Last night we had more Lordsiralansugar than a reasonable man could stand. First off there was the start of the latest series of the parade of unhinged narcissists that is the Apprentice ("the nation's entrepreneurial elite" indeed!) But then as a special Sugary bonus we had his Lordship putting the world of football to rights.
It wasn't clear what problem he was trying to solve but the whole thing amounted to the bizarre spectacle of the country's greatest advocate of the free market trying to suggest that the football market should be anything but free.
Was this because football clubs are such an important part of society that they must be protected from themselves for the benefit of the fans and/or the "community"? Apparently not, as Sugar was all in favour of clubs going to the wall. Strangely, he poured scorn on the way that seemingly bust clubs rise rapidly from the ashes, ignoring the fact that this happens in other spheres of business life every day. Or was it a case of sour grapes, Sugar not having made the megabucks out of his dalliance with Spurs that some other owners have, or at least aspire to?
More likely it was just the kind of flailing extrapolation from the "these footballers are a bunch of overpaid pansies" assertion that most of us have indulged in down the pub at one time or another. The difference with Sugar is that he gets paid to make a TV programme out of it - the rest of us have to make do with the reassurance of a few sagely nodding heads at the bar.
The key point, correcly made (but not by Sugar) was that the world changed when the Premiership was born. At the time, many of us thought this a dark day for football that would sound the death knell for the game as we knew it. I still do - it's just that the patient has been more robust than expected with consequentially lengthy death throes.
Sugar should know better than anyone that market concentration, the process by which over time the number of players in any industry gets fewer and fewer and the players bigger and bigger, has changed every industry you can think of - except football. But it's only a matter of (a bit more) time. Already we have the "Big 4" as a kind of league within a league and the focus on the European Champions League now eclipses the FA Cup and perhaps even the Premiership itself. The inexorable next step is the expansion of the Champions League to include the top clubs from around Europe who will play only each other and leave their respective national leagues to the also-rans: the worldwide TV audience for Man Utd. vs. Wigan can never match that for Man Utd. vs Athletico Magnifico FC.
Those of us who still get misty-eyed at the memories of flat caps, rattles and a ten bob ticket to stand on the terraces think this is a crying shame. But why it should be something requiring Sugar to go trouble-shooting his way around the game's great and good and demanding the imposition of wage caps and God knows what other unworkable regulations is a mystery.
Alan, you're out your depth son, talking nonsense and wasting my time. Lord Sugar, with regret (or maybe not), you're fired!
1 comment:
On the Sky planner, that programme appeared as "Alan Sugar Tackles....", which I think is quite a sweet nickname for him.
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