By Tony Attwood
You might recall that on August 18 I wrote a little piece asking if the money from the FA Community Shield game had gone to the beneficiaries – those who suffered in the Grenfell Tower fire.
I expected to be told that the money had gone to the said people, and that I had just been sloppy in my searching. But no, that seems not to be the case. Although others far more knowledgeable about this sort of thing than I came up with details of where other Grenfell money had gone (you can read them following the links from comments in the original article there is no mention of the money from the Community Shield match that I can find.
Now as before let me say I might be wrong. I might have missed it. And in that case all I can say is sorry, and maybe it ought to be made a little easier to find and maybe the FA should publicise the matter more. And one might wonder the media has not picked up on this. I’m hoping my possibly outrageous headline might wake them up.
Especially as this is not the only story around about money and football.
You’ll know I have been exercised about the way tax payers like me funded the Olympic Stadium and how it was given to West Ham for a very modest rent. And how, if they get relegated, the rent goes down even further.
Well it now seems that in 2007 the UK government raided the lottery funds (the money from which should be going to charities of course) to pay for the infrastructure of the London Olympics. Over £400m of lottery grants to charities were removed from the charity payouts and diverted into building West Ham’s Stadium.
The government then and since promised to repay the money to the charities but hasn’t. West Ham of course play on and on. It’s not their problem. They pay £2.5m a year.
Now when I have raised the issue of the stadium before WHU fans have asked what I would have done if Arsenal had taken this gift, and thus not had to go through the years of austerity after building our new ground. I don’t know for sure, but probably they are right. I would not have made that much fuss.
Except I know for absolute certainty that I would have been outraged about the £425m that was stolen from charities, and would have been asking Arsenal – no demanding of Arsenal – to put pressure on the state to give the money back to charities NOW.
It is appalling that a nation such as the UK has to rely on charities to give people help and support they desperately need. But to find that the state has stolen the money that people gave via the Lottery Fund is far too much. WHU didn’t do it, but they are benefiting from it and they really ought to be protesting. As one newspaper put it in covering this story after Untold revealed the scam of the non-payment of the Community Shield money, “from children’s hospices in Scotland, to food banks in Wales or activities for isolated older people in the north-east” this money could make a difference.
To her credit the Prime Minister, in 2005, opposed the idea of the government being able to use lottery money to plug budget holes. She called it a smash and grab raid. Now she’s PM and she is happy to steal charity donations. No wonder the government never does anything about the corrupt practices of the FA. She likes them. They are her style.
In this case there is an action group you can join: the Big Lottery Refund campaign, led by the Directory of Social Change, if you want to help try and get the money to the people for whom it is intended.
But I know that traditionally in Britain, maths is never a strong point. It even seems to affect managers working in England who are foreigners. Just coming to England seems to do it. It must be in the air. Take Tottenham for example.
According to the newspapers (who may have made this up) Mauricio Pochettino is “baffled” by the Uefa regulations meaning he only has a tiny squad for the Champions League.
Eric Dier is considered foreign because he was raised in Portugal. Ben Davies is not considered to be a locally trained player, because association-trained players must have been “registered with a club or with other clubs affiliated to the same association as that of his current club for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons or of 36 months” between the ages of 15 and 21.
And then it seems Davinson Sánchez and Juan Foyth, do not count in Uefa competition as under-21 players as they were not “eligible to play for the club concerned for any uninterrupted period of two years since his 15th birthday by the time he is registered with Uefa”.
Now the rules are the same for everyone, and other clubs are not getting caught out, but it seems that in Tottenham’s case there is a fair bit of blame being put on… well, Uefa. Can you imagine if Arsenal ever made such a cock up? Through the summer the bloggettas laughed at Wenger because he had “too many players”. Can you imagine how much derisive laughter there would have been if Arsenal suddenly found they couldn’t use some players in the Europa? But in fact, we have a whacking great Europa squad allowing us to pick and choose experienced and newer players as and when we want. Tottenham have now sent some of their “unusables” out on loan.
Pochettino said: “It’s true that our problem was to have had 19 players that did not count as home-grown for the Champions League squad [including Lamela and Janssen]. It’s unbelievable that Eric Dier is not home-grown when he’s playing for England. That is so strange, no? It kills a little bit our possibilities.”
Oh how the media would have loved it, if Mr Wenger had said that.
- The strange fantasy world inhabited by some who comment on Arsenal
- Arsenal “fans” turn on Xhaka to criticise him for being… best in the League
- With Arsenal, if everything seems to be going well, you’ve overlooked something
Beginning from their last PL home match against AFC Bournemouth last Saturday 9th September, and up to 1st October when they will play their last game at home against Brighton before the 2nd international break, and taking into account that the Gunners who played in the Bournemouth match are not machine players but human beigns players, would Arsenal then have played 7 matches after playing all these games? I think the answer to this question should be yes. Le Prof, the Gunners, all those officially concerned with Arsenal and us the Gooners know this yes answer too.
But did Le Prof says the Arsenal Europa League match at home against FC Klon on Thursday night’s will be played by his PL team players but with not more than 2-3 of them dropped to play in the match? Among the 2-3 he planned to drop who I think have been forced dropped now due to suspension and injury stopping them to play in this match are, Koscielny and Coquelin. But even then, with the Arsenal away big game against Chelsea lurking around the corner next Sunday afternoon, will Le Prof then ignored the importance for Arsenal to beat Chelsea to the collection of all the 3 points that wiil be stake in that match and not rotate his Gunners but start the same Gunners but 2-3 of them whom he started in the Bournemouth match according to him? But should he instead start the 2nd tier of his senior Gunners team for this match whom I believe with all things being equall with them are more than capable to beat Klon to collect all the points at stake in the match.
Sam
Yep correct on the number of games:
I’ve set out the squad for the next fixture, thankfully we also play at home before the Chelsea fixture.
Ospina Chambers (he is not listed as injured) Monreal to return to full back Mustarfi and Per central with Holding, Elneny and Jack to start with Theo right, Iwobi Left Alexis in behind Giroud as he needs some fitness.
Which most importantly rests: Cech, Koscielny, Bellerin, Kolasanic, Ramsey, Xaka, Ozil & Lacazette, more to avoid a rare injury (Santi).
That would give us 2 startes from Saturdays game and 2 who came off the bench.
At this stage of thr competition, we should be able to play pn thursday and recover for Sunday, in fact at this stage the games in close succession may even assist. If you’ve played and love playing, you know that 2 days is about enough to recover from a match, just not acumulated fatigue and 3 days later you’ve replayed the last match over and over and know what you could have done better and want to simply play again.
The key is to win the first two Europa League games, as the are against the two better teams in our group, the next two are back to back against the weakest. The dividends are paid when and if we pick up 6 points from the opening two games. meaning we will almost certainly be topping the group and can possibly blood Nelson, Chuba and maybe even Niles and Adelaide in Europe, by adding them in at the expense of someone here and there. 12 points from 4 games, would mean we can simply play whoever and whatever in the last two as the other two teams will do the double header in EL matchweek 3-4 and the maximum any one of the two teams could have at that point would be 9 points, the other 3 and our opponents in matchweek 3 and 4; 6. Which would mean we qualify, no matter what, the best case scenario would see us with 12 and the other 3 teams with just 2.
With an even spread and most likely, we would have 12, and the other 2 teams 6 and and the Belarusians 0. Our benefit comes from Bate not in season and Red Star not able to qualify for CL since winning it essentially in 91.
And the Grenfel money, has been appropriated here there and everywhere, the best of it went into financing some luxury apartement purchases, which was actually the governments responsibility. Go figure. My last shenanigans courtesy of the Met Police and Tri Borough including Westminster, H&F and RBKC, lead me to unearth the corruption and plot it’s course through judiciary and councillors, including Education Minister, Wandsworth, I can add in some East Sussex, Amber Augusta territory and yeah, we onto them.
Also just to add the local government authority were well aware of corruption and inadequate builds as early as 2015 as were the police, signed, witnessed and sent recorded.
Belarus is a long way, Serbia is just the other side of Italy, we need to be making life easy before we go to them. It’s where we buy time to focus on the league when we play: Watford (A) Everton (A), LC TBA before the Welsh visit and then City (A) before hosting Spurs.
To add perspective City play Napoli before us, admittedly at home whilst and Spurs take on Dortmund away before us. with a gap of 11 days in-between for internationals.
As I said, the winning of the two opening games of EL are very important, it gives us the opportunity to prioritise the league. We must really win the next 7.
for laughs, the french student of business showed me this…….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-xxis7hDOE.
“I’ve set out the squad for the next fixture”
Thank goodness for that, it saves Wenger and his team the bother of doing their jobs this week. I’m sure Arsene will be happy to take tomorrow off in lieu of your tactical authority.
Dwain Kaye 🙂
My thoughts too and i hope AW and the lads are ready to capitalise on this.
//
I have always been suspicious of most “charities” as my instincts came on line so i am not even surprised that money most usually does not end up where it is meant to. Nothing new there then.
Such misunderstanding of the rules as has been voiced by Spurs could of course be avoided if you have a Director of Football.
Oh wait a minute…..