jonathanhotspur
Loose Cannon
- Jun 28, 2009
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Long auction ensures false start to season
Patrick Barclay Chief Football Commentator
September 3 2011 12:01AM
There are times when the radio, like children, should be seen and not heard, and one occurred on Wednesday morning when the great John Humphrys, hosting the Today programme on Radio 4, was obliged to share a few minutes with Barry Silkman, the football agent.
The subject was the transfer window and Humphrys, while appearing to find it slightly less gripping than the Arab summer, attempted a little invigoration by asking Silkman how much he earned. “Do you know,” Silkman replied, his voice on the line from Marbella acquiring a blend of amusement and self-deprecation, “I probably earn less than you do.”
A reasonable person would find this, if true, a rare case of something being as it should be. Someone with a sense of humour would resolve to spend the rest of the day gleefully sharing it with his friends. But I was irritated. Not that Silkman was to blame; any mere mention of the transfer window has come to irritate me because it ruins the start of the football season.
According to my friends at the Premier League, it is popular with newspapers because their readers, not least online, are agog to discover the comings and goings, real or envisaged. To hell with newspapers, then. Football administration should be about achieving integrity and dignity as well as publicity, especially that of the dubious value prevalent between the start of the season and the window’s closing at the end of August.
There is nothing wrong with a window as such. Indeed, I could not disagree more with the likes of Silkman, who said that he knew no one who wanted it (and was immediately corrected by Sky Andrew, a fellow agent).
The old free market until mid-March would be unsuitable today because players and agents have such power. The media would contain discussion of business alone, to the exclusion of the game itself.
And this is why I have detested the past few weeks. The window should close before the season begins. All the nonsense could then be behind us when the big kick-off takes place and we begin to assess the recruitment skills of the clubs and their managers on the basis of play, a process that will not really begin until next weekend, when the international squads have dispersed to all corners of Europe to resume club action.
On Tuesday, while they prepare for internationals, the European Club Association, under Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s spiky leadership, will meet to talk of revolution against Fifa. It should start by demanding that its own house be put in order. The timings of the summer and winter windows are decided by Fifa, but supposedly in the interests of leagues, such as the English and Spanish, which do not exactly coincide. Let them coincide. At least let the window close out of everyone’s season.
If I had my way, there would be only one window. It would open the minute a season ends and close two weeks before the next begins. Then we should see proper management of clubs. We should see what Sir Alex Ferguson and Kenny Dalglish did for Manchester United and Liverpool early in the summer, rounding up their chosen players and letting them get to know their new mates.
Arsène Wenger would have been forced to do the same at Arsenal, knowing that he had lost Samir Nasri as well as Cesc Fàbregas. Harry Redknapp, a principal victim of the system, would have been allowed to prepare Tottenham Hotspur properly instead of having to envisage team strategies with and without Luka Modric while minds were distracted and points lost.
It does seem odd, though, that Redknapp was unaware of his chairman’s determination to keep his promise about Modric. Daniel Levy emerged as the hero of the window when the clock struck 11 on Wednesday night with the little Croat still a Spurs player.
But what harm has been done to Modric’s reputation? And that of Nasri? And yet how many of us, offered a trebling or even (in Nasri’s case) doubling of our income, could claim that our heads would not be for turning?
And yes — these debates might still occur were the window closed during the break. But they would occur at the proper time. The season would not be distorted, as may prove the case if, say, Spurs are pipped by Liverpool to a Champions League place by one point, or even one of the goals conceded to Manchester giants during the hiatus caused by Modric’s absence for reasons that had nothing to do with his physical condition.
Premier League officials understand the threat to the integrity of their competition. They understand that, for every fan salivating at the prospect of his club signing a star, there is another fearing a loss, perhaps of someone whose name is on the back of his son’s brand-new replica shirt.
But there is concern that promoted clubs should have as much time as possible to get equipped. Queens Park Rangers, for example: what would have befallen them had the window closed before their recent takeover?
The arguments are not, however, persuasive when set against the indignities of the past few days and weeks. As Wenger has shown, a transfer can be effected quickly when necessary.
So let managers deal at the right time. And, if they must have someone to oil the wheels, let the Barry Silkmans finish in July, too. Then they can spend the rest of the summer in Marbella, living it up as if they were John Humphrys.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/columnists/patrickbarclay/article3153199.ece
Patrick Barclay Chief Football Commentator
September 3 2011 12:01AM
There are times when the radio, like children, should be seen and not heard, and one occurred on Wednesday morning when the great John Humphrys, hosting the Today programme on Radio 4, was obliged to share a few minutes with Barry Silkman, the football agent.
The subject was the transfer window and Humphrys, while appearing to find it slightly less gripping than the Arab summer, attempted a little invigoration by asking Silkman how much he earned. “Do you know,” Silkman replied, his voice on the line from Marbella acquiring a blend of amusement and self-deprecation, “I probably earn less than you do.”
A reasonable person would find this, if true, a rare case of something being as it should be. Someone with a sense of humour would resolve to spend the rest of the day gleefully sharing it with his friends. But I was irritated. Not that Silkman was to blame; any mere mention of the transfer window has come to irritate me because it ruins the start of the football season.
According to my friends at the Premier League, it is popular with newspapers because their readers, not least online, are agog to discover the comings and goings, real or envisaged. To hell with newspapers, then. Football administration should be about achieving integrity and dignity as well as publicity, especially that of the dubious value prevalent between the start of the season and the window’s closing at the end of August.
There is nothing wrong with a window as such. Indeed, I could not disagree more with the likes of Silkman, who said that he knew no one who wanted it (and was immediately corrected by Sky Andrew, a fellow agent).
The old free market until mid-March would be unsuitable today because players and agents have such power. The media would contain discussion of business alone, to the exclusion of the game itself.
And this is why I have detested the past few weeks. The window should close before the season begins. All the nonsense could then be behind us when the big kick-off takes place and we begin to assess the recruitment skills of the clubs and their managers on the basis of play, a process that will not really begin until next weekend, when the international squads have dispersed to all corners of Europe to resume club action.
On Tuesday, while they prepare for internationals, the European Club Association, under Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s spiky leadership, will meet to talk of revolution against Fifa. It should start by demanding that its own house be put in order. The timings of the summer and winter windows are decided by Fifa, but supposedly in the interests of leagues, such as the English and Spanish, which do not exactly coincide. Let them coincide. At least let the window close out of everyone’s season.
If I had my way, there would be only one window. It would open the minute a season ends and close two weeks before the next begins. Then we should see proper management of clubs. We should see what Sir Alex Ferguson and Kenny Dalglish did for Manchester United and Liverpool early in the summer, rounding up their chosen players and letting them get to know their new mates.
Arsène Wenger would have been forced to do the same at Arsenal, knowing that he had lost Samir Nasri as well as Cesc Fàbregas. Harry Redknapp, a principal victim of the system, would have been allowed to prepare Tottenham Hotspur properly instead of having to envisage team strategies with and without Luka Modric while minds were distracted and points lost.
It does seem odd, though, that Redknapp was unaware of his chairman’s determination to keep his promise about Modric. Daniel Levy emerged as the hero of the window when the clock struck 11 on Wednesday night with the little Croat still a Spurs player.
But what harm has been done to Modric’s reputation? And that of Nasri? And yet how many of us, offered a trebling or even (in Nasri’s case) doubling of our income, could claim that our heads would not be for turning?
And yes — these debates might still occur were the window closed during the break. But they would occur at the proper time. The season would not be distorted, as may prove the case if, say, Spurs are pipped by Liverpool to a Champions League place by one point, or even one of the goals conceded to Manchester giants during the hiatus caused by Modric’s absence for reasons that had nothing to do with his physical condition.
Premier League officials understand the threat to the integrity of their competition. They understand that, for every fan salivating at the prospect of his club signing a star, there is another fearing a loss, perhaps of someone whose name is on the back of his son’s brand-new replica shirt.
But there is concern that promoted clubs should have as much time as possible to get equipped. Queens Park Rangers, for example: what would have befallen them had the window closed before their recent takeover?
The arguments are not, however, persuasive when set against the indignities of the past few days and weeks. As Wenger has shown, a transfer can be effected quickly when necessary.
So let managers deal at the right time. And, if they must have someone to oil the wheels, let the Barry Silkmans finish in July, too. Then they can spend the rest of the summer in Marbella, living it up as if they were John Humphrys.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/columnists/patrickbarclay/article3153199.ece
