Despite its excellent content, onefootball.com has gone the way of so many other optimistic projects. Yet again the figures did not add up, as Ian Plenderleith explains
The difficulties facing any company intent on running a quality football website for profit were brought home by the liquidation of onefootball.com in July, which, despite its popularity and plaudits, collapsed while reportedly losing around £40,000 a month.
With the start of the season overshadowed by talk of financial meltdown and eras at an end, we brought together broadcaster Adrian Chiles, MP Andy Burnham and academic Stephen Wagg to mull over how football got into this state and how we might get out of it
Football clubs at all levels in this country are experiencing financial difficulties of one kind or another. The problems are obvious, but are there also some good things that might come out of this crisis?
Stephen Wagg: To me, it’s a bit like asking whether any good will come from the recent corporate scandals in the United States. Is Enron or WorldCom going to be some kind of blessing in disguise? The sane voice at the back of your head says yes, people will forsake the lunacy of the market system and demand something more equitable and decent. Professional football people will cease to be paid obscene sums of money for their services. But the signs are that that voice, at least in the short term, will not be heeded. So ever more colossal sums of money will be spent on the defensive skills of a Rio Ferdinand or the “image rights” of a David Beckham. But, as a life-long Leicester City supporter, I’m not wholly depressed by their current predicament. They only recently proclaimed that they were “no longer a selling club”. Less than two years later the entire first team squad is for sale and the club has admitted difficulty in paying the salary bill. These salaries were, in all conscience, barmy, as Matt Elliott, who is the recipient of one of them, accepted recently. So, if it ends here, so much the better.
Is Terry Venables really any good as a coach? Leeds' new manager is the subject of this month's Head to Head
Yes ~
I met Terry Venables once. He’d brought out a rather bizarre board game called The Manager and was trying to sell it as a TV programme. I was hired to answer the quiz questions on it in front of some BBC bigwigs. They didn’t take it up and I had to spend the morning with Eric Hall, so it wasn’t a successful day.
The fantastic sums of money spread around by Serie A clubs in recent years are finally taking their toll. Roberto Gotta reports on a rude awakening for Italy
So, poor Alvaro Recoba, Ronaldo and Christian Vieri will have to cut back on croissants and cappuccinos. A few weeks have passed since Internazionale’s golden trio exercised a trait of surprising common sense (or possibly opportunism) and asked that their salaries be reduced for the coming season. In total, it mean they will earn between €675,000 and €1.35 million (£425,000-£850,000) a year less than stated in their contract. Which makes for a lot of croissants, although they will hardly be suffering too badly – Vieri will still earn £2.84 million a year and his colleagues won’t be far behind.
From top to bottom, in Britain and abroad, fooball's finances are in a mess. Dave Jennings examines the plight of one club, Bradford City
I was sitting in my usual seat at Valley Parade, but something was badly wrong. There were only about 200 people there, and we were watching a truly dire game. A handful of away fans were chanting “Hello, hello, League rejects”. Fortunately, I then woke up and realised that it had all been a particularly vivid nightmare. Bradford City weren’t a non-League club… yet.