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How To Clean Up Football

In the ultimate expression of Blair’s victim culture (C)Ashley Cole is apparently now feeling ‘victimised’ after Chelsea have threatened to fine him a whole two weeks wages (a paltry £200k for him) for tarnishing the club’s image according to the Telegraph. Someone close to Cole seems to have responded by ‘linking’ Cole with Real Madrid and Barcelona — the implication being, as he revealed in his autobiography, that Chelsea ought to be grateful that he deigns to stay with them.

He’s apparently upset that the club has supported Terry in his marital problems when he’s been fined. Terry appears to have got his wife’s backing (in public at least) whereas Cole can’t really be surprised that his high-profile spouse doesn’t particularly like being made to look a fool in public. He should also remember how he’s not exactly worked hard to cultivate respect from the public either — with his famously greedy reaction reported in his autobiography to being offered ‘only’ £55,000 a week by Arsenal.

Apparently Abramovic is not too impressed with Cole’s effect on PR.

Cole isn’t even particularly popular with Chelsea fans either. Most probably wouldn’t be sad to see the back of him. Maybe the the Premier League should consider how the wider reputation of footballers has been tarnished and fine clubs in this position with a points deduction. As it’s not a first offence for either Cole or Chelsea then a 6 points would be fairly reasonable.

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Curse of Internet Streaming — I Hope

Those who paid out £11.99 for watching a blurry picture on a computer will have been rewarded by being first to see a thoroughly poor performance by England. I followed the highlights saga in the news and wasn’t too surprised to see the BBC showing the highlights at short notice but it seems very dodgy that they, in effect, colluded with the spivs who were streaming the match on the Internet by keeping quiet about the highlights being shown until after the last kick.

England were lucky not to lose 3-0 at least — with a missed penalty, the woodwork being hit and James making some spectacular saves. Nonetheless, they created quite a few chances with ten men. There are some who think that that England won’t be too sad if the result means that Croatia miss the playoffs when the final results are in on Wednesday. I’ll be a little sad if it means less chance of Blanka Vlasic making an appearance but that might be compensated by the likes of Eduardo missing out.

I wonder if we’ll ever be told how many people paid to watch this miserable non-event but it’s heartening that Rio ‘The Wanderer’ Ferdinand and Cashley Cole seemed to treat the occasion with the contempt that maybe comes of thinking that one man and his internet dog are the only ones watching.