Archive for the ‘Morning Links’ Category

The Lead

Harry Redknapp and Milan Mandaric have both been found not guilty of tax evasion related to payments made by the former Portsmouth owner to the then-manager to a Monaco bank account. The prosecution failed to make the case the payments were performance bonuses, rather than personal investment money. The BBC:

The defence said the money was an investment made by Mr Mandaric while Mr Redknapp said he forgot about the account and had very little to do with it.

The prosecution claimed the first payment of £93,100 was a bonus for selling striker Crouch for £3.25m profit.

Redknapp appeared to have admitted to a News of the World reporter at the time that the payment was indeed a bonus for the Crouch sale, but then told the court he was “lying” because this was a journalist after all, not police.

At the end of the day, the English public have their hero back, ready to take over with the national team once Fabio Capello leaves after the current Euros. It’s clear some newspapers queued up their Harry Redknapp career retrospectives in case of a guilty verdict. Now these read as a celebration of the unfairly maligned wheeler ‘n dealer.

Harry Redknapp had his day in court, and was declared innocent of tax evasion. Fine. The verdict speaks for itself, and on the evidence, seemed to have been the right one at least as far as the legal process is concerned. But few of those currently back-slapping themselves over the HM Revenue and Custom’s poor case will take two steps back to look at the Redknapp/Mandaric relationship as evidence of the cronyism that characterizes one of the stupidest “businesses” in the world, English football. Wherein a club owner will pay one of its employees money into an offshore account to for fun investment money, and then make another payment for investment losses, is merely par for the course in a professional working relationship in football.

Instead, Harry Redknapp left the court room to the  rapturous applause of journalists and fans alike, and is now first in line for the most coveted managerial job in England. Mandaric meanwhile will go back to seeing Sheffield Wednesday out of League One.

Not anywhere to be found on the major websites this morning: forgotten Pompey cannot pay their players. Newspapers don’t have a wide angle lens, so its on to the next courtroom drama…
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The Lead

With Harry Redknapp’s trial not yet finished, Fabio Capello’s situation with England at a quiet detente (although the Mirror is going all out on this story), and papers reluctant to report on the only thing we really care about—the Anfield Cat of course (see special section below)—all they have left is a possible talking point from the dour 0-0 draw between Liverpool and Tottenham last night at Anfield.

That came when Luis Suarez, having been on the pitch for approximately four minutes, kicked Scott Parker in the stomach. It was a bad thing to do, yes, but more careless than deliberately aggressive (although with Suarez, one never knows). And so Parker writhed around, and Suarez got his yellow. Had the story ended there, it could have provided a bit of lunch meat for an op-ed sandwich.

But then Wayne Rooney, whom Mourinho may have called a voyeur, took to Twitter to talk about how it should have been a red card, which apparently makes it “news.” This follows a similar pattern. A player takes to Twitter, like Joey Barton offering his unsolicited opinion on John Terry’s guilt in the Anton Ferdinand case. After which media coverage, by telling us what we already know in official “news-speak,” ossifies the event, transforming an ephemeral 140-character utterance into a matter of public record.

You can understand the need to provide filler in a fairly slow soccer news day, but there will come a time when the public realizes they no longer need to rely on newspapers to report on Tweets available to anyone with an Internet connection, and that they can think for themselves, the “public record” be damned.
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The Lead

In a perfect, sterile world, football and politics would operate under two distinct codices which, like oil and water, would not, could not mix. In reality, as anyone who’s ever watched football ever understands, the dividing lines are never clear, are often opaque, and are sometimes murky.

This past week has offered some telling examples. The one eating up most of the English headlines involves Fabio Capello’s possible “breach of contract” for hitting out against the Football Association for stripping John Terry of the England captaincy. FA chief exec David Davies from the Guardian:

“It is being taken very seriously by the FA,” Davies said. “You have to ask what his motive is. You have to suspect he wants to prevent John Terry retiring as a player before Euro 2012, but there are wider issues.

“You could have what some of the media are calling a morality circus while England are trying to win the second major tournament in football.

“A contract may have been breached, there is strong leadership now at the FA from David Bernstein. Last week he wasn’t slow to take things forward and he may not be slow to do so now.”

One can understand the FA wanting to keep to the letter of the law on this issue, but Fabio Capello was hired to win football tournaments, not play politics alongside the FA, rightfully concerned as they are over the possible ramifications of Terry’s trial for racial abuse allegations against QPR’s Anton Ferdinand. If Capello acquiesced without question on the captaincy issue, he would have lost half the dressing room mere months ahead of Euro 2012.

Note that Capello is not refusing to allow Terry to lose his captaincy, merely publicly expressing his disagreement with the decision. Perhaps that’s his official line, perhaps not. But the it was likely intended for the players, so they know this was not his decision. Accusations that Capello is aiding and abetting a known racist are not fair as Terry has yet to enjoy his day in court.

The pertinent fact here is Terry is rightfully no longer England captain. Capello’s disagreement with the FA doesn’t change that, nor does it make him an accessory to racial abuse. Despite claims that Capello has done irreparable damage to England and the FA, it should be remembered who started this mess in the first place.
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The Lead

That’s right. And the Canadian Soccer Association agrees apparently, as they’re planning to play all third round home matches of Canada’s CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers in the city, in addition to the June 3rd friendly against America Senior. From the CBC:

Canadian men’s team head coach Stephen Hart was on hand at the event and said the decision to play in Toronto was heavily influenced by travel, training grounds proximity and grass field conditions at BMO.

“We felt when we looked at everything, the travel, crossing of time zones, we tended to look at the travel issues and then how comfortable we were with the facility,” said Hart.

The same voices will make the same complaints about how Toronto fails to support the national team as fervently as other parts of the country, in addition to arguing the national team shouldn’t belong to any one Canadian city. Except in the rest of the world, national teams do tend to play WCQs in a single capital or heavily-populated urban centre. There are notable exceptions to this rule, as in the very regionally-partisan Spain, and in the United States.

But Canada is geographically enormous, and travel costs for CMNT supporters are prohibitively high. There is also resentment over the fact BMO Field doubles as the home of a regional club—Toronto FC. Yes, federal funding for BMO was secured partly through its designation as Canada’s national soccer stadium, but it’s really the home of TFC. England’s Wembley stadium, while located in London, is a stand alone venue for the three lions.

The better comparison perhaps would be Russia’s Luzhniki Stadium, which houses Spartak Moscow and is the permanent home of the Russian national team. There are some caveats; Spartak shares the stadium with First Division club Torpedo Moscow. It was also the former home of CSKA Moscow as well. But generally it does double duty for club and country in a geographically enormous country.

But there is another issue at play here in Canada; the rest of the country dislikes Toronto. A lot. Few will admit it, but associating Toronto with anything “national” leaves a bad taste in the mouths of a great number of Canadians, even within Ontario. It’s hard, for example, to think there would be anywhere near the level of animosity to the CSA if they decided to host all three WCQs in geographically central Winnipeg.

Despite its “hell on earth” rep, roughly 16% of the country lives in the GTA. Yet the CSA has to play nice with the rest of the country on this…it’s getting a little tired.
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The Lead

Yesterday, seventy-four people went to a football match never to return home again. A thousand more were injured. They, like myself and yourself, were football fans. As details emerge about what happened yesterday in Port Said, what the political motivations were and the political consequences, it’s important that we as supporters stand together in condemnation of the abuse of a football for violent, political ends.

Details surrounding the post-match attack by fans of Al Masry against Al Ahly supporters following the former’s 3-1 victory in Port Said are still very sketchy, but it appears Egypt’s football ultras believe this incident was engineered by the ruling security forces to “teach a lesson” to pro-democracy advocates, that they need the iron fist of the army to keep order.

There have already been swift action, although it’s difficult to separate justice from government PR. The Guardian:

Egypt’s prime minister has dissolved the Egyptian Football Federation’s board and referred its members for questioning by prosecutors after post-match clashes that left more than 70 of the club’s fans dead.

The prime minister Kamal el-Ganzouri announced the decision during Thursday’s emergency parliamentary session, a day after a match between Al-Ahly and Al-Masry in Port Said had devastating consequences.

El-Ganzouri also says the governor of Port Said province and the area’s police chief have resigned. According to the Associated Press, witnesses have claimed that riot police stood by as supporters of home team Al-Masry rushed the field after their 3-1 win over Al-Ahly.

Video evidence would seem to corroborate these claims. There is also some evidence this incident could touch off a series of protests against the security forces, whom many believe are still sympathetic to the defunct regime of former dictator Hosni Mubarak. I spoke yesterday to James Dorsey, author of the excellent Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, and he spoke of the football ultras, perhaps unwittingly, playing into the military’s hands.

“What happened on Wednesday in Port Said is the result of a combination of factors,” Dorsey told me. “A low level police presence because the police wants to avoid clashes that would further damage its already tarnished image as Mubarak’s henchmen, possibly a willingness to let things get out of hand in a bid to demonstrate that the police are need to ensure law and order…” (Dorsey’s blog post this morning is also well-worth a read).

This interpretation seems backed by several other observers like Martin Chulov, although some are cautioning against “wild conspiracy theories.” What is still unclear is the extent of the planning behind Al Masry’s attack on Al Ahly fans, and just how involved security forces were in either allowing or directly engineering the attack. Sepp Blatter has called the incident a “black day” for football.

Finally—and I’ll be brief here—there are several in both the US and Canadian mainstream sports talk/writing racket who are predictably attempting to make “soccer is violent” hay from the incident less than 24 hours after the death of over seventy sports fans. Others are attempting to foist a racist, anti-Arab political narrative onto an event they barely understand. They know who they are, and they should be ashamed.
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The Lead

Yes, I concede today’s lead may have been influenced by the possibility of punning on Sebastian Le Toux’s last name. But in all serious (part seriousness, really), Major League Soccer produced the far more interesting story than anything from that horrible European January transfer deadline day.

News broke early in the day that Sebastian Le Toux was traded to the Vancouver Whitecaps from the Philadelphia Union in exchange for someone named Allocation Money (can’t seem to find any stats, but he’s definitely something of a mercenary in MLS). And before any intrepid reporter could pick up the phone to chat with the French forward, he’d already taken to Twitter:

Just got traded to Vancouver !Saddest day for me in my Philadelphia Union story…. Still can’t believe it

— Sebastien Le Toux (@SebastienLeToux) January 31, 2012

The Canadian Press ran the story picked up by the usual Canadian outlets, who also had fun with the headline. Although the truth was far more banal; the outrage was likely a sop to his Philly fans, as he went on to do the right thing and be nice to his new team and its fans:

“I’m really happy to go to Vancouver,” said Le Toux, adding he was glad to be going to a team that really wants him. “It’s a great city to live and play football in. I’m very excited to go back in the West Coast.”

So that’s the story. What it means tactically for Vancouver, I don’t know. Apparently the fact he’s going to be playing alongside “fellow Frenchman” Eric Hassli counts for something. We’ll see…
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The Lead

You know it. I know it. Today’s the day. Rather than waste a perfectly good lead on Transfer Deadline Day, or TDD (it’s not truly horrible until it’s an acronym), let’s first discuss something completely different (I’ll have a special rolling TDD post up a little later this morning).

Remember the Africa Cup of Nations? Of course you do, because you’ve been reading Gary Al-Smith’s excellent round-up in this space every Friday. You should be aware that it’s currently the best football tournament so far this year, and one you can’t watch on TV in Canada. Jonathan Wilson fills us in:

This has been a tournament that has restored the joy to African soccer. Without the traditional powers of Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, it is as if a great weight both of expectation and fear has been lifted. Only Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana are playing with the albatross of favoritism around their necks, and both have been notably cautious in their opening matches; everybody else seems liberated, as though the subconscious dread of humiliation at the hands of one of the great names has gone (Botswana, who lost by a record 6-1 to Guinea, might regret that). It has been a tournament of fluid, constant attack.

This is a marvelous adjustment from previous AfCons, which produced a lot of dull football on the way to Egypt winning. Ever since football the enjoyable Saturday afternoon pastime became Football The World Historical Legacy Tour, international tournaments have been characterized by fear. The ACN seemed to get it, bad.

Now with the grown-ups all away, the kids are having a blast pouring beer on the sofa and scoring 25 yard drives in the final moments of a match to beat Senegal and put the co-hosts through to the quarterfinals.
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The Lead

Liverpool was once Bill Shankly’s club, the manager who notoriously charted the storied side’s rise to greatness at home—and eventually under Shankly’s heir Bob Paisley, in Europe—in the Liverpool boot room. Here, managers would sip whiskey while preparing the club’s strategy ahead of their next fixture or series of fixtures.

While discussion seemed generally focused on tactics, the boot room symbolized Liverpool’s preparedness and shrewd foresight. Championships at home and abroad could not be won simply on hard training and blind will. Planning was everything. Aston Villa’s simple motto—”Prepared”—could equally have been applied to the Merseyside club.

Upon returning to Liverpool in January of last year, Kenny Dalglish spoke about bringing the boot room back. While it may have yielded dividends on the pitch, including this past weekend’s 2-1 victory over Manchester United, off the pitch Liverpool’s strategy has been less exemplary.

First there was the handling of the Luis Suarez affair, which even some of Liverpool’s hardcore fans agreed was a public relations disaster. And this weekend, when the headlines should have been focused on Liverpool’s FA Cup triumph, we learn instead that Andy Carroll was completely blind-sided by the team’s high-stakes attempted swap with Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez.

One wonders who hatched this zany (there’s no better word to describe it) scheme; perhaps it’s simply evidence the transfer market has become self-aware. But if this was the product of a boot room chat, it might be good to not leave PR and transfer deals to the end of the meeting when the whiskey takes effect. Or maybe there need to be a few more dissenting points of view.

Or, if the boot room is for football tactics only, then the club should set some time aside for the less-sexy topics like how not to exacerbate an already-heated situation, or play insane head games with an expensive, faulty striker.
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Geovanny Caicedo

The Lead

Toronto FC hosted their Media Day yesterday, in which grown men are forced to wear full-kits in front of a slew of reporters asking rote questions. However, TFC one-upped Bayern Munich by using the occasion to unveil a new signing (not an app). Meet Geovanny Caicedo! Here’s a Wiki entry. And here’s a horribly grainy YouTube video. Outside of that, as Duane Rollins points out, we don’t know much:

So, don’t shoot the messenger (that would be me) for telling everyone to take a deep breath. There have been promising signings before. We simply don’t know enough about Caicedo to judge whether he’s the guy to finally plug the hole in TFC’s back-line. We will at least need to see him play against MLS competition first.

Fair. What else did we learn from #TFCMediaDay? A good update on the Jonathan De Guzman to Canada news. Apparently he’s meeting with Canadian national team coach Stephen Hart this week to discuss coming aboard. Hoilett schmoilett for now!

As for the rest, TFC are close to signing Chilean full-back Miguel Aceval. And overall, everyone left feeling the warm-and-fuzzies about the team’s prospects this season. As Molinaro writes, Aron Winter is doubling down this season with no ready-at-hand excuses this year:

“Last season was a false start, because the moment we arrived … we didn’t have a very strong roster. This season was very good start. We have done a great job in the off-season (of signing and scouting players),” Winter said.

Which means now of course Toronto expects. And if Winter doesn’t deliver, we’re right back to where we started from…

Canada

Another lengthy Media Day wrap here.

Ben Rycroft wonders if Christine Sinclair is Canada’s best player, ever.

Residency prospect Ben Fisk impresses in training for Vancouver Whitecaps.

Do-or-die tonight for Canada. But honestly if we can’t win this one we don’t deserve to go, and other redundant sentences.
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The Lead

When I arrived at work this morning, I expected chaos. After two separate league cup losses that cast aspersions on the considerable ambition of two moneyed European clubs looking to turn the respective tides in their domestic tables—Manchester City and Real Madrid—I thought the European football media would be awash in recriminations, firings or rumours of firings.

Instead, a few quiet match reports. Why so silent, crazy European football media outlets? Here’s my crackpot theory: a grace-saving but futile draw in the away leg of the league cup, plus a maybe-kinda-sorta-reasonable dig at the referee, equals relative media calm.

City for example went honourably into that good night, with an impressive performance from everyone save their chaotic back four that, as Adam Sandler once put it, “slithered this way and that.” If Joe Hart wasn’t Joe Hart (or Liverpool Liverpool, to be fair), the scoreline might have been humiliating. It wasn’t, and so Mancini doesn’t have to suffer the ignominy of hearing some journalist tell him he “got it wrong on the night.” Plus Phil Dowd’s penalty shout against Micah Richards was several potfuls of weak tea, which gave City their moral victory escape clause.

Ditto in Spain. Barca was always going to score at the Nou Camp, especially against a Real Madrid who needed to push up to get the away goals. But getting two back in the second half was a respectable feat, particularly Benzema’s stunning equalizer. So, dignity. And then Mourinho’s tidy little speech about how it’s “impossible to win at the Nou Camp” (a stone cold decision would have suited his needs better, but a mild conspiracy theory will do in a pinch) sealed the deal, with Xabi Alonso playing good cop and patting his team on the back.

Finally, this is the league cup. Great for those who win it, meaningless for those who don’t. Moving on…
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