Source: Daily_Mail
Martin Samuel: How to lose your friends and alienate people...an Ashley masterclass
Say what you like about Mike Ashley, at least he is consistent. Having got just about every major decision wrong since he took over at Newcastle United, he looked to have broken the pattern with the temporary appointment of Alan Shearer as manager.
Shearer could not keep Newcastle up, indeed results were poor, but he restored credibility to the club with his dignified demeanour and by accepting responsibility, not least in his swift action over Joey Barton.
When Shearer said that he was prepared to discuss a permanent position as manager, and take on the challenge of restoring this shattered club to the Premier League, it appeared as if Ashley had at last lucked out on a way forward.
With admirable speed, he soon put a stop to that.
The decision to announce the club was up for sale was a masterstroke, immediately throwing all future plans up in the air and causing the positive vibes around Shearer's appointment - the only cause for optimism on Tyneside at the moment - to evaporate like morning mist.
Sure enough, there is now confusion around whether Shearer will carry on, management talks are in limbo, massive redundancies have stalled decision making in all areas, and there is even a suggestion the local hero may now be lost to West Bromwich Albion or Southampton.
Ashley may feel he made a horrible mistake in buying into the black hole of Premier League ownership. He will not be alone in that. Looking at the state of the finances, Tom Hicks and George Gillett probably regret the day they decided to get hooked up with Liverpool Reds, too.
What sets Ashley apart, however, is his determination to take his investment in directions that can only make his life more difficult. At least Hicks and Gillett resolved the dispute with Rafael Benitez, the manager, and have avoided upsetting Fernando Torres or Steven Gerrard.
If Ashley drives Shearer away, as he did Kevin Keegan, by contrast he will have successfully alienated two of the club's biggest heroes. It is as if he wilfully devises ways to drive a wedge between himself and the public.
Short of claiming Jackie Milburn was rubbish, compared to Len Shackleton, or getting the team to run out to Maybe It's Because I'm A Londoner, there is not much more he can do.
It was said from the start that Ashley was an outsider with no feeling for the club, and this seemed daft protectionism considering how well served Newcastle had been by local men such as Freddy Shepherd in recent years.
In fact, the appointment of Keegan showed Ashley attempting to pander to the locals to curry favour, and that was misguided and doomed from the outset.
Recruiting Shearer was different. We still do not know if he is the right manager but he is the right man and that is a start. Better to have not involved him at all, though, if this was where it was going to end.
As it is, Ashley's indifference to local sensitivities will be proved if he gives supporters hope through Shearer, only to snatch it away.
It is as if he is determined to make their rejection absolute. How could he even countenance losing Shearer? How could he risk denunciation by the one man who has made his regime even half-credible in the past few weeks?
Shearer may be finding his feet as a manager, but Newcastle under Ashley are still to find theirs as a plausible football club. Shearer at least seemed to have a handle on the high density of overpaid wasters, mercenaries and dilettantes that populate his dressing room.
His training ground speech to the players about 'not taking the piss out of this city or its football club' must rank as one of the few moments in the season when Newcastle fans had reason to cheer.
It should have been Ashley's absolute priority to ensure that man remained in his camp.
Instead, he risks allowing Shearer to walk away, disgruntled, as the club staggers along the Leeds United treadmill to oblivion; although if this happens, the most shocking element will be the lack of surprise.
Fonte ruling compounds Tevez mess
Rui Fonte, a 19-year-old striker formerly with Arsenal, went on loan to Crystal Palace last season and played his final game on May 3 against Sheffield United as a 55th-minute substitute.
Unfortunately, his loan had ended before then, meaning Fonte (below) was ineligible. The game ended in a draw. Even had Sheffield United won, the extra two points would have made no difference to their final league position - third - while Palace had nothing to play for on the last day. So, no big deal.
That is clearly what the Football League thought, too, because last week they docked Palace the one point gained from the match, awarded nothing extra to Sheffield United and left the Championship table unchanged (Crystal Palace still finished 15th, but on goal difference from Blackpool, rather than by a point).
The decision slipped under the radar, which was no doubt intended, aside from the odd jibe about another campaign for fairness from Sheffield United, and the irony of noted guardian of morality on player registration issues, Neil Warnock, the manager of Crystal Palace, getting caught pulling a fast one.
Yet the Fonte decision is hugely significant because the next time a team puts a player on the pitch who should not be there, it could change the whole complexion of the League (as it might have done that day had Birmingham City failed to beat Reading and Sheffield United not taken advantage) and then where would we be?
In this instance, it was the duty of the Football League to do what was right and award the game, and the points, to Sheffield. They would then have established a precedent for what happens in these circumstances, and football would not be vulnerable to another Lord Griffiths ruling, in which a gentleman plays hypothetical matches in his head and then tells us what the scores would have been.
Football has got to try to overcome the foolish inconsistencies of the Carlos Tevez case, otherwise it will spend more time in the law courts than some of the ushers.
It is impossible to assess how many points Tevez was worth to West Ham United but, if he was ineligible to play, like Fonte, every game in which he featured should have been awarded to the other team.
Nobody was prepared to take this drastic action at the time and so the issue dragged on until Lord Griffiths presented a flawed ruling based on poor logic and guesswork.
The Football League had the chance to introduce reason to the process last week by establishing a black and white principle on ineligible players. If one plays, you lose.
Potentially, on the last day of the season, football was a Reading equaliser away from another lengthy legal narrative. With its lazy devotion to a quiet life, it is as if the game is looking for trouble.
AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT...
Deloitte, a high-profile accountancy firm, play a long-established guessing game involving the finances of football clubs; the media reacts with obedient hysteria. All figures, however, are estimated. It is a surprise that an industry as specific as accountancy wants to be in partnership with ambiguity, but there is publicity in it. My favourite Deloitte estimate, from December 2001, remains that which named Fiorentina as the 14th richest club in the world six months before they went skint.
A fixtures crisis is looming in World Cup year, as the domestic calendar struggles to accommodate the weight of European matches. Long term, the only solution is to abandon the practice of FA Cup replays. Already lost at the semi-final and final stage, they are now an anomaly. The day the Football Association allowed the trophy to go undefended in season 1999-2000, the status of the competition was altered beyond repair; it must now be streamlined to take its revised place in the pecking order. The same goes for the two-legged semi-final of the Carling Cup.
Chelsea will not be breaking even in 2010, apparently. In other news, it was announced that day will again be following night and the Pope is, indeed, a Catholic.
Bad luck on Moyes
The natural reaction to the return of Florentino Perez to Real Madrid is suspicion. This is a club, propped up by state cash yet still more than £400m in debt, which arrogantly believes it has the right to collect the best players in the world like souvenirs.
Worse, there are those who genuflect before this presumption, claiming the greats belong at a handful of elite clubs, therefore preserving the status quo.
Manuel Pellegrini has been given the manager's job, however, so Madrid cannot be all bad. It would not happen here.
Pellegrini's pedigree in Europe - he was born in Chile and spent the first 10 years of his coaching career in South America - is a five-year stint at Villarreal, where he has enjoyed success without winning a trophy of significance, beyond the 2004 InterToto Cup (also held by Lille and Schalke).
Villarreal have made an impression on the top four and had the odd good run in the Champions League. Now Madrid will give Pellegrini a chance to manage one of the big hitters.
Rafael Benitez made his way to Valencia this way, too. It is an opportunity that is denied managers in a similar position in the Premier League, such as David Moyes of Everton.
It was good to see those photographs from the Tommy Burns memorial match last week. I always wondered what happened to that bloke from the band Bad Manners.
Can you remember when the credit crunch kicked in and everybody was predicting the dwindling of Premier League riches? Manchester United's lucrative shirt sponsorship with AIG, the troubled American insurance giant, was singled out as particularly vulnerable. Well, problem solved. Last week, United signed a new deal with Aon Corp, the world's largest insurance broker, for a record £80million over four years. This is what is known as bucking a trend.
And so Andy Burnham, having begun a wide-ranging inquiry into football governance, moves from being Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to Secretary of State for Health without a murmur. Did he stand firm, saying his work was not done, his mission to reform our national sport not even half completed? No, he accepted his promotion like a good boy, because he is a career politician and is climbing the greasy pole like the rest of them. Football was his leg up and that is all it was ever going to be.
The player who removed Andy Murray from the French Open last week, Fernando Gonzalez of Chile, was widely perceived to be in the form of his life, an unstoppable force of nature, capable of sweeping aside anything in his path. He was immediately beaten in the next round by Robin Soderling of Sweden. Haven't we been down this road before?
West Ham United are keen on a defender called Rod Fanni, who plays in France for Rennes and is valued at £5million. In straitened times, it is not known whether the club has the money for this transaction but, if they fall short, I am reliably informed the Headline Writers Guild of Great Britain are prepared to have a whip-round.
