A soccer miscellany compiled by
EMMET MALONE
Acting the goat: Beckenbauer takes interest in Köln goings
“Wolfgang Overath has left, Volker Finke is gone, Lukas Podolski will most likely leave. I ask myself: ‘Is the billy goat still there?’ ”
Bayern Munich president Franz Beckenbauer worries aloud about the extent of the clearout at Bundesliga rivals Köln.
“He said football was stolen from England and that a gang has done this. We are not a gang at Uefa and the English are so generous they have given football to the entire planet.”
Michel Platini on Premier League chairman Dave Richards’ charge that Uefa and Fifa had nicked the beautiful game.
“I will not be moving there [Chelsea]. But I do think it is cool I am being named in the same breath as Mourinho and Guardiola. That is enough for me – that is already a personal triumph, but I am not available, sorry.”
Jürgen Klopp of Borussia Dortmund is flattered but no fool.
Gone to the blogs: Celtic finances site makes a less than convincing case
A FEW weeks back we ran a piece here in The Irish Times on Rangers and their (then impending) financial meltdown which drew upon information put into the public domain by the blogger behind rangertaxcase.com.
The author clearly has access to a fair bit of inside information and, more impressively, the documents to stand up his claims. He argues, however, that the Scottish media badly let itself down with the way it ignored all the warning signs – in part, he reckons, because of a desire to stay onside with former owner David Murray.
Now, with the club battling adversity on several fronts, a loyal supporter has sought to ask (and answer) the same sort of tough questions about cross-city rivals Celtic that made rangerstaxcase.comso influential.
We're inclined to be kind, however, and say that celtictaxcase.wordpress.comis still attempting to find its feet. It kicks of with a sort of explanatory QA which includes the following . . .
“Q. Are Celtic guilty of this? When is the bill likely to land at Celtic Park? A. In all honesty at the moment we don’t know but the chances are they are maybe guilty.”
And this . . . “Q. Without evidence how can you speculate they are maybe guilty? A. I’ve done extensive research into those in power at Celtic Park and believe that Dermot Desmond is the man who pulls the strings over there . . . .”
We’re not sure what form the extensive research has taken or what documentation will be produced to back up the claims made but we can say that the following line is included on the Wikipedia page for a certain Irish businessman.
“Desmond is the majority shareholder of Scottish Premier League football club Celtic FC.”
THE REFEREE’S A DRINKER
REFEREES are, it is acknowledged, easy targets for managers, players and fans when things aren’t going well for their sides. Almost all are, of course, only doing their best. There are, however, a few, like Brazilian official José Roberto Marquez, who really can’t complain too much when they attract a bit of flak.
Marquez has been suspended after CCTV footage apparently showed him buying alcohol in a service station hours before a game while “being held upright by girls”.
Being something of a pro he still turned up for the game but, observed Luis António Oliveira, a director of one of the clubs, Batatais: “He had 20 cups of water and kept laughing at the players. He then told a ballboy to take a corner. I felt that was odd.”
MANCUNIAN MIND GAMES
“If desperation is bringing back the best midfield player in Britain over the last 20 years, then I think we can accept that. [But] if you’re talking desperation, they were playing a player the other night who refused to go on the pitch, and the manager said he’ll never play again.
“Then he takes a five-month holiday in Argentina. What is that? Does that come under the description of desperation? Would I have picked him? Do I really need to answer that? No, I don’t need to answer it.” – Alex Ferguson after Patrick Vieira had suggested that the return of Paul Scholes had had a touch of desperation about it.
Ferguson went on the say that if City wanted to indulge in this sort of carry on then he had “plenty of ammunition”. Asked if he was bothered by the prospect of hiS counterpart playing mind games during the title run in, Roberto Mancini observed: “No, because I have a big helmet!”
TONY v ALEX QUIZ
IT’S the quiz the world’s been waiting for. Who said it? The fictional TV crime boss or, eh, Alex Ferguson.
A taster: “All due respect, you got no f****** idea what it’s like to be Number One. Every decision you make affects every facet of every other f****** thing.” Mmmmm, Tony or Fergie? You must decide.
Take the full test at huff.to/yiT2zo and just so you know, Danny Taylor of the Guardian, who compiled a very fine book of Fergie quotes, got 12 out of 14.
Pulis pulls it off: Speeding Stoke boss dodges ban
HATS off to Stoke City boss Tony Pulis, whose long-ball tactics paid handsome dividends at the weekend in the shape of a superb Peter Crouch volley but whose real triumph of the week just past was actually a legal long shot that came off rather nicely.
Nabbed for driving at 96 miles per hour in a 60 mph zone, the Stoke City boss looked certain to lose his licence until he made the case that the judge should weigh the greater good of the local population and business community against, though this bit may have gone unsaid, the potential for a few innocents to be flattened in the event that inadvertently stepped out in front of him.
“A number of them [the city’s traders] are totally reliant on Stoke City, and those businesses would suffer if they were relegated,” his solicitor told a court last week.
“The people of Stoke-on-Trent could suffer if Mr Pulis lost his licence and lost his job.”
Last resort: Real Madrid set up holiday business in UAE
IT CAN be bad enough when households in which football is considered a serious issue divide along club lines with on-field rivalries having the potential to colour every other aspect of family life.
Summer holidays, though, have traditionally presented an opportunity to set such difficulties to one side and so it will be with some alarm that the news of Real Madrid’s move into the resort business will have been met in many quarters this week.
It’s an odd business model, of course, with most potential customers immediately alienated despite the projected €1 billion spend on a themed island in the UAE intended to attract supporters from both Europe and, in particular, it is said, Asia.
If the whole thing works then expect others to follow with the big brand clubs like of Manchester United, Barcelona and Bayern Munich almost obliged to seek a share of the pie. The numbers are less likely to add up for League of Ireland outfits although to be fair, Oriel in the Orient does have a certain ring to it.
