Allardyce: brought down by good journalism not entrapment

I'm as gutted as anyone to see the manager of England - a man who I wanted to see in the job - lose the role after 67 days and just one game in charge.

Sam Allardyce never seemed to get the credit he deserved during his long club management career, and this summer Portugal showed that a pragmatic approach to football could bring success, so it seemed like he was to be given his chance.

But that chance has gone. Disappeared in a puff of greed.

I have noticed that some, not least 'Big Sam' himself, are pointing fingers at the journalism that took him down. They are calling it entrapment and claiming that journalists were out to make him look bad.

Poppycock, balderdash and buffoonery. The investigation by the Daily Telegraph has uncovered serious wrong-doing across the sport and the journalists and newspaper must be applauded for its tenacity.

I have been deeply critical of undercover 'entrapment-style' journalism in the past. The Fake Sheikh, Mazher Mahmood, was an appalling example of journalistic entrapment. His method was to get C list celebs in a room, offer them oodles of cash and then enquire if they knew where he could get drugs and could they help him get some.

Of course, not wanting to lose the cash or the opportunity to star in films, they mostly said 'yes' and then found themselves splashed all over the front pages of now defunct News of The World.

But, if there is a genuine need for investigation and the 'sting' is only part of a wider journalistic strategy, there is a place for this style of journalism.

So does the Daily Telegraph investigation pass my test?

Well, anyone who hasn't had their head in the sand for the past few years knows that there is a problem with corruption and dubious practice in football - the downfall of Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are clear evidence of this.

Allardyce has previously been implicated in dubious practice as part of a BBC Panorama investigation into dealings with his son, Craig - a football agent. No charges were brought but the 2007 Stevens report into football corruption stated:

″The inquiry remains concerned at the conflict of interest that it believes existed between Craig Allardyce, his father Sam Allardyce – the then manager at Bolton – and the club itself."

Whether the sting is part of a wider journalism strategy or not is less clear. The follow-up revelations today that eight Premier League managers have taken 'bungs' was also filmed undercover in 'sting' style.

I feel this too is justified. The Daily Telegraph investigations team - the same one that did such a great job on MPs expenses - is not targeting an individual in the manner of Mahmood but conducting an institution-wide inquiry into corporation, amoral activity and greed within football.

Big Sam is no starry-eyed, 20-something C lister. He is one of the most experienced football managers in the game, was on a massive £3m salary, and at the peak of his profession.

In short, he had no business doing another job at all, let alone one which may have enabled people to circumvent rules established to protect the game.

It is not that long since the sting was turned on tabloid journalists with great effect by Chris Atkins as part of the excellent film Starsuckers. In that he exposed wrongdoing within journalism by dangling carrots such as confidential medical information in front of journalists.

Not long after that Nick Davies and the Guardian exposed the level of corruption and criminality within journalism with the hacking scandal which sent many senior journalists to jail.

The Sting should never be a fishing trip where you hope to uncover a juicy titbit but, as a targeted tactic of an undercover investigation, it is vital in this age of super-injunctions and secrecy.

All power to the Daily Telegraph I say.

Is it a good thing to give a platform to racists?

Interesting article about Twitter on the BBC website today by pundit and former striker Mark Bright providing a platform for racists.

The article has been inspired by high profile investigations into allegations of racism made against England captain John Terry and Liverpool striker Lois Suarez and offensive yet completely unsurprising comments by Sepp Blatter who suggested that racism should be dealt with by a handshake and then forgotten about.

It's a strong article written from a position of knowledge and experience and makes a compelling read.

Mark Bright is 100 per cent correct that social media in being used as a platform for racists. It's not just Twitter, the worst by a long way is YouTube - I have stopped looking at the comments section of the video sharing site because of the vile racist nature of many of them.

Liberal society in general has for a long time held on to a 'no platform' policy in relation to racism. The basic theory is don't let racists have a voice as that voice is oxygen which will fuel the fire of their hatred and perhaps ignite it in others.

But now, as Bright has identified, that fire is far from extinguished. In this country many have believed it has been and we have been full of criticism of other countries which we perceive to have lower standards than us.

Incidents of racism in UK football grounds have been identified as a one-off. But that is as true as the News International's claim that phone hacking was perpetrated by a 'rogue reporter'.

Social media is open source. There are legal constraints of course but the judiciary has not yet come to terms with how to implement the law to a platform with millions of characters of information being uploads every day.

So 'no platform' is not working in social media - it promotes freedom of speech and those opposed to 'no platform' have long said that breaching the principle of freedom of speech is a price not worth paying.

Racists were ignored for so long that many thought they had gone away or at least that their number has diminished to an insignificant level. Yet social media is showing the pure folly of that thinking - just read some of the abuse that Bright has received during his time on Twitter.

"When James Vaughan joined Norwich from Everton, I tweeted to say, 'Good luck to James Vaughan with his move to Norwich'. Someone replied to say, 'I don't want any more blacks at Norwich. We've got enough, if you want to watch blacks and foreigners, go to see Arsenal'."

That's a horrible thing for him to have to read yet as a result of a simple retweet, the perpetrator was banned for life from Norwich City Football Club.

The issue is back out in the open and can be dealt with rather than denied.

Perhaps we have to accept that 'no platform' is unworkable now that social media is coming to the fore and embrace that element as an opportunity to more accurately assess society.

Five things sports journos should stop saying

Sports reporting is a funny old thing.

Loads of pages to fill / dead air to talk over / blog posts to write and a fairly limited number of new things happening at any one time.

But it must also be the form of journalism which most churns out the same old tired cliches and phrases. Here are my top five:

1. 110 per cent

It's impossible unless your figure is comparative so leave it alone. I will accept "Newcastle United have increased their number of wins by 110 per cent". I will not accept "David Silva has given 110 per cent today". Go to the back of the class.

2. Unsung hero

Occasionally this is used correctly. For example, you might say that Attilio Lombardo is the unsung hero of Manchester City. Very few people know what he does, or that he is even at Eastlands, but as the team is currently very successful, he seems to be doing it well.

However, I will not be happy if I again see Scott Parker described as an unsung hero at Spurs. He is currently Football Writers' Player of the Year, Tottenham's fans sing his name louder than all others and the Match of the Day team go all misty-eyed at the mere mention of his name. Leave it out. Right out.

3. Referee

OK so this is not a cliche but, for the love of Le Tissier, please stop talking about the whistlers all the time. Yes. They make mistakes. Yes. We can see the errors after we have watched an incident 12 times from four different angles and at super slo-mo but come now do we need to pull every decision apart every game?

4. Good touch for a big fella

Footballing folklore goes that if you're tall you have limited skill because you always have a cold head up there in the clouds. So every time Crouch attempts a back heel or Carroll beats his man we have to hear about how unusual it is. Get over it. We rarely hear the phrase 'terrible touch for a tiddler' despite its obvious application in connection with Theo Walcott or Sean Wright-Phillips.

5. Literally

Do you know what literally means? It literally means that something is exactly like something else. So, catching myself in my fly when I zipped up after a loo break is literally the most painfully embarrassing experience I have ever had. Robin Van Persie is not literally a thoroughbred racehorse. Messi did not literally leave the defender for dead. And yes Jamie Redknapp I'm talking to you.

Mind you when you see what happens if people in football try out some new terminology, perhaps it's better they do stick to cliches.

Press reaction to 2018 failure

So. The World Cup will not be coming to England in 2018. It seemed almost inevitable yet the shock and outrage that greeted the decision indicates that some quarters thought we had it in the bag.

On Monday evening Panorama aired its 'investigation' into allegations of FIFA corruption and I blogged to say I was disappointed by the poor standards of investigative journalism exercised by Panorama but ultimately backed their decision to run the programme.

But today, many of the papers are full of bile and anger about the decision and many are indicating it was a fix.

• The Daily Mirror is convinced that money must have changed hands to secure the World Cup for Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022
• The Sun's homepage (right) called for a corruption probe (sounds painfully like something the Spanish Inquisition would use), claiming that Russia has been 'bunged' the World Cup.
• The Daily Telegraph thundered that it was A Disgrace, adding the England had been lied to
  
• Even The Independent got in on the act, claiming that England feared foul play

Most seem to have forgotten the spurious allegation that the BBC had cost us the World Cup. It was an allegation that had featured prominently and amusingly in The Sun on Tuesday. It is an allegation repeated by England bid chairman Andy Anson today, alongside a claim that we probably should take our toys home and never bid for the World Cup again.

The Sun's response to Panorama wasn't truly surprising - after all there is no hypocrisy like red top hypocrisy as I discussed in an earlier blog about the excellent film Starsuckers. Surely The Sun must appreciate that reporting on corruption is pretty well timeless, unlike labelling a mentally ill boxing star Bonkers Bruno or running a picture of a topless Royal bride-to-be taken a decade earlier. However, Sun readers seem to have believed the article as Josh Halliday of the Guardian reported that the Beeb had been inundated with complaints since Russia got the nod.

But back to today's coverage. What is obvious from all the coverage is that the media agrees on one thing: it is beyond comprehension that Russia got the bid over England.

The Daily Mirror states:

Russia is a country where, as Wikileaks showed, it's difficult to tell politicians and the Mafia apart because corruption is so rife.

Black and Asian footballers suffer abuse from racist supporters. The new Tsar, Vladimir Putin, threatens the fledgling democracy. Neighbouring countries are warned that gas pipelines will be shut if they refuse to bow to Moscow.

It is a classic myth of British media. It is othering. It is the 'factory setting' of the British media standing up and shouting from the rooftops: "But we are the best. No-one can do it like us and just look at those other countries. They have horrific problems."

No mention that our Lord Triesman was caught (admittedly in a pretty shabby sting) spouting apparently groundless allegations that Spain was prepared to bribe referees or that recent hooliganism is threatening to undermine the sheen of respectability applied to English football after the shame of Heysel in 1985.

No mention of the fact that racism has still not been kicked out of English football or that our leading players seem incapable of behaving in a way that represents the game well.

No. If England lost, it must be down to skulduggery, underhand tactics and outright corruption because that his how the 'other' behaves

Of course, the Daily Mail has another view. According to the Daily Mail, we lost the bid because we had too many foreigners in our own bid video. Images of the Premier League's popularity in places like Africa and Asia must be to blame. If only we had a couple of pictures of bobbies-on-the-beat, paintings from Constable and, dare we suggest, some choice words from Enoch Powell, all would have been different.

To be surprised by Xenophobia in the Daily Mail is akin to being surprised by David Cameron's failure to grasp the economic plight of the lower classes. Still, it was shocking even by their standards.

I for one will look forward to the World Cup in Russia.

Yes I am frequently appalled by the lack of democracy in that country and yes, it has problems with corruption. But when we see our own policemen 'getting away with murder', our own politicians backtracking on promises for a sniff of power and attempts to stifle legitimate protest, are we sure that we can say that it is just them 'others'.

Football fans and the breakdown of society

Alright so the title is slightly over-the-top but football fans are getting on my nerves.

I used to love football. I was a regular at Pride Park and worked my holidays around major championships that England or, more rarely, Scotland were involved in.

But football fans have ruined it for me. Not all of them, but the snarling, vociforous majority who excuse their shocking behaviour by whimpering 'it's because I'm so passionate'. I'm passionate about plenty of things without turning into a cross between Norman Tebbit and the Kray twins.

And I'm not talking about traditional hooligans here. I'm talking about normal people who turn into Neanderthals when their beloved team in mentioned. People who have nice families, hold down good jobs, are involved in their community and don't hold criminal convictions.

They seem to have seen Green Street,thought 'now that's passion' and hold it aloft as an aspirational standard which their middle-class upbringing will never allow them to achieve.

It's the blinkered view on the world that gets me. Their player commits a foul and it's ok. A foul is committed on their player and you can expect frothing at the mouth and death threats against the ref who failed to spot what they could quite plainly see after 12 different camera angles were played at super slowmo over a period of five minutes.


They must know the truth. Deep down the reality of the situation must flash like a beacon but hypocrisy knows no bounds with football fans.

The truth is that Vidic should have been sent off after five minutes of the Carling Cup final, that Shawcross did not commit a horrific foul and that Wayne Bridge does not deserve to be booed just because his best mate had an affair with his (ex?) partner.

Maybe we in the media are to blame. Certainly some of the responsibility rests with us.

Transferring sport from the back pages to the front has resulted in the minute details being picked over and the elevation of sports stars to A List celebs and cultural prophets.

Muppets like Adrian Durham on Talksport excuse bad behaviour and violence as the understandable result of passion and we attack the perception of failure by managers in the same way we attack politicians.

All I know is that I am glad I have rugby and that so far it hasn't gone so far down the wrong road as wendy ball.

Restoring faith

A colleague tried to restore my faith in football and football fans today.

I'm not sure it worked but I had to admire his stance. He holds a senior position, involving countless admin-heavy meetings, and relishes the opportunity to do something so different having been in the restraining strait-jacket of management.

It's a good point. Football is a release - the shouting, highs and lows of support and the camaraderie with all around you can be extremely cathartic.

But he is one of the lucky few. His club hasn't been sullied by the money of the Premier League, which attracts trophy chasers and, as he supports Plymouth, away fans have to be into the football and not just the shouting to go there.

He's lucky but I'm not convinced and I'm planning to be at Welford Road for Christmas and not Pride Park.

The annoying thing about football . . .

. . . is the fans. They're supposed to be the best thing about the game in England if you listen to Match of the Day or Talksport or any of the sychophants on our airwaves.

Why oh why won't anyone tell it how it is? OK so Adebayor was not clever sprinting to his former club's fans and sliding to his knees in celebration after scoring a goal but then again they had treated him like a paedophile at a school's PGA meeting for the best part of an hour.

Apparently if a former idol slides to his knees in celebration it is then beyond the ability of any football to show restraint. Oh no, not them. It is perfectly acceptable to respond by trying to inflict serious injury on said striker by lobbing coins, bananas and chairs at his head. For God's sake grow up you muppets.

I haven't been to a football match for 12 months after I watched Derby County v Reading. A trio of my own club's fans (for I support Derby) felt it was OK to stand for 90 minutes with their middle fingers extended towards the Hoops' fans. And these guys were in their 40s.

Not for me. Rugby has its problems at the moment but at least the fans can behave like human beings and not a pack of dogs.