The Blatter Patter

It is said that the English FA should ‘defeat from within’ the power-base of Sepp Blatter and his FIFA army that has trampled over the world with great arrogance and calculation. FIFA stand accused as being a self-serving group who are only in for business or financial reasons. They are arguments that will fall on deaf ears. Not only has Sepp Blatter wrapped himself in a cloak of invincibility - his colleague in waiting, the legend that is Michel Platini, does not have too much sympathy for the English complaints.

As the Premier League was torn to pieces in its brand by the Catalan Globe-Trotters at Wembley, David Bernstein chose this week of all weeks to stand-up on stage like a modern-day Atticus Finch to give the world a telling off. With us or against us is not a good look. Ask any old cowboy.

The Premier League in England is a place where the FIFA delegates could be most at home. The idea that was floated this week was that Qatar had ‘bought’ the World Cup. For those without the yellow strap-line at the bottom of the skysportsnews screen - this was not breaking news.

Qatar has pushed forward its investment in football. It has pushed forward its duty to build a community from the beautiful game. It has pushed forward the brand and the project and all the things that make this particular tale overly familiar.

Manchester City won the FA Cup this season. They qualified for the Champions League and have the rest of English football terrified at their potential. For that read money. Terrified of their money and all that comes with money. When England sends its representatives across Europe next season, they do so with the idea that we stand powerful in Europe. A finalist in the world’s premier club competition almost every year - as the American’s say: “what’s not to like?”

We send them with our own fair play, our true sense of English justice and fairness. We send them into European battle and wave flags as they return as heroes. We have honour and pride in our football. We have our clubs controlled by Americans, a Sheikh and a Russian with money to burn. They eat up the Premier League with their money and control and inflated wages to embark on the European adventure.

Arsenal, the club that most will champion as the Premier League’s seeker of fairness and pure football can feel particularly aggrieved to be shoe-horned into the argument. Not that Europe sees it that way. More importantly - Michel Platini does not see it that way.

In an interview to a Grenoble daily newspaper, Dauphine Libere in September 2008, Platini had this to say in relation to Cluj beating AS Roma and justifying his much criticised re-formed Champions League: 'That is what makes football so great! It is what people like (Arsene) Wenger do not want, little clubs beating the big clubs, because they want their business.'

For those with memories longer than the formation of the Premier League, English football has never been well liked. It has had its hooligans and inbred arrogance that football comes home every time there is a sniff of success. European football returned to the English game just when it got serious. UEFA compelled to reduce the ban on English clubs that had cost so many so dear when the English game got itself organised. It got stadia, it got TV deals, it got investment - it got rich. UEFA listened when it got rich. It used listen to the G14 of ‘special clubs’. It probably still does.

Football is business. Big business. Nowhere is that more prevalent than in England.