Big Story
It’s not just that time of the year for best-of lists providing some free and easy fodder for discussion, it’s that time of the decade. “Best of the Noughties” are popping up everywhere, whether it’s TLC reminding us this was still the decade that unfortunately gave us Parachutes and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants or The Times somehow including Team America: World Police in the top five films of the decade.

Football is no less subjective, so we can all argue about ESPN Soccernet’s arbitrary Premier League Best XI (Given over Cech and Van der Sar?  Giggs still called a “touchline-hugging winger”?) Henry Winter’s Best XI is fairly similar, even down to the selections of Given (did he catch a cross this decade?) and a failure to mention Giggs’ selection this decade is surely less about his “electric pace” than his incredibly intelligent reinvention of his playing style in the second half of the decade. But hey, some people liked Parachutes a lot, so we’re all entitled to our opinions on these things, and I’ll admit Yellow was a catchy enough tune.

That’s why it’s nice to see a little humility (as ever) from Tim Vickery, whose South American team of the decade is premised by Tim’s admission he does not watch enough European club football to assess South America’s best on their form there, and is thus choosing on international performance only (leading, incidentally, to the exclusions of Ronaldinho and Messi): “Over the decade I’ve seen all the World Cup games, Copa America matches and all but a handful of the World Cup qualifiers involving South American countries – so my team is selected purely on the basis of performances in international football.”

And if you really want some fodder for debate, Phil Minshull (also at the BBC) takes on the daunting task of picking an entire European best XI. Or, there’s John Motson’s “Top 10 Noughties football crackers I’ll never forget” (nothing like some outright, unashamed England-bias, especially in the Daily Mail) and Sky Sports with a surprisingly Spanish-centred top ten,

But ever the much-needed party pooper, for something of real interest, read David Conn’s “The noughties: a decade when football’s rulers ducked responsibility”, for a sobering reflection of how a game so rich has still managed to create so much financial peril for itself in England.

Worldwide News

• Mouscroni have dropped out of the Belgian Jupiler League after falling into administration and forfeiting their third game, a sad end to a long saga.
• The battle for control of West Ham seems to have Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes in the lead, with David Gold and David Sullivan still trying to resurrect their failing bid.
• John Beech takes a closer look at another battle for ownership control in the Premier League, this time at Arsenal.
• Notts County, unsurprisingly, are reportedly having trouble paying their players’ wages.
• Ever wondered what Hristo Stoichkov is up to these days? Well, he has apparently lost a lot of weight and is in charge of the Mamelodi Sundowns, vying for the title in South Africa.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

Big Story
The Guardian, and particularly Football Supporters’ Federation writer of the year David Conn, have provided Britain’s best newspaper coverage of the ugly underbelly of the finances at British football clubs across England for quite some time. Leeds United have been the subject of considerable coverage by Conn recently, as he has uncovered the club’s ownership mystery via public court records, embarrassing Leeds chairman Ken Bates.

Leeds’ response? To ban the Guardian and Conn from reporting at Elland Road at their game against Norwich in League One. As Conn explains, “the Guardian will not be reporting from the game because, we were informed this afternoon, we have been “banned” from Elland Road. The reason given was that this is the club’s reaction to the articles I have written recently, which have reported that there is a mystery about who owns Leeds United. That is a matter of public record, because it emerged in a court case Leeds United as a club has itself brought against a company in Jersey.”

This is a terribly childish response by Leeds. I’ve led with this piece and hope others link to Conn’s article to put Leeds in the ugly spotlight they deserve, and to give even more attention to Conn’s original reporting, which was nothing but quality, fair-minded journalism. Ken Bates and Leeds should be ashamed of themselves, though sadly, they won’t be.

Worldwide News

• He’s not going away. Sepp Blatter, FIFA president, subject of numerous serious corruption allegations, and former president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, announced today he will stand for reelection in 2011. Blatter told the Gazzetta dello Sport “I’ve not finished my mission in football yet. I need more time. I hope that in 2011 the Fifa congress once more has faith in me, otherwise I’ll go back to my village. Football is my life.”  Great.
• Didn’t I tell you yesterday the Sweden job would be too dull for Sven? (or, really, not lucrative enough…)
• The Offside traces back the origin of the recent Henry-to-MLS-rumour — and finds it had the basis in, well, nothing. While this isn’t too surprising, it’s an interesting look at how these rumours gain credence as they’re passed from site to site with no basis whatsoever.
• This year’s nominee’s for the U.S.’s Soccer Hall of Fame have been released, including MLS Commissioner Don Garber. Sadly, the Hall itself is itself in serious trouble. Let’s hope a way to preserve the history of the game here is found.
• Much of the British press focuses today on Liverpool’s match against Lyon, seen as a crunch game for Rafa Benitez, while Soccernet continues yesterday’s theme by warning that Champions League failure could mean financial meltdown for the club.

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

It’s no wonder that David Conn’s 2005 book, exploring the at times putrid underbelly of English football, had a question mark at the end of its title, The Beautiful Game?

In it, Conn excavated the way fans have been robbed time and again in the so-called golden era for English football since Italia ’90 relegitimised football culturally and the Premiership brought unprecedented hype and Murdoch’s mountains of cold, hard cash to the top of the English football pyramid. He’s followed this up with his recent columns in the Guardian.

So what is the state of investigative football journalism today, given it seems to be more greatly needed than ever? Who better to ask than David Conn himself?

In The Beautiful Game?, Conn explains the truth and myths surrounding Hillsborough, explores the crises at the likes of York City and Sheffield Wednesday, and excoriates the “myopic” and “self-serving” F.A. for letting the rich get richer at the expense of the game as a whole, following the breakaway of the Premier League in 1992.

Thinking about this book, and recent subjects we’ve discussed here such as the work of Andrew Jennings on Fifa and corruption in English Football, I emailed David Conn to ask him about the state of investigative football journalism.

One thing on my mind was that when I wrote about Alisher Usmanov’s background here — as one of the first to do so, following Craig Murray’s revelations — I had seen a disturbing willingness of the football media to swallow the Uzbeki billionaire’s PR lines at face-value. It was only when this site, and others, received bullying legal threats from Usmanov’s lawyers, Schillings of London, that the media woke up to the story — and they still managed to get it wrong again and again.

So, the gist of my questions to David were to ask why the football media often seems to parrot PR, despite the investigative examples set by himself, Jennings and Tom Bower. His answer, as he thinks it would, did indeed surprise me. “People do ask why there is not more investigative journalism on football, but my answer might surprise you: I think there is a great deal compared to any other time in football’s history,” he wrote.

He went on to make four points explaining this answer, which are worth quoting in full.

• I could turn your observation “apart from Tom Bower and Andrew Jennings” around; for me it shows how healthy a situation it is. They are two very senior investigative journalists who for many years would have shown no inclination to look into football, but now have written major books on the subject. Panorama, too, until relatively recently, thought football a trivial subject, not worthy of its resources, but now, as you know, sees it as a major cultural and financial subject deserving of investigation. I think when I wrote my own first book, The Football Business, the perception of the game was changing and so I was quite early to investigate the serious issues, mainly the way the new money had been distributed, which I saw were unfolding then.

• There is a slight exaggeration at times of what “investigative” reporting is. Bower and Jennings stand out because they have written books requiring sustained research, but there is a lot more excellent daily news reporting by journalists on issues such as finance, club ownership, football politics, “bungs” etc which simply did not happen even a few years ago. You say there is too much parroting of the party line, eg on the Glazers, but the News of the World did a 2 page splash recently based on the Manchester United Supporters Trust’s calculation that the Glazer debt has gone up substantially because interest rates have increased. I don’t think Manchester United were very happy about it – and the NoW is a Murdoch paper.

• There is, though, a balance to be struck and the press, I agree, is generally favourable to football and covers it as a great, thriving, popular sport, which it is. Most readers are much more interested in reading about the matches, players and managers, than the finances. There is also the need to have access to the clubs to cover matches etc, and so there is a balance of power, too, between the game itself and the media. It’s a judgment about whether that balance is struck well, but I think there is more critical appraisal of serious issues, and money, than ever before.

• For evidence of this, I would point you to the Hillsborough Disaster. Throughout the 1980s, many major football clubs, like Sheffield Wednesday, were in breach of the regulations governing safety at grounds, putting supporters’ lives in danger. This was a huge scandal, the greatest in football’s history and the most disastrous, which resulted in 96 people dying at Hillsborough, yet there was no “investigative journalism,” into these issues at all beforehand, no exposure of it, nobody digging. Even after 56 people died in the fire at Bradford City in 1985, revealing an appalling approach to safety by the club, the issue did not develop into a subject for sustained journalism, and Hillsborough happened 4 years later. Coverage generally was more limited, and tended to focus on the matches, and be favourable to the clubs, with very little scrutiny of owners or their business records, or the clubs’ finances. There is hugely more coverage now, and with it, perhaps, more “investigative” journalism than people sometimes think.