SENTINELCELTS

“The purpose of business is to kill your competition, the purpose of sport is to revive that competition yearly”
Mark Palios (Former FA Chief Executive)

It’s currently halftime and the former is ahead by three, however having been given a rude awakening Sport is expected to come out strong.
Every decent fan should hope so.

I’ve watched the beautiful game sink lower and lower, team after team fall by the wayside only to be replaced by another living the dream, their direction dictated by foolish owner after foolish owner.
There’s one common denominator.
Money.

I’ve yet to see a team reach the pinnacle through it’s owners deep pockets, and include our own club here. I for one am extremely satisfied Dermots wedge isn’t needed, but soo many fans aren’t in that same boat.

The sport originally ‘allowed’ three global giants to emerge, yet all three struggle today. Facing challenges to that model by the obscenely rich, the authorities crumbled and allowed some randoms to be snapped up and propelled to superstardom almost at the stroke of a pen.
Success of the desired level remains outside their grasp.
There’s a lesson there but I assume people with more money than us consider themselves wiser. Their mistake.

Putin’s war in Ukraine has had a few ripple effects, and our beloved game is not immune.
Eddie Howe’s choice of club isn’t looking very wise right about now. Newcastle are the latest institute to fall under intense scrutiny after the Chelski owner/bankroller was turfed out of the game.

Supporters of Scottish football know only too well what unsustainable reaching for the stats can do having witnessed one of the nation’s giants die under a mountain of debt, only for the root of all evil to intercede and demand a respawn.
That there’s any form of Rangers still around today boils down to money pure and simple. The money the game would lose without them and especially the income their world famous rivalry produced.

With clear evidence money (via chasing it or splurging it) harms clubs and the game in general, one would imagine a break even policy would be top of every Chairman’s agenda, but we know that’s not the case.
It should be every supporter’s goal for their club, but we know that’s not the case.

Chelsea fans don’t wish to return to being merely a good team. Having watched their team become the current European and World Club Champions, added to vying for the title almost yearly, they have little desire to take a step back after hitting the big time, despite it being in their best interests.
Across the city there’s clearly no wish to be self sustainable. I’ve often read that club and it’s supporters shall point blank refuse to become the Espanyol of Barcelona, which probably awaits if they did tighten the belt sufficiently.
Faced with the prospect of their flagship product diminishing under regulation, the authorities wash their hands of the issue, turn a blind eye and hope for the best.
Despite it being in their best interest to avoid having to sell another respawn to the football pyramid, surely a very difficult task.

Football needed a wake-up call, and a foreign war has provided one, unlikely bedmates but there you go. When the biggest club in the world lost it’s biggest star because they couldn’t afford to register him, it was time to act.
When FIFA was found corrupt, it was time to act.
When Rangers died it was time to act.
When Bury died for real it was time to act.
It was time, it was time, it was time, yet the sports shot callers didn’t act.
Now they must.

I’ve watched the sport of kings boxing fall of it’s perch as the globes biggest, seen America favourite pastime Baseball suffer hugely due to a fixed World Series then steroid use. The NFL is regularly accused of referee bias, most recently in it’s flagship game with a dubious call that probably cost one team Superbowl glory, despite numerous replay angles and officials on the field.
So it wasn’t that hard for football to emerge at the head of the pack, now truly the world’s game. Yet now we witness the same shenanigans and lack of a moral compass that cost other sports their reputation and statute, behavior more likely to disenfranchise supporters rather than swell numbers.

If it wishes to stay the number one sport, it must get it’s act together, sooner rather than later. Others have fallen by the wayside and the beautiful is certainly not immune to that fall.

But like I said, it’s halftime, or at least that’s how I view things.
The beautiful game can strike back.

Think what you wish of Messer’s Carragher and Neville but they have a popular platform and their views are widely heard. I think they often speak sense and none more so when Garry admits below his opinions of ‘his’ league have broadly shifted now, he no longer sees it as a role model to be imitated by others, but as needing fixed. His opinion current events shall force through the proposed Independent Regulator is music to these ears and hopefully yours.

When (not if) it’s implemented down south the lobbying for similar structures up north must begin in earnest, and from every direction. That means telling the club and your MP, maybe joining groups that aim to drive this crucial legislation through into law. It means not settling for whatever is served up, but taking an active stance for the betterment of the national sport.
A clean and morally acceptable game in England would surely gain more of a foothold up north if not challenged or reacted to.

Break even to gain license,,
Salary Caps,,
Adult beverages at games,,
Season ticket cost restrictions,,
Membership Service,,
More sponsors on the jersey,,
Foreign refs,,
I could go on but nothing should be off the table, not without severe scrutiny of the possible benefits any act could bring.

We all know our own club of choice became the biggest fish in the pond organically, and therefore any prize money is honest and well earned. However it’s a fact the Champions League money can and does skew leagues, many of them.
This in particular needs to be tackled and should the solution require the participating clubs to forgo some of those megabucks and allow them to trickle down then so be it. The ‘big boys’ shall not roll over easily I understand, but c’est la vie, when are they ever happy?

However innovation starts at the very top and that’s one word you never read associated with the two powers that be. For starters that’s one power too many, the SFA and SPL must either merge or be replaced, and what comes next better offer a lot more bang for buck.
The Blazers for the Boys and junkets galore must cease.
The mouths in the trough must be significantly lowered.
And income must be increased via innovation.
An Independent Regulator or body must fix Hampden, and that shall be their biggest battle.

The rags as always shall take a side, apparent or not. Faced with their beloved team forced to break even and thus the green side of the city romping home more often than not one doesn’t need to be Nostradamus to envisage their slant.
Any Regulator shall need thick skin at the minimum, flawless credentials at the maximum, but shall face pushback from the press pack as sure as James Bond gets the girl. I hope they view it as part and parcel of the position and don’t budge an inch, all while calling it straight down the middle armed with a new set of laws alongside giving off the aura of Justice.
A strong foreigner is called for.

Our beloved game is truly in a state of flux, infact the entire globe feels as if it’s in a state of flux right now, but with change comes opportunity, a wise man once said.
Football has changed since I was a boy, has changed since I was a man, but it’s been handed it’s big chance to right itself and truly embrace being the world’s game for generations to come.

For this second half, Sport needs a new gameplan.

By Mahe.