By Tony Attwood
You might recall I have been a bit miffed previously about the Guardian newspaper in the UK taking the occasional story from Untold. Now the Observer is following suit. (You might like to know that the The Observer is the sunday version of the Guardian and is Britain’s oldest newspaper still being published – and they proved themselves to be very anti-Arsenal during the unbeaten season).
The last time it (the nicking of an Untold story – not an unbeaten season) happened was with the piece we did about the cause of England’s poor showing in the world cup. Untold analysed the number of people in the country, the number of pro footballers, and the number of clubs and coaches in five countries, and showed that it was the coaching to player ratio that was key.
The Guardian ran the same story a couple of weeks later, selecting the same countries, quoting the same figures. No mention of Untold.
Anyway, yesterday’s Observer ran this story (it is now on the Guardian web site here)
“New from the 2018 bid process last week: leaked documents from the joint Holland/Belgium bid setting out what’s in it for Fifa. On the list: Fifa, its officials and partners will receive full tax exemption, covering “all revenues, profits, income, expenses, costs, investments and any and all kind of payments in cash or otherwise” for an “unlimited time period”. (Fifa’s estimated profit from this year’s tournament, via a similar tax exemption in South Africa and charitable status in Switzerland: £2.5bn.)”
If you are an avid reader of Untold, and particular Walter Broeckx’ pieces you might remember this headline on Untold on 4 august
FICK FUFA: Fifa demand their own car lane, no tax, and total control of clothing and street advertising
Walter’s article appeared here and it by and large tells the same story (although the Observer piece doesn’t give you the depth of analysis that Walter always does).
I’ve written to the newspaper and said they are welcome to run the rest of the article as long as they credit Walter as the author, and Untold as the publisher. I’ll let you know if they reply.
But I would say that the Guardian’s report today on the match is good in that if centres on the insane black humour that passes for Match of the Day these days on BBC TV. Although come to think of it, maybe they picked that up from the comments in the “Welcome to Plan C” article. In fact, maybe the paper’s journalists just read Untold first, and then writes up the stories.
Of course it is not the only accurate prediction here – we did
Untold Arsenal doesn’t do transfer predictions but if we did…
on August 19 predicting the transfer of Sébastien Squillaci along with a fuller biog and complete with the acute accent. Most other blogs ran the story at the time so not too much of a coup, but they didn’t get the accent right in most cases – and it is the detail that counts. Hello Sébastien with an accent. I hope you enjoy it here.
In the meanwhile, you can rest assured that you get all the tasty bits here at least two weeks before they reach our ever valiant press corps.
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More stories weeks before they hit the press
Stories that have never ever been in the press
A story that is politically so hot it will never ever be in the press.
Morning, Tony.
Good to see a little truth appearing in the press.
And remember, imitation is the purest form of flattery.
Or do I mean sincerest?
morning tone,
nice way to start the day, speaking truth to power. but i would like to throw the spanner in the works with a little philosophical conundrum: did alan hansen nick his comments on theo walctt last weekend from anti arsenal arsenal websites or the other way round? alan needs untold in his mailbox me thinks! a petition that bbc employees should stop talking shit live on air would suit better
Hahahaha…it should be taken as a compliment. But yeah, they should have the courtesy to say where they have copied it from. Hopefully, they are not copying the comments also!! 😛
Keep up the good work.
Annoying, but I’m glad the Untold message is getting out there, at least. They’ll be found out once they start running Billy The Dog’s articles.
Great stuff Tony. I noticed today that Martin Samuel has finally noticed that the FFP criteria take transfer spending over time (as amortisation). That’s great, as it’s one less pundit prattling on about City “getting their spending done now while they can”.
Now where did he ever get that information from?
Great stuff Tony!
Quick, simple and without any hassle! That is how all transfers should be!! Welcome Squillaci! Though it is very quick to ask but I hope we get to see him start against Blackburn..I hope to see Blackburn out-muscled! The injury to Nasri can well be a blessing in disguise for Rosicky to step up and take center stage! Go Number 7!!
Tony, what do you make of all the rumours of Schwarzer failing a medical at Arsenal? And according to you what are the chances of us adding one more final player in the squad?
This is hilarious. It does really show you that even the big guns are mickey mouse when it comes to sourcing information. But i would really take it as a compliment. Well done guys for the hard work. Please keep it up!
I would also just like to say Tony, for some of your stats. It would be great if you could collect headline reaction (positive or negative) over the season and then list a graph chart of how not only the Anti-Arsenal blogs but news sources are so fickle in reporting. A graph (possibly bar chart) showing the peaks of negativity to positivity, through out the season, when and why the large spikes and also.. and i think this is important.. that the reasoning of the spike became a genuine problem. I guess what i mean by this is when blogs and news articles state that our club is in crisis after one game.. and whether or not the club was in crisis.
Anyway, i have just had enough of the rubbish we get from our club, from “fans” and news
It shows how there isn’t another Arsenal Blog which rivals the class and accuracy of Untold Arsenal. This blog is truly worthy of being my homepage.
That Guardian link .. Lol @Arry .. he twitched and was caught there 😀
I think the fact that they spelled FIFA as FUFA should have given you the clue…. They seem to have dropped the FICK tho’….
Flattery is the sincerest form of imatation, keep up the ggod work.
Oh, completely off topic….can you choose to Amortise a player over one year? If so Citeh may be on to something….
Hash – any suggestion that Schwarzer failed a medical at Arsenal are lies. The medical is not taken until both teams agree a fee and personal terms are agreed upon. Since Fulham and Arsenal both still maintain that no deal has been struck I think we can be 100% certain that whoever is spreading rumours that Schwarzer failed a medical is just trying to generate hits.
Hi Tony,
Can you please do an article and ask the so called Arsenal fans who keep on criticizing Arshavin to back off?
I know Arshavin has been in bad form lately, but he played most of last season with an injury and as central forward in the most physically demanding league in the world when all our other strikers were crocked. Inspite of this he managed a very respectable 10 goals in 30 league games! But more importantly, the way he creates chances for others amazes me (last weekend’s assist for Walcott’s goal just an example).
Arshavin is one of the few people in the world watching whom play football fills me with joy! His touches are so magical. Yes, he does seem lost in games sometimes, but he jsut needs a few moments of brilliance to make it magical!
Please Tony, do an article and ask these stupid twats to shut up and get behind their team!
Congratulations Tony , finally you have their ears!Their eyes have been opened ! They have smelt what you have been cooking (up)! They have come to feed in the trough of Untold wisdom ( just as we did earlier).
Welcome them ,teach them,show them the error of their ways and fill them with awe of all things Arsenal and Lord Wenger.
If that doesn’t work just sue them!