Gary Speed 1969-2011

The shocking events of Sunday morning mean that all other ideas for blogs this week might seem pointless and rather trivial.

Sometimes, just sometimes Football isn’t the most important thing in the world and the tragic passing of Gary Speed aged at just 42 proves that.

The inquest into his death starts today and it would be entirely wrong of us to speculate as to what happened. But what we can say with certainty is that Gary touched lives far beyond the fans of the clubs he played for.

Everyone, from fans, players, his friends and family has been left shocked and stunned at his loss and the tributes have been both moving and fulsome.

He was a model professional for club and country and one of the greatest – perhaps the greatest -  goalscoring midfielder’s of his generation. Here was a man who lived a quiet life with his wife and two sons, who was never in the tabloids and who appeared happy. Speaking on the BBC, Mark Lawrenson said his abiding memory of Speed was how “normal he was.”

He was also a dedicated professional footballer. He embraced the new thoughts on diet and fitness a long time before they became prevalent in the game only the most dedicated and fit of players can still be playing football into their 40’s as Speed did in a career that spanned over 20 years.

And what a career it was! Playing 677 league games for Leeds – with whom he won the league in 1992 - Everton, Newcastle, Bolton and Sheffield United, he also scored 103 goals.

A boyhood Everton fan, he jumped at the chance to sign for them in 1996 after eight years at

Elland Road

, and whilst at Goodison Park he scored the winner in a Merseyside derby. It took £5.5m to get him to the North East and St James’ Park, and it was here that he enjoyed the second most prolific spell – playing over 200 games for Newcastle.

He was nearly 35 when he left there to move south to Bolton in 2004, but far from winding down he managed three and a half years more in the Premier League playing another 120 games before moving to Sheffield United as Player-Coach.

It was whilst at

Brammall Lane

that he took his first steps into the Management Career he had always seemed destined for, taking over in the hot seat after Kevin Blackwell was sacked in September.

He was only at the helm for a matter of months before his beloved Wales came calling. Speed had been the Captain of the National Team had played 92 times for his country. He was appointed at the Welsh National Manager on December 14^th 2010 and he was slowly turning the fortunes of the country around, declaring his “pride” at the way his team had played despite the loss to England and since then they have recorded three successive wins for the first time in three years, including a 4-1 friendly win against Norway which Speed himself declared as “sensational.”

Sadly we will never get to see just how good a manager he could have made.

His last public appearance was as a pundit on Football Focus on the BBC on Saturday, when he gave no impression that was worried about anything. Making plans to visit Alan Shearer at his home this weekend and thanking host of the show Dan Walker for having him on. Tragically he will never be on again.

Amongst the many moving and warm tributes to Gary came from his friend Robbie Savage, who was in tears on the news when he said: "I loved him as a friend, his wife is beautiful, he had a lovely family, he'd do anything for anybody.

"I idolised him, he was one of my heroes in life, he's been there for me, someone I spoke to every week…this guy had everything, a beautiful family. He had a caring, loving family and was doing great at his job. Why has this happened?

"He was a larger than life character, he's got a great family, his father Roger travelled all around the world to watch him and he's left behind two beautiful, beautiful boys. It's just so sad.”

Everyone at Soccer Business echoes those thoughts and our condolences and good wishes are with his family and friends.

Financial Fair Play - Yet More Hot Hair?

Personalised snoods.

Those two words alone tell you all you need to know about the ridiculous situation at Manchester City.

On the pitch things are going superbly, 11 wins in 12 games to start the season tells you as much.

Off the field, it’s not so good – at least on paper. First they lost Chief Exec Garry Cook thanks to some pretty stupid and offensive remarks about a player’s mother who had cancer, then last week they announced record losses.

In case you haven’t seen, Man City lost a quite staggering £194 million last year. Just to repeat that figure it is ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY FOUR MILLION POUNDS.

Then this week we see the news that they have bought all their players personalised snoods to wear in training – of course that is a miniscule outlay compared to the losses, but doesn’t it just sum things up? Doesn’t it just sum up how out of control football’s spending is? And those comments could apply to every club at top level really, not just City.

As Ian Herbert put it in the Independent last week, though: ”Thankfully for City, the figures will not be taken into account used as part of UEFA's Financial Fair Play regulations as they fall outside the accounting window.”

Those regulations stipulate that no club can incur loses of more than £40m in the two seasons of the FFP regulations (the monitoring period begins at the end of this season.)

But even then, of course, clubs will get round the regulations, by finding ever more novel ways to do things, in a similar way of course to that which Manchester City have in having their ground and the so-called Etihad Village that is being built across the road from the ground sponsored for a reported £350m over a ten year period.

So UEFA can make all its grand pronouncements and it can talk as tough as it likes, but until a massive club is actually punished, surely they will just pay the regulations lip service and football will spiral out of control even further.

No other business (except maybe Banking – but that is a whole different political argument ) would be allowed to carry on in such a fashion, nobody else in any walk of life other than football would be able to spend money with such impunity and have someone else picking up the tab. And crucially nobody else, faced with these figures would try and give them a positive spin, which is what the

powers that be at Manchester City attempted to do last week.

What of the role of the fans in all of this?

Lets be honest the fans of “Citeh” don’t really care about this – and neither should they, when they thrashed Man United, when they won the Cup, do you really think they thought to themselves, “yeah this is great, but we can’t afford it, it just not fair,” but then the same could be said for Portsmouth fans a couple of seasons ago.

But the responsibility rests with the owners of Man City to run the club in a responsible and business-like way, consistent with the principles of running any other business and crucially it rests with the Governing bodies to enforce their own rules and not be as toothless as you suspect they might be.

Because if they don’t actually do something about the situation then big football clubs will carry on in exactly the way they choose to do with absolutely no recompense.

I stress again that those comments don’t just relate Manchester City, but all football clubs, its just that Man city are the only ones who announced £194m losses last week – and promptly bought their players personalised snoods.

Sepp Makes Himself Look Stupid - Again!

So for the second week in row this column is having to concern itself with FIFA, but this week, not just FIFA but one gloriously stupid man.

Sepp Blatter, as you will know by now, has made some pretty stupid remarks about racism in football.

In case you don’t know what was said, this is what Sepp told CNN this week: "There is no racism [on the field], but maybe there is a word or gesture that is not correct.” And if that wasn’t bad enough he then followed it up with this. “The one affected by this should say this is a game and shake hands.”

Ridiculous, lets be honest. The idea that people should settle racist abuse with a handshake is laughable at best and downright offensive at worst.

Blatter backtracked, of course and he then said via the FIFA website (you assume after a Press Officer got involved)"I would like to make it very clear, I am committed to the fight against racism and any type of discrimination in football and in society,"

But really, isn’t that just lip service? Is Blatter and therefore, are FIFA really, truly committed to getting rid of racism from the game? And if they aren’t then, tell me who on earth is going to take the lead.

Such comments undermine and undervalue the sterling and brilliant work done by organisations such as Kick It Out in the UK who have tirelessly made sure that racism has been all but eradicated in the game on these shores.

Happily there has been no shortage of football and political figures lining up to condemn FIFA. The calls for his dismissal in this country have been led by Sports Minister Hugh Robertson and Rio Ferdinand, who told the 75-year old on Twitter:  "Your comments on racism are so condescending it's almost laughable. If fans shout racist chants but shake our hands is that OK?"

Blatter, will sadly, find a way to navigate his way this latest crisis with his job intact – just like he always does. He has said he is “sorry that his comments caused an unfortunate situation, but I do not see why I should resign.”

Lest we forget, Sepp has had plenty of practice in upsetting people. He has called for women to wear tighter shorts to make the womens game more exciting, he has belittled the problems faced by homosexual people in Qatar, he claimed John Terry would be “applauded in other countries” for his affairs and compared the life of Cristiano Ronaldo to that of a “slave” after Manchester United wouldn’t sell him to Real Madrid. – And that’s just in the last few yeas, and before we even get to the allegations of corruption that continue to dog him and FIFA’s top brass.

Is it any wonder that on his watch football has descended at world level to the point where it now resembles a circus. In fact, we could send in the clowns, but you suspect they are already there.

We Only Beat This If We All Speak Up

Last night during the Champions League game between Chelsea and Genk there was some pretty distasteful chants from a section of the Chelsea crowd about Anton Ferdinand.

Soccer Business does not intend to repeat the chants here (they are freely available elsewhere if you want to have a look what was said) but we do join Chelsea in condemning it.

A statement from The Blues said: “The chanting was wholly inappropriate and we don’t condone it.”

What I will add, though, that it could have done with Andre Villas Boas condemning it as well, he claimed, in the best traditions of Mangers to have not heard anything as he was “concentrating on the game.”

I am not having that excuse. We all know – and no doubt you have been at games yourselves – when player x or manager y has been urged to “give us a wave” by the crowd and, largely without exception they do. The crowd cheers and the game carries on.

So please, don’t insult our intelligence by claiming not to hear stuff.

That attitude, though, in a way does encapsulate what’s wrong with the attempts to fight racism in the game. It is too easy to claim you haven’t heard stuff – easier certainly than confronting things.

Of course giant strides have been made in the last couple of decades. When I first started going to football in the mid 1980s black players were subjected to some fearful abuse. George Berry – he of the giant afro – famously ate a banana he had thrown at him at Millwall. He also went to remonstrate with a fan who shouted abuse at him on another occasion. Those instances and what I am sure were countless others like them are mercifully rare these days.

The great irony in all of the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand incident that sparked all this off was that it happened in the Kick It Out fortnight of events. Much of the credit for the virtual eradication of racism in the game belongs with the Kick It Out organisation. The campaign – which we are happy and proud to support – has worked tirelessly to champion the cause.

I am sure they would agree with me, though, that the key phrase in the last paragraph was “virtual eradication”. And whilst its unlikely that racism in football – just as in society, which football has always largely reflected – will ever be ended, it certainly will not be while crowds think its ok to sing and chant in the way Chelsea did last night, when the manager “doesn’t hear anything.”

As Edmund Burke once noted: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

It is perhaps something we should remember.

The Times They Are A-Changing

There were a couple of sporting events in Lancashire over the weekend which appeared to herald a new era. The old was ushered out and the new ushered in, or so it seemed.

Whether the results, have any long term significance only time will tell us, but it did feel watching them that something major was happening.

Unfortunately I didn’t see either live. I was at another football match when the text with the result came: Manchester United 1 Manchester City 6. In the old days, on the vidiprinter when I was a kid that would have been followed up with the letters and brackets that read (S I X) so you knew it wasn’t a mistake, but I didn’t get that, so didn’t know whether to believe what I had read or not.

And watching the highlights later that night didn’t make it any less fanciful. City seemingly murdered United, scoring at will as the Reds imploded towards the end. Sir Alex looked dumbstruck at the end, as if overnight, his “noisy neighbours” had won the lottery and moved into a much bigger house in a posher part of town that even he couldn’t afford.

The other seismic shift happened in a different sport, the day before, and my love of obscure rock ‘n’ roll meant I was in cold room watching a cult Canadian band instead of watching Scott Quigg fight Jason Booth for the British Super Bantamweight title.

I have written on these blogs before about my interest in – and admiration for – boxing and boxers and Quigg is one I have had my eye on for a while. Booth, by contrast, is a “veteran” who at nearly 33 has been a pro boxer for over 15 years. He has overcome alcoholism and last year put up a brave attempt for the World Title, losing to Canadian Steve Molitor on points.

I had studiously avoided the score for two days and watched the bout last night. It was a fight that was supposed to be difficult for Quigg, he was going the old dog that was going to teach the new pup some tricks. At least that was the theory. In practice it was anything but, Booth was dismantled over the course of seven rounds, always bravely trying even though the younger man was faster, stronger, fitter and shaper, before his corner pulled him out. It was all they could do.

As a Booth fan it was tough to watch, but Quigg is worthy champ.

In sport – as in life – nothing stands still. Whether it is Premier League, 5 a side football, boxing, cricket, music if you always do what you have always done then not only does the competition catch you, someone will better what you did. And dynasties go in cycles, whether its Australia in Cricket or Manchester United in football, things always, inexorably come to an end.

It is something we encourage our Franchisees to think about. Always be on the look out for new opportunities; always think about how you can improve.

As I say, it is too early to actually be sure if those results at the weekend represent the “changing of the guard.” But I will confidently predict right now that whoever finishes above Manchester City will win the league in May. And Scott Quigg will be a world champion by 2013.

Mark my words.