This transfer window is pure smash and grab

David Mellor
4 Feb 2009

There's no denying the transfer window is a great laugh. Before it began, Garry Cook might not have been a household name in his own front room.  By the end of it, as Manchester City's upstart "executive chairman" loftily denounced the great AC Milan for "bottling it" over the Kaka transfer, we had discovered a red-nosed comic as goofy as that other North-West hero of yore, George Formby, and as potentially accident prone as Tommy Cooper.

It was also fun to see the wretched Rafa Benitez lose his employers as much as £8million on Robbie Keane in the space of five months.

Yes, this transfer window has been one big joke from beginning to end, unless of course you're a saddo like me, who thinks football is a serious business and should leave the end-of-pier stuff to Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand.

The unseemly scramble we witnessed on Monday is not the way football should do its business, as the desperate queued up to pay too much for often-wayward talents. 

This sort of thing is no ornament to the Premier League and, to be fair, most managers caught up in the collateral damage of this circus are sick of it. 

One complained of getting 15 calls from agents in a single morning, thereby revealing the real evil of the transfer window.  It's an open invitation to unscrupulous agents to behave even worse than they do normally.

And surely it's the job of the football authorities to minimise the damage agents can do, rather than give them a free-for-all like the January transfer window, where all manner of reckless behaviour guarantees rich rewards for some of football's most undeserving people.

Which brings me to FIFA, the world governing body who introduced the system six years ago, and back to basics.  Why have we got a transfer window?  What good does it do? I can't think of a single decent reason beyond yet another FIFA power play - a means to retain greater control of the game. 

What was wrong with the old rule, where you could transfer players anytime up to the end of the third week in March?  There was still a scramble as deadline day approached but nothing like as manic as it is now.

The transfer window remains in place purely because FIFA wills it.

There's no logical reason for such an intervention in the normal workings of the market.  But what if the Premier League unilaterally decided to abolish it. What could FIFA do?  In the immortal words of another great entertainer, Paul Daniels, not a lot. 

* The knives are out for Tony Adams, as Portsmouth are in free-fall.  But more than just sentimental old Gooners should be wishing Tony well because if Portsmouth do go down there won't be a single non-London Premier League club south of Birmingham.

A huge swathe of middle England, including some of the wealthiest areas, will be disenfranchised, which is no good at all for the finances of the Premier League at a difficult time.

That's why, in the USA, baseball and basketball teams are franchised to ensure a proper geographic spread.  Our tradition is different but one day it may have to happen here.

Let's be frank about ref Riley, how can he be England's No2?

What a fool Mike Riley is. He was only a few yards from Frank Lampard when he judged a perfectly innocent, one-footed, ball-winning tackle as dangerous play and sent him off.

In doing that he undeniably altered the outcome of an important match. Not because Chelsea would have won the game — alas there was precious little sign of that from a team who didn't have a shot on target until the 74th minute.

But they weren't under much pressure from an equally toothless Liverpool and this one was heading for a 0-0 draw before Riley messed up.

Riley appears to have a penchant for trying to establish his authority by dishing out more cards than he needs to.

He is also, heaven help us, England's No2 referee. Yes, incredible as it may seem, if you look at the nine English FIFA officials. They are ranked by the Football Association and Riley comes immediately after Howard Webb, who, to be fair, would never have made the kind of crass error Riley did on Sunday.

Riley has admitted his mistake and the red card has been overturned, so that's all right then. Well, it isn't and I don't think it can erase the blatant incompetence with which he conducted himself.

Not just over Lampard but throughout the match. Errors which included failing to punish a far worse two-footed challenge by Steven Gerrard and missing what the offender himself has admitted was a bad piece of gratuitous violence by Jose Bosingwa late on in the game.

Last week, Premier League boss Richard Scudamore praised referees for their performances this season. Were you watching on Sunday, Richard? If so, I hope you choked on your champagne.

Beeb's break point

There are still plenty of people who criticise the satellite channels and want all the big sporting events on terrestrial TV. But when they are, all too often the viewer gets short-changed by clumsy scheduling. Take the final of the Australian Open, an epic match, made all the more moving by the legendarily in-control Roger Federer breaking down during the trophy presentations, as the full impact of his defeat and failure to equal Pete Sampras's record in the Slams finally hit home. Every BBC2 viewer missed it because by then the Beeb had rushed back to its normal schedule — only showing the trophy reaction via its interactive service.

* Lord Marland's opportunistic bid to become chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board ended in disarray on Monday with his withdrawal before a single ballot had been cast. It takes a very special bloke to make Giles Clarke look unbeatable and Marland was that man.  Congratulations, at least, on that.

All hail AFC's rise

Nearly five thousand people watched AFC Wimbledon beat Chelmsford last Saturday to move three points clear at the top of the Blue Square South, more than were at all of the other games in that league put together.

Reaching the Blue Square Premier now looks likely, which means just one more promotion and AFC Wimbledon are back in the Football League and beginning to emulate the achievements of the old Crazy Gang, who came from nowhere to gain a lengthy spell in the top flight and an FA Cup win back in 1988.

History repeats itself, first as a tragedy,
second as a farce, opined Karl Marx. Not in Wimbledon's case. If they do get into the League in the next couple of seasons, it will be one of the finest achievements in London sport for many a long year.