Comments on: Corruption in English Football: A Field Guide

By: thefootballshirt

thefootballshirt — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:04:58 +0000

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By: The Run of Play at Pitch Invasion - The Run of Play

The Run of Play at Pitch Invasion - The Run of Play — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:48:16 +0000

[…] and he has kindly invited me to write a weekly feature for his site. This week’s post is a field guide to the recent whirl of corruption investigations in English football: I try to sort out who’s investigating whom and why, a pressing question […]

By: Pitch Invasion · David Conn on Investigative Journalism in Football

Pitch Invasion · David Conn on Investigative Journalism in Football — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:27:52 +0000

[…] and the work of Andrew Jennings on Fifa that we recently discussed here as well as Brian’s Corruption in English Football: A Field Guide, I emailed David Conn to ask him about the state of investigative football […]

By: chris

chris — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:55:04 +0000

so we are saying that the deputy leader took an illegal anonymous donation that could have crossed the line between bribe, backhander, and gift… ooops, wrong story. Sorry.

PS- good article I will link to this.
footballisnotmygod.blogspot.com

By: The Metrologist

The Metrologist — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:48:47 +0000

A very handy rundown. You’ve only missed the Psychopathic Power People!/Everything Is Wrong level, aka the footballisfixed level of graft. Which might be my favorite level of all, if only for the unending entertainment value I derive from its verbose amalgam of sardonic, conspiratorial whispers and MBA-program lingo.

Conn’s thoughtfully circumspect and patient - which makes him one of the few, I guess.

By: Thomas Dunmore

Thomas Dunmore — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:39:10 +0000

Speaking of Conn, he has a typically measured perspective on this week's arrests at The Guardian today. Worth reading.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:59:52 +0000

Dave — I absolutely agree with you about the cost of bungs to supporters, but the money in the Luton case wasn’t spent on bungs, it was spent on normal payments to agents. As you know, agents receive fees when clubs sign players that are entirely standard and legal. As far as I know, there’s been no suggestion of bungs in the Luton case, just of those standard, legal fees being paid from the wrong account. I’ve been looking around online for corroboration and found a reasonably detailed account by David Conn at the Guardian Sport blog here:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/11/21/the_book_thrown_at_luton_stops.html

That said, I would be all for booing Willie McKay’s players. I’d probably boo Double Fantasy, if she was ever allowed to race.

By: Dave Boyle

Dave Boyle — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:48:49 +0000

Brian - J10 wasn’t a mint (as much as 30 years worth of Luton owners have wished it to be), so the money came from somewhere. It came from the club’s supporters.

Why was it routed that way? Because they wished to subvert the club board as a forum in which corporate governance might be taken seriously (what with it having a supporter representative on it). It was no surprise they ended up in shocking financial state under the circumstances.

I wish people booed players who had Willie McKay as an agent rather than people who had a stinker against Croatia. The money being filched from the game in bungs comes from supporters, but in the reporting of the stories, this aspect is rarely brought out.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:35:09 +0000

Dave - How was it someone else’s money? The payments were made by Luton’s own holding company. Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me like the “corruption” angle here would be if they were making unlawful payments to agents and routing them through their holding company to keep the payments secret. But they were just paying the agents their normal fees. What difference does it make if the money comes from them or their holding company? Had everything been done by the letter of FA, J10 would have just transferred that money into a Luton account before they paid the agents. Same money, right? I agree that they should face some sort of fine for improper record-keeping, but the FA and the media are treating this like they were selling cocaine to children.

Ursus - Glad you liked the post. I honestly didn’t have Pessotto consciously in mind when I wrote that joke — it just seemed to get at the high stakes of cheating in Italy. Maybe I would have been more sensitive had he not survived the fall, but let’s just say it’s a dilemma I’m glad I didn’t have to face.

By: Dave Boyle

Dave Boyle — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:04:33 +0000

As regards Luton, yes, it’s a paperwork offence, yes it’s essentially trivial in corruption terms. But the problem isn’t that they broke the filing rules, it’s that in the absence of a charge on the FA rulebook of ‘being a dickhead in charge of a club’s finances’, this is the best they can be charged with. Whose money were they being so free and easy with? It turned out to be ‘not theirs’.