Today, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee begin their comprehensive inquiry into the failings of English football – in the World Cup, in the 2018 World Cup bid and the general Wild West atmosphere pervading the leagues. Richard Scudamore, who has pound sterling signs instead of pupils in his eyeballs, made a pre-emptive strike on the weekend, exhorting us to remember February 5th (41 goals in eight games) and taunting parliament and the select committee to improve on that. That’s like saying you can’t top the shoot-out at the OK Corral for excitement so there should be no effort to improve law enforcement. This is the man who in an interview made a retort to the claims that the Premier League was bad for the game by saying that Newcastle United and Leeds United were undergoing renaissance – this interview taking place when both those clubs were in lower leagues at the time and thus not under his jurisdiction. Yes, undergoing renaissance when having no more to with him – in his own words! What an idiot.
The Football Association needs overhauling, with more former footballers than the token ex-pro Trevor Brooking to be able to take places in the higher echelons of the decision-making body for a start. The Premier League is only interested in money, which has remunerated handsomely a few hundred footballers with wages even bankers would drool over, while not helping one jot the national team (despite a statement back in the early 1990s that its creation would do so, with administrators giving the go-ahead on that understanding), if not actively hindering it. Let us remember February 5th, in that not a single goal was scored by Richard Scudamore or any at the FA and the only ball kicked by the former was a political one designed to protect his fiefdom, like an eighteenth-century German prince who can be as laissez-faire as they like.