Extraordinary! It’s deja vu all over again

In anticipation of their UEFA game vs citeh, Stale Solbakken, manager of  FC Copenhagen, declared the following:

The amounts of money that have been mentioned are incredible. I think that such incredible sums will take part in destroying football. They are creating too big a mental distance between what we call reality and then Manchester City.

Warming to the attention, Solbakken  continues:

The hardest part for City is that they, by tradition, are not a big football club and therefore all the money in the world does not make a difference for them

Oh how I laughed! While plenty of column inches have been devoted to our Danish friend, it pales in comparison to year’s comments by the Bayern Munich general manager. While columnists (Jim White, for example) have previously stated much of the same (although in better taste; see for example, Money cannot buy class at Chelsea), Uli Hoeness, irked by the rising cost of his petrol bill, embarked on a full frontal assault on the owner of Chelsea Football Club and the boys down the King’s Road.

The current General Manager of Bayern Munich makes a shrewd observation about the state of European football:

Thanks to the huge investments many clubs make, there are no longer any serial European Cup winners similar to Ajax and Bayern in the Seventies. The old hierarchy has been abolished. A better-balanced competition sounds tempting, but I don’t know whether the investments have been good for football.

I get annoyed every week when I go to fill my car up with petrol. The oil Mafia is taking money out of my pocket to invest it in footballers. To my mind this stinks to high heaven, and this applies to Mr Abramovich among others.

He is certainly no friend of mine. This Mafia controls the entire world, and manipulates the price of oil. I won’t stand for it any longer. What can we do? We simply have to defeat teams like Chelsea on the field of play. That would give us great satisfaction. (All quotes from The Daily Mail)

Hmmm. Herr Hoeness is obviously blissfully unaware of Russia’s mighty armed forces (their CV includes Chechnya, Georgia) and what they can do.But more seriously, although I applaud his rallying cry “to defeat Chelsea on the field of play”, I sense a deeper Aryan jingoism targeting the hordes to the east. Perhaps he feels Napolean should have completed the task before Adolf, eh?

Glenn Hoddle Academy

The always excellent United Youth site has an article about a former Red, Christy Fagan, and his call up to the Republic of Ireland’s Under-21 side.

It’s always great to keep track of former Reds, however minor or trivial their contribution to the history of the Club.

Re. the United Youth article, it seems to me that there are intriguing possibilities with the concept behind the Glenn Hoddle Academy (GHA)

Presumably, the GHA’s facilities at the “plush Montecastillo Resort in southern Spain” costs money to set up and run. How does it finance itself? The site indicate that successful applicants are provided with a full scholarship “with free board and accommodation” but the scholarships are granted “subject to contract”.

In addition, the GHA playes matches against unnamed Spanish sides. Does anyone know whether the GHA are in a competitive league? If so, does it mean that the GHA owns the players’ registrations?

Regardless, the concept behind the Academy sounds like an interesting alternative to the standard player-football club model.

A bit of philosophy today

This is an example of a syllogism:

• £100 million transfer fee for a football player (Major premise)
• A salary of £500,000 per week for a human being (Minor premise)
• The Apocalypse is upon us (Conclusion)

(OK, so it’s not really an example of a syllogism, but it’s kinda funny)