Time to reform English football as Sam Allardyce brings about a new low

The National Student

If, somehow, you’ve missed the biggest piece of news in British sport recently, here it is: Sam Allardyce has been sacked. Why? He was recorded giving information on how to bypass rules regarding third-party ownership.

In 2006 West Ham United purchased Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, beating off various top clubs to claim their signatures, in what was hailed as a moment of business genius. However, it soon emerged that they were in fact owned by a third-party group, Media Sports Investments.

What this meant was that the group owned the rights to the players and, by extension, so did the ‘investors’. So, third-party ownership is when a non-footballing entity owns the rights to a player, as opposed to the club(s). Investors make money from a player’s sale, and thus have rights over where/when they ply their trade. This has been banned in the UK since 2008.

So, what has Big Sam - a cult hero at Bolton Wanderers and beyond - really done? He gave advice on how to slip pass the rules. He also arranged to fly to Singapore and Hong Kong to give advice to potential player investors, for £400,000 a week.

However, I would question the appointment of Big Sam in the first place. I’m not questioning whether or not he’s a decent manager; I’m a fan of his. The fact remains though, that this isn’t the first time he’s been accused of receiving bungs (illegal payments).

In 2006, there was a lot of back and forth between himself, Craig (his son) and then-agent Peter Harrison. Harrison claims, on tape, he paid Craig to bribe Sam to make certain transfers. Questionable to say the least…

Allardyce isn’t the only manager to be accused. Despite the fact that no other names (as of the time of writing) have been released, there are apparently eight other managers guilty of receiving bungs. QPR’s Jimmy Flloyd Hasselbaink and Southampton’s Eric Black were caught in similar media stings to Allardyce - however their cases are less straightforward. There seems to be no doubt though that there is corruption at the core of English football, and it’s damaging.

A sickness, a disease - it needs fixing. As England hero Alan Shearer aptly put: “Now here we are. The laughing stock of world football.” This is after he stated that he didn’t think England could go lower after their shock loss to Iceland at the Euros this summer.

So where from here? In a video released on the Match of the Day Facebook page, Gary Lineker gives some strong and sensible insight. He calls for a transparent transfer house, where the details of each transfer are made clear and publicly available. 

Firstly, the massive agent fees are removed. They’re working to get the best fee for their player then, as they only receive a fixed percentage. They can’t be swayed by other “fees”.

Secondly, this solution addresses corruption at its core and origin, giving it no potential starting point. It will also force decisions to, once again, be made on a footballing basis and not that of potential financial gain.

Yes, I agree that what Lineker proposes would be difficult to implement. The ideas that he’s putting forward do have a lot of merit, though. They’re also coming from somebody who knows his stuff about the game, and the “behind the scenes” aspects of football. It’s the sort of stuff that Greg Dyke and the rest of the FA should be listening to. Let’s just hope they do.