Sep 30, 2016
Big Sam? Big Sham is more like it
TSN's Noel Butler breaks down the troubling dismissal of former England manager Sam Allardyce after a week in which English management was exposed by an undercover operation by the Daily Telegraph.
By Noel Butler
“On reflection, it was a silly thing to do. It was an error of judgment and I paid the consequences. But you know, entrapment has won on this occasion and I have to accept that. I'm off abroad just to chill out and reflect.”
Remarkably these are the words of Sam Allardyce – who we all know now as the ex-English national team manager — who had revealed just a month or so earlier to undercover reporters who he believed were intermediaries in a scheme to circumvent both the FA’s and FIFA’s transfer rules.
Furthermore Allardyce was a willing accomplice to represent a fictitious Far East-based company for quite the Kings-like bounty. £400,000 [$700,000] to be precise in today’s grossly inflated bubble in which English football currently exists.
For a man who had yet to lead England out in a match and who has been more the ‘managerial mercenary’ than someone who had cemented his career in the mould of many of his predecessors as English head coach - he surely had a delusionary inflated opinion of himself. His £400,000 ‘speakers fee’ demand brought him within touching distance of the rightful fee commanded by the most successful manager in the entire history of English football, Sir Alex Ferguson.
Allardyce’s meet and greet with the press Wednesday morning after he pleaded with his FA bosses to keep his job but 36 hours or so earlier took place outside his home. The scene immediately reminded me of the countless ‘Garden Gate” moments I had watched over the decades as disgraced politicians pleaded their cases from the comfort of their garden gate. The only thing absent this time was the loyal wife by Allardyce’s side.
Allardyce’s poorly chosen words and turn of phrase where “Big Sam” as he liked people to refer to him as - took not one ounce of responsibility and bore no reflection with the facts and events of a few drinks shared in Mayfair, one of London’s most exclusive neighbourhoods back in late August - then followed that command performance up just last week with a second meet in a Manchester restaurant. At this point Allardyce was a mere ten days or so out from naming his squad for England’s upcoming Russia 2018 Qualifiers.
Willing to throw the rule book right out of the window and not a moment’s hesitation to cash in on his new famed fame and glory as the manager of England, at a salary of which, that placed Allardyce at the very top of international managers in all of world football. What can the likes of Joachim Löw and Fernando Santos be thinking right now? Let alone the recently retired Vicente del Bosque who led Spain to its first ever World Cup glory at South Africa 2010.
Allardyce truly encapsulates all which is so very wrong with English football, and the polar opposite of the innocence which ring fenced English football as a kid growing up. Money has runneth over from the players pool to such an extent that disputable characters like Allardyce can command salaries in a similar fashion to the era of the dot com bubble and its subsequent burst.
Irrational exuberance of the gravest order. Unless it is immediately checked it will ultimately go on to wreak more havoc on English football than any magical mazy run through the porous English defensive lines by Maradona - circa 1986 World Cup Finals quarter-final.
Allardyce’s outing this week, by a media which has long not fully trusted him due to his previous unearthed material in a BBC documentary a full decade ago, is English football’s Hand of God moment if ever there was one.
At least it had better be.
For too long a ‘bung type’ culture has percolated below the surface in English soccer. [A bung the popular vernacular related to an illegal cash payment made as an inducement in player transfers]. Clandestine meetings set up in Highway Service Station areas. Thriving in an environment more Austin Powers-like than a John Grisham novel. Ex-Tottenham Manager Harry Redknapp was typecast in the lead role as the artful “Wheeler Dealer.”
Back in January 2012, Redknapp found himself on trial for alleged tax evasion. In a report at the time of the trial, the venerable news institution the BBC led with this shocking headline; “Harry Redknapp 'avoided tax on bungs'.” Much of the trial focused on the sale of players that Redknapp was directly involved in. They included Rio Ferdinand’s transfer from West Ham United to Manchester United which occurred in July 2002.
After a trial which lasted two weeks Redknapp was ultimately found not guilty. Ironically back in early 2012 Redknapp was seen by many in and around English football as the heir apparent to the national team job, following Fabio Capello’s resignation. The FA though appointed Roy Hodgson, who they likely deemed a safer pair of hands.
England legend Alan Shearer now sees his nation as the laughingstock of world football.
Worse than that, in a stroke Allardyce and his slovenly ways has undone at a stroke so very much of the unprecedented investigative work by the UK media that has revealed the culture of corruption at FIFA.
I can just imagine what the likes of Andrew Jennings thinks of Allardyce right now. It was Jennings of course who famously tipped off the FBI which ultimately led to the early morning arrests of senior FIFA executives in that Swiss hotel back in Spring 2015.
The reputation of the English national team on the pitch is well known. Apart from two isolated losing semifinal appearances they have underperformed at international tournaments for decade upon decade. Their record of futility goes back over half a century now. Canada’s lone World Cup Finals appearance back in 1986 is our ‘1966 moment.’
Now whatever reputation England had left off the pitch, and it was deep in the midst of rebuilding fences with FIFA and UEFA, led in the most formidable guise of David Gill until Allardyce’s shenanigans intervened Monday. Gill, the ex-CEO of Manchester United has been on the UEFA Executive board since 2013, a member of the FIFA Council since last year was part of the three-man FA Committee who appointed Allardyce.
So deeply involved was the ex-Manchester United CEO, Allardyce’s interview for the England post took place at Gill’s home just outside Manchester. To say, now some two months later, the FA Three now have eggs on their chins is the understatement of the season.
Ronaldo is a shoe-in to be a walk off with the Ballon d’Or for this season. It may do English football some good if at their table for the lavish ceremony they are served up large helpings of humble pie.
The script for the worst aspect in all this is yet to be written. I truly believe someone, somewhere will both see value, and exploit Allardyce’s newfound infamy. Providing him once more with a grotesque salary whilst working in football.
The 61-year-old Allardyce described the England appointment as his “dream job”. Let us hope he now has the courage to wake English football up from its latest nightmare scenario.
After he has had time to fully and properly reflect – for the sanctity of the beautiful game for the founders of the beautiful game most especially - Allardyce has the proper courage to announce he is retiring to the sun of his Spanish villa permanently.
No mas Big Sham.