Usually good for a laugh but even better this week...

FOOTBALL was rocked to its foundations today with the news of the legal battle launched by Sunderland against the Pig & Whistle public house in Rotherham.

The scandal broke when manager Peter Reid realised that his new £1m striker, Denzil Arkwright, was not, in fact, a regular member of the Pig & Whistle team that reached the final of the Rotherham & District Thursday League Knockout Cup, as he claims he was told by the publican, Fred Spriggle, and the player's agent, Alf Bickerstaff, who works part-time emptying ash trays and taking the rubbish out. It has now emerged that Arkwright, 49, has never once played for the Pig & Whistle. Instead he drove the players to away matches in his Transit van and was responsible for cleaning the kit and supplying cans of Fosters for the half time refreshment. The latter immediately alerted Manchester City to prepare an alternative offer for Arkwright pending the outcome of the current legal action.

It appears that Reid only became aware of the con when Arkwright admitted that his nickname of "striker" referred to a period as an aide to Arthur Scargill at the Miners' Institute in Barnsley, while "Deadly Denzil" was a reference to his infamous problems with flatulence after 15 pints. An ashen-faced Reid exclaimed: "It's a disgrace to football. If I had known all this, I would not have offered more than £750,000."

If anyone is still in any doubt that football is now officially insane, they should merely scan the sports pages of the last few days. If Sunderland can cough up a MILLION pounds for the Honduran striker Milton Nunez without even confirming who he played for, then those who run the club have got far more money than sense. And in that, they are not alone.

It turns out that Nunez did not play for FC Nacional Montevideo of Uruguay's first division, as Sunderland believed (but did not check) and instead played for a third division club, Uruguay Montevideo. Reid and his board are claiming they were "misled" about the player. You what????

Did Sunderland not send a representative to actually see the guy play before placing a million big ones in the agent's account? If they didn't, the Sunderland fans should be furious at the cavalier way the gate money and merchandise profits they are funding every week are being abused. And if Sunderland did actually see the guy play before reaching for the chequebook, was the representative not awake enough to note the game he was watching and the name of the club his target played for?

My god, is it just me? I know I have gone on and on over the months about professional football committing hara-kari before our very eyes, but the signs are writ large in flashing neon lights.

A million pounds was a British record fee when paid by Nottingham Forest for Trevor Francis in the 1970s. Now it is paid for obscure and unknown foreign names without even establishing who they play for and at what level! Yes, we have had inflation in mainstream society since the Francis deal, but on nothing like this monumental scale. The fans are exploited until their pockets are anaemic and told that prices need to go up to maintain the club's essential income only for it to be squandered in this staggering manner. It is Sunderland who should be facing legal action from their fans for criminal negligence with their money.

At the same time, the fees offered and demanded for players we HAVE heard of are reaching levels of insanity that beggar belief. When Luis Figo was transferred from Barcelona to Real Madrid for £37m last summer it appeared to be the mental aberration of the new Real club president, who made outrageous promises during his efforts to win control. But no. This ludicrous figure merely became the new benchmark by which the fees for other established talent were judged. Suddenly, £19m became the mantra for anyone with a well-known name at a major club. Now we have Manchester United apparently preparing to hand over £23m for Juan Veron and I read about £25m and £30m offers for other players. Yes, of course, much of this is paper talk but there is no doubt that clubs are selling the future in the desperate search for success in the present. In doing so, they are playing with fire. Much as the income of the leading clubs has soared in the last decade, they are not capable of supporting this level of spiralling expenditure indefinitely - especially when so much of it goes out of the game through agents and other sundry blood-suckers. Players' wages are another way that football's income is lost to the game - talk of £200,000 a week for Sol Campbell turns my stomach.

But it is not just football that has lost its sense of perspective - so has society in general. It's a GAME for goodness' sake. Paying someone £200,000 a week for kicking a ball about is grotesque, especially when many of the people funding this sickening pig-trough won't earn £200,000 in ten friggin' years.

If they are accurate, the arrogant, spoiled-brat comments about Arsenal attributed to Patrick Vieira spewed from the mouth of a man who, like so many of football's burgeoning brat-pack, has become disconnected from reality. And we have seen nothing yet. Vieira wants to flee from a long term contract and he has used verbal abuse to create the division between him and his club in an attempt to make Arsenal agree to his demands. When the new "contracts" imposed by the European Union kick in, player power will reach yet new heights of lunacy. In truth, there will be no contracts worth the name. Transfer fees may level off initially because of this, but not for long, and player's wages will be launched beyond the stratosphere.

The most worrying and dangerous aspect for football is that this spiral of self-perpetuated self-destruction is now a cycle that no-one is likely to break out of. The fans demand success on the field and therefore pressure the manager and the directors to spend money they don't have to buy the best players - players who are in such short supply that they command fantastic fees and wages in the frenzied auctions that ensue whenever they become available. Unless that cycle is broken, football will be. The smaller clubs, whose expenses are constantly bring raised by the farcical goings-on at the top level of the game, will go first.

However, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Despite an arthritic right hand, a gathering girth and two wonky knees, I am determined to revive my dormant career by turning out next season for Internationale Crown & Anchor reserves in the Isle of Wight District League, Division Seven.

And I am therefore looking for a home in the Sunderland area even as you read this...

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

Answers

Angry Person

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

I posted this on the RTG board a few hours ago as I also thought it was quite funny... although there is more to it than the way in which Icke describes it...

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

Quite funny, but it also raises some serious issues.

Marcelino was apparently bought from just a video - ie without anyone going to watch him.

I don't know whether this is true or not, but at least he played for a big club and amazingly looked like quality for Mallorca at times. (that's quality in terms of footballing abilty, not on the raw meat market)

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

Sorry, not raw meat, dog food :)

Stupid me, I forgot there are no cannibals around here :)

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

So if the Mackems are successful in their suit, perhaps we should sue Mallorca for misrepresenting Marcellino to us? Probably the only way we're going to get any money back on him. ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 04, 2001

"Marcelino was apparently bought from just a video "

Many wives suffer then same fate... ;-)

I think the alarm bells should have being ringing given his UEFA cup performance. As for Nunez, like Jonno said: caveat emptor...tough titties

-- Anonymous, July 05, 2001