West Ham and Newcastle United tax fraud probe shows football is ruined by greedy people filling their boots
FOOTBALL was once the sport of the working class – but is it now the sport of the criminal class?
Future historians may well decide this was the week that the beautiful game died of shame.
Newcastle United and West Ham, those two proud and glorious old clubs, were raided by the taxman as part of a £5million fraud probe, while Chelsea are said to be co-operating with HMRC investigations.
These are not isolated investigations.
In the biggest criminal action football has ever known, dozens of clubs are said to be of interest to the taxman.
He is shining his torch into agents’ commissions and transfer fees, specifically between English clubs and high-flying French side, Marseille.
But this tax inquiry is just the tip of what is rotten at the heart of the national game.
On the same day that the taxman knocked on the door at Newcastle and West Ham, we learned that Chinese billionaire Gao Jisheng had been blocked from buying a £200million stake in Southampton because of his alleged involvement in dodgy dealings back in the old country.
He maintains his innocence — he avoided corruption charges in China by becoming a witness for the prosecution in a case that led to a former politician being executed with lethal injection.
And he may yet end up smiling from the directors’ box at Southampton.
Meanwhile Joey Barton gets banned for 18 months for placing bets on 1,260 football matches — including 20 games his team was playing in.
Barton’s compulsive gambling via a registered account is hardly in the same league as the shadowy Chinese billionaire and the football agents with a cavalier attitude to income tax.
But football suddenly finds itself on the front page as much as the back page.
And all the stories are about money.
If any other industry had the rotten publicity football has had over the last week, there would be calls for a major Government inquiry.
The English Premier League is the richest football league in the world.
And it attracts crooks like flies to sugar. Football has lost its moral compass.
There are moments when I still recognise the game I fell in love with as a boy, such as those two cracking FA Cup semi-finals last weekend.
But football now revolves around money, money, money. Bigger stadia, more expensive tickets and players earning up to £300,000 a week.
And now we see that, with all those obscene sums of money, comes unfettered greed and what looks like a stinking cesspit of corruption.
Football is awash with big, easy money. Football is rendered rotten with riches beyond the imagination of the ordinary man.
We can see that our beloved national game now gives a home to the fattest cats in the land and is seen as a ripe business opportunity by some of the most disgusting, money-grabbing crooks on the planet.
Our national game has never been richer. And never less loved.
KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY
“NO TO NEPOTISM!” shouted the placards outside the women’s conference in Germany, where Ivanka Trump was rubbing earrings with the likes of Chancellor Angela Merkel and IMF chief Christine Lagarde.
When it suits his purpose, the American President is certainly not above nepotism – showing a bias towards your blood relatives.
But how often do you see Trump’s other children, Donald Junior, Eric, Tiffany and Barron?
Not very often. Barron stood around looking awkward when Trump was sweeping into the Oval Office but that’s about it.
Yet Ivanka is everywhere. Her senior position in the Trump administration surely proves that her father is not quite the woman-hating sexist brute that he is cracked up to be.
Capable, confident Ivanka is easily the best advertisement for the Trump administration.
She may have got her job because of nepotism.
But she keeps it on merit.
Maddie is reminder to us all
WEDNESDAY marks ten years since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
A child is reported missing every three minutes in the UK – so why does the story of this one little girl’s disappearance continue to grip our imagination?
Because there is something in the unending, unimaginable grief of Madeleine’s parents that reminds us this tragedy could happen to any mother or father.
All it takes is an unguarded moment, some bad luck and looking away when evil comes calling.
And any parent who ever lived could suffer the same fate as Kate and Gerry McCann.
Smell my spaniel!
FOOTAGE has emerged of Lib Dem leader Tim Farron remarking that a passing dog could “smell my spaniel”.
An innocent remark.
But now wicked wags are threatening that “smell my spaniel” will become the catchphrase of the 2017 General Election.
“And I say to you all,” someone mocked on Twitter, “go back to your constituencies and smell my spaniel.”
This is unfair on Farron.
Tim – I will smell your spaniel if you will smell mine.
His name is Stan. You’ll like him.
Rocket man's got to soar
SIR ELTON JOHN, 70, has reportedly been urged by friends to slow down after a recent health scare, which left him in intensive care battling “a deadly infection”.
But why should Elton slow down? Performing is what he does. Playing live is who he is.
Elton is an old-school showbiz trouper from the tip of his hair transplant to the soles of his platform boots.
I can’t say that I know Elton, but our paths have crossed a few times. In that wonderful documentary Tantrums and Tiaras, the real-life Spinal Tap, I am probably the only person who doesn’t get the hairdryer treatment from Elton.
And I know he will have been devastated by the deaths of George Michael and David Bowie. Elton was the closest thing that George had to a hero. Bowie was a direct contemporary of Elton’s.
And even in the last few days of Bowie’s losing battle against cancer, he was shooting a video for his song Lazarus that was an unforgettable farewell to his fans.
Should Bowie have been “slowing down” at the end?
The deaths of Bowie and George will have made Elton more aware than ever that the clock is ticking for all of us.
But an awareness of his own mortality is unlikely to make him want to take up golf. It is more likely to make him want to play a string of dates in Vegas.
So get well soon, Elton. But don’t slow down. Never slow down.
Boris jibe backfires
I LOVE a bit of flowery rhetoric as much as the next man, but Boris Johnson describing Jeremy Corbyn as a “mutton-headed old mugwump” was always going to backfire.
The British don’t like bullies.
And Corbyn is such a blatant loser that excessively vicious attacks will only create sympathy for the wizened lefty loon.
By eviscerating Corbyn in such extravagant style, Boris used a sledgehammer to crack a nutjob.
DISCGRACEBOOK
IT’S no surprise that twisted Wuttisan Wongtalay’s murder of his beautiful baby daughter Natalie was left on Facebook for 24 hours – and watched 370,000 times – before being removed.
What boggles the mind is that reputable brands still wish to taint their product by advertising on Facebook.
ROAD CALLS MUST STOP
WE are told that one in six motorists are still illegally using a phone at the wheel despite the increased severity of slaps on the wrist if you are nicked (six points on your licence and a £200 fine since March).
If you believe that figure, then you will believe anything.
One in six? Nine out of ten is more credible.
Wendy Thompson, 53, is doing two years for the death of Rodney Lewis, 84, who had parked behind his grandson’s broken-down car in order to lend a hand.
His hazard lights were flashing at the side of London’s North Circular just as Thompson decided to look away from the road while she charged her phone.
Mr Lewis died of a broken neck when Thompson’s VW Passat ploughed into his vehicle. “I was trying to put my charger in my phone,” Thompson confessed to a driver who stopped at the scene. “I didn’t even see them.”
One in six? Do me a favour.
Phone-driving is still as socially acceptable as drink-driving was back in the bad old days.
Many more innocent people have to die before we understand that smart phones make drivers fatally stupid.