According to the Media Guardian, “Newsnight editor Peter Barron is a devoted Spurs fanâ€.
This raises a question mark over BBC impartiality in this case, and use of ‘public’ licence fee money when there were far more important national interest football stories around – see below on football wages.
He writes a column (BBC Online🙂 on how he and his team broke the Arsenal story. The investigation incidentally has been going on several months on and off.
“So as we set off this morning on another Newsnight we felt sure we had a strong story, but we weren’t quite sure what would happen next or what anyone else might make of it.
“But at the BBC-wide morning conference there was immediate interest and when our press release went out it all started to happen. I spent the afternoon nervously entering the word “Arsenal” in the ENPS wires service – did anyone out there care?
At 17.22 reassurance from France. LONDRES, 1 juin 2006 (AFP) ….
And it goes on to Arsenal\’s statement, prompted by the news coverage and the note sent to editors: “The current relevant FAPL Rule is Rule 3 of Section U. This prohibits a Premiership Club from owning shares in, or making loans to, or being involved in the management of, another Premiership Club or a Football League club. This is designed to protect the integrity of the Premier League competition and is not relevant to a club based outside England.”
Yes, said the reporter Liz MacKean, but that’s not the relevant rule. The international body FIFA says:
“…the Member shall ensure that neither a natural nor a legal person (including holding companies and subsidiaries) exercises control over more than one club whenever the integrity of any match or competition could be jeopardised.”
Barron thinks: “Arsenal might have been drawn against Beveren in a European competition [forgetting that they finished third bottom of the Belgian league]. Surely FIFA would want to know about a secret loan of £1 million to keep the Belgians afloat?†Err, Chelsea was drawn in the Champions League with CKSA Moscow, which Abramovich sponsors – and that was cleared.
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Anyone reading the Deloitte report on football wages and press coverage, including the BBC’s last week would have assumed wages are going down significantly and English football\’s house is in order.
Dan Jones of Deloitte says: “Our latest analysis further supports the improving balance between revenue and costs, not just in England, but also across Europe. The need to ‘save clubs from themselves’ with a salary cap now seems far less important than it did five years ago.”
What virtually no-one looks at is why. Players’ pay fell to £559m from £583m.
In the year in question 2004/5, when Leeds, Leicester and Wolves went down the combined 20 reduced the wage bill by £80m. When Norwich, West Bromwich and Crystal Palace came up the wage bill was £56m.
Deloitte says details for some clubs, including Leeds United and Crystal Palace, were unavailable. In fact eleven clubs had higher wages, while nine dropped.
Do you know who audits the Premier League accounts? Yes, you guessed it: Deloitte – the very same company which produces this ‘independent\’ report.
The Premier League, by the way is against a wage cap, as promoted by the EU-UEFA report the previous week.
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Meanwhile, Arsenal are reported to have entered the bidding race for Franck Ribery, the Marseilles forward, according to The Guardian. It says the experience of playing with Thierry Henry in the World Cup preparations could be in Arsenal’s favour.
However, although Man U have already had a bid turned down, it says Lyons are favourites.