THE message was brief. “You are not going anywhere,” the sports editor told me. This was less a comment on his determination to retain my services more a reflection on a career that is as stagnant and distinguished as a Possil puddle.
He, at least, does not speak with forked tongue, though I have no comment to make on the configuration of his tail. He gives it you straight in the manner of a psychopath with a sawn-off shotgun. He would thus be lost in the world of football, particularly during the transfer window.
It is now the season for football types to lie, dissemble and spout nonsense. There will be those of you who remark that this season lasts a mere 12 months but the January Transfer Window (it deserves capital letters to add the merest sheen of dignity to what is a tawdry business) is the biggest gathering of untruths and empty rhetoric since Parliament went into recess.
Football types have a code that is easily broken, though few try. The ‘’he’s not going anywhere” is risible. Mark Warburton, for example, exasperated by repeated links in the media to other posts, said he was staying at Rangers. “I am not going anywhere,” he said. This is all sincere and heartfelt but the certainty is that he will leave. He will either be sacked or he will move to another club. He will not be eternally rumbling around Murray Park like Banquo’s ghost. He will go. It is what happens to football managers.
The other misapprehension in the football world is that signing a long-term contract somehow ties a player to a club. It does not. It does, however, allow the club to gain an element of control over an asset’s future. Thus Nir Bitton’s decision to sign a contract that endures at Celtic until 2020 is less a sign of the player’s determination to stay in Glasgow, more an indication that other clubs are circling and, in exchange for a hefty salary rise, Celtic can now decide when to pap him on to Championship or EPL.
Both the above cases are repeated throughout football land. One wonders who is being fooled by it all. Is there a Rangers fan who honestly believes that Warbs would not pack his magic hat and head south if an EPL club made him an offer? Is there any rational football fan who would blame him? Yet he is condemned to spout the rhetoric because if he was blunt then a small forest would have to be destroyed to supply the newsprint. Imagine this.
Journalist: “Do you intend to leave Rangers, Mr Warburton?
Warbs: “Well, obviously, you tube [he is speaking to me]. I am not going to spend the rest of my natural life in Glasgow, am I?”
Similarly, there will be an outbreak of shock, certainly within the Celtic boardroom, if Mr Bitton is still picking up his wage in Glasgow in 2020. But no one can quite bring themselves to say it. The odd punter might say that it is great that Bitton has committed himself to the club for another four years. The more enlightened will be pleased that Celtic have handcuffed him to a larger transfer fee.
Journalist: “So you are staying at Celtic until 2020, Nir?
Nir: “Listen you tube [I am everywhere at the moment] if I am still at Celtic in four years then I will not have realised my potential and my agent will have completed his own personal terms with Dignitas.”
These are clear-cut scenarios but the transfer window will offer plot lines that would test the patience of St Patience of Patience, the patron saint of patience. As the EPL prepares for the TV deal to kick in and to light £100 notes with £50 notes just for the sheer hell of it, the football world will turn into a scene that resembles in its excess a Belushi family knees-up. It will also be marked by all the dignity of the last days of Saigon.
The problem for the hacks [me again] is that we can discern the essential truth of the situations of both Warbs and Nir. They are playing the game. Others, though, take the game and throw it up in the air. Agents, footballers, and clubs will only tell you what they want you to know. Fair enough. But a lot of them will also tell you tales so porky that they smell of pig.
A transfer window aftermath would not be complete without a thousand variations on the following exchange.
Journalist: “You told me that Jaime McCanio was going nowhere and he has just signed for Man U.”
Agent: “Yeah, well things change and you know me I tell so many lies my nose is almost as big as a journalist’s [yes, it’s me again].”
It is why I am relieved I do not have make these calls this transfer window and come back to the sport editor with a story so empty, so lacking in vim or authenticity, it resembles, well, a Saturday column.
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