Fans stand up to Premier Greed

On Saturday at 3pm, fans of the Football League's 72 clubs will make a stand against plans to radically transform the academy system in England. After the controversial Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) was ratified by a vote held last week, leaflets asking supporters to boycott the first five minutes of this weekend's matches were handed out across the country in an attempt to show their widespread opposition.

 

Entitled 'Hands off our Academies' and using the slogan 'Premier Greed', the protest will seek to highlight how the new laws could eventually threaten the very existence of clubs outside the top-flight. But while the issue briefly flirted with the back pages last week, the furore over John Terry's alleged racism and the latest developments surrounding Carlos Tevez mean this issue has already been forgotten by the national press.

 

And although it may be of little concern to fans of Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United, for those who depend on selling homegrown players every season or two just to balance the books, there is every reason to feel aggrieved.

 

The new rules have been devised by the FA Premier League's head of youth Ged Roddy and, unsurprisingly, there is no doubting which clubs stand to benefit. A four-tier system based purely on existing financial resources means that only the richest will be selected as Category One academies and they will be allowed to pick the cream of the country's crop to come and stay in new imitations of Barcelona's famous La Masia academy.

 

But it's the plans for a new compensation system that will mean a significant reduction in the fees Football League clubs can command for their young players that have caused most uproar. This means Chelsea will be able to pluck a promising youth player from a lower league club at the age of 14 and be faced with a bill of no more than £50,000 (especially relevant given they have reportedly just offered nearly £2 million for England schoolboy Oluwaseyi Ojo from MK Dons)

 

That is particularly bad news for clubs like Crystal Palace, who currently have 11 homegrown players in their first-team squad of 33. Of those, four are now regulars under manager Dougie Freedman but it remains to be seen whether the likes of Wilfried Zaha and Jonny Williams would have emerged under the new system.

 

Certainly, the most outstanding youth players will be taken away from their homes and given five-star treatment at the new academies. But with the competition for places in even the most mediocre Premier League teams hotter than ever these days, the majority will never get the chance to play at the highest level and will inevitably end up dropping down (or even out of) the pyramid.

 

Surely that compares badly with the progress of Williams and Zaha, who are now growing up fast courtesy of playing regularly in the Championship? Palace has been the springboard for numerous current Premier League players including Victor Moses, Ben Watson and Wayne Routledge - each of whom played more than 100 games for the club that nurtured them.

 

They all left with considerable experience of first-team football but this may become a thing of the past for the next generation of emerging talent.

 

On the same day that the EPPP vote was passed, I was at a press conference to announce a new link-up between Palace and a local school designed to increase the amount of time they can devote to coaching their most promising young players.

 

The irony was certainly not lost on assistant manager Lennie Lawrence and academy boss Gary Issott, although they insisted the new laws would not affect their reputation for producing stars of the future. But if the Premier League get their way, the next Wilfried Zaha will be snapped up before Palace fans have even had a chance to see him play.

 

  

Buffoon-a Buffoon-a finally accept their fate

Just over 10 days after the debacle at the Mbombela Stadium, the South Africa Football Association (Safa) has finally done the decent thing. The withdrawal of their appeal against CAF's criteria for judging who finished top of the group in qualifying for next year's African Nations Cup in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea brings to an end a saga that must go down as one of the most embarrassing in world football history.

The threat to appeal against what effectively amounted to a blatant misreading of the rulebook turned Bafana Bafana into a laughing stock. The sight of Siphiwe Tshabalala and co dancing around the pitch after the fateful 0-0 draw with Sierra Leone as Safa President Kirsten Nematandani went on TV to congratulate them was bad enough.

But kicking up a fuss afterwards just made things worse. The letter sent by Safa's top brass at CAF really had to be seen to believed, particularly the jumbled phrase at the end that read: "This is the first time that three teams end equal on points and the two interpretations (ie Safa's inability to realise what the word 'between' meant) lead to a different ranking and hence it is the first time the rule is identified as unfair because in this instance, the team that performed the best got eliminated."

Eh? Try reading that sentence again and making sense of it. I certainly couldn't. So it's no wonder they decided to drop the appeal if the best excuse anyone could come up with was that "the team who performed the best got eliminated". CAF's officials must have had a good old chuckle to themselves when that letter dropped on the mat at their headquarters in Cairo.

Joking aside, however, this is no laughing matter for South African football. A second successive absence from the African Nations Cup is unexcusable for a country with all the resources there are available and the nation's top players now face a gap of nine months before their next competitive match in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

A two-month domestic break scheduled to coincide with January's Afcon in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea will now potentially be filled with a hastily arranged mini-tournament, although don't hold your breath. But at least now Safa can go some way to remedying their mistake by allowing Shakes Mashaba's under 23 side to use PSL players to help book a place at next year's London Olympics.

As in any walk of life, though, there has to be someone to pay for this astronomic blunder. Safa President Kirsten Nematandani has promised that heads will roll but it remains to be seen exactly who will get the chop.

Coach Pitso Mosimane has been absolved of all blame so far but surely it is the coach's duty to know exactly all the permutations? You can't exactly imagine Sir Alex Ferguson telling his side to play for a draw at Old Trafford on the last day of the season, even if the league title was already in the bag.

But there's no doubt Mosimane has helped Bafana to progress since taking over last year and to sack him would probably do no one any favours. Instead, perhaps Safa should look a little closer to home and try to make sure this never happens again (incredibly there was a similar case in 2007).

The first place to start would be to put Danny Jordaan back in charge. He managed to bring the World Cup to Africa for the first time so reading a few rules shouldn't be too much of a challenge. 



 

Pitso Mosimane faces day of destiny

"In the unlikely event that we don't qualify, then it will be a blessing in disguise for us as hosts of the next tournament in 2013 because it gives us time to focus all our energy towards that tournament that is just a year away," is a quote - you may not be surprised to hear - from the South African Football Association's vice-president Mandla ‘Shoes' Mazibuko.

Now forgive me if I have missed something here but surely the prospect of Bafana Bafana not making it to a second successive continental showpiece would be an unmitigated disaster for what is by far Africa's richest football body? Failure to qualify for Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in January would mean that South Africa will be kicking their heels until the World Cup 2014 qualifying campaign begins in June next year.

And that's what makes Saturday's meeting with Sierra Leone in Port Elizabeth so crucial, especially if your name is Pitso Mosimane. The Bafana coach enjoyed a great - if uninspiring - start to his tenure but the disastrous defeat to Niger in Niamey means it is all out of his hands now.

Whether Egypt's under 23 side are good enough to do them a favour remains to be seen, although Niger's away record is about as convincing as Arsene Wenger's excuses after the north London derby at the weekend. Safa's head henchos will certainly have their fingers crossed that things go their way but don't be surprised if you hear more statements like the one above if it doesn't.

That was the official party-line when Joel Santana's squad crashed out of the race for Angola 2010 and it didn't convince anyone then either. Carlos Alberto Parreira eventually salvaged some face for the national team at the 2010 World Cup and things looked to be progressing nicely under Mosimane until his last match in charge.

Shorn of captain Steven Pienaar and a number of key personnel who were either out of form or favour at their clubs, a first competitive defeat for 'Jingles' would now prove to be terminal if Niger come away with all three points. A draw and a South African win would be enough, however, so Mosimane will be hoping there will no need for more excuses come Saturday night. 
   

Samuel Eto'o deal will take wages in football to the next level

The world’s economy may be on the verge of slipping into another recession but the prospect of a ‘double-dip’ doesn’t seem to be concerning some of football’s leading clubs.

Statistics released by accountants Deloitte show that four of Europe’s top five leagues showed a marked increase in spending over the summer transfer window compared to last year, with the exception being the German Bundesliga.  In total, around £485 million was shelled out in transfer fees by English Premier League  clubs - a figure that falls just short of the record £500 million set in 2008.

But while the global economic downturn has ensured that, for the moment, the record stays intact, the dramatic rise in salaries in the last three years has put football's superstars among the highest-earning athletes in the world.    

Having swapped Inter Milan for Anzhi Makhachkala in the Russian outpost of Dagestan back in August, Samuel Eto’o has already banked four weekly payments of around £350,000 as part of a record-breaking three-year contract that is among the most lucrative in the history of any sports star.

The Cameroonian stands to bank approximately £18 million per season thanks to the riches of Suleyman Kerimov - Anzhi’s billionaire owner and coincidentally governor of Dagestan. That puts him way ahead of Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts – the highest wage-earner in the NFL with around £15 million per annum– and only just behind Alex Rodriguez from the New York Yankees (£20 million) and Ferrari’s F1 driver Fernando Alonso (£22 million).

But while Eto’o’s nearest competitors Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi still trail in way down the list (£12 and £11 million per annum respectively), with so many international investors taking an interest in the beautiful game, you can bet that gap narrow pretty quickly.  

Last year, the inaugural Annual Review of Global Sports Salaries showed that just three football clubs featured in the top 10 top-paying sports teams on the planet (Barcelona, Real Madrid and Chelsea). That survey was based on earnings in the 2008/9 season, since when it’s estimated average earnings in the EPL have increased by as much as 50 percent.

Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi cash has certainly helped raise the bar, to the extent that a team like Arsenal simply cannot compete anymore. Samir Nasri’s departure underlines the point as his pay-packet of approximately £175,000 a week means there are now at least 12 players on City’s books who take home a minimum of £5 million per season.

Add the likes of newly-rich Paris St Germain and Malaga into the mix, and we could see a major shift when the next list is released in 2012. Interestingly, the rest of the top 10 in 2010 was filled entirely with teams from the NBA, although it remains to be seen whether the American sports can hold off football’s inexorable charge.

Why Asamoah Gyan's move to UAE is the sign of things to come

It seems there's never been a better time to be a footballer from Africa. With Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o having become the highest-paid sports star on the planet following his switch to mysterious Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala last month, Ghanaian Asamoah Gyan made history when he joined UAE side Al Ain at the weekend on a season-long loan.

A fee of around 6 million pounds - almost half the figure Sunderland paid French club Rennes to buy him outright after last summer's World Cup - makes this the most expensive loan deal ever agreed in British football as Gyan saw his wages multiplied more than fivefold overnight.

But while the circumstances behind his departure are still causing arguments at his parent club, Al Ain and the rest of the Etisalat Pro-League are celebrating a coup that could signal the start of some major changes in football's power base.

Everyone already knows the extent of investment from the Middle East there has been in European clubs (as discussed here by English-language newspaper Gulf News http://gulfnews.com/sport/football/how-gulf-money-is-changing-european-football-1.856510 ) but with the 2022 World Cup on the horizon, the focus is switching towards improving the domestic leagues in the region. And that means you can expect to see plenty more players at the height of their careers turn their backs on the tradition in favour of cash.

With a month until the new season properly begins, a list of transfer deals that have gone through so far makes interesting reading. Besides Gyan, ex-France striker David Trezeguet, 33, has signed for one season by big-spending Baniyas for a reported 1.7 million pounds after turning down approaches from Celtic among others. He joins a raft of other international stars at the club in the form Brazilian Grafite, Chilean Luis Jimenez and Australian Lucas Neill - who West Ham fans will know doesn't come cheap.

"The deal for Trezeguet is not just for Baniyas alone - it is also for UAE football," vice-chairman Saif Khaili told the team's official website on the day the siging was announced.

Bankrolled by one of Abu Dhabi's biggest property investors, Baniyas finished runners up last season and will enter the Asian Champions League this season. They are one of a number of teams who have invested heavily in their playing and coaching staff in the last 12 months and the trend looks set to continue.

Over in Dubai, a certain Diego Armando Maradona is preparing to make his bow as the coach of Al Wasl in the pre-season Emirates Cup on Saturday. An annual salary of 3.5 million euros a year, plus the use of a personal private jet (once again financed by a wealthy benefactor - H.H Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is the owner of Emirates Airlines) certainly helped persuade the ex-Argentina boss to make the plunge, even if Maradona himself has insisted otherwise.

"We did not come here just to sunbathe," he told reporters earlier this month. However, like their new boss, Al Wasl enjoyed their glory days back in the mid 1980s when they were regular title-winners and it looks like being a long debut season for El Diego.

But the team to beat will certainly be Al Ain. Already historically the country's most successful team  having become the only UAE side to have won the continental title in 2003, Gyan will join a foreign contingent that now includes Romanian Mirel Radoi and Ignacio Scocco from Argentina, plus young Ivorian striker Juma Desireh.

And having just appointed a new coach in the form of ex-Steau Bucharest boss Cosmin Olaroiu, the Romanian will know that a repeat of last season's 10th-placed finish will not be tolerated.

"We are bringing in young players who are motivated to win and all the players we have signed have won competitions in the past," he told reporters this week.
"That is why we brought Gyan in because of what he has achieved in the past for his country.’

Following in the footsteps of his legendary compatriot Abedi Pele, the 25-year-old joins a long list of African players to have moved to the Middle East. But while Pele joined Al Ain at the age of 34 and played two seasons in the swansong of his career, Gyan's arrival signifies that the UAE is no longer a retirement home for the stars of yesteryear.

Throughout the latest transfer window, there were several approaches for other high-profile African stars being linked with clubs in the Etisalat Pro-League - including Bafana Bafana's Aaron Mokoena and Siphiwe Tshabalala. Neither ended up going but with Gyan's move in the bag, you can bet there will be more to follow pretty soon.

Qatar's successful 2022 World Cup bid appears to have been the major catalyst for so much sudden investment but that's only part of the story. As part of a general ambition to turn the region into a major business and tourist hub over the next 20 years, sport is just one recreational activity playing a leading role.

Dubai has already revealed plans to bid for the 2024 Olympic Games, while the ambitious Abu Dhabi 2030 project will oversee a number of infrastrcture developments 'to ensure that the emirate is a modern, thriving place to live and work in the future, as its population grows to 3 million'. Among those will be purpose-built Saadiyat Island - a $38bn development that will house a number of enormous museums, with The Louvre and Guggenheim already having committed themselves to creating offshoots.

It's hoped that will bring in around 1.5 million visitors a year to Abu Dhabi by 2015, by which time the Etisalat Pro-League could be the home of some of world football's biggest stars. Times, indeed, are a-changing.

Testing times for 'Sicknote' Schillo

When Steven Pienaar signed for Tottenham Hotspur back in January, the name Darren Anderton was not one Spurs fans expected to be reminded of.

But with yet another injury to his troublesome groin having apparently ruled the Bafana Bafana international out of the season opener against his old club Everton on Saturday, the 28-year-old is fast taking on the 'Sicknote' moniker that was reserved for the ex-England winger during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Despite spending a large proportion of his 12 years at White Hart Lane on the physio's treatment table, Anderton carved out a solid career in north London and is widely regarded as a loyal servant to the club (even if he is still waiting on a promised testimonial). If Pienaar is to be held in the same regard then he had better hope his injury troubles become a thing of the past.

Just five starts in the Premier League so far have yet to convince most Spurs fans that he was worth all the fuss following the switch from Everton in the last transfer window. With Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon occupying the wide positions and several other options in the centre of midfield, it remains unclear exactly how Harry Redknapp sees the new South African captain fitting into his plans.

His absence will give fringe players like Niko Kranjcar and Danny Rose the opportunity to establish themselves higher up the pecking order, although the potential sale of Luka Modric to Chelsea could hand him a much-needed lifeline. 

Pienaar's withdrawal from the Bafana squad that will meet Burkina Faso in Johannesburg on Wednesday night is also the second successive  international that he has been forced to miss. That's not great when you are trying to prepare for two crucial African Nations Cup matches that will determine the fate of Pitso Mosimane's men.

Siphiwe Tshabalala has taken over the armband in his absence and has also now amassed more caps than his more illustrious compatriot but doubts remain whether either is the right man for the job long-term. Spurs team-mate Bongani Khumalo - who made his debut on loan to Championship side Reading on Saturday - is most peoples' favourite and with Pienaar's 30th birthday coming up in March, he may find himself quietly moved to one side if the injury problems persist.  

But give the number of times his groin seems to have been afflicted in recent months, the prognosis doesn't look good. The problem first appears to have surfaced back in October 2010 when he was forced to miss a month of Everton's campaign and it also caused him to have two seperate lay-offs after moving to London, ruling him out of the Champions League quarter-final aganst Real Madrid.

Rumours that he was suffering from a hernia appeared to have dissipated as Pienaar prepared for the new season, although this latest setback makes the decision for him not to have surgery back in June now look extremely ill-judged.
  

Too old at 26? Killer blow for Mphela

Nearly six years after he played his last match for a European club, Katlego Mphela’s 45 minutes for a Celtic second-string against Wolves last Wednesday was as good as it got.

Despite a superb record over the past two years that has seen the 26-year-old move into third spot in Bafana Bafana’s all-time top scorers’ list, Celtic manager Neil Lennon decided not to pursue his interest in signing the player known as ‘Killer’. We will never know if a superb save from Wolves keeper Wayne Hennessey from his first-half header made the difference in the final reckoning, although it must be said Mphela has already proven he can score goals at any level.

Nonetheless, Celtic’s unwillingnes to sign him without first seeing him the flesh spoke volumes about the major problem facing most of Pitso Mosimane’s first-choice Bafana Bafana team who are still based in South Africa. While 21-year-old Knowledge Musona could virtually take his pick of clubs before settling on Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga, the likes of Siphiwe Tshabalala (26), Morgan Gould (28) and now Mphela’s age and lack of experience of playing in Europe have ultimately counted against them. 

Celtic have already signed Kenyan 20-year-old Victor Wanyama this close season, even though his national side are ranked almost 100 places below South Africa. But while Mphela struggled to adapt during his spell as a teenager at Racing Strasbourg in France, Wanyama made excellent progress with Germinal Beerschot and eventually turned down a move to the English Premier League with Aston Villa.

But it would be a real shame if a reputation carved from a couple of youthful seasons in Ligue Un mean Mphela never gets another chance to prove himself in Europe. His improvement in the last two years has finally allowed Bafana to move on from the Benni McCarthy era and the goal against Egypt back in March showed his class in front of goal.

Unfortunately, the rejection at Celtic will make him a less attractive option for many clubs on the market – especially with Sundowns unwilling to accept anything less than the asking price of around R15 million (£1.4 million).

 Always refreshingly honest and good for a quote, I managed to speak to Killer on Sunday and he was trying his best to be optimistic about his chances of still going overseas.

However, you could sense the frustration that a player who has scored goals against the best teams in the world for his country flew thousands of miles for a trial and only had 45 minutes to prove he was good enough to make the grade. A hefty salary like the one he commands at Sundowns certainly helps, but money is no substitute for rejection.