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Anorak News | A Lot Of Nonsense

A Lot Of Nonsense

by | 29th, July 2004

‘IT goes without saying that the Football Association could not organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery, but even by their standards this is a complete farce.

Sven gets a Grip

According to the Mirror, the FA issued its denial that Sven Goran Eriksson had slept with Soho Square secretary Faria Alam on the basis of one very brief telephone conversation.

More specifically, on the basis of three words from the England coach – “This is nonsense.”

It is on the interpretation of those three words, apparently, that the Swede’s future rests…and you don’t need to be Bill Clinton’s lawyer to suggest that they are somewhat ambiguous.

What defies belief is that, if he was planning to issue a denial, FA executive director David Davies did not see fit to ask Eriksson point blank whether the story was true or not.

Instead, the organisation charged with looking after our national sport ensued that once again it is a complete laughing stock by retracting its denial after only a couple of days.

Our guess is that Eriksson will survive – the FA have invested too much money in him to sack him on such trivial, and disputed, grounds.

And, as the Mirror shows, he still has a number of powerful supporters on the FA board which will meet to decide his fate.

However, the Mail – stealing yesterday’s Anorak headline (“It’s Not If, but Sven”) – says the Swede’s hopes of survival have all but disappeared.

It quotes an FA insider as saying: “If you can lie to your employers once, as Sven has done in the past regarding his dealings with Chelsea, you can lie to them again.

“It’s a capital offence. If that’s what has happened, he’s got to go.”

But a senior FA source sums it up when he says, “It all comes down to whether he was asked the right questions by David [Davies]”.

And, if the Mirror is to be believed, the answer would appear to be no.

The Sun claims that Eriksson will probably be allowed to waddle on as a lame duck manager for the next two years purely because the FA can’t afford to sack him.

David “Safe Hands” Seaman knows a bit about playing away – he abandoned his first wife and kids to shack up with PR girl Debbie.

But he tells the Sun that he thinks Patrick Vieira should stay at Arsenal.

“The Premier League is fantastic,” he says. “Everyone wants to come and play here. England is the place to be at the moment.

“I’ve never played abroad, but I wouldn’t want to go out there.”

Quite right – who’s to say what you might catch “out there”. Not to mention the food. And the people. And the fact that you might bump into Posh Spice…’



Posted: 29th, July 2004 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink