So, Beckyboo has escaped action from the FA: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/3754942.stm Wait for it - what will Spazz Bleater have to say?
--- My only partly blinkered perspective is that FIFA have uncommonly paid due attention to the original 'hit' that Thatcher put on The Man From Essex. Someone rightly concluded that Beckham was entitled to let Benji know he couldn't get off scotfree.
I hope they either don't appoint a new chief exec, or appoint a good lad who doesn't give a **** about the media. Having a face at the FA gives the media someone to target to put pressure on or sway like they did to that fool Palios.
Sensible? "Insufficient evidence" ... HE SAID HE DID IT!!! Only at the FA would a frank and willing public confession be classed as "insufficient evidence". I mean, OK, deciding not to charge him with bringing the game into disrepute is probably best in and of itself (if only because the charge itself is such a wanky premise) but let's not give credit where it most certainly is not due. This is quite without question yet another episode that makes the FA look like utter, utter cretins. I mean ... if you've not got the clear disciplinary parameters by which to take on this obvious disregard for sportsmanship then don't fucking get involved in the first place!! What possible train of "thought", what hideous malformation of process and procedure can lead an organisation to spend two weeks navelgazing on as cut'n'dried an issue such as this, only to then announce that nothing will be done!?!? And to announce that on the basis of as laughable, as discreditable a reason such as this? I mean, they might as well just hold a weekly press conference at which they all announce that, yes, they're all still fuckwits. These people need to be sorted out. I don't know by whom, but by God they need it. They need someone with organisational competence, talented in running a major organisation with procedural clarity and, most importantly, with political inviolability. They need a slim, professional management structure, with a remit to change the rules, the procedures and the weighting of representation to ensure that the highest reaches of the game are run in a manner befitting their multi-billion pound professional stature. The rest of the game needs to be run by an equally dynamic, probably separated structure, an "Amateur FA". It must have as its remit the iron-fisted administration of the various yokel factions that are currently still in charge of the FA as a whole. The whole current structure needs to be gutted, the County FA's need to be sent packing back to the fucking Shires. There's no excuse for the laughable reality that all those crusty, well-meaning but inherantly ineffective amateurs can continue to use their doughty work at the regional and local level to justify their meddling in the upper, professional echelons of the game. What business does some retired bank manager from County Durham with 25 years experience running the Willesden FA Youth Committee have on an administrative body that runs the national sport at the national level? As things stand, the FA is characterised by a level of incompetence, disregard for basic common sense and total indifference to the real world that cannot be allowed to continue at what is after all the summit of our national game's organisational structure. Thing is - this has been a problem for nigh-on 35 years now. The FA has been a complete mess, a parochial, fusty body of incompetent amateurs for longer than most of us have been alive! And I know the old adage, "Turkey's don't vote for Christmas". But that's why turkeys don't get a fucking vote, they get their necks snapped by a mechanical killing machine and then they are disembowelled, plucked, wrapped in clingfilm and sold to Tesco's. And at no stage of this process are they asked how they feel about the whole deal!! Recent "improvements" earn nothing but a hollow laugh as well. All they've done is stuck a highly-paid, expensively accommodated veneer of professionalism on the top of the creaky, arthritic skeleton of the game's national governance. We still don't have competent administrators rolling out clear-minded strategies. We just have glossy management executives and apparently lobotomised "media professionals" running around Lancaster Gate playing at being football folk. And that's the charitable view. One could be tempted to make a case for the equally realistic view that Lancaster Gate is now staffed by a cabal of cynical, exploitative profiteers from around London's "management industry" who see the national game's unique combination of massive funding and hopelessly lax administration as their invitation to enjoy a nice little earner. It has to be sorted out. And soon. But as things stand, we have neither the people nor the organisational will to make the changes required.
Unchallenged organizations have no compunction about appearing to be vacant headed dimwits. It's only where there is some concrete notion of being replaced that persons in bureaucratic circles are inclined to measure their performance by a standard that would foster competence. I know this as I work in an organization that breeds loads of head-nodding and parroting. As I already said, I think the FA determined that the retaliatory assault by Beckham was not an egregious affront to equity and let it go. Persons of responsibility knew something needed saying in the wake of the incident, and "insufficient evidence" is what bureaucrats say when they want people to believe that some critical process has been pursued. I think your statement that "people need to be sorted out" is on its surface quite right but naively idealistic, MC. I should like to concur in principle, but I must hold forth the opinion that not a centimetre's advance toward reason will result from this debacle.
Getting booked deliberately is not an offence, that's why the FA couldn't do anything. It's not even 'bringing the game into disrepute'. They didn't have a leg to stand on.
Oh don't get me wrong - I was not calling for this non-event to be a precursor for some sweeping revolution at the FA. I'm not even vaguely "naively idealistic" enough for that. I was merely saying that that is what needs to happen if the FA ever wants to attain a measure of professionalism and wider credibility. I make no assumptions (do not even hold any hopes) about the likelihood of that ever actually happening.
True - but the hounds (Sun, Mirror, Mail, Andrex et al) were baying for blood on the premise that ungentlemanly conduct (getting booked deliberately), was a heinous enough crime for some sort of retaliatory response, especially when perpetrated by the captain of England, who's saintly countenance will no doubt get him canonised when he presents himself at the pearly gates. Thus the grey suits and ginger whiskers, stalking the hallways of Soho Square, were sensible enough (on this rare occasion MC) to do bugger all about it!