SENTINELCELTS

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/56236872

How the mighty have fallen! Or maybe todays perfect example of power corrupting, but either way the fall and scandal surrounding arguably the biggest club in the game is a very worrying sign of the times.

For a club some 600 million in debt, illegal practices and arrests of some board members will be the very last thing wanted, but it is clearly necessary. The mighty Catalan bastion will have to take two steps backwards now, in order to go forward later, and vie for the pinnacle once again and without their talisman.

For many fans it is the home of football.
If asked to imagine the beautiful game billions would close their eyes to conjure a Messi drop of the shoulder and dink followed by that famous roar.
And that’s why this particular episode is so galling, even the very biggest and best the sport has to offer just couldn’t stay clean.

It raises huge concerns about the membership model adopted by the blue and red. The will and desire to hold onto the reigns of power brought those men to cross the line, morally and legally, and in being able to influence future votes by spreading online propaganda, they’ve exposed a massive flaw in the members voting system. They also tipped everyone’s hand that type of thing can and will happen, it’s up to us to see through it.

Can’t say I’m a regular visitor to Barca websites but let’s assume they are along similar lines to the Celtic ones for the sake of the argument.
One night the regulars of SentinelBarcas would have been working out who is staying and going, is liquidation a possibility, would Real push for their death or restoration etc etc.
And bam ‘lurkers’ galore come out of the woodwork insisting everyone was wrong and they better vote their versions of Dermot, Peter, and Bankiers back in.
This message is backed up by other lurkers and then broadcast repeatedly, ‘strangers’ with an agenda hogging the website stifling debate.
Of course we would see through it, and when you notice all the websites are undergoing such a metamorphosis, it wouldn’t take a genius to work out it’s coordinated and it wouldn’t be long before fingers get pointed at the boardroom. Few would have guessed their season books paid for the trick though.

I’m delighted for the Barca support seeing some justice on that front, justice I wouldn’t be confident of being meted out in Bonnie Scotland, and indeed part of me feels what all fans of football up north have been served up recently isn’t that different from this sorry tale.

We know our top clubs manipulate the online and regular media to frame the narrative and control the talking points. Whether it’s a blog offering ‘protection’ for snippets, Jabba demanding certain questions are off limit or the press conference is over, or perhaps the radio phone in show where some callers are clearly plants and those who present a rational argument are derided then blacklisted. The media is the first line of defense.

Laws may or may not have been broken, but then people weren’t looking that hard for that evidence, but they were certainly bent, skirted, and toyed with.
After all EBTs were judged to be a form of tax avoidance, MASH won his court case, throw in a few malicious prosecutions, and of course Res12 and yes we have clear similarities.

One of the nations giants has been humbled from a position of supreme power not that long ago and must now begin the process of a major rebuild almost certainly while watching it’s eternal rival and it’s support reveling in the success and your clubs fall from grace.

Should that huge club fold under the weight of it’s debts, would the famous ‘duet’ die and with it the world renowned clash of the titans? Or would they be deemed too big to fail by authorities who see the dollar sign over sporting integrity?

Yup, the similarities are striking. It looks like suits everywhere just can’t be trusted, and it’s the average fan on the street and the sport that suffers the worst.
Barca going bad is the biggest signal yet the beautiful game itself needs more control and oversight.
The current level of supervision just ain’t cutting it, now we have giants succumbing, and of course some clubs willing to go completely bust so satisfy egos.
Our own club of choice, unfortunately, got it’s hands dirty in it’s dealings, turning a blind eye (Res12) making our board complicit.
There’s no more evidence needed, the game is getting dirtier.

The bankers showed us all what happens if unchecked, but football hasn’t fallen off the cliff yet. Before it does, someone must force heavy regulation upon it, much heavier than what we have ever seen.
That’s two of the globes great footballing spectacles have now been close to permanently ending, showing what’s at stake and the level of codependency.
The Serial A scandal should have taught big lessons but no,,its gotten worse when here in Scotland we have offences just under the level of match fixing and a sectarian referee representing us at headquarters.

Whether a commissioner or a committee,
something has got to happen now that football is officially eating itself.

By Mahe.