Flat Stanley

‘THERE is little denying that football finances are in the doldrums. Looking past the only big money signing of the close season, money has not been the big news it once was.

‘And we’ll trhow in this delightful football ground for free…’

Real Madrid have bought no one of any note; Lazio and Roma have four more days to solve their debts – or else be barred from the forthcoming Italian league season; rumours abound that PSG, France’s most glamorous club, is to be sold by its owners Canal Plus to raise much-needed funds; and even players’ agent Sports Entertainment And Media Group has warned that a lacklustre transfer market would hit its results.

And if the top end is looking less than glossy, the bottom end of football’s ladder is faring worse. The effect of the debacle over ITV Digital is still being felt, and nowhere more keenly than Burnley, where the entire squad has been put up for sale.

Immediately after the television rights issue went sour, Stan Ternent, Burnley’s chairman, put six of his team on the transfer list. But reality has begun to bite hard, and now the rest of the team are anxiously eyeing the door marked ‘EXIT’.

But what’s on the other side? If Burnley, a good-sized club that did quite well in last season’s Division One, is in the mire, what hope is there for the likes of Stockport County and Bournemouth?

Very little. Players are released, but their kindly owners are letting them go on the hard shoulder of the M1. But needs must, although Stan Ternent gilds the poison chalice in a conversation with Sky Sports.

‘We are not desperate but after what happened with ITV Digital, we budgeted for £3million and we only got £700,000 so we’ve had to address that.’ He continues: ‘I have a pretty strong squad of players and I would have liked to have strengthened, but in light of what’s happened I could have to sell, we’ll see what happens.’

And of the players? ‘Somebody could offer a lot of money but maybe the player would want to stay – at the end of the day it would be the player’s decision.’

Of course it is, Stan. And in the real world, which clubs are going to pay big money for average players who play for a club that needs the cash? Oh, for more in the mould of David O’Leary, eh Stan?

And Stan’s current players might cast their eye at the departing Paul Gascoigne. Gazza, who played for Burnley in 2002, is off to earn a reported £5,000 a week in the US’s Major Soccer League retirement home.

The ‘Major Soccer League’. Hmm, with a name like that it must be good. Not the Minor League or the Mid-sized League but the Major League. The game is football, but the name of the game is marketing. And the down-at-heel British version could take a tip from its American variant.

Anyone for the Phoenix League? Or what about the Great League? Yes, that’ll do it. The Golden Fleeced League it is. ‘

Posted: 26th, July 2002 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink