The FA is fairly strong on the Tottenham supporting front. Or at least it was until naughty Lord Triesman was taped by a bimbo spilling the beans about the way the pesky Russians and the Spanish are bribing world cup refs.
Tottenham-crazed Triesman is now yesterday’s news (a bit like the club he supports) – but fear not. The FA’s position on Tottenham won’t be diminished. They still have Tiny Tott Sir Keith Mills on board – he is a Tottenham Hotspur non-executive director.
But having only one Tottenham supporter in a senior position in a FA committee would never be enough, and so already Lord Sugar of Tottenham has nominated himself (on the basis that no one else will) so that two Tottenham Hotspur men are in charge of FA activities vis a vis the world cup.
Now I don’t think I am talking behind anyone’s back if I say that Fifa – the organisation that runs the Bent World Cup – is corrupt. If you want to know more about that just go to google and type in Jack Warner corruption, or if you want a really detailed story, just click here for a transcript of a Panorama report into Fifa corruption.
Tottenham – FA – Fifa – corruption – it sort of hangs together somehow, although of course I make no allegations – just note the coincidences.
But Fifa has been found guilty in the American courts of lying and duplicity and no one can doubt what happened over the scandal outlined in the Panorama report.
So, as Untold publishes a story showing the useless refs are being given world cup roles (see Rewarding Loyal Refs for Dreadful Decisions) it is not hard to see where international football is… It is in the gutter, but unlike Oscar Wilde’s Lord Darlington, none of those involved are looking at the stars. Indeed it is unlikely whether there is a person in the FA, or Fifa, who has a clue where the stars are.
I don’t think any of that is particularly interesting or new – and if you are a regular reader of Untold (and my deep thanks to you if you are) you will know that I’ve run just a few dozen of the vast number of Fifa corruption stories on this site.
But here’s something new – and I am not sure the papers are making too much of this…
When the story about Lord Triesman saying that Russian and Spain were busy bribing refs for the world up finals, what did the FA do?
(The FA, lest we forget, apart from being a branch of the Tottenham Hotspur supporters’ association) is the organisation responsible for the English world cup bid, and responsible for running the FA Cup, and responsible for running the amateur game in the UK. It also runs Wembley – she of the famous pitch).
This is what the FA did….
The FA tried to get a court injunction on privacy grounds to prevent the story being published.
Shall I run that story again? Well, no, ok you got it first time – the FA’s response was not to
a) present evidence to show that the allegation was true
b) say the man who made the allegation was clearly a loony who should never have been there in the first place, and sack him
No, they tried to hush up the story.
This approach has been replicated to a lesser degree by the broadcasters in the UK who have invested money in broadcasting the world cup. Anxious to protect their commercial properties BBC Radio 5 has been running stories about how people are not going to buy the Mail on Sunday (the extreme right wing “paper” that broke the story in Britain) any more, because the Mail on Sunday was unpatriotic. (Actually, you can call the Mail on Sunday a lot of things, but unpatriotic is something they are absolutely not).
No one, but no one, that I have heard so far in the media has said either
“Well, Fifa is corrupt as we know, so is this ref fixing actually going on?” or
“Here are the steps being taken by Fifa to ensure match fixing is not going on.”
No, what the media and the FA are saying is, “how can I get my snout in the trough?”
It is a sign of just how far down the FA has sunk into their gutter that its instant response to the activities of one of its members is to try and get an injunction. They should be used to old men in the FA having relationships with young women, having had Sven and others on board for some time, after all.
Triesman joins four chief execs who have left the FA in the past eight years – not a good record. His record as chairman in the FA was awful – not least because he totally failed to implement the idea of having independent directors on the FA – the one last chance the FA had of regaining any credibility or respect.
He did, to be fair to his noble lordship, actually come down on the side of the argument against massive EPL debt, and actually used the £3bn figure for the debt (the EPL generally put it way under £2bn). But then Tottenham declare no debt, since all their accounts are hidden in the Virgin Islands. So he would, wouldn’t he.
So, what now?
The battle between the EPL and the FA is being fought out between the press and Sky (pro EPL) and the national broadcasters in Britain (ITV and BBC) who are pro FA (because they run FA Cup and bent world cup games).
Aleksey Sorokin, who runs Russia’s bent world cup bid has asked Fifa to investigate the FA, which could be fun. Each side could send in their call girls to tape each other I suppose.
My prediction is that England’s FA will stumble on, looking after its own, making fools of themselves. I tried to get odds on that prediction coming to pass, but the bookmaker just laughed at me.
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Untold Arsenal: the home of Arsenal stories
More corruption stories:
Fifa rewarding the loyal refs for their loyal decisions
The origins of corruption in the football league.
Arsenal play the champions and the rest of the league cry “foul”.
Tottenham Hotspur: the dark history.
Chelsea: fixing a way into the football league without ever playing a game.
Read the full story of how Tottenham tried to claim that Arsenal fixed their promotion in 1919
What happens when you try to grow some silly Sp*ds in a toxic swamp?
What are the odds on the Spammer’s being ‘gifted’ the IOC’s center for track & field excellence after the change in government? Gilbert and George thought they were the East End’s only eccentric cliched comedy duo. (super boring ‘art’IMO.)
I bet they never saw Sullivan and Gold coming.
Hmmmm….I think I might have to head on down to the bookies myself. Although, when I saw another friend this weekend, who’s been setting odds for one of the big bookmakers for over a decade now , he did remind me, that, for some bizarre reason…he never bets!
the mail on sunday is certainly not an unpatriotic paper. far from it. it has to be the most bigoted pro english rag at the newsagents.
but i am rather interested in their motives for printing this story.
the recording was made 2 weeks ago, so why wait until the bid was submitted before they published?
whatever anyones feelings on the fa, fifa etc, we all have to agree that england getting the world cup in 2018 would be a massive financial boost, and would only be good for england. why then is the mail intent on destroying the chances of this happening?
in the article, they wax lyrically about triesmans communist past and his friendship with tony blair. i think they believe that their need to crap on a commie is stronger than the nations need for the world cup.
i hate injunctions, super injunctions etc., but i really believe that it would have been better for gallagher (the mail reporter) to have said nothing at all. after all it was a private conversation between a woman and a bloke who was trying to impress her.
who of us have not been in a similar position and found that our tale is a bit tall.
i personally dont care who is shagging who, it’s your work performance that counts. triesman was involved in a long battle with the epl about debt and fit and proper issues. it’s very handy for the epl that he has gone because these discussions on these issues will have to be started again and so we have another few years of no change.
and one last point, the mata hari figure in this story professes to be an arsenal fan…. i hang my head in shame, she probably reads legrove.
My guess is jusging by his ‘Lord’ moniker his communist past is a long long way behind him.
A significant number of people have questioned Triesman’s understanding of football let alone being at the helm of a world cup bid. Recall his brown nosing of Mr Corruption, leader of the opposition in Trinidad & Tabago.
That a politician cannot control his bragging and play at being a politician is of no real surprise, as is the revelation that he supports the Spuds….
As I am not from England and I don’t have any notion on who is who for me the main point is that a high placed person speaks openly about country’s trying to bribe refs in order to gain something (be it a world cup or the right to organise the tournament).
Tony asked a few weeks ago : if there was corruption in football who would bring it out? It looks like it has to be the Mail on Sunday. 😉
But for the rest no one seems to care about the heart f the matter and the questions :
Are refs being bribed in order to achieve such things?
Do country’s work together when it comes to bribing refs?
Why does an high placed person talks about this?
Does he know it happens? What? Where? Who? When?
Who is doing it with who in the bedroom is not that important for me.
And the way the rest of the media jumps on this to get the lid back on the hush tells me that they are not interesting in those questions.
And then I ask myself: why? Selfinterest?
I agree with Walter.
That questions need to be answer.
If you managed to get through the BBC text and need some more info on the scale of two timing that goes on, try this (in reasonable bite size chunks) http://www.transparencyinsport.org/
Triesman apart from being a spud, (not to mention an old boy of the school I attended!), is not an absolute mug and what he was saying, pillow talk or not, strikes me as being far from idle chit chat. It seems a trifle unfair that the tart that shopped him, the MoS, and worse, the actual implications get swept under the carpet whilst he has to fall on his sword.
I’m not sure what Lord Wotsit being a potato has to do with anything but on Sunday morning this was almost a unique scandal…….one in which absolutely everybody involved was losing out!!!!!!
Quite brilliant as there is normally someone who comes out on top in such situations.
1. English people/businesses lose out if we do get the World Cup.
2. Lord Wotsit resigns.
3. The alarmingly plain woman doesn’t get enough dough (£75,000) to warrant being public enemy number one.
4. His wife learns about her husband’s actions.
5. And his daughter.
6. 99.9% of blogs on the Mail website rip into the paper for printing it and swear they won’t buy it again!
I’ll say it again, on Sunday this was almost a unique situation……until I heard the news yesterday.
Yes, people, there’s one person who won’t be losing in all this……I give you MAX CLIFFORD.
Brilliant!
I heard some french-sounding bloke from FIFA on 5live saying they were going to investigate Triesmann’s alleged allegations.
Not that a FIFA internal ‘investigation’ would do much good…
Story today saying that the ref for the England – USA game was reported to FIFA some time ago by some Brazilian officials for perhaps not being the most reliable and honest of chaps……….I think the word ‘scoundrel’, amongst others, was used. Apparently awarding penalties was an art he occasionally found challenging…….
Perhaps this is the outcome of the FIFA internal checks?