Alex Aldridge

The decision to ban the poppy from England’s shirts should shock, horrify and mortify. While in one respect it does all of those things, too many of us have been numbed by FIFA’s sustained incompetency to the extent that we are not treating this issue with the severity it deserves.

FIFA’s ability to cause uproar and provoke outcry in the past has been so profound that each new fiasco is becoming less and less surprising as time passes. When executive committee members were banned for corruption, we were shocked. When it was implied the 2022 World Cup could have been bought for cash, we demanded immediate answers. When Sepp Blatter ran for election against himself, we laughed. With each new scandal, FIFA became more and more of a running joke. FIFA became so farcical, that the attitude was taken to accept their misgivings (to put it lightly) and let them do their thing. It was a problem not worth solving. This culture of acceptance, be it from the FA or from the general public, has allowed FIFA to keep pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable.

The debate surrounding the poppy row has been fascinating. The British press, usually united in their beration of FIFA, were split for once. Paul Hayward of The Guardian has led the attack on FIFA, pointing out that their decision seems to be based more on the protection of commercial interests than actually offending anyone. But the attitudes of some of his peers, several of whose opinion pieces I regularly enjoy reading, seem to have been caught-up in this ‘acceptance culture’ of FIFA’s failings. None more so than Oliver Kay of The Times who, quite outrageously, posted on his Twitter page that FIFA’s decision was merely a “shame [...] there are dozens of things to get far more irate about where FIFA are concerned”. Really? So organisational failings (corruption, poor leadership etc.) within FIFA are more significant than honouring ten’s of millions of our war dead? While the banning of the poppy will not stop the FA from paying tribute to our armed forces – they will just have to find other means of doing so – the very fact FIFA has felt the need to intervene in such a insensitive and disrespectful fashion is by far and away their greatest crime of all.

England’s players must line-up in the tunnel with their poppies proudly embroidered on their shirts and dare FIFA to look a nation in the eye and tell it she cannot honour her war dead in the manner she wants to.

The Mirror’s Oliver Holt writes in his column today that “to insist on wearing the poppy on the shirt would risk cancellation of the game” against Spain. But that is the very threat the FA should be making to FIFA. England’s players must line-up in the tunnel with their poppies proudly embroidered on their shirts and dare FIFA to look a nation in the eye and tell it she cannot honour her war dead in the manner she wants to.

And sadly, FIFA may need to carry out its threat and abandon the game for the poppy row to become the global scandal it should be. Perhaps then then footballing world would stop accepting and start changing.

Millwall this week published their best financial results in seven years – but are things really as rosy as the figures suggest?

Quite simply, no they’re not.

While the headline news on Thursday was the Lions’ severe reduction in losses to £600,000 in 2010-11 from £3.4million the previous year, the timing of events in the 12 months to June 2011, on and off the field, has significantly aided the PLC’s ability to publish favourable results.

At midnight on June 30, 2011, Millwall’s financial year came to an end. A month earlier, they sold Steve Morison to Norwich in a deal worth around £1.4million* (out of a total of £1.7m from player sales). When the financial year ended, that cash was still in Millwall’s piggy bank – and so they could include it in their financial results, significantly reducing the company’s losses during that period (on paper at least).

In reality, that money (and more) was spent in the following months on six summer signings, both in terms of transfer fees and wages. That £1.4m was simply in the right place (in the bank) at the right time (at the end of June), and thus was included in the accounts for the preceding 12 months.

With the novelty of Championship football wearing thin for some, turn-out is in decline and there is a sense that these positive financial results could be something of a one-off.

Even still, given the fact Millwall only paid one transfer fee over the summer, many of the club’s fans have understandably questioned where the whole £1.4m from the Morison sale went. So where did it go? Well, new strike duo Jay Simpson and Darius Henderson are both earning substantial wages, while winger Liam Feeney cost the Lions £200,000 from Bournemouth. In fact, when you factor in Feeney’s £4,500-a-week salary, over the three-year period of his contract, the sum of the Lions’ investment in him rises to £900,000. That example alone helps to illustrate how the total cost of a single transfer is much higher than many believe it to be.

But it’s not just the Morison money which put a gloss on the accounts. Attendances at The Den this season (11,856) are lower than they were last campaign (12,150), and by the club’s own admission “a significant amount of revenue derives from ticket sales. Income generated from gate receipts is highly dependent on the level of attendance at matches.” With the novelty of Championship football wearing thin for some, turn-out is in decline and there is a sense that these positive financial results could be something of a one-off.

The interim results for the six months ended to December 2011, published next March, are likely to paint a far more accurate picture of Millwall’s financial situation – and I fear we will look back and view Thursday’s announcement as a false dawn.

* Steve Morison’s sale to Norwich was broken down into two £700,000 instalments. While the second instalment will not be paid until next year, it appears to have been included in this year’s accounts.

The formulaic response by the mass media to any managerial departure this side of Christmas is that ‘he deserved more time’. Quite often they have a point. Under normal circumstances, it would be unreasonable of any chairman to expect his manager to be closing in on the season’s objectives before the end of October.

But Sven-Goran Eriksson, the man buried in sympathy since his departure from Leicester was confirmed yesterday evening, was certainly not operating under normal circumstances. It’s easy to feel sorry for a man given the sack just three months into a new season – but if he was told by the Foxes’ wealthy Thai owners that the expectation was to be top of the table after the first 12 games, as he surely was, you could in fact argue Sven was deservedly relieved of his duties. In a nutshell, he failed to meet the goals and objectives set out by his employers when they offered him the job – which, let us not forget, was over a year ago.

Imagine Sven working in a middle management position at, let’s say, an investment bank. He’s given £15million by his superiors to invest – but, and here’s the catch, he’s also told that he will quickly be dismissed if he does not return immediate results. Hardly the most stable or secure job offer to accept, but no doubt a rewarding one – a bit like football management, you could say. The parameters of the job are extremely clear and there’s no room for manoeuvre. For working under such pressurised circumstances, the job pays a cushy £1million-a-year.

Now, those two figures weren’t plucked out of thin air. Sven spent around £15million ‘strengthening’ Leicester’s squad over the summer, and in the process he increased the club’s wage bill to the highest in the Championship. For his services, he earned an astronomical seven-figure salary. Every single manager in the division was envious of Leicester’s financial muscle – in fact, most resented them for it. The truth is, far more reasonable owners than Leicester’s would have given their manager less than half of what Sven was given and still expect the title. He was playing fantasy football. The person I feel more sorry for is Foxes’ chairman Vichai Raksriaksorn, who has been left severely out of pocket by Sven’s mismanagement of his money.

Wealthy foreign backers who buy a Football League club, throw money at it and demand instant results rarely succeed. It’s a point made time and time again in the wake of a high-profile managerial departure, such as Sven’s from Leicester. But Sven has been around the block (oo-er) enough times to know this. He knows exactly how these impatient owners operate. Man City is the obvious example – but he went into Notts County to fulfil a similar job description and came out looking like a fool. When Leicester came calling he should have ran a mile.

He didn’t. And for that, he deserves no sympathy.

In the same month the League Managers Association issued a statement criticising the disloyalty and impatience of certain clubs towards their managers, it seems a tad ironic that Steve Cotterill has jumped ship at Portsmouth at the first opportunity to take over at Nottingham Forest in a move orchestrated by the LMA’s vice-chairman for the past decade and new Forest supremo, Frank Clark.

Not only has Cotterill’s arrival at the City Ground demonstrated that disloyalty between clubs and managers works both ways – after all, his win percentage of less than 30% at Fratton Park was hardly glowing – but the role of a senior LMA official in the appointment process further undermines several of the key values the organisation has been built around.

As with most managerial appointments these days, there is little doubting the fact Cotterill was made aware of Forest’s interest in him before clearance was given for talks to begin via the traditional, official channels. Clark has acted quickly to replace Steve McClarren, securing a new manager less than a week into the job at Forest, but whether he upheld the values of the LMA in doing so – notably their pledge “to encourage honourable practice, conduct and courtesy in all professional activity” – is severely doubtful.

Incredulously, Clark far from played down his role at the LMA in the hours after his return to Forest as chairman was confirmed – in fact, what to many would be seen as a clear conflict of interest was, to Clark at least, something he would use to his advantage.

Clark has acted quickly to replace Steve McClarren, securing a new manager less than a week into the job at Forest, but whether he upheld the values of the LMA in doing so is severely doubtful.

“I know a lot of the managers through my role at the LMA and that could be beneficial. That is one of the areas that I felt I could help the football club,” he said. “We’ve got to find a manager as quickly as possible, but hopefully not to the point of rushing it and making a mistake. We need to get it right as it is a very important time for the club.”

The LMA recently released a report illustrating the expense of sacking and replacing a manager – it claimed clubs had spent around £100million chopping and changing in the previous season. Their CEO Richard Bevan said at the time: “We want to move away from managers being judged on their last three results. When results take a downturn that is when the club should support its manager even more, not jump for the quick fix.”

Cotterill was beaten three times in his final four games as Portsmouth boss – but there was no sense that his position was under threat. His board showed him loyalty when he arguably least deserved it – and they were rewarded with a measly £200,000 in compensation and a vacant managerial hotseat as he sped up the M1 towards Nottingham.

Cotterill has a track record for jumping ship. After managing just 13 games in charge of Stoke City in 2003, he left to become assistant manager at Sunderland. His career since then has been mixed at best and while admittedly he worked well under challenging circumstances at Portsmouth, better managers would have done a better job. In fact, Portsmouth’s owners CSI, speaking after Cotterill’s departure was confirmed, said: “Although the results and performances [this season] haven’t been as we had hoped, we were willing to allow Steve more time to turn the situation around.”

It is no surprise, therefore, that Forest fans are sceptical in the wake of Cotterill’s appointment – but irrespective of his suitability for the job, criticisms of disloyalty so often levelled at clubs by the LMA must now be levelled at Cotterill in light of his recent conduct.

And all this was orchestrated by Frank Clark. Perhaps the next time the LMA intends to speak out in defence of one of its members, they should first consider the actions of their very own vice-chairman over the past week – because hypocrisy doesn’t even begin to cover it.