BALE TRANSFER SHOWS FOOTBALL HAS GONE MAD.

The conclusion of months of gossip about the possible move of Gareth Bale from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid must come as a huge relief to many people. It's been clear for several weeks that Bale was on his way out of White Hart Lane, with Tottenham anticipating the sale by spending enormous amounts in the transfer market; now that Bale's gone, this outlay has been recouped and their accountants must be happy once more.

 

The real question is whether anyone who kicks a football around can be worth paying £85.3m for, and whether they can be worth paying £15.6m per year in wages. In my view, the answer is an emphatic "NO".

 

We hear and read much about greedy bankers and other business leaders who receive large salaries and bonuses, though few of these came close to the numbers now routinely bandied about in the world of football. Those who run major multinational corporations are often responsible for many thousands of employees and company budgets of many billions of pounds; whole economies may depend on their success or failure, as we discovered when banks began to fail 5 or 6 years ago. The people who have ultimate responsibility within such vast entities need to be the best and that means highly paid, but even they are not paid the staggering sums received by some sports 'stars'.

 

When it comes to sport, matters should be rather different. Those who choose to follow this largely selfish and egotistical path do very little to manage anything, create employment or enhance the world in any other tangible way; in fact, it seems that their primary purpose is to fleece the poor supporter out of as much money as possible while becoming enormously rich for doing what they themselves most enjoy, be it playing football, tennis, golf, basketball or a myriad of other essentially pointless games. They are the true parasites, not the bankers.

 

Gareth Bale is a great footballer but is he worth paying £85.3m for ? Certainly not. Is he worth paying £300,000 per week as has been reported ? Of course not, it's a ludicrous amount of money to pay someone for playing a game, no matter how good they are.

 

The world has gone mad.

NANI FOUL DESTROYS UNITED'S DREAMS.

I do love to see Alex Ferguson get into a bit of a 'paddy'.

 

Last night's match between his team, Manchester United, and the Spanish superstars of Real Madrid was a good encounter. Both sides had their moments and it was a pretty even game; there were several near misses at both ends and the result was, quite possibly, determined by the sending off of United's Nani.

 

At this point, of course, opinions diverge. The ITV studio crowd began their discussions with presenter Adrian Chiles referring repeatedly to the referee's shockingly bad decision; Lee Dixon backed him up and Gareth Southgate sat firmly on the fence. Thankfully, Roy Keane brought some sanity to the debate by stating, quite unequivocally, that Nani's ultra-high boot was 'dangerous play' and the referee had no choice but to send him off. Watching the replay from all of the angles available from the multitude of cameras in use, one has to agree; the tackle was dangerous, the referee was right and so was Keane.

 

The trouble is that Manchester United are 'our side' and they'd lost; most of the studio group felt obliged to find an excuse for the defeat and someone to blame. The referee was it. Alex Ferguson, for once, declined to be present for the usual post-match interview and sent his deputy along. Ferguson was reported to be too distraught after the events of the night; one suspects he was actually in such a tizz at what he would undoubtedly have seen as outrageously bad refereeing that he didn't trust himself, or his colleagues didn't trust him, not to create yet more disgraceful headlines by opening his mouth.

 

United may have been a little unlucky on the night but they can't blame the referee for their misfortune. Nani was in the wrong, disastrously so as it turned out, and 2 moments of brilliance from Real's stars turned the tie and sent United crashing out of the competition. Come on Alex, accept it and move on.