Friday Fun: All projection is reflection

 Absolutely the worst thing happening this week is the adoption of the England Football team by all and sundry. 

Heaven know we have needed a good news story for a while and here one is. But this weekend is going to see an ocean of pixels and newsprint devoted to "Why England's success means...." and what comes after will surely be whatever the pet subject is that the author normally bangs on about ad infinitum. 

Here are my ideas for what we might want to avoid reading:

"Why England's success shows a new emergence of left-wing patriotism"

"Why England's success shows the positive of conservative patriotism"

"Why England's success can only happen outside of the EU"

"Why England's success shows Boris is a bad leader"

"Why England's success shows Boris is a good leader" 

"Why England's success shows immigration is good"

I mean, all of the above I have either read or know I am going to be asked to read in the near future. It is a tedious part of the new click-bait media culture that see churnalists just use whatever the new bandwagon is to keep their own views going. No one I see is using it to change their established and set views on the world which seems to be the norm these days, unfortunately. 

So as a task for the readers over the weekend, I have some work for you. Below are some heroically bad takes, even worse than the above. Can your precis an article for them for 100 words in the comments, even better if some moron's write them and you can post links to them...

"Why England's success is a prelude to the green revolution"

"What England's success tells us about capitalism" 

"Why England's success is good/bad for LGBT issues"

El Salvador goes crypto

 Already a shady place, El Salvador has decided to go all out and embrace its heritage. Rather than be a dollarised economy, it is the first large economy to declare bitcoin as its main currency. No longer will Uncle Sam's interest rate changes or weak dollar games impac El Salvador. 

So on one level this makes sense, many Central and South American countries are stuck in the dollarised trap after managing their own currencies proved too much for them and the markets. This on paper is a way out to freedom and stability. 

But Bitcoin is traded for huge gains and losses every day, it is not stable at all. So I do sense a fault in this scheme. There are still many who think it will all collapse tomorrow (then again, this is true of the Greenback too). 

El Salvador is going to be in for a helluva ride....certainly more than England, Scottish or Welsh fans over the next few weeks!

Cup Final Special! - On Leadership

Well, that was quite satisfying, in several ways.  Seeing Lineker prancing around (not very satisfying) on the Beeb, it put me in mind of the famous 1991 final when Spurs beat Nottingham Forest in an incident-laden afternoon, one of which episodes has always struck me as being of lasting significance**. 

Another amusing incident - see footnote

The match (for younger readers) was tied 1-1 at full time and so extra time was played.  In the short interval, the old rogue Terry Venables gathered his Spurs team around him and was clearly dispensing Managerial Wisdom.  The sulky old git Brian Clough, by contrast, sat ostentatiously motionless, leaving his Forest team to their own devices.  (IIRC, their deputy coach tried a few words of encouragement.)   Spurs were clearly the better team in that final period, and prevailed.

Massive wasted opportunity from a man who was oddly but widely lauded as a master psychologist.  (Some say he was blind drunk at the time, which doesn't strike me as much of an excuse.)  But how effective are managerial harangues in the interval?

A very interesting piece in the DTel recently carried some genuine analysis (paywall).   It contrasts the second-half performances of Premiership sides, with their performances before the interval team talk.  They draw one stand-out conclusion, which is that Solskjaer is a great manager - because Man U would be ranked a mere 13th on first-half scores, but a very clear first based on second half scores.  There might, of course, be other factors besides his inspirational half-time addresses - perhaps Man U relies on truly superior 90-minute stamina, or fiendishly clever late substitutions - but it's a very revealing statistic.  (Incidentally, the standout bad actor against this metric is none other than the Chosen One - which doesn't surprise me in the least - did you ever see, post Clough, a surlier git than Mourinho?) 

I recall a BTL comment here, several years ago, that the captain of a rugby club contributes not much more than being responsible for organising the orange slices at half time.  Can't agree.  Leadership is leadership.  Ask the Labour Party.

ND

_________

** Here's another: from Wiki:    This game also saw the first appearance of the much longer 'baggy' style of shorts, sported as part of Tottenham Hotspur's new Umbro kit, which Terry Venables helped design. Though attracting some ridicule at first, the style swiftly became popular, being adopted during the early 1990s throughout English and world football by every team at every level (with no team anywhere having reverted to the 'short shorts' worn ubiquitously for some decades up to this match). 

And another: that hand-holding episode in the photo above was lovingly recounted by the deeply unwoke Venables on TV many years later.  Haha!

The final week

It could be for England, 6 changes to the team and a banana skin awaits them tonight...


no wait, wrong blog post...oops




I meant to say Leave has drifted to 5-1 today on Betfair - no doubt as the tragic Jo Cox murder sinks in as somehow Leave related and also the final big guns for Remain are joined in battle.




Plus  every down movement in the stock market is Leave related in the media, every up movement is ignored or because magically polling has changed.




Still we will see, even I as a total political anorak, am now thoroughly bored to tears and want it over and done with. Still, 1/5 in a two horse race, back to the Footie analogy its like Scotland playing away to Spain...

Football ; UEFA Financial Fair play is a legal mess

This maybe somewhat obscure to the readers of this blog, but today UEFA finally got around to stating that both Paris St Germain and Manchester City have broken their new 'fair play' rules. In short, these rules are designed to stop wealthy owners buying success and in the meantime wrecking clubs and competition.

It is, as ever, a big boys charter, designed to only allow already large clubs to remain large and to stop any uppity small clubs becoming big. Well, one woudl expect no less from a continental and corrupted insitution liek UEFA.

Manchester City do indeed count as upstarts given their history, as in many ways to PSG - founded only in 1970. Also both are owned by mega-rich Sheikhs who have poured money into the clubs and found dubious ways around the new rules - like selling IP rights for £55 million  or stadium naming rights to a company not interested in changing the name of the stadium etc.

The thing is though, that UEFA's rules are clearly anti-competitive. On their wesbite they say this:

9) Is FFP in line with European law?
UEFA has been in permanent dialogue with the European Commission about financial fair play and has received continued support for this initiative. There is also a joint statement from the UEFA President and the EU commissioner for competition, emphasising the consistency between the rules and objectives of financial fair play and the policy aims of the EU commission in the field of state aid.

So it is in line with policy aims, not qutie the same as saying it is within the law. The key part to me is what impact this will have on salaries and players - as was the case with the famous Bosman case that UEFA lost. Clearly, by limiting debts and expenditure players salaries will be reduced, after all up to 80% of clubs spending is on players salaries. So this move will reduce wages, which is anti-competitive and goes against the rights of contract law across the EU.

Clubs will challenge this ruling, and no doubt some players with a lot to lose will too. After all, they can indeed afford the expensive lawyers who can drag this case the ECHR as the highest arbiter.

So, I doubt this Fair Play thing will really work as it has little legal standing. UEFA may get lucky if the clubs decide they are not interested in the money and just pay a fine to ensure their seats at the top table...we'll see in a few days as they will put the players up to threaten UEFA if this is not the case.