Going to the Olympics - I doubt it

So yesterday the news that has been waited for by some people for quite a while, how much is it going to cost to go to any of the Olympic events in 2012 in London.
Headline grabbing figures of the main prices between £20.12 and £2012 - it makes me wonder how much the branding consultants would have charged for that imaginative structure, or maybe they are just fans of Deal or No Deal.

Average to high prices for many of the sports, up to prices well into the £100s for the main athletic events, like the mens 100 metre finals, but well out of the range of the vast majority of people who would want to attend multiple events over many days. A good breakdown is on the BBC Website - click here.

So while the open ballot for everyone looks like a great idea, and we are all in with an equal shot at each event, I somehow doubt that I would be able to get blocks of tickets for a lot of the major events, and also have no doubt that a suspiciously large amount of tickets will end up in corporate hands, and the rest will be on sale on all of the usual auction and ticket resale sites for a great deal more than face value.
This is sadly the curse of most modern events, sporting, music, theatre etc. So many of the tickets are bought by people with no intention at all of actually going to the event, but purely to make money.

There are, in my view, some very simple processes that could be put in place to make sure that people who want to go and have a genuine interest in the sports can attend and the corporate p*ss ups can take place somewhere else.

• Names on the tickets and proof of ID on entry. Pretty damn simple really isn't. When you apply for the tickets you give the names of those going. At the gate your driving license, passport or similar is required to get in.
• Photos on the tickets. Glastonbury and other festivals do it now, so not out of the realms of technology really.
• Mobile phone tickets. Again, a technology being used a fair bit in some areas. The bar code is sent to your phone, and you need that to get in. So you need to sell your phone if you want to sell the ticket.
• Work with sports clubs over the country to get the right people involved. Tricky to do, but surely is possible.
• Have a "loyalty" system like there is for the Proms concerts. Linked to some of the options above, if you want to go to the mens 100m final, you have to go to 3 other days of athletics as well to qualify.

All of these have some flaws, but are the conversations that I would like to think have already been held and plans being made towards these or similar ideas to make the allocation that little bit fairer.

There are a few other areas I want to just raise on this ticketing solution as well, as I received my email this morning a couple of points jumped out.

The tickets are being sold by Ticketmaster. Anyone who regularly goes to sporting and music events will already have an opinion on this company, and I have yet to find a fan of their business. Booking fees, postage fees, extra fee if not a web booking - ticket agencies have more hidden charges than Ryanair. Having just had a quick flick through some charges I pay on a regular basis, I would say the average "extra" cost per booking is over £5. So, in very round numbers, with 8 million tickets... That is a lot of revenue for Ticketmaster. Again I would like to think that a deal has been done so they break even, not make a profit - maybe I am a bit of an idealist, but should "our" Olympics be making £10s of millions for a US based ticket company?

And finally from the ticket office - does your credit card have this symbol on it?

If it does, you can't even apply for tickets.
As sponsors, Visa not only get advertising and ticket allocations, the rules also mean that a decision you made 20 years ago on what credit card to have will now affect what you can actually do in life - harsh old world this capitalism lark.
If you want to read more on how else the corporates will be keeping all the attendees in check during the games, have a read of this which although related to football, the same principles will apply in 2012.

Enjoy the games, from your living room.

Rooney needs a rest

Or to sub title it, "Do we all need a rest from Rooney".

It can't have escaped many peoples notice that in the last week or so, the rumours about Wayne Rooney and his off field activities have filled many pages of tabloid, and the so called serious papers. The whole saga raises and re raises a number of questions about football, celebrity and the media, one of the main ones is the debate on a persons private life and what the media should be allowed to publish, and what is in the "Public Interest".

The absolute simple answer is that it is in the publics interest, as they buy the papers and magazines that from the covers seemingly have nothing to say about anything apart from gossip - be it good or bad. To my mind that is where the difference comes in on what the papers and media can and indeed should be allowed to publish about sportspeople and celebrities.
For people like the Rooneys who have chosen to live their entire lives in the media spotlight, they have to always remember that while papers and magazines will endlessly print their PR written guff about how great everything is, there are always the others who will look for any chink in the public persona and scratch at it until they find the story.

From a quick scan of the deals, Wayne seems to be sponsored by a multitude of companies, for millions of pounds, to obviously promote an image that they want to be associated to - which remains to be seen how many drop him now.
But everyone says that they feel sorry for Coleen as the wronged party, and on a simple level, yes, her husband has cheated on her (again) and she needs to decide what to do now. Coleen and Wayne were boyfriend / girlfriend before he became a famous footballer, and it has to be said he was probably punching above his weight even then, and yes, it is just a gratuitous picture for my own amusement.

What happened then though is why any sympathy I have for her disappears. According to the Sunday Times today, she is alone worth in excess of £10 million now, based on sponsorship deals and whatever other tabloid and OK magazine rubbish she also puts her name to. So she has made an absolute conscious decision to cash in on her "fame" - and I use the word in the loosest ever sense. Her entire CV is "I am Wayne Rooneys girlfriend / wife" and seemingly that job allows you to earn a fortune.

I do want to make it clear that I don't think that in all cases that media intrusion is right, but if people choose to sell pictures of their wedding and family events, it is surely only fair that the girl who sleeps with Wayne is then allowed to sell her story?
Also to be clear, not all footballers and footballers wives fit into this mould, ask yourself, and no google allowed - what does Ryan Giggs' wife look like?
Precisely they have chosen not to live in the world that was chosen by the Beckhams and Rooneys.

What does this mean for Rooney - my guess would be he will now be sold in the January window, his manager by not playing him this weekend has implicitly acknowledged he is now a liability, so fame and fortune in Spain or Italy awaits him. Will he be missed, in some ways yes, in others not so much. My friend Lee (@leehawker1977) and I have always disliked him as a player and person. One lucky goal against Arsenal when he played for Everton...

Coleen, I am sure will be able to get a book deal on the back of this, and more than likely a TV series on one of the more pointless Sky channels, and will I have no doubt sell the pictures from her next wedding to the highest bidder.

If that is the path you choose - live with it, but don't ask for privacy, you have already sold that right.

Cheats, money & the end of sport

Another week, another betting scandal, another mysterious "Far East Betting Syndicate", another News of the World exclusive. I guess with what seems to be an endless stream of England football players getting injunctions that does seem to point to at least some of those World Cup rumours being true, they had to find another story.
Whether it was entrapment or not, from the coverage on the news this morning it does seem fairly clear that money changed hands, and a clear prediction of some very specific events was made for betting purposes.

While these minor transgressions in theory did not impact the result, I have no idea at all how anyone can class this last England v Pakistan test series as anything but a farce now. It does seem pretty clear that there was something going on, so if a player is prepared to bowl a no ball on demand, what about dropping a catch, getting run out, losing the game. Once you have crossed the line and taken the money, there is little difference in bowling one no ball to throwing an entire series.

I can not understand the argument in some of the media channels today that this is isolated, doesn't impact on the game as a whole and is not representative of the sport, because it is a cancer that needs to be cut out and publicly so. If it is carried out in secret the sport, and this goes for much wider than just cricket, will always be held in suspicion.

So, without any real thought process, a list that springs to mind includes:

Well, clearly Ben Johnson and his drugs cheat.
Followed up by Dwain Chambers who tried to take legal action to get himself back in the Olympic team.
Pretty much the entire sport of cycling over the years has been implicated in continual drug scandals.
A number of enquiries over betting irregularities in snooker.
The Spanish paralympic basketball team - where from memory a large number of the team were faking mental illness.
Formula 1 and its ongoing confusion over what is a team order and if it is allowed.
Matt Le Tissier and a betting scam on the time of the first throw in during a game.
The craze a few years ago where a number of English football matches were cancelled due to power failures during the games.
The Chicago Black Sox cheating of nearly 100 years ago.
This weeks cricketing betting that has made all the headlines.
A  number of games at Wimbledon over the last few years have been investigated for betting irregularities.

This list could just carry on for pages and pages, but there are two distinct areas of cheating that come up time and time again.

Firstly, drug taking or any other form of cheating to actually win the event you are in - other examples non drug related would include the Olympic fencing cheat, who had the button to press to indicate he had a hit when he didn't. This type of cheating is in the main for the individual / team / country to win - be that medals, tournaments or any other competition, and is what is seen as "classic cheating" in a perverse use of the word classic. This is what most people would class as cheating, the people involved when caught at pilloried and their reputations tarnished for ever.

There are also the worst case scenarios where the drug use can actually lead to death, such as in the case of the UK cyclist Tommy Simpson who died during the Tour de France in 1967, during a time where it was almost accepted that many of the riders would be on amphetamines.

But the ongoing issues on cheating where the results are driven by these mysterious syndicates are in my view what is more damaging for sport as a whole now.
As I said earlier, how can any part of the last Test Cricket series now ever be clear of doubt as to what happened, and this is a team sport, so there has to be more than one person involved and completely implicated in this.
The same goes for the long and growing list of other sportsmen and women that have individual results under investigation, which now in the main seems to come when the bookmakers and betting sites flag up that there are betting issues. In most cases this is as simple as a flurry of bets on a snooker match on a particular score, or a large number of bets on a specific players score in a game and the betting companies will pick this up as an irregularity and raise it to the concerned sporting body to investigate.

As the sums involved in this are increasing beyond what many sportspeople will earn in a number of years it is clear where temptation can come from.
With global internet betting, spread betting, and as today, betting on the result of individual balls being bowled in 5 day cricket matches, there will always be people who want to fix these results in their favour, and there always has been.

In my opinion what all the differing governing bodies of all sports need to do is investigate quickly and efficiently any allegations with the relevant law authorities, and if there is guilt from an individual or groups of players they need to be banned for life, and should not be involved in the sport at any level subsequently.

These are not trivial crimes, it must be remembered that if someone is winning a million pounds on a bet, that by definition means that someone else has lost a million - but it is the enjoyment of the spectators both paying a the game or watching on TV. The money coming into all sports from global sponsorship deals will soon dry up if the sponsoring company becomes linked with scandal. Watching the press conference now about the cricket scandal with the sponsors logos in the backdrop, I doubt that they are currently feeling that they are getting value for money from the cricket world.

The financial aspect behind the reason for this cheating is not going to go away, but if the sports are not open about how they are dealing with it, there will always be that element of doubt for a dropped catch in cricket, or a penalty shot wide at football, a double fault in tennis...

Does 4 Miles Make A Difference

Very football related today, so other listeners can retune to a different station and come back next time please.

Last night the usual "In The Know" community (video has swears in) football gossips either got one right for a change, or real news was based on fact for a change, as all the message boards were alight with the news that Spurs were looking to sign Gallas who has just left Arsenal, and by a lucky quirk of fate also played for Chelsea for a few years.
If you want some more detailed explanations as to why in my view he would not actually be the right player for Spurs look at the piece written by Tom on the great thfc1882.com site and forum.

Since the inception of the Premier League it is true that Spurs have under-performed compared to the 100 years before that, but we are and remain a big club -and hopefully following on from last season we are showing that we are again in contention for major trophy challenges, so why as fans must we instantly dismiss the signing of a player who has been associated with Arsenal.

To make it again clear, I don't want to sign Gallas, but there are a few from Arsenal I would like to have in our squad, and from Chelsea, Man Utd, Barcelona etc as well.

The other top clubs while rarely selling directly to each other, Tevez being a notable recent exception, have no issue at all in buying from us - Berbatov, Carrick, Keane all being star players for Spurs who have moved away, with differing fortunes after their moves. So why would there be such a block in a player moving 4 miles down the road.
It has happened before with premium players, Sol Campbell left in similar circumstances to Gallas leaving Arsenal, and Pat Jennings went from Spurs to Arsenal and back - and was always applauded by both sets of fans I must point out, so it doesn't even need to be on bad terms, but there is always the block of "we don't want rejects". Clive Allen not exactly fitting the definition of a reject when we signed him from Arsenal, as he still holds the record of goals scored in a season for Spurs!

Does this mean that players we could sign we miss out on time and time again because the fans wouldn't welcome them? I doubt that really in todays game as it is far more financially driven, the one club player being an absolute rarity these days. So what is it that means we shouldn't sign from clubs that we as fans dislike?

One positive that has been seen this year is that Man City apparently wouldn't sell or loan a player to us as they saw us as direct rivals - which to my mind is a major turning point and one we should focus on a lot more. For a club to admit that, surely the next step is for us to not sell to the so called big clubs either, and should we infact be looking at them to pick up more of their players, players who for whatever reason are not fitting in to their style of play, have fallen out with the manager, or who want to move nearer Faces Nightclub for a night out with Ledley...

If a player is the right player for us, and the finances add up and he wants to come - to my mind whoever he has played for before should be of no consequence.

What has been grating on me for many years, and this issue once again throws it up, is that in my view there are far too many people who define their love and fanship of Spurs as a direct link to dislike of Arsenal, and the knee jerk reaction that we don't want anyone associated with Arsenal. They are the geographical rivals, and yes, the North London Derbies are always great occasions for atmosphere - and traditionally one of the games that Spurs always play their best, but to instantly say that we can not have a player as he has been associated with them is madness.
Indeed, we have players on our books now who have been at Arsenal - Bentley and O'Hara.

If Spurs establish themselves as a regular feature in the Champions League, part of that will involve buying players from rival clubs, and as fans I think we need to accept that now - as long as we are buying the right players that are the best fit for the club.

Which Shirt Will You Wear

As the new football season is nearly upon us, and the pre-season friendlies have as always shown us nothing at all about any player or team any club is going to face, for many fans the next big decision is which replica kit to buy this year.

Most premiership clubs now release a new kit every year, and each kit is actually at least four different shirts. There is the home, away, the 3rd kit (never needed for the first 100 years of football) and also the keepers shirt. This season every club in the premiership has a new kit, and as this article from the BBC site mentions, Spurs have released at least 3 kits every year for the last 6 years, and this season will have at least two sponsors, so just for mens kits there will be at least 8 different options this season.

While I do think this is wrong, especially for those who have to buy them for their children, there is obviously the option not to buy one, and wear an old kit you have, or some other shirt.

My point here, is that as it currently stands you can wear whatever you like, so if you have the classic Holsten / Adidas Spurs shirt you can wear that, and no one at the game or the ground will question it.

But, I do not think that this will be the case for much longer at Premiership and European games, which are the ones where the money and TV audiences are.

Not as a direct result of the club, but as a consequence of the sponsorship deals that are worth so much money these days - £20 million and upwards for the bigger English clubs is the standard now.
This is something that has happened at the Olympics for some years now, and was also visible at the World Cup this summer. Companies like Nike, Coke, Budweiser, Mastercard etc invest hundreds of millions of pounds in these events, and clearly want maximum exposure for their branding during the TV and media coverage. There are rules in place for many stadiums now where for example if the event is sponsored by Coke, you can not take in any drinks made by Pepsi - sounds stupid but it happens now.

At the World Cup this came to the fore when ITV "pundit" Robbie Earle was sacked for selling a number of tickets on, as detailed here.
Working on the assumption that there was no difference in his allocation to the majority of other media and extraneous hangers on, why was he sacked and such a fuss made about him passing his tickets on - especially as there was never any hint that did it to make any personal profit.
The reason for such a fuss is where the tickets ended up, which was a large number of women wearing dresses made by the wrong brewer in the eyes of the authorities.

These women were ejected from the ground, and two arrested and at one stage were facing prison sentences before common sense prevailed, presumably somewhere in the small print on the tickets was a phrase about using the ticket for untoward purposes which allowed the authorities to do this.

It has happened before at the last World Cup, again the same brewery, and many Dutch men had to watch a game in their underwear as their promotional lederhosen were deemed against the rules.

So, how long will it be before this runs into the normal football fans life? Not long I think.
For the money involved now the sponsors will not allow it to continue where the TV coverage shows the "wrong" brands on show to worldwide audiences.
Especially in light of clubs like Spurs where we will have at least two sponsors.

If you were one of the sponsors, would you really want every crowd shot to have another companies name and logo being shown all over Europe in a Champions League game?

Sadly I don't think it will be long before clicking that little box where you agree to Ts & Cs when buying your tickets will have a little clause in there that tells you what shirt you can wear to what game - and forget any sort of protest, if you tick that box you will have agreed and if you don't you won't get a ticket for the game, and if you think it is far fetched - it is already happening in the USA, scroll down to the Marketing section here.