- How Tottenham have declined while Arsenal have progressed
- 15% of the most valuable players in the world play for Arsenal. But…
By Tony Attwood
If you are a regular reader here you might recall that a number of times we have brought up the fact that despite the horrors of the child abuse scandal in football, which left many young players scared for life because of abuse, there is still no Football Regulator in England. Seemingly large numbers of children were abused sexually, while others were exploited, overplayed and consequently injured for life.
But, well… football it seems counts itself as bigger than such things, so best not talk about it. As the picture above, and others that we have published before, shows, the fight for justice for young players who are injured but receive no compensation from the clubs goes on, often run by parents who are getting no support from the authorities in their attempts to hold the guilty to account.
Instead, seemingly whenever a parent tries to get recompense for his/her child’s injury the clubs involved simply put their legal team onto the matter and the case gets blocked.
Now I write that with the word “seemingly” because I’m pretty much left invetigating this issue of the way children are treated in football clubs on my own. And this is ludicrous given that legal cases are still going on in terms of the sexual abuse of children in football clubs. Indeed only last yearJim Torbett the founder of Celtic Boys Club who was already serving six years in prison for abusing pplayers was handed another three year prison sentence.
But aside from reporting the trials, the media has no interest in the broader issue, and how the proposed (but now abandoned by the UK government) Football Regulator could help sort out the problems we have in football.
What is in fact going on here is that there seems to be (and I stress “seems to be” as I don’t have evidence of secret meetings where such matters are stitched up) an agreemeent between the media, the FA, the clubs and indeed PGMO that certain issues are either not mentioned in the media, or if they are mentioned are treated as individual cases. These issues range from the most serious (sexual abuse of young players) to the failure of football clubs to keep proper medical records (as when they claim that the records have been lost, and it turns out that no duplicate set of records has ever been kept).
That such matters can all be kept under wraps arises because there is seemingly an agrement that certain issues should never be mentioned until they absolutely have to be, so the image is kept that everything is fine and ok in football in this country.
Thus as we have mentioned before, in England the PGMO, the referees association is utterly secretive in every regard, in contrast to Germany where after games referees appear on TV to discuss their handling of the match.
The silence over this matter, as with the silence over child abuse, and the unwillingness of the authorities in England to investigate such issues as the playing of children when injuried, can only occur because there is an agreement that each incident is “not news”.
In short, this silence keeps on getting in the way of proper debate. For example, we know there is a lot of concern about VAR in English football. But that’s it; we don’t get any background on the issue. What we are not told in England, for example, is that VAR in Germany, for example is quite different.
For instead of using on-field referees to try and handle the digital side of the game, in Germany they have a team of referees highly specialised in handling digital technology, running VAR. They even have an expert in training airline pilots coming in to train the VAR referees on working together quickly in tense situations to get an immediate decision agreed by all!
In England however PGMO seem to value “experience” so they bring in referees who have been around the game a long time. As a result a lot of VAR’s workings are kept under wraps in England. In Germany, an issue of Der Spiegel, recently had six pages on VAR.
So here is my point from two utterly different landscapes both within English football: the failure to look after children and attend properly to their training in football clubs, and the failure to organise VAR in such a way that the majority of people see it as a benefit and accept the outcomes.
At the heart of each issue is the single concept of secrecy. And this secrecy is there because there are things to hide. If children are treated badly in England in football at one level (turning a blind eye to child sex abuse) so they are at another level (being over trained when injured and not being given proper medical help).
This situation exists because secrecy flourishes in English football in a way that is unknown in German football. And that flourishing of secrecy in football means that when it comes to something new like VAR, so the old timers who are used to secrecy, control it, (and I write that as an old timer myself) get the job of handling it.
As a result of PGMO being secret, many young people who could be excellent referees do not come forward because they don’t want to be part of a secret organisation run by old men.
So why won’t the media pick up on any of this? Basically because fthe English football authorities and the English media don’t want any stories about child abuse or incompetent and error prone referees / VAR officials, getting in the way of the story of football as they tell it.
TV also wants football. The sales of new TVs are in decline, but more football on TV means sales will go up again. And it means alcohol sales will go up too, so the tax authorities like it, brewers like it, pubs like it.
TV manufacturers need all this too, because they are now offering ultra HD TV, and the broadcasters will from now on be making much of this, although just how much more the average viewer will get from ultra HD is not certain.
In short everyone wants football as a positive story because their finances depend on it. And not saying a word about football’s problems plays directly into that scenario.
Given the nature of your articles over the past year you might want to consider renaming the blog tbh
Deep state? Want a foil hat for your birthday?
Al m, thank you for your comment, for it is the sort of comment one often reads if one ever suggests that people are generally agreeing not to cover a particular topic, or only to cover it in one way. And indeed in common with most people who suggest this, you give no alternative explanation for why (for example) referees have such different track records with home and away wins, and yet the media never mention this. Or indeed why PGMOL is such a secret organisation, without even having a website. And indeed why things are done so differently in Germany.
In reality when questions such as these are raised, and answered only bythe “foil hat” type comment, rather than anything more, the prime issue has to be, why has the writer of the comment written in this way, and not actually bothered to answer the question of (for example) why refereeing has progressed in one way in Germany, and such a different way in England.
Although one could also ask, why have you decided to respond with an insult, rather than answering such questions.
Al m, how ironic that a Lefty should insult a fellow Lefty with the tiresome “thin-foil hat” slur. What on earth are things coming to?
If you were not so blinkered, you would see the idea that “this silence keeps on getting in the way of proper debate” and”this secrecy is there because there are things to hide” applies not only to football but equally to politics and many other politicized spheres of our increasingly dystopian society that you seem to wish it 7o defend.
End of last line should read “to defend”, of course.
Well stated, Tony
Cogent and non-partisan
Thank you Ando