Spurs have dispensed with the man once thought Europe’s hottest guru manager (don’t believe in guru managers). Villas Boas was a failure as manager but he was a mere symptom of their problems. Splurging circa £100m on vagrant misfits should be enough to disguise the fact that you don’t have a sustainable strategy. For a while. But primary responsibility lies with whoever authorised the budget in the first place.
Selling that chap with the funny hair to Madrid went some way towards offsetting the cost of this summer’s acquisitions, but Spurs wage bill for the new arrivals will dwarf the money paid to those who departed. This is the more serious problem.
They are left with players on long and expensive contracts who look like they auditioning for a West End show. Forget about Spurs recouping their ‘investment’, the chances of players attracting contract offers which match the cash the Cockerel coughs up each month is zero.
The Bale money is gone and those new contracts written in the summer will inhibit the club for years. What next: downsizing, or another visit to the roulette table, gambling with even bigger stakes next time?
Here’s what happens when you sell your star player: everyone and their grannie wants the money spent. “The [Insert club name] board need to show their ambition”. This comes from fans, the media, the manager, scouts, family members and every taxi driver in a 30 mile radius. And why wouldn’t they spend an apparent windfall, that’s what the money’s there for, after all.
It’s at this point clubs lose all self-awareness. Reinforced by the success which led to the development and profitable sale of a prime asset in the first place, the organisation’s view of its reach, not to mention competency, is obliterated. “We have spent money well in the past, look, here is the evidence, therefore we can spend this even larger amount of money well now”.
With this belief now orthodoxy, every pore in the organisation secretes an intoxicating scent attracting the club to market. Unfortunately, the rewards for spending big are heady and instant, though they seldom last as long as the hangover.
Directors are celebrated, ticket and merchandise sales get a short-term kick. The manager and coaches get to play with more expensive toys; quite literally, everyone is happy. This is narco-football, only accommodated by ever-bigger hits. For some, this narco-football offers proof that management share wider stakeholder aspirations. I contend otherwise.
The heresy to this orthodoxy reads differently:
Clubs should mistrust their successes, they are evidentially more random than most are prepared to accept.
Windfall transfer income is more likely to draw clubs away from the part of the market they are most competent in. It is an acknowledged fact that sellers and agents literally see them coming.
Don’t go searching for the instant hit, you’re more likely to miss. If necessary, take some short-term pain while using resources to enhance recruitment infrastructure.
Heresy in any area of life is seldom met with quiet contemplation. Narco-football heresy is more likely to be met with a rationalisation that the heretics don’t share orthodoxy’s core values – sustainable success of the football club – no matter how many references to “sustainable success of the football club” they make. It’s Salem-esque.
The orthodox-heretic analogy is evident where three or more are gathered in any club’s name. The first club who manage to unite everyone behind the heretic’s charter will clean up/reach nirvana/find salvation/achieve ultimate enlightenment/do lunch with Tom Cruise.
CQteN St Patrick’s Day Dinner is now FULLY BOOKED. Many thanks for everyone who responded so quickly. We are well on the way to raising the money to build a kitchen and shelter at the Kholoni Primary School in Malawi (for details check here).
Just a few posting days left to order your CQN Annual before Christmas, £5 from every sale goes to the Malawi appeal:
Sean Fallon: Celtic’s Iron Man:
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Spurs signings Paulinho, Christian Eriksen, Roberto Soldado, Nacer Chadli, Etienne Capoue, Vlad Chiriches and Erik Lamela
Looks to me like a £50m pa wage bill on top of the £100m transfer fees.
As I don’t play FIFA2012 or whatever,my knowledge of them was limited to
“Who? How much?!”
Levy reacted like a punter getting a good result by careful gambling at blackjack,who then decided to put it all on one number as he passed the roulette table on the way to the paydesk.
Paul 67
So when are UEFA going to implement FFP for all clubs and leagues, I will hazard a guess, never, to do so the indebted to the hilt and beyond clubs in Spain, England France Italy will walk away and form their own cartel, only this time run by themselves and not UEFA.
More detail is emerging of exactly why the European Commission is charging seven clubs in Spain of being in breach of competition laws.
Valencia were about to go into administration in 2009 and secured a loan from banking group Bankia at the eleventh hour for €74 million. President of the regional government, Francisco Camps, offered to guarantee the loan, as he did with loans to Elche and to Hércules too. The total amount he guaranteed is €118 million.
None of the football clubs has paid any of this money back to the banks from which they borrowed. So far, the regional government has had to stump up €32 million. Francisco Camps is no longer president of the regional government.
This is a Valencian equivalent of the ‘Rangers on the rates’ scenario Paul once warned about.
I don’t see how Villas-Boas can be written of as a failure as a manager. In his short time he has won the league and a European trophy with Porto. He then has hardly had a chance at Chelsea or Spurs.
At Chelsea the long established players done for him as they did to managers before and he wasn’t given the backing to have the necessary clear out.
At Spurs a lot of the signing’s werent even his but Baldini’s and he hasn’t been given time to get to know them and allow them to integrate. He also has been unlucky that the excellent Eriksen has been largely injured. I have no doubts that Villas-Boas will get another job on the continent and be successful. However I think he is probably too cerebral for the EPL and the largely inflated egos of EPL stars cannot get over the “show me your medals” psychology, which is especially rich at Spurs where they largely haven’t won anything.
I know many on here don’t give a toss about events south of the river, but there are others who remain fascinated with their goings on. So for the latter ……….
50,000 shares went for 34p just after 4pm yesterday
Comment one from Share Discussion Board:
“Mccoist is a stooge. What he has done with his shares is no more than a PR exercise The board have control of 54% of the vote. So do not need Allys % of shares to win . But what they do need is a fans favourite to sell season tickets,merchandise etc ;-) And who better than the man who gave his voting right’s to the fans ;-) The fans may threaten to boycott games merchandise ect But When Ally comes out and begs them not to as it will kill THE CLUB they will all come running straight back As Ally is One of their so called own ;-) Master stroke by the board and PR reps ;-)”
Comment two:
“It appears that the “secretive Arabs” who are behind the major Blue Pitch Holdings and Margarita Trust investments (and others) in RIFC are all linked to Albert Abela Jnr, originally from Beirut in Lebanon but now operating out of Monaco and London. Given the three-year suspended sentence that was handed down to Mr Abela in an Italian court in 2008 in relation to the fraudulent bankruptcy of Italian catering firm Gama spA and the €6.8million he agreed to pay back to the administrators of the collapsed firm as part of a plea bargain, there would appear to be reasons to be apprehensive about this news. Not good.”
* livibhoy – god bless wee oscar
12:26 on 17 December, 2013
50 shades of green supports wee oscar and his family.h.h.wee mhan
My family would have disowned me.
Professionals are a funny breed though. The game has changed. Players are happy to pull on any jersey for the cash.
LB
*
Agree mate with that, however got me thinking that if any of my 3 sons ever got the chance to sign for them how would I feel about that.
Then I remembered that they dont exist so I dont have to worry anymore:).
Just one more reason to thank mr murray and his banking friends ( yes I did mean a b there ). :)
Narcolepsy football is indeed a problem
Dontbrattbakkinanger
12:40 on
17 December, 2013
Ex-Rangers star Gattuso, 35, is retired and was sacked by Serie B side Palermo after just six league games as manager.
======
Except for viewers in Scotland, it will be:
Ex-Old Firm star Gattuso, 35, is retired and was sacked by Serie B side Palermo after just six league games as manager.
If the AVB bringing Christmas presents to training for Spurs staff only to be told he was sacked story is true. I may cry myself to sleep
A 70-YEAR-OLD gran has been revealed as the unlikely madam of a brothel.
Isabella Qazi managed the vice den where a string of women sold sex, including “star turn” Winifred Archibald, 61, who worked under the name “Alexis”.
But the flat was raided after a tip-off and Qazi was convicted of brothel-keeping after punters gave evidence against her in court.
A source said: “Qazi was described by her own lawyer as ‘no spring chicken’ and the place she ran was noted for employing more mature women. There was a star turn, Alexis.”
Qazi, from Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow, ran the business – which claimed to be a massage parlour – in a tenement flat in Glasgow’s Dennistoun between 2003 and 2012.
She denied managing a brothel but was convicted unanimously by a jury at Glasgow Sheriff Court last week.
One punter told the court he went there “to have sexual relations”. He said he found out about it via ads in the Daily Sport.
He said there was a £10 entry fee to the flat, adding: “You would get a massage. At the end of the massage, I would be asked if I wanted something else.”
The court heard it was £50 or £60 for sex.
Another man described the prostitute he had sex with as “an older lady”.
He told police: “When I phoned up, the girl said it was Alexis who was working.”
She and fellow brothel worker Agnes Stephenson, 57, known as Marie, both told the jury that Qazi was never involved in conversations about the extra services.
The court heard intelligence led police to the flat and Archibald, who is hard of hearing, was there when it was raided.
Sex toys were found inside and a man who was leaving told police he had just paid for sex.
At Qazi’s house, officers found spreadsheets which showed client numbers and keys and utility bills for the flat.
Officers also found cash, including £500 in a purse and £900 wrapped in a scarf in her bedroom drawer.
Twice-divorced Qazi claimed it was her “funeral money”.
Harry Findlay, prosecuting, said she carried out the brothel-keeping “discreetly” but she was guilty.
He said: “She had staff, regularly attended there and arranged wages.”
Qazi was also secretary of a company called Continuum Scotland – who sell Scots memorabilia
overseas – but resigned last year days after being detained by police. At her £150,000 semi-detached house in Bishopbriggs yesterday, she said: “I’ve never been in trouble with the police before. They came here with a piece of paper and searched my house.
“I worked at the flat for years. I would go in from 11am to 5pm, for example, and would take £10 from the men who came in.
“But I was only the receptionist. I never went into the bedrooms. As far as I knew, the men came for a massage and that was all.
“I also put the adverts in the paper and paid the women – but, as far as I was concerned, it was just massage. I first got involved many years ago when I was in a pub in Glasgow with a friend and a woman came up to me and asked if I wanted to work as a receptionist.”
When asked the woman’s name, Qazi said: “I’m not sure. She moved to America. She changed her name.”
And she asked: “What can I do to stop this going in the paper? The neighbours have already found out and none of them are speaking to me now. It’s terrible.
“I have a son and three grandchildren and they didn’t know anything about this. But my son knows now. He was very upset. He asked why I hadn’t told him.”
Two Mercedes cars with personalised number plates sit outside her house most days.
She said her wealth could be explained by her current companion’s business.
She added: “I live with him but he’s not my partner – he’s much younger than me, he’s my companion.
“He is involved in selling things related to Scotland like whisky and golf and so on.
“He is away in China on business at the moment. He goes there about five times a year.”
Qazi is due to be sentenced next month.
– and just the other day on here ole Jobo was suggestin’ Celtic buy a tenement in Dennistoun to aid our next swoop into La Liga for new talent.
Jings.
Narco Football ?
Spanish and South American plod are investigating Messi’s father re their suspicions that Messi’s father has being allowing his football charities to be used as money laundromats by big boy cocaine cartels. They also suspect that Messi’s father has received a large kickback for his help.
Another example of the “Pop will eat itself” culture in football,the FA have announced that they will not use BA to fly to Brazil,as the airline,get this,expected to be paid for the privilege.
Taking the players and suits,etc to Brazil and back is estimated to be costing around £10m.
Yep,that’s just the flights.
Ffs. Baw’s burst right enough.
Sky are true to form,Gino Gattusso ex-Milan,World Cup Winner,never played for yon deed club apparently,quelle surprise!
HH
Paul,
The sale of McGeady in 2010 and the spend of £10m to rebuild a team is an excellent example of how to re-invest the income in improving the team. Maybe we were lucky but we bought well.
Had we bought a good striker with the Wanyama/Hooper money (one with a history of scoring regularly) instead of two who don’t score regularly and a good midfielder we’d be a much better team than we are right now.
I don’t feel any smugness looking at how Spurs have wasted the Bale money.
We have just been humbled in the Champion’s League and are stuck with a raft of strikers on our books who look incapable of hitting double figures in the SPL.
We need to spend money in January. Not for vanity or simply for the sake of it. We have to spend to buy the goal scoring striker our team NEEDS to function properly.
AVB set to return – to his old job as a Portuguese wee Judith Ralston
Hmmm.
Hard-of-hearing massage worker in Glasgow done for offering sex instead.
“I need a shiatsu,doll.”
Easy mistake to make really.
…..as well as the sex toys, Ms Qazi also later admitted under caution to concealing a very large quantity of Jimmy Shand “albums”……..
…..the case continues.
Livi Bhoy.
Ive retold this story a few dozen times, but for the youngers on here, I rabbit on again.
——————-
For out of towners, when your on your way to Cappielow, and going through the Port, there is an old bingo house called the Plaza, the busses used to take a right there and park all along the shipyards then a 10 minute walk down there.
My faithers family grew up just behind the plaza, in a top floor flat.
2 parents, 14 kids, 4 rooms.
My granny was best pals with a wee woman, who was the McCanns granny.
I think she was called maisie, but i might be wrong.
My granny went to mass with maisie, saint john the bapists, (where antipodean red was christened), almost every morning.
they went to the bingo a couple of nights a week.
from my grannies, she could see maisies house across the back, a much nicer place that the higholm street flats.
the routine would be my granny would tell one of us to watch for maisie leaving the house, then a few minutes later she would meet her doon the front of the close.
my granny hardly ever left the kitchen during her day, so we sat in there one by one, to get the gentle easy interigation, a thousand questions, that had you revealing everying in life, wothout knowing you had.
my granny loved that i loved the celtic so much. just following a tradition, but she liked that i got to most games, she liked how i talked about the players when i was wee.
every year i got a celtic scarf for xmas. with 40+ grandweans, getting a scarf was a big big present.
one day i went in, i was working by now, old mary-anne was very quiet.
i never saw her like this, ever. no matter what trpubles, she was always happy when any of us came in the door.
soup out, i asked , kind of brave to ask “whats up ?”
“och its terrible, terrible, awful thing, its maisie.”
i felt that gut wrench in the stomach, fearing worst, has she gone i thought, what do i say
“whats up granny, what is it”
“her grandsons gone and signed for rangers”
Highs and Lows
Who was/is our brightest young talent ?
Remember reading it was either young george or herron ? Anyone any opinions….
We really need to use the rest of this season to decide if 6/7 of the young bhoys have any future with celtic.
Would also love to see us move for Gauld. Only saw highlights of him but looks like an excellant prospect.
BMCUW
Only three more shifts till a two week Christmas break. Off for a scrape and polish at the dentist now. No booze till Friday. :)
My friends in Celtic,
Personally I would not make the decision that Neil McCann made, although I accept the point that it is very easy for us to debate on here without having a four year contract that would set his family up for life to consider.
We do not have all the facts, family considerations, kids settled at school etc. Travelling and uprooting the family is not for all. However I am aware that many will say travelling is part of the professional footballers job description and comes with the territory.
I do not think that Neil McCann was a great player anyway, but I would not act like followers from the dark side and condemn him on the basis of his Religion and up-bringing.
Another fine article Paul 67, like many on here I would like to see Billy McKay given a chance rather than buying more foreign projects.
Billy McKay is the right age at 25 his fee and wages would not be excessive. He is already a Northern Irish internationalist after realising that he would never get a chance for playing for the country of his birth. He was born in Corby.
HH, Always in Celtic.
St Stivs
Wonderful story :))
God bless your gran, she sounds very much like mine.
greenpinata
13:08 on 17 December, 2013
—
Didnt know he was playing for norn iron… Or has he actually played for them yet ? Republic might jump in
Just saw highlights from his game against hearts at weekend. He looked sharp.
Paul 67
In my opinion that is the finest article you have penned in a long time.
Unfortunately the Orthodox Heresy and the thirst for new bling is deeply embedded in the supporters of our club as much as any, and is as widely represented on CQN as on any other blog.
We signed a number of guys who had been playing midfield for Dundee United (Mark Wilson, Barry Robson, Willo Food) and announced that it was a no-brainer that we should have gone for the likes of Maragaro Gomis, Prince Buaben and Makay-Stevens (whose own manager did not think him good enough for a Scotland cap in a weak Scotland team). We are still chasing the United midfield solution chimera. Now, I admit that Gauld looks different quality to that lot but his different quality makes him a Scott Brown type gamble and not a cheap mistake to get over, if he turns out to be more Marinello than Dalglish.
We bought players like Killen and Riordan who were capable of topping scoring charts at Hibs but we still assume that Billy McKay or Stevie May will be able to do for us what they do for the counter attacking teams they play for.
We invoke the spectre of Steven Fletcher and James McCarthy, the best examples of quality that got away, but we do not speak of David Clarkson, Nick Blackman, Chris Porter, John Sutton, Connor Sammon, Adam Rooney, David Goodwillie, Johnny Russell (being outscored by Craig Bryson at his club), and James McFadden; the other “no brainers” that were touted here as better than what we have.
There is a failed gambler’s optimism in wanting to punt again that leads you to cherish the memory of the few occasions where the “big gamble” paid off by suppressing the memory of the hundred occasions where you lost money, big and small amounts, leaving you in overall debt by a factor of 3 or 4 to 1, even taking your big wins into account.
We employ people to take these risks. To evaluate which signings and at what price. To evaluate when to forego List One priorities because the cost is too rich for our budget and look at List Two options instead. We even need to consider not buying anybody if we cannot see them as worthwhile. I think we would have been better served in the “Willo Flood” window by buying no-one rather than one cheap rarely used midfielder because we had to be seen to be buying.
In pursuing any transfer policy, we will make mistakes. The strategy is to make them as few as humanly possible and to make them affordable.
Your leader links AVB and Spurs as a prime example. I trace Spurs’ impending decline to the management that allowed the Harry Redknapp era, a man who left financial chaos behind at Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth and Southampton before doing the same to Spurs and now QPR.
And yet Harry is a decent manager who was allowed to go rogue by the managers who employed him. I blame every Director and owner of every football club that allowed him to indulge his spendthrift ways, more than I blame Harry and his financial adviser (his dug).
Gauld may be the right buy for Celtic. Finbogasson may be the right buy for us too. But we cannot fill a team full of them. Every buy like that restricts our ability to develop or maintain existing staff and to buy well for other areas of the team outwith our star buy’s position.
There are no “no-brainers”. Football management is more Art than Science. Some managers work well at one club but cannot transfer to another. Some work well in the era they know best and lose it with the financial demands and network knowledge of a new era. The wisdom contained in your article will blow away like a fart in a hurricane, in the week or month before the transfer window opens. We are daft for this new bling and we are not going to let sense intrude on our madness.
Paul67
It’s the old adage Success = Talent + Luck , with luck having a greater say than most managers and players are ever willing to concede, as this is perceived in minimising their professionalism and talent. The usual culprits when success dips are ‘poor performance levels’ , ‘ bad start’ , ‘work rate was poor’ and so on , all logical problems which can be solved.
Our success is subject to a whole series of random events , look at the failures in the transfer market , use our talent to learn from the mistakes , and make less of them , or alternatively just gamble ( speculate to accumulate – Red Top option ) by throwing money at the problem.
Continual learning will improve our effectiveness as an organisation, will increase our talent and success , luck is just well luck.
HH
Selling gareth bale and buying all them players who look average at best reminds of a similar secario we have all been through this summer!
We sold hooper and replaced him with 3 players costing a rumoured near 7 million quid on long term contracts who arent up to the job!..
Greenpinata
13:08 on 17 December, 2013
Billy McKay is the right age at 25 his fee and wages would not be excessive. He is already a Northern Irish internationalist after realising that he would never get a chance for playing for the country of his birth. He was born in Corby.
In the words of my friend, Billy, from Uddingston, when we were off on a night out in Coatbridge – “Could you call me Liam tonight”.
:-)
Orthodox Heresy and the Thirst for New Bling.
The ooooooooooooolllllllllllle Burns Howff was rockin’ that night.
Sadly they were playin’ at Clouds.
DELANEYS DUNKY
About to skoosh my last of the day,also my last till Friday.
As I have said before,I hate Wednesdays and Thursdays.
I look forward to your ramblings in about eighty hours,bud!
Big Nan,
from previous thread, that was a great picture of your daughter in laws family with TB at the Lochgelly CSC night out.
When I did travel a lot as a young bhoy I used to be fascinated with the supporters busses at away games. Taking a wee mental note of the shields, then trying to find out where they are when i got home, on an old fold out map of my grandas.
Lochgelly and Lochee, Oban and Fort Willian, Grampian Emerald (longtime to work out it wasnt a town) still going strong an all.
Maybe I was lucky to be brought up in the Port, maybe it was harder to be a small irish community in these places.
st stivs,
Loved the story, I know that I couldn’t have done it.
My Nanna and Granda lived in Higholm Street in the 70’s, before that up in Bouverie and earlier still in Bay Street, remember some great times as a youngster in the Port. Nanna went to the Plaza regularly, my Granda was secretary of the Hibs late 60s/early 70s.
AR
Incidentally, a certain Joseph Christopher Ledley (at seventeen/eighteen years of age) was earning similar plaudits to young Ryan Gauld . Just a thought!
Regards & Hail Hail
TBM
Looks like Celtic are playing ajax in a friendly tournament in our mid season break in january in turkey! Surely we should have nothing to do with that shower unless we were drawn against them in europe somewhere down the line?
setting free the bears supports Resolution 12 & Oscar Knox:
Death and taxes, the only two guarantees in life. A football team without a striker, I won’t guarantee that team won’t scrore goals but even the most foolish amongst us appreciates that the chances are if we buy a striker, a conventional striker, an orthodox striker, a center-forward, then we are more likely to score than not. I think just about every single football manager in the world, although there is always and exception would agree with that statement.
Are you honestly happy that we got rid of Hooper and never replaced him, projects aside?
By the way, can somebody define narco-football heresy in context of Paul’s post – if Paul is not about – because I’m a wee bit confused to the use of those words and my perceived meaning of his post in full.
setting free the bears supports Resolution 12 & Oscar Knox
I too would’ve settled for signing no one in the “Willow Window” if we hadn’t let Cillian Sheridan go out on loan. Cillian was a limited player but he had scored a few decent goals that season and in our last half dozen games we were simply crying out for another strker to get a goal or two that would’ve taken us over the line.
I’ll never get my head around the decision to let him go without bringing a replacement in.
Celtic are set to playa friendly with AJAX in Antalaya Turkey, during the winter break.
WTF
A little inapprprioate I think.
play
Wee Hiroki Yamada has got a flat in Dennistoun.