrous FA ruling after Spennymoor went under) and manager Lee Sinnot is justifiably being hailed as the best kept managerial secret in football.

The club are obviously punching above their weight at the present time. The chances of that becoming any sustained period of success at this lofty level is slim with the current infrastructure. The facilities are modest and the supporter base is small - ask anyone of Farsley Town Street directions to Throstle Nest and they'll prbably look at you in a very funny fashion, but there's no lack of effort within the club to make a fist of it next year.

Next year, lets just enjoy rubbing shoulders with the comparative 'big boys'.

The biggest match of the season

Forget your Champions League Finals, Premiership relegation deciders and Championship play-offs, the biggest match of the 2006-7 season takes place tonight.




Tonight sees the number one footballing side in Leeds, Farsley Celtic, take on Hinckley United in the Nationwide Conference North play-off final. At a time when our major football club are doing nothing but bring embarassment to the city of Leeds, Lee Sinnot's men could earn their second promotion in as many years should they win at Burton this evening.

Forget all your fancy-dan, multimillionaire superstars in your UEFA 5-star stadia, this is football at its rawest. There'll be no sign of injury feigning and elaborate play-acting, just two teams of eleven blokes trying to beat each other until one of them wins a place in the highest
division of non-league football.

If I could have gone, I would but instead I'll have to be content with Setanta Sports in the supporters club, such is life.

But still we can dream: The right result and we could end up making away days to exotic places like York, Halifax and Weymouth.

Bring it on!

No change?

Banks and credit card companies have come up with yet another brilliant idea to part us from our hard-earned.




Realising that they aren't allowed to charge illegal late payment penalties (or at least, get away with it), they're now looking at other ways of getting us to use our cards more and thus, making up for the shortfall.

And here is their latest idea, Touch & Pay.

The idea is pretty simple. If you're one of these people that buys a newspaper, tin of baked beans or a packet of Polo's with a credit card, you won't have to go through the hardship of entering your PIN number or signing your name. Instead, you just wave your card over a "secure scanning device" - probably an RFID chip or something.

It's the latest idea in turning us into a 'cash-less' society where coins become obsolete and where computers can literally track you up and down the high street.
But it's not actually a new idea. Anyone who lived in Leeds in 1997 will probably remember some strange ATM machines popping up with 'Visa Cash' logos plastered all over them. The idea was pretty similar to this "new" system. You loaded money onto the card (think of a pay-as-you-go mobile phone) and then went and spent it on low value goods. It was supposed to be a hassle-free way to buy things without the need for lose change.

It was rubbish. The shops didn't accept it, people didn't get the cards and the trial was a massive waste of everyone's time. In the end, I seem to remember Visa giving away cards with Leeds University ID cards, just so that somebody would actually be able to participate in the trial. A similar thing happened with Mondex, which was an equally big failure.

Needless to say, I can't see how this 'fresh' and 'innovative' idea won't suffer the same fate. People will continue to spend their coins where they please, small retailers won't be best pleased with an idea that encourages needless card use and of course, those "odd tenners" soon add up when the bill turns up.

These people really must try harder.

The female mind

You know the scene; you go for a night out and head to a bar in the city centre. The music's playing, you can't hear your mobile phone and come the morning, you get plenty of unjustified stick from someone who tried to call you at 2:00am.




Even if you have your phone in your pocket and set it on vibrate, you still don't realise that it's ringing.

That doesn't work with women though. For some reason, and I can't figure out why, women seem to know exactly when their phones are bleeping away whilst it's stuck at the bottom of their handbag. Presmuably they are all implanted with a bluetooth brain chip at birth - I honestly don't know.

Still, that same ability obviously went AWOL when one of our group realised her phone went missing.

We tried to see the funny side.

Over and out

The obituary for Leeds United was finally completed on Saturday afternoon as the club were effectively relegated to the third tier of English football.












United still have the go through the formality of a trip to Derby County this weekend but the reality is that next season Leeds will find themselves slumming it with the mighty Carlisle United, Northampton and Cheltenham Town.

The fall from grace has been a six year story in which the club have been the butt of almost every joke conceivable. It began with an enthusiastic chairman who felt that no price could be put on being Mr Popular, a manager who publicly criticised his players whilst they were sitting at the top of the football tree and then ended with one of the most despised men in football saving the club from financial oblivion.

The finger of blame has pointed in all manner of directions since the club's demise. Ridsdale's financial decisions are what most point to as the start of the road to disaster, O'Leary's book had catastrophic effect on the morale of a team that was arguably the best in the country at that point and a host of unconvincing consortiums and managers couldn't halt the rapid descent down the football ladder.

Ken Bates has since come in, allegedly with the club just two days from liquidation, and has attempted to turn the club around but his methods have been branded madness by those who frequent Elland Road. Ticket prices are now more costly that those found at current Premiership leaders Manchester United, local businesses are being put out of action and the Chelsea connection of Bates, Wise and Poyet has left a bitter taste in the mouth of many.

The future for the club looks bleak. An appeal has been made for investors but their is hardly a long line of local money-men queuing down Elland Road.
The club's assets amount to a handful of players which have limited value between them and the remaining debt of Ridsdale's £100m legacy. The club no longer owns its stadium or training ground, the club's city centre shop has been closed and all that remains of the club for a buyer to purchase is a brand name - and a tarnished one at that. It takes a brave man to pay a seven figure sum for damaged goods and with the 'sold as seen' signs very much on display, many investors will be put off before they get to the initial viewing.

Since 5:30 on Saturday, BBC Radio Leeds has been inundated with callers proclaiming that "we'll be back", but the reality could be very different.

The club will go into pre-season training this coming summer with barely a handful of the players that took to the field this season. 43 players donned the white shirt this term, a statistic that goes some way to explaining why Leeds are just 90 minutes from confirmed relegation barely 12 months after they were 90 minutes from the Premiership. Of the players that are actually contracted to the club, a good few will feel that League One is beneath them and will move on. Healy, Cresswell, Derry, Nicholls, Marques, Blake, Thompson, Flo and of course, the long-serving Gary Kelly will all be looking to the Elland Road exit door in the coming months.

That on its own would be a difficult predicament for any club to find themselves in. Yet with no money to fund new players, Leeds United must not only find a solution, it must do it with increasingly limited resources. One hope is that the youth team will bear fruit and that the likes of Howson and Elliot will be joined by players capable of impressing at the new level. But in the third tier of the game, impressive youngsters soon start to attract the interest of bigger rivals. The 'all new' Leeds United that takes the field in September could well be dismantled come the January transfer window.

Leeds United's fate has been sealed with short-term thinking and throwing money at problems in the hope that they will go away and I fear that, where the situation allows, this will be the case again.

I don't doubt that a club the size of Leeds, in a city the size of Leeds could afford to spend too much time languishing in football's black-hole but at the same time, the fear is that if the solution to the problem involves yet more short-term thinking, then we could be having similar discussions in 24 months time.