Having snatched Liverpool FC back from the debt-ridden regime of Tom Hicks, can former British Airways Chairman and unlikely scouse hero Martin Broughton turn his attention to saving the gang up the East Lancashire Road, by conjuring another "epic swindle", as his Texan adversary called it?
The short answer, of course, is no. Because with Liverpool, Broughton seized a moment in time, when Hicks was beholden to the banks and the creditors with no way out but to relinquish control.
With thousands of Manchester United supporters set to rally at the Tottenham match a week from Saturday, against the Glazer family - that other group of leveraged buy-out pirates cruising the Premier League's choppy seas, only the Premier League itself can save this prized asset.
Surely from Liverpool's traumas the rules of the game need to change. Stricter requirements need to be placed on the constitution of Premier League teams, the way their finances are structured to prevent massive interest payments, and a stricter business-test for the owners themselves.
As Spirit of Shankly has shown, supporter-power is important. But the Premier League honchos should look no further than, irony in itself, Major League Baseball, where - to stretch the metaphor even further - a level playing field has been established to protect the teams themselves from predators and therefore also the supporters.
Time to act, before another of our great sporting institutions falls into disrepute.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Shooting the messenger rises, glamour wanes (First posted Jan 2010)
FIRST PUBLISHED AT http://www.conversation.wamu.org/
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
2009 was a risky year for foreign journalists. There were 113 deliberate killings of reporters across the world and Iraq and Afghanistan were NOT the most dangerous countries to cover. Those were The Phillippines, Mexico, and Somalia.
Its what we used to call a "vicious circle". The more corruption, tribalism, lawlessness, poverty and conflict there is, the more vital the story, and the bigger the likelihood of getting killed.
The BBC and other organizations offer intensive training for staff in war-zones and tough places. They range from battlefield conduct to first aid. Sophisticated equipment and body armor is also available. Western military also offers "embedded" reporting opportunities, but many forgo this, believing that the military protection itself compromises the reporter's independence. And its still no guarantee of safety, far from it. The ability to tell a story on the internet has encouraged some reporters to go it alone, without the protection of relatively wealthy news organizations or Governments. Its tough to report a hurricane unless you head right into it. Likewise with war.
But the publicity which typically surrounds the killing of a prominent western reporter belies the reality that the vast majority of victims are local reporters, either trying to cover the struggles and conflicts of their own people, or hired help for the major networks on the ground. The United Nations and the European Union have called for more protection for journalists, at the urging of reporter pressure groups.
Let's just say a prayer for the brave folks in our own networks - NPR, PRI and BBC, who are at risk each and every day bringing us the news from where the news really is.
And, trust me, as I tell my students, glamorous it ain't.
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
2009 was a risky year for foreign journalists. There were 113 deliberate killings of reporters across the world and Iraq and Afghanistan were NOT the most dangerous countries to cover. Those were The Phillippines, Mexico, and Somalia.
Its what we used to call a "vicious circle". The more corruption, tribalism, lawlessness, poverty and conflict there is, the more vital the story, and the bigger the likelihood of getting killed.
The BBC and other organizations offer intensive training for staff in war-zones and tough places. They range from battlefield conduct to first aid. Sophisticated equipment and body armor is also available. Western military also offers "embedded" reporting opportunities, but many forgo this, believing that the military protection itself compromises the reporter's independence. And its still no guarantee of safety, far from it. The ability to tell a story on the internet has encouraged some reporters to go it alone, without the protection of relatively wealthy news organizations or Governments. Its tough to report a hurricane unless you head right into it. Likewise with war.
But the publicity which typically surrounds the killing of a prominent western reporter belies the reality that the vast majority of victims are local reporters, either trying to cover the struggles and conflicts of their own people, or hired help for the major networks on the ground. The United Nations and the European Union have called for more protection for journalists, at the urging of reporter pressure groups.
Let's just say a prayer for the brave folks in our own networks - NPR, PRI and BBC, who are at risk each and every day bringing us the news from where the news really is.
And, trust me, as I tell my students, glamorous it ain't.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
An Englishman Tries To Explain
FIRST PUBLISHED AT The Conversation at wamu.org
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
Didn't the British invent soccer? then how come the England team is so poor? These are the questions "du jour" for me in the WAMU corridors as my work colleagues have sustained their interest in the World Cup even after the USA's defeat.
There are three reasons.
1. Money. The English game has been poisoned by debt and leveraged buy-outs, as the big four teams constantly battle for the world's best players. The biggest two clubs, Liverpool and Manchester United, have borrowed up to their eye-balls. Unlike, say, Major League Baseball, there is little regulation of the sport's finances. The subsequent greed for more means that the season is too long and punishing for the players, and club games take priority over international matches.
2. Team Spirit. As a consequence of the money-driven culture, some of England's hugely over-paid stars are much more interested in (paid) success at club level, rather than sporting glory for England. So this has spawned a culture of "every man for himself" on the pitch, while the game's sages know that team-spirit is the key to success. Look at Germany, Spain, Uruguay and Holland, this year's semi-finalists. For all four, team-spirit conquers individual talent.
3. Expectations. The anticipation of the World Cup is huge in England. But the poisoned tabloid media culture means the press are always looking for a chance to undermine the players for a cheap story. Both the fans' inflated expectations, and the media's determination to invent a banner headline, put enormous pressure on the England players. Hence the paralysis we saw on the pitch, where they were largely unable to make a correct pass, for fear of failure.
Long live the teams who stick together, whose fans and media get behind them, and who play with the flair of a group of young men enjoying their sport. Look at the four semi-finalists, or, for that matter, the USA, still new to top-flight soccer.
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
Didn't the British invent soccer? then how come the England team is so poor? These are the questions "du jour" for me in the WAMU corridors as my work colleagues have sustained their interest in the World Cup even after the USA's defeat.
There are three reasons.
1. Money. The English game has been poisoned by debt and leveraged buy-outs, as the big four teams constantly battle for the world's best players. The biggest two clubs, Liverpool and Manchester United, have borrowed up to their eye-balls. Unlike, say, Major League Baseball, there is little regulation of the sport's finances. The subsequent greed for more means that the season is too long and punishing for the players, and club games take priority over international matches.
2. Team Spirit. As a consequence of the money-driven culture, some of England's hugely over-paid stars are much more interested in (paid) success at club level, rather than sporting glory for England. So this has spawned a culture of "every man for himself" on the pitch, while the game's sages know that team-spirit is the key to success. Look at Germany, Spain, Uruguay and Holland, this year's semi-finalists. For all four, team-spirit conquers individual talent.
3. Expectations. The anticipation of the World Cup is huge in England. But the poisoned tabloid media culture means the press are always looking for a chance to undermine the players for a cheap story. Both the fans' inflated expectations, and the media's determination to invent a banner headline, put enormous pressure on the England players. Hence the paralysis we saw on the pitch, where they were largely unable to make a correct pass, for fear of failure.
Long live the teams who stick together, whose fans and media get behind them, and who play with the flair of a group of young men enjoying their sport. Look at the four semi-finalists, or, for that matter, the USA, still new to top-flight soccer.
Friday, May 7, 2010
A Good Walk Spoiled
FIRST PUBLISHED AT WAMU'S "THE CONVERSATION"
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
Bad golfers like myself always find plenty of other things to blame other than their own complete lack of skill.
The old clubs, the grass, the wind, the rules, the course design. At Montgomery County's proud stable of well-manicured and challenging public courses, I've found someone new to blame for my Saturday ritual embarrassments of "slicing", "shanking" and "scuffing".
Two recent incidents have convinced me that, yes, my hidden golfing genius IS being suppressed by an outside force.
The label on his battery-powered golf cart says "Player Assistance". He usually looms over the horizon after we've played about seven or eight holes. He's so comfortable in what we Brits call his "buggy" that he almost seems glued to the seat. He looks like he's lived in a shed attached to the clubhouse for at least thirty years. But he has that dusty wizened look of an old wind-battered golf servant who could string a few putts together in his day but never made pro. He's hugely unimpressed with all the golf fashion-accessorized hackers he observes on the course.
Just the sight of the buggy bumping over the hills towards us makes me nervous. Once, my partner and me had no one playing ahead of us, and no one playing behind us. And we were moving at a decent clip. I hit a mediocre but safe chip onto the 8th green. Then from behind he barked "Can't you hurry up a bit. You're lagging behind." A dozen potential expletive retorts came into my mind but I thought better of it. I was there to have a relaxing, enjoyable if expensive round of golf, and this self-appointed golf cop wasn't going to spoil it.
Then, last week, it happened again. We'd waited for an interminable time on the 13th tee for a four-ball in front of us to clear the fairway. Their ponderous body language suggested they were each living in a U.S. Masters' fantasy - studying putts from every angle - butts in the air, rehearsing their shots over and over.
Did the golf cop tell them to hurry up? No. He yelled at me. "Go on, tee-off. They're well out of YOUR range."
For once, the insult galvanized me. I struck a humdinger up the middle of the fairway. But "Player Assistance" was unimpressed. My partner was unsettled too. She'd been playing well, but scuffed this one into the bushes. "One ball please" he barked, telling her she couldn't take another try - a century-old custom in friendly amateur golf.
With Montgomery County lobbying hard for thePhil Mickelson wannabees to get out and play, good public relations it ain't. Unnecessary it most certainly is. I'm headed for a confrontation, sooner or later, because in the old golfer's phrase, popularized in the title of sports writer John Feinstein's book, this was definitely "a good walk spoiled."
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
Bad golfers like myself always find plenty of other things to blame other than their own complete lack of skill.
The old clubs, the grass, the wind, the rules, the course design. At Montgomery County's proud stable of well-manicured and challenging public courses, I've found someone new to blame for my Saturday ritual embarrassments of "slicing", "shanking" and "scuffing".
Two recent incidents have convinced me that, yes, my hidden golfing genius IS being suppressed by an outside force.
The label on his battery-powered golf cart says "Player Assistance". He usually looms over the horizon after we've played about seven or eight holes. He's so comfortable in what we Brits call his "buggy" that he almost seems glued to the seat. He looks like he's lived in a shed attached to the clubhouse for at least thirty years. But he has that dusty wizened look of an old wind-battered golf servant who could string a few putts together in his day but never made pro. He's hugely unimpressed with all the golf fashion-accessorized hackers he observes on the course.
Just the sight of the buggy bumping over the hills towards us makes me nervous. Once, my partner and me had no one playing ahead of us, and no one playing behind us. And we were moving at a decent clip. I hit a mediocre but safe chip onto the 8th green. Then from behind he barked "Can't you hurry up a bit. You're lagging behind." A dozen potential expletive retorts came into my mind but I thought better of it. I was there to have a relaxing, enjoyable if expensive round of golf, and this self-appointed golf cop wasn't going to spoil it.
Then, last week, it happened again. We'd waited for an interminable time on the 13th tee for a four-ball in front of us to clear the fairway. Their ponderous body language suggested they were each living in a U.S. Masters' fantasy - studying putts from every angle - butts in the air, rehearsing their shots over and over.
Did the golf cop tell them to hurry up? No. He yelled at me. "Go on, tee-off. They're well out of YOUR range."
For once, the insult galvanized me. I struck a humdinger up the middle of the fairway. But "Player Assistance" was unimpressed. My partner was unsettled too. She'd been playing well, but scuffed this one into the bushes. "One ball please" he barked, telling her she couldn't take another try - a century-old custom in friendly amateur golf.
With Montgomery County lobbying hard for the
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Augusta Glass House
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
Apart from the sport itself, what do the custodians of the Augusta National Golf Club, home to the magnificent season curtain-raiser event The U.S. Masters, have in common withTiger Woods ?
Listening to club Chairman Billy Payne this week, you'd assume not much. With some scathing criticism of golf's erstwhile prodigal son-turned-promoter-of-moral-turpitude, Mr. Payne laid plain Augusta's disdain for Tiger's tasteless behavior.
"He forgot that with fame and fortune come responsibility not invisibility." "Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children. Is there a way forward? I hope yes."
I would ask Mr. Payne the same question - is there a way forward? It took the closeted chums of Augusta until 1990 to admit their first African American member. The fabled Mexican golferLee Trevino famously used to change his shoes out of the trunk of his car rather than use their racially intimidating club house. And despite Mr. Payne's protestations on behalf of Tiger's wife and all the other women he used or abused, they still do not have one single woman member at Augusta National.
No glass houses at Augusta, you understand. Splendid azaleas, magnolias and dogwoods to be sure. But when it comes to women, the moral high ground is as elusive as those birdie chances on the undulating greens. Trying to convince Mr Payne and his tribe of that hypocrisy is another matter.
Apart from the sport itself, what do the custodians of the Augusta National Golf Club, home to the magnificent season curtain-raiser event The U.S. Masters, have in common with
Listening to club Chairman Billy Payne this week, you'd assume not much. With some scathing criticism of golf's erstwhile prodigal son-turned-promoter-of-moral-turpitude, Mr. Payne laid plain Augusta's disdain for Tiger's tasteless behavior.
"He forgot that with fame and fortune come responsibility not invisibility." "Our hero did not live up to the expectations of the role model we saw for our children. Is there a way forward? I hope yes."
I would ask Mr. Payne the same question - is there a way forward? It took the closeted chums of Augusta until 1990 to admit their first African American member. The fabled Mexican golfer
No glass houses at Augusta, you understand. Splendid azaleas, magnolias and dogwoods to be sure. But when it comes to women, the moral high ground is as elusive as those birdie chances on the undulating greens. Trying to convince Mr Payne and his tribe of that hypocrisy is another matter.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Puncturing the news cycle's front wheel......
(These are Mark's views, not WAMU's views, AU's views, or any other U's views)
They used to be known in the trade as "pseudo-events" - happenings portrayed as news stories which really didn't change anything. In the western media's failure to register any real news this week, there have been several "pseudo events" to consume our valuable time.
First off, NPR's Morning Edition led off Monday with the headline "The security services promise to track all significant terror leads in future." Real news might have been a story which read "security services refuse to try to find terrorists."
Here in Washington, DC, we had the story "Property tycoon says he will not run against Major Adrian Fenty".
You know that property tycoon you've never heard of? Well he's not running for Mayor. That one will go down well in the bar.
As my old boss in Liverpool said when he heard the line 'they were taken to hospital by ambulance':
"It would've been bloody news if they'd gone to hospital in a horse and cart."
Yes, folks, the media doesn't want to invest in finding new things to tell us when old stories go bad.
They'd rather keep recycling them.
But as usual its much worse in dear old Mother England. There, the resignation of a foul-mouthed BBC talk-show host, a living monument to the corporation's dumbed-down state at the turn of the noughties, sparked the most dramatic TV moment of January, when he emerged from his London mansion to offer tea to the press pack.
Scroll to the video and listen to the panic in their insistent demands for answers to their trivia.
Terrorism? Unemployment? Global Warming? Give me a break.....
As one of my favorite eighties UK bands sang, "Its sheep we're up against, sheep we're up against".
They used to be known in the trade as "pseudo-events" - happenings portrayed as news stories which really didn't change anything. In the western media's failure to register any real news this week, there have been several "pseudo events" to consume our valuable time.
First off, NPR's Morning Edition led off Monday with the headline "The security services promise to track all significant terror leads in future." Real news might have been a story which read "security services refuse to try to find terrorists."
Here in Washington, DC, we had the story "Property tycoon says he will not run against Major Adrian Fenty".
You know that property tycoon you've never heard of? Well he's not running for Mayor. That one will go down well in the bar.
As my old boss in Liverpool said when he heard the line 'they were taken to hospital by ambulance':
"It would've been bloody news if they'd gone to hospital in a horse and cart."
Yes, folks, the media doesn't want to invest in finding new things to tell us when old stories go bad.
They'd rather keep recycling them.
But as usual its much worse in dear old Mother England. There, the resignation of a foul-mouthed BBC talk-show host, a living monument to the corporation's dumbed-down state at the turn of the noughties, sparked the most dramatic TV moment of January, when he emerged from his London mansion to offer tea to the press pack.
Scroll to the video and listen to the panic in their insistent demands for answers to their trivia.
Terrorism? Unemployment? Global Warming? Give me a break.....
As one of my favorite eighties UK bands sang, "Its sheep we're up against, sheep we're up against".
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