Many of my fans and followers know I have had something of a love/hate relationship with football (‘soccer’ for our U.S. cousins) over the past few years.  This particular sport has been ruined by one thing and one thing alone: money.

Now, before we start, let me just say this.  I have nothing against clubs making money for themselves.  That’s not what this is about.  It’s about the money men and women running the clubs.  Money coming in just to make money.  Since Roman Abramovich took over at Chelsea and took them to a number of league titles, FA Cup wins and all sorts of European adventures, other clubs, such as Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Newcastle United and many others, have sold their clubs off to eccentric billionaires who couldn’t give two shits about the club but have thrown enough money at them to enable them to hire the best managers, players and staff that the world of football has to offer – with mixed results.  In the case of Manchester City, it was a rapid rise to the top; as for Newcastle United, it was an almost as rapid fall towards relegation.

I also feel the need to interject something of my own football allegiances before we continue, for the benefit of the one or two fans across the globe who may not be aware:  as a child, I supported Liverpool, mainly because at the time their big star was Kevin Keegan, who was my hero.  So, when he moved to Southampton, I followed them for a while.  After he moved to Hamburg, however, my football heart went back to Liverpool until I discovered that Keegan had signed a contract to see out his career at Newcastle United.  Ironically, soon after, my family moved to the North East of England – Tyneside to be precise – and it seemed predestined that I should follow that club, which I have ever since, even though I have moved around the U.K. many times over the subsequent 30 years.

Until last year.

For those of you who don’t know, Newcastle United is owned by Mike Ashley, a British businessman who owns a company called Sports Direct.  They sell sports gear and stuff.  In 2007 Ashley bought the majority of the club’s shares off Sir John Hall and at the beginning of 2008 reinstated Kevin Keegan as manager.  All seemed well; but the joy was short-lived as Keegan resigned after eight months, and a year later the club were relegated.  They came back up quickly enough but have never been any better than mediocre and just this year, in April 2016, were relegated for a second time under Ashley.

But none of that is the reason why I have withdrawn my support for Newcastle United.  The reason is that Ashley has put 90% of all of his staff at Sports Direct on a ‘zero-hour’ contract.  This is a type of contract whereby the employer has no obligation to provide a certain number of hours employment, although equally the employee has the right to turn down any work offered.  It’s essentially turning all employees into temps and completely changing their working conditions.  In the case of Sports Direct, it affected about 20,000 employees and they were given no choice over the matter, which affected their income, their lives, their rent, their food etc.

That is why people like Mike Ashley are billionaires: if one of the 20,000 employees is not working, they don’t get paid.  But they still have (or had, up until U.K. legislation was passed in 2015) to gain permission from their employer before accepting other work.  In addition, the written terms of a zero-hour contract have been proved to be invalid in a U.K. Court of Law, but still Ashley uses them at Sports Direct.  Many other public services, hotels, restaurants, pubs, supermarkets are using them.  They are unfair and employees are lulled into a false sense of security by signing one.

In addition, Ashley is running the club into the ground.  He seems to be intent on making the books balance, and has no regard or interest in what is going on on the field.  His primary concern is finance, not football.  And that is what brings me to the general point of this blog: none of these big corporate owners are interested in anything but increasing the value of that club’s shares on the stock market.  The majority of them don’t even live in the U.K., although in fairness one must make the point that Mike Ashley does.

The worst job that exists in Premier League football today is that of Manager or Head Coach.  Those guys are practically on zero-hour contracts as it is.  To sign a three-year deal, as Louis Van Gaal did at Manchester United in 2014, is meaningless.  Van Gaal was sacked yesterday with over a year left on his contract, albeit with a fairly handsome payoff, but the club have handled him badly ever since they employed him.  Why?  Because they thought he would make one of the world’s richest clubs even richer.  And they sacked him because the club ‘only’ finished fifth, failing to qualify for the Champions League (if you don’t know what that is, Google it) and generate more money for the club; that’s the only reason for the club’s disappointment – nothing to do with fan expectation whatsoever.  I’ll wager if you talk to any true football fan of any club, they will all say virtually the same thing: win, lose or draw, as long as the players give it 110% to entertain the crowd and play good football, fans will be happy.  At Manchester United, the gamble of hiring Louis Van Gaal failed to pay off.  Why?  I’ll never know.  He got the Dutch team to the semi-final of the World Cup for God’s sake, playing some of the most exciting football fans had seen since the days of Ruud Gullitt.  But at Man Utd it was dull, dull, dull – more backpasses than any other Premier League club last season.  Why was Van Gaal’s style so ‘chalk & cheese’ in consecutive jobs?

If Jose Mourinho does take the Man Utd job, he is madder than a box of bi-polar frogs.  First off, he will know that the length of his deal is meaningless.  Second of all, anything less than fourth place in the league will not be acceptable, the pressure on him will be enormous – not from fans so much as the board.  Only those fans who are stupid enough to repeat the guff that is printed on the sports pages will hold up banners calling for the manager’s dismissal.  Thirdly, Mourinho was sacked by Chelsea last December, because for some reason he had ‘lost the dressing room,’ and they were performing poorly.  This was only seven months after they had won the Premier League title!  To recap: in May 2015, Mourinho is a champion, but by December 2015 the club have sacked him because of poor results.  The sacking had no effect – the club still finished 10th and did not qualify for any European competition.  So Man Utd are about to employ someone who was sacked from his last job.  Imagine that happening in your office, or shop, or whatever your place of work may be.  The new boss was sacked from his last job for incompetence, and now you are welcoming him into your office.  And he got to stay in the country and maintain a U.K. residence while not working at all – that’s the power of money for you, but that’s for a whole other blog.

If a club ‘underachieves’ (football fans and chief executives might have different definitions of what ‘underachieving’ really means), then the first instinctive knee-jerk reaction is ‘sack the manager.’  At Newcastle, though, the situation was slightly different.  Mike Ashley did not seek a Louis Van Gaal or a Jose Mourinho, he sought a Steve McClaren, who had never before managed a Premier League club.  For once, it was the fans who questioned this decision from the word go and the club owner dug his heels in and refused to admit that he was wrong until it was too late.  And, predictably, McClaren drove the club down toward the inevitability of relegation, something which, even when Ashley finally made a class decision and employ Rafael Benitez, even he was unable to stop.  McClaren spent £80 million on wasters who had no desire to put any effort in, just kick the ball around for 90 minutes of a Saturday afternoon and get £200,000 tax free for the privilege.

Before I return my support back to Newcastle United, MIKE ASHLEY MUST GO.  It was an awful decision for me to make, a hard one, but I have not watched or followed a Newcastle game, gone to see them, or even sought out a result, for over a year.  Of course this decision is only a protest for myself, it’s not going to affect the club in any way at all, but it was still difficult to make.  I cannot follow a club whose owner’s employment methods I do not support.  Until he goes, I follow no football club at all.  And this actually allows me to make a wider protest about the state of football in general, driven by the money men and women in the City of London; every kick designed to make the club’s shareholders, and not the fans, happy. x