Football Food For Thought / Tareq Quiroz / 30 August 2008 /

TQ gives us his take on superstar club owners, football agents, faxed transfer bids and the on-off transfer sagas of Berbatov and Barry as he wonders who actually calls the shots in today's money-spinning game.

Football is not just a game; it is a way of life. For some it is their lives and nothing could mean more. In many respects this is nothing new as teams have always had fanatical supporters but times have changed and its no longer just about the clubs. It's now about players, managers and even chairmen. So, who really runs the game?

Money changes everything. It is clear that with so much at stake now the game was always going to move on, but with money comes greed. It would be unfair to solely blame the players as they are just looking after themselves but I can't offer the same reprieve to agents and the owners of clubs.

Agents are now a part of life in many high profile professions but they do they really have the best interests of their clients in mind; or is it more likely they want to make as much money as possible? You see some players move clubs almost every other year for big fees and it would be fair to say that many of these players are decent players who just never get settled. It is hard to point out any player who is a huge success despite having played for several clubs.

This summer just gone has been riddled with transfer sagas and for a fan it is tiresome. A huge game of chess is played as everyone tries their best to get as big a piece of the pie as possible. The current Berbatov situation is typical of the mess the game is in. How can the possible transfer of one player be the source of the back page headline when the season is up and running? He has been touted around by people close to him and it is absolutely no secret Man Utd want to buy him. So, why doesn't everyone just come out and admit it? Quite simply because it loses them some power in the game they play. Players so rarely put in transfer requests nowadays as their contracts state that if they go down that road then they will forfeit a variety of lucrative bonuses. This is the time when an agent really earns their money.

Possibly the most puzzling transfer saga of the summer was the Gareth Barry on/off switch from Villa to Liverpool. I doubt we will ever really know how much Villa wanted for Barry but I think we are safe in saying it was around the £18M mark. I would dearly like to see the supposed faxed offers that Liverpool made; why clubs use faxes when surely they could just call bemuses me but we will have to address that another time. The thing that is really puzzling about that whole transfer is that, to the best of our knowledge, at no point did Barry put in an official transfer request. He found time to express his desire to leave for Liverpool in the Sunday newspapers but no time for a transfer request. Again, we will never know why he failed to do this but all it really does is cast an ugly shadow over the fine game.

With top level football comes fame and fortune and it seems to me that the latest addition to those in the headlines is the owners of clubs. I was amazed to see Man City owner Thaksin Shinawatra signing autographs last week and it really brought home to me that these guys really do think they are the stars. I have no problem with cash rich owners coming into clubs but I am totally against the use of it to make them famous, sure I take the point that Shinawatra was already famous but surely not that important to the majority of Man City fans.

Newcastle are never a club to shy away from the spotlight and somehow always seem to make a drama out of any movement at the club. Their owners came in with a blaze of publicity and are now constantly involved in all sorts of wrangles. Does Keegan pick the team? What does Dennis Wise do? More importantly, what role does Mike Ashley play? The club is shrouded in mystery and clear internal issues such as the strange announcement of Milner's transfer request several days later and on the day Keegan was to meet Ashley does not covet the club in much glory.

Who knows what goes on behind the closed doors of football clubs today but one thing is for sure - it is a murky world that does not do the great game any credit.

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