Tue 28 Nov 06
Poor Little Rich Club
New president of the G-14 lobby of football clubs, Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein makes a spirited bid for this year’s C. Montgomery Burns Award for Excellence in the Field of Excellence:
“G-14 is a friend of the game,” he told delegates at the Soccerex football finance seminar in Dubai.
“It is not just for the good and great, the rich and famous. It is clubs that are similar in many respects because of their success, or the money they generate.”
Because, of course, they are just misunderstood legitimate businessmen.
But the real howler comes with Dein’s rationale for the lack of English members in la Légion Étrangère du Londres-Nord:
“As an English club we want to have a base of English players if we can,” he said, adding that Arsenal spent £3m to £4m a year nurturing local talent.
“But if it is not there, we have to buy-in talent from overseas.”
Surely he meant to say, “As a club situated by happenstance in England…”
Paul Canniff
