Footballocracy

I know I don't blog here often but when I do think of something that isn't Aston Villa related, I need it to go somewhere. This morning I read a story on the BBC where new Manchester United CEO Ed Woodward was speaking about transfers.

The first thing I thought was he clearly didn't know much about Sir Alex Ferguson or Manchester United, but then I learnt that he is actually working there at the moment.

And when I read on, I learnt that he's actually quite good at what he does, but someone really should tell him to not be speaking publicly about player activity at Manchester UNited, especially when Sir Alex is the real CEO and Ed is his gofer.

A fine badge for Cardiff City, but now it is gone, as is the colour and the nickname

I read about this a few weeks ago and didn't think it would happen. I thought it was a foreign owner dipping his toes in the water only to find out that the idea wasn't going to float.

Well, it turns out that this particular owner doesn't seem to care what others think and has gone and changed the club colours from blue to red. Not only that, he has changed the club nickname from the Bluebirds to the Dragons.

Scary stuff and what next? It's a valid question because it appears he can do whatever he wants.

The game of football is broken and the financial fair play rules, confirmed in May last year, only goes to further prove this. I can't prove this to you now, but trust me, the big clubs in England, Spain and Italy will still be the big clubs in ten years time.

But I'm a cynical bastard at the best of times. However, I'm not expecting these regulations to change anything - in fact all they are going to do is confirm the top teams and not allow any others in.

Andy Carroll might not join Liverpool and despite our prediction that Torres would be kissing the Chelsea badge today, Torres might very well be playing in the red of Liverpool for the rest of the season.

However, Torres by the looks of things will probably join Chelsea and if that happens and Liverpool then go and throw away £35mn on Andy Carroll, I think I might drink myself to sleep tonight. It will just be further proof that the madmen have taken control of the asylum and everyone else is happy for it to keep going on.

Before Fernando Torres joined Liverpool, he apparently supported them growing as a boy and when he signed, it was a dream move. I know, it's too good to be true and it turns out he got his colours mixed up, it was really Chelsea. Loyalty it appears, costs £200k a week these days.

The talk is Torres is on £120k a week at Liverpool; over £6,000,000 a year and he can probably pick that up for the next five seasons. Add that all together with his endorsements and investments, he isn't going to retire a pauper and chances are he could retire tomorrow and he and his family, for generations, would never have to really work again.