By Myles Palmer
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THE FOOTBALL SEASON is over and the silly season has started.
I’m still digesting the football, being a thoughtful chap who likes to chew things over.
On Wednesday afternoon I’d half-forgottten about the tapping-up verdict.
I switched on BBC News24 at 5.55 pm and Premier League spokesman Mark Johnson was reading out the verdict.
What followed showed English football to be a circus, as it has been since the game sold its soul to BSkyB in 1992.
But a lot of people missed this bit of circus.
Many people were still at work, or coming home from work, or in some wine bar or pub, so they missed the scrum on the pavement outside Marble Arch Towers as fans, reporters and cameramen packed around the entrance.
Comic Relief should put out the Ashley Colegate saga on DVD, jazz it up with captions and music, and end it with Wednesday’s pavement interviews.
If the Premiership was really the top league in the world, they would have given the media two rooms to ask their questions.
So you would not have kids in baseball caps jumping up in front of the cameras, and you would not see ambulance-chasing lawyers, who have nothing to do with this case, offering to take it to the European Court.
DAVID DEIN handled his soundbite smoothly.
“We don’t want him to leave…we did not want him to be punished…I certainly did not testify against him…we want Ashley Cole to be part of our future…people learn from their mistakes…we want to move on, we don’t want any hostility between the two clubs.”
We did not want him to be punished?
Nobody asked Dein the obvious question : So why instigate these proceedings?
CHELSEA CHAIRMAN BRUCE BUCK came out a little while after Dein.
I really didn’t appreciate a Yank lawyer telling me that “Ashley Cole is a fine young man.”
Buck said, “First of all, we’re very disappointed, even shocked, by the sanctions.”
He said that Chelsea had been approached by agents on behalf of Ashley Cole and “We believe that attending the meeting did not go over the line.”
Buck said, “We had no intent to enter into a contract with that player.”
WHAT ?
“I don’t think we had to be here today.”
ARE YOU KIDDING?
“Jose Mourinho was not at all an active participant in this saga.”
ARE YOU SERIOUS ?
“Ashley Cole is a fine young man who was caught up in this situation and he didn’t have to be.”
SHUT UP !
“We went to the meeting to listen and that was our testimony.”
THE RULES SAY YOU CAN’T DO THAT !
“In this case the player’s current club decided not to talk to him, not to try to resolve the issue, but made it into a public spectacle, which I think was inappropriate, not in the best interests of that club, not in the best interests of that player, and not in the best interests of football.”
DON’T BE SILLY!
Should Arsenal FC have done nothing? Just ignored the most flagrant breach of transfer regulations in history? Pretended it didn’t happen?
“We want to be good citizens in the football community and we believe we are good citizens in the football community.”
So why were you in Nyon, listening to Uefa telling you that Mourinho lied when he said Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard went into referee Anders Frisk’s dressing room at half-time?
Was Mourinho being a good citizen when he lied on camera to Sky News on January 30th? When he lied to the whole world with a cheeky grin on his face?
Mourinho said, “On that day at that time I was in Milan, speaking with Adriano.”
“So no contact was made with Ashley Cole?”
“I never met the boy. I just play against him. No more than that.”
CHELSEA have a long way to go before they become good citizens, Mr Buck.
AT ABOUT 6.30 pm on Wednesday I got a call from my friends at NewsTalk 106FM radio in Dublin and did eight minutes for them.
I said, “Please, let this be over! The hotel meeting was January 27, the charge was March 23 and it’s June 1st!!! and they’re now telling me that Ashley Cole is appealing and Chelsea are appealing ? When will this thing end? Sort it out, please!
“Look, Ashley Cole is valuable to Arsenal for three reasons (1) he’s the one of the best English footballers of his generation (2) he’s an attacking left back of tremendous tenacity and has a vital role in their left-sided team (3) he has a huge symbolic value in that Wenger can point to him and say Ashley came up through the ranks, played for England in the World Cup – he did it, so can you if you work at your game, if you are a dedicated footballer like him.”
And so on.
ANYWAY, IT’S SUMMER NOW and there are other things to talk about.
AshleyColegate is a squalid bore which has gone on far too long.
Chelsea broke the rules.
They got caught, they got punished, NEXT!!!
Cole’s agent got it wrong, so Cole has to decide whether he likes Arsenal FC more than he likes Jonathan Barnett – NEXT !
I mean, really, NEXT ! Please, can we talk about something else?
THE FINES ?
£100,000 for Cole?
Pay it and get on with your life, you Muppet ! Pay it and carry on playing for the team you have supported all your life and which has nurtured you since the age of nine. If you wanna leave Arsenal, put in a transfer request.
£200,000 for Jose Mourinho?
Stop squealing! We know you’ve got the hump because Liverpool stole your big night in Istanbul, but it’s time to own up and grow up and stop throwing a tantrum every time something goes against you.
£300,000 fine for Chelsea?
Peanuts to them.
The suspended deduction?
A 3-point deduction suspended for one season? Rubbish! To deter Chelsea from tapping up anybody else?
Should have been 6 or 9 points and three seasons.
Three points is nothing.And one season is nothing.
Why wasn’t the suspended points deduction bigger?
Because billionaires can sue and even if you win the case you can be bankrupted.
Big money is a big stick that rich bullies use to smash people.
June 3rd 2005