Let's get ready to litigate!

Liverpool ponder BBC legal action

Good. Along with Allardyce, Bond, Redknapp, and whomever else. They all pretty much have cases aside from the star of our show, Peter Harrison.

I finally got a chance to see the BBC documentary, and I was underwhelmed at best. Like many, if I lived in the UK, I’d be pissed my license fee went to that too. We learned nothing new. Corruption exists, and some agents are scumbags. Most agents just like to grease the wheels, which really is standard fare. Allardyce and his kid have some issues (we knew this back when the Nakata and Ben Haim transfers happened). Chelsea will tap up any youngster they can get their hands on (ask Ken Bates). Yawn. Don't get me wrong, my last post on this subject still stands. There's corruption in this sport (which doesn't make it different from any other sport) and it should be eradicated for the good of the game. But still. Yawn.

And the Liverpool segment was bogus beyond belief. Harrison’s out shopping the kid, and Liverpool gives him a meeting with Frank McParland, the Chief Scout, and Paco Herrera, a former assistant who worked with the reserves and scouting. The documentary never shows that the meeting was scheduled specifically to talk about Porritt, the kid in question. For all we know, the scouting department just took a meeting with an agent who does a lot of business in England, which of course, is an infrequent occurance. Harrison is the one who is shown bringing up the player and Liverpool commits to nothing. The best the BBC can show is McParland saying they’d offer him a contract when he turned pro at 17. When he’s of the age to sign his first pro contract and would be completely legal. Both Paco and McParland had such uneasy looks on their faces the entire time, especially when Harrison brings up he’s the one going around Boro’s back, you have to believe this wasn’t what they thought they were getting into.

You get the feeling the BBC put it in just so they could throw Liverpool under the same bus that rightfully hit Chelsea, just to get another name in the picture. And the Scousers have a bit of a right to claim London media bias. Hope someone wins a case against the Beeb here and gets them away from the trash journalism best left to Rupert Murdoch and The ***.

A is for Allardyce, B is for Bungs...

The big story today is the bribery allegations put forth by the BBC last night. Of course, in their infinite wisdom, they decided to show Benny Hill reruns on BBC America in lieu of the documentary, so I’m relying on the pandemonium promulgated in the papers this morning for information.

Surprise, surprise, the big names being reported are Sam Allardyce and Harry Redknapp. I am stunned. Stunned. While there’s a ton of innuendo and hearsay, there doesn’t seem to be anything concrete here. Sure, Bolton and Portsmouth come away looking less than lilywhite, but there’s nothing here that’s going to lead to any convictions. Worst case scenario, besides the media fury that’ll continue for a spell, is Craig Allardyce (Fat Sam’s son) is going to be a persona non grata in Bolton. Maybe just maybe, Sam will have to step down, but that’ll only improve the quality of soccer played in the EPL.

And then there’s the revelations about Chelsea, and to a lesser extent, Liverpool. It appears the agent for a Boro youth player is shopping his client around quite enthusiastically. Liverpool did nothing wrong, only shown saying they’d sign the player to a professional contract once he turned 17, but Chelsea’s sporting director, Frank Arnesen (who cannot keep him name out of the papers), appears to try to tap-up the player, offering him £150,000 over 3 years to join the academy. And of course, the FA considers this tapping up different from the tapping up of Ashley Cole, and it won’t activate the suspended points deduction from that saga. Pity. Just further proof how deep the FA’s in Chelsea’s pocket (Hi Peter Kenyon!), and how low they’ll go to maintain their status.

Mike Newell has got to be a happy scouser this morning. The fact that the BBC ran with this undercover expose, which appears to be leading to investigations by the FA and the League Managers Association, at least validates his claims and almost makes up for all the stick he took last winter when he suggested what we all knew, that European soccer is as corrupt as we all suspected.

Mmmm the delicious smell of money in the morning…

Update: Both Allardyce and Kevin Bond (former assistant to Redknapp at Pompey and current assistant at Newcastle) are denying all charges. Allardyce says he's got his lawyers on the case and Bond's already threatening to sue the BBC. This is going to be a blast.