under-the-paving-stones

Florida Uncovered

2005-11-24T05:33:00.000-08:00

A wealthy, divorced, middle aged woman, whose weight would threaten any functioning scales, picked up at Orlando International Airport with a brief to open my eyes to the magic of Florida. My task was to survive five days with her and her family and report back to the french any faults I could find with a nation that was still perturbing those living across the channel.

I was content, the trip was being funded by the Americans as a reward for giving a few free drinks to their kids this summer, when they were wasting their parents money on what turned out to be the most basic of basic french courses. They had arrived in Paris armed with mom's or dad's credit cards and launched a full scale assualt on an Irish pub thrilled by being legally allowed to drink in public. Their parents only way to keep a check on their kids progress was by monitoring their spending habits online. Generous, stupid, naive think whatever you like of the parents, they were, more than anything, just wealthy. Extremely wealthy. Hence my subsidised trip to Florida.

We left the airport in a huge white truck. She called it a car, but it wasn't a car as seen in Europe. It was a truck, like one that would have been used by the CIA at one time. As we left the airport it seemed that the CIA must have had some program in place whereby used vehicles are sold on to the public as these monsters dominated the boulevards and freeways of Orlando. These road destroyers were the first hint i had had, that in the United States of America size was what mattered.

Everything else followed suit. The burgers at the drive through 'Steak and Shake' would have fed a french family, the sodas or soft drinks would have been used to bath little spanish babies.The pizzas would have been used as round-a-bouts in 1980s english parks before the dangers of loose pepperoni closed them down. The houses looked like those modern junior schools that crop up on the edge of small yorkshire villages and the gardens would be called 'green belts' in England. And most significant of all, the people, the inhabitants of this spaced out land, would make sumo restlers insecure and self conscious.

What I noticed was that in Florida there was an abundance of space, wide open spaces that you don,t get in Europe. SPace changes everything. Why not make burgers triple decker and sodas like small lakes if the room is available? Why drive a truck if there are no narrow streets and the parking lots are wide enough to fit two cars? Why not expand your belly outwards if there is no danger of crashing into anything? After all, seeing an average florida flesh monster stood next to a truck or holding a slice of pizza or a soda, everything seems in perfect proportion. Is it all just a marketing ploy then? People are made to think they are still small as the Turkey leg they are eating looks like a cavemans club. A small little English lad began to feel a little out of place in this 'size is everything' sunshine state. Like Gulliver in the land of the giants.

"I,m not rascist and I don't have a problem with blacks or mexicans but...oh about three miles down there is where all the niggers live." 'Niggertown' as it was known amongst the white republicans of Florida was avoided at all costs. Apparently the black population prefer to live in their own areas. Not surprising I thought when you are surrounded by a form of such disguised racsism. A prejeduce that reveals itself even more when the perpetrators are inebriated. The word black turns to 'Nigger' or 'chickaboo' and the 'no problems with blacks' attitude quickly reverts to a "oh... in the days of slavery" reminiscing.

At a college football game, about 90% of the teams players were black. Football is a route out of the ghettos for them, rather like football in Europe is for poor isolated immigrants in France or even Britain. 99% of the eighty two thousand crowd who attended the match were white. Demonstatiing that bLack students were only likely to get into a white college if they had athletic potential. There was another college in Tallahasse, which was a college for black students. Apparently they had requested it, as a 'payback for slavery.' For the big college parties that begin the new term, all the wealthy white kids leave town, presumably acting on the advice of their distrusting parents who had no problems with black people.

This was the type of segregation that had resulted in riots in London, Liverpool, Los Angeles and SOuth Africa over the years, recently too in Paris. The irony of me circling huge black ghettos in a big white pick up truck was not lost. We were mocking them, keeping watch on them, threatening them.

Not one black person came to the kids 21st party. THe party was big, as it was always going to be. Big drinks, big US marines, big high fives, big amount of glamorous college girls big in to the English accent, big vomits, big policemen to break up the party and a big pair of handcuffs used to arrest the kid. His charge was for having an 'open house party' where under 21s could turn up. Chained up infront of his mother on his own birthday, big surprise!

After a trip to Disneyland, a place seemingly as big as belgium it was time to return home to Europe.

What i had experienced worried me and turned my stomach, literally. Whether it be the 24 hour a day fast food culture or the rascism and bigotry backed up by an obsession with making money I left with a sickly aftertaste. Don't get me wrong, the people were very generous. But they were in a position to be so. They did mock their culture at times but still saw nothing wrong with it. They made fun of Europe more, especially the french, whose decision not to go to war at Americas side still narks them. Forget the current situation in Iraq they would say, the french were wrong. I see big problems ahead for the states in the next few years. The country like the people are in Unhealthy States.

So it was with relief that I walked onto the plane home, which was incidentally, the first time i had walked anywhere since I had arrived.

Tapie reappears, this time in Paris

2005-10-14T04:22:00.000-07:00

Bernard Tapie, the former President of Olympic Marseille Football Club, made infamous for match fixing and corruption in the 1990's appears to be on the verge of a return to football. Not planning on an emotional homecoming to his former post, his new project will be in Paris, home of Marseille's bitter rival Paris St Germain or PSG. His aim? To launch a new club to challenge the dominance of PSG, the only sizeable club in the capital.

"I,ve had this idea for a long time" explains Tapie, "to bring back a second big club in Paris as is the case in Rome, Barcelona, Milan or London.'
On the face of it the potential seems to be there. Paris, a city the size of London with one club the size of Arsenal appears to allow plenty of scope for Tapie's project.

The news of Bernard's brainchild was greeted with suspicion in some quarters of french football. Were his motives rooted in an attempt to weaken the old enemy PSG? In other areas people reacted to his announcement with amusement, in particular the presidents and shareholders of some of the smaller clubs based in the greater Paris region. However Luc Dayan, majority shareholder of ES-Saint Gretian, a team situated in the northern suburbs, adds weight to Tapie's vision. "Paris could support two or three professional clubs and the topic of creating a second club in Paris is the most talked about in french football."

The Stade de France, an 80 000 all seater stadium, to the north of Paris, remains unoccupied and Tapie reminded people of the potential of 'colossal gate recipts and a financial basis' that this would bring to an 'ambitious club.'

The Stade de France is the home of 'les bleus', the french national team or as many see them, 'the other team in Paris'. For before the World cup was captured by France in 1998 football rarely disturbed the conversations on the terrasses of parisian cafes and Brasseries. It was an alien topic to many, played only abroad or at least outside Paris. But when Zinedine Zidane, a man that could surely become president if he so wished, took them to the trophy in their own backyard, parisians put down their coffees, paused their debates and welcomed a wholly different terrace culture into their city. Unable or unwilling to follow PSG, whose fan base contains a sizeable group of hardcore, more traditional football fans; working class, rowdy, intolerant and occasionally racist, these nouveau fans of football stayed loyal to 'les bleus'. Can Bernard tap into this huge natural resource or are these fans content to live off the memory of that world cup.

Tapie admits that at this moment in time his idea is 'no more than a dream', but he is insistent that 'this project must be launched by next season'.

'When you look at the number of people who mobilized to bring the Olympic games to Paris in 2012, you can see the enormous potential energy and available financial means.' Tapie insists he has some powerful backers. 'I have spoken with Frederic Thiriez (president of the football association) and he is a fan. Many people are urging on this project, facilities owners, television bosses, football sponsors.'

It seems therefore that Bernard Tapie who was responsible for Marseille being stripped of their league title and then forcefully relegated, still has friends in football. However, whether people will place their financial trust in Tapie as they did in an official Olympic bid is another matter. Tapie still has many enemies in the higher echelons of the French state. In 1997, after an exhaustive investigation, he was jailed for amongst other things, tax fraud and subordination of witnesses. With his name in ruins and riddled with debts, that should have been the end of him, but back came Tapie. In September this year a court ordered the French bank Credit Lyonnais to pay him 135 million euros for allegedly defrauding him when in 1994 they sold Adidas on his behalf.

In short, there is a huge number of powerful personalities who will take great delight in seeing Bernard Tapie fail, again. But for the one time businessman, politician, actor, singer and TV host this is nothing new. Although he does not envisage becoming president of the club, once again it seems he is prepared to put his head under the guillotine.

Our enemy is a lack of understanding

2005-10-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

This was written shortly after the london bombings, but with the government going ahead with their plans to alter the anti terror laws it is still appropriate.

What most of us thought was inevitable has finally come about, the phony war is now over and Britain as a whole, not just London is truly involved in the war on terror. The strength of our society as well as that of our own personal values will be put to the test in the time to come. Will we remain as open and tolerant as we were before? Or will we succumb to the pressure from both the terrorists and the government to sacrifice our freedoms.

The desire to capture the four would be suicide bombers is clouding the whole picture. The police, as is their job, are concentrating on the how, where and when of suicide bombing but we as a nation should be concerned with the Why. Tony Blair insists that the decision to put Iraq to the sword has nothing to do with the recent attacks. Why does he think Spain was attacked in a similar manor? America has long been a target of Middle Eastern extremists due to their support of Israel however Britain has only become a target since its decision to support the US army in Afghanistan and more notably in Iraq. As long as the motivation is there, the police are fighting a battle they cannot win.

British Muslims saw in great detail on their own television screens, their own government, a government that they themselves may have helped into power, support an economically motivated invasion of a Muslim country. On those same screens they saw thousands of innocent Iraqi Muslims with blood as red as the victims in London, killed by soldiers representing their country. They must have felt the pressure more than anyone to do something about it. If we are to lay the blame at clerics and preachers, then we should include Michael Moore, the BBC, ITV and all those other film makers and journalists who have highlighted the illegality of the war. Did Blair put himself in the position of those well-educated young men before he took the decision to go to war. For the sake of Parisians and Berliners at least Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder did. Nothing will ever excuse what the bombers did but for the sake of the victims families it would at least explain it.

The reality is that Blair, knowing the tactics of any suicide bombers, can take these decisions with impunity for with his elaborate security he will never be targeted. Passengers on buses and tubes and commuter trains are not afforded the luxury of bodyguards and armed police. These workers just like those Iraqis living near military targets, are sitting ducks.

To prevent further attacks, the government must not put all its faith in the in the hands of the police. They can catch and hopefully prevent the detonation of other bombs but they cannot take away the motivation to make those bombs. Tony Blair insists that these terrorists resent our freedom, is he then just going to toss that freedom away. He insists we must carry on as normal, is introducing new terror laws whereby suspects can be held for three months ‘carrying on as normal’? This would be playing directly into the minds of the terrorists. These new laws would be naturally be abused, wrong people would always be detained and further resentment would grow. As the bitterness in the communities that terrorists originate so will the number of men and women who make the same decision as the four 7/7 bombers.

No sadly it is only the people on the streets who must overcome their fear and go about running the country as they always have done.

On our part, we have to drop this ‘come and get us attitude’ that Londoners have been portraying. To make a stand against the terrorists requires us to make a public show of tolerance. Tabloid journalists included, have to be conscious of their responsibility at a time like this. They must divert their readers attention from the fact that these bombers were from Muslim backgrounds and from within our own sacred cities. They should be held account for any backlash against Muslims and any dark skinned people.
If we alienate genuine followers of Islam, whether through irresponsible reporting, abuse of anti terror laws or through random physical attacks, not only will it be harder to capture any potential suicide bombers but the list of motives for those who care enough will swell.

Did the ordinary people of Britain do enough to prevent these attacks? Should we have punished Blair ourselves, legally through the means of the last election rather than leaving it to despairing terrorists to do it? Once a population doesn’t act when it should other, more extremist groups will naturally try to take control. If Blair had gone at the last election under a storm with all the focus on the Iraq war, it may not have come to this.

I for one, do not think I did enough.

Where did it all go wrong?

2005-10-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

The signs are there that our much vaunted "greatest football league in the world" is beginning to wilt under the strains of over exposure and over financing. The facade is being rubbed away and the columns of fans that have supported it for so long, are crumbling. Even the champions Chelsea, who in the midst of what will become known as their glory years, cannot even sell it to their own fans. The falling attendances show that as fans, we no longer drink the premiership ale with the same gusto. How has its once unique flavour become so soured?

A competition is only such, if its competitors can truly compete. If only 2 or 3 teams or individuals can actually do this then the contest loses both meaning and appeal. Formula One has had to alter it’s the rules of the sport in order to make it more competitive and therefore more interesting to the public. Is anyone as keen on tennis these days with Federer dominating so much? Not his fault of course, but it hurts the allure of the sport. People lose interest. Our short attention spans take us elsewhere. The Premiership cannot be defined as a league any more, it has splintered into various mini competitions that has left the real contest dead.

It is the Premiership, that more than any league in Europe, has become less and less competitive over the years, in particular since the birth of the Champions League. The recent dominance by Arsenal and Manchester United has been put into perspective by the supremacy of the modern Chelsea team.
The champions finished 34 points ahead of fourth placed Everton last year. The previous year Arsenal, who completed the season unbeaten, finished 30 points clear of fourth placed Liverpool. These are worrying disparities for a league that declares itself to be the most competitive in Europe. If we compare this with other European leagues France, Italy, Spain and Germany have never had a gap of more than 24 points between the first and fourth teams over the last two seasons. These differences are frequently smaller as in Spain two years ago when 7 points separated champions Valencia from fourth placed Real Madrid. Three seasons ago the top four teams in the French League 1 were divided by just four points.

However it is not just the top four in a league who need to compete. A massive 63 points lay between champions Chelsea and bottom placed Southampton last term, the biggest in all the big European leagues. A gap that may increase this season as Chelsea are already 21 points clear of bottom placed Everton after only 8 games. Again this currently represents the greatest points difference between the summit and the base in all of the European Leagues.

Our league is simply not competitive enough. Although the supremacy of Chelsea and the other big clubs is not based on pure talent like that of Federer, nor is it one which is entirely apportioned to their financial backing. Note the way Ranieri wasted Abramovich’s first installment . Money, however has completely altered the Premiership and the competitive factor that made it so famous has effectively been paid off.

Whether it be from SKY TV, the Champions League or a Russian millionaire, the serious cash influx has eaten away at the old egality of the football league, where a club like Norwich or Aston Villa, Southampton or QPR could put a team together and challenge for the league title. Indeed it was that first premiership season, when Mike Walker’s Norwich and Ron Atkinson’s Aston Villa came so close to preventing ‘Fergie’ from grasping his first title, that was the last year before the influence of the cash influx began to take a stranglehold.

Its gone something like this… The big clubs got the most revenue from SKY TV who then received the most knock on effects notably an increased fan base. With this revenue they then began to dominate the domestic league. These clubs then accepted the notable extra cash boost from qualifying into the Champions League which then cemented their dominance over the smaller or less successful clubs. They could then build up squads not just teams, of internationals plucked from other domestic teams.

Note the case of Shaun Wright Phillips; Enticed away from an improving Manchester City team to join the Champions. He couldn’t wait to see if Manchester City would ever make it into the Champions League. He wanted that level of football now, especially in a World Cup year when he has a chance of cementing a place in the national team. So Chelsea improve at the expense of Manchester City. Imagine if they had netted Steven Gerrard! In recent years Manchester United have gained at Everton’s loss and Arsenal at Tottenham’s. Forget the money that has exchanged hands. It is rarely spent wholly on players and if it is, then it is often squandered.

Since the conception of the Champions League, only six different English clubs have competed in the money spinning group stages of the competition. Compare this with nine different teams from Spain and eight from France who notably have one allocation less then England. The German Bundesliga has had three different winners in the last four years and seven representatives in the champions league, again managing this with one allocation less than England. When we take into account that four teams can potentially qualify for the tournament each year from the Premiership we can then see how the same clubs have come to dominate the league and then the potential revenue and then the league again.

The notion that love is blind is proving false. Followers of their adored teams are setting the guide dogs free as they perceive the futility of devoting their hard earned wages to their team in an era such as this. Why should they gamble more money on a bandit, already full and not paying out.

Sadly it is not just the spectators who lose interest. Week in week out regulars at any premiership match will be able to spot the footballers who have just showed up for the money and not to compete. How many away games did Paolo di Canio ever play for West Ham?

As the competitiveness drops a few levels so does the entertainment value. The Premiership averages just 2.1 goals a game this season far below the rest of Europe where Spain, Italy and Germany average 2.4, 2.62 and 2.68 goals a game respectively. A statistic that can partly be reflected in the fact that the German Bundesliga is the best supported league in Europe with three clubs averaging home gates over 50 000.

What has now began to exacerbate the problem Premiership is that the evidence of its decline has been paraded across millions of television sets in the last few years and into the homes of potential fans. Instead of appealing to the fans, the hundreds of games shown each year are now acting as a turn off, proving to people that the competition has lost its edge. As the titanic began to sink, the worst thing that could have happened to those who wined and dined on the top decks was that the masses below realized what was happening.

Can anything be done to rescue this sinking ship? The money that effectively governs the game must be burned, which means that its source i.e. television revenue has to be curtailed. The government has to become involved as the leagues bosses who are themselves, all sustained by the wealth in football will not make the necessary sacrifices. They should acknowledge the significance that football has on the country as a whole and act accordingly. Restrict the number of games on television, bring kick offs back to Saturday afternoons and ensure that entrance prices are affordable to those who are the bedrock of the game, the working classes. If the government take no action then it is the supporters through not re-subscribing to SKY who can pull the strings.

As for the FA they have to set some rules for the clubs under their jurisdiction. Limit the number of transfers a club can make or at least restrict the amount of their revenue that they can spend on new players. If a club gets in to trouble then they are forced to bring in players from their academies, therefore benefiting the national team. A salary cap is also necessary to reign in the huge sums that the wealthy clubs spend on players wages. If the smaller clubs can compete on a financial level, they will find it easier to compete on the pitch and if they can compete on the pitch, then our famous competition will return to its old glory.

When the fans saw the light.

Three notable occurrences this summer helped the fans to see the current state of English football in its true form.

1. Rio Ferdidand refusing to sign a new contract offered to him worth £100 000 per week. This after Manchester United had paid his wages for eight months after he went to Burtons instead of a drugs test. Rio was quoted as stating that he was “holding out for a deal that was right for him.”

2. Arsenal versus Chelsea, the first big clash of the season. In a turgid contest, Drogba shinning the winner was over shadowed by a much more significant event; Chelsea’s substitutions. On came £45 million pounds worth of men, not far off the cost of the whole of the Arsenal team.

3. Two Irish business tycoons sold their shares in Manchester United to an American business tycoon and for hundreds of millions of pounds. Manchester United Fans or two thousand at least, realized their club like many others was being used and abused by businessmen playing their own real game of Fantasy Football with massive prizes on offer. Off they went and formed a new club.