The transfer window circus comes to town
Twice a year the circus comes. Twice a year it becomes the unsavory climax for a febrile news-starved press to create and maintain rumors, unsettling everyone from owners to backroom staff and from millionaires to journeymen. Just imagine what it must be like for the more insecure players, such as, er, those from West Ham, West Browm, Stoke, Wolves, Wigan, etc
In the UK the crazy circus comes twice while the season is going on. That’s just crazy. No-one is safe from the flying trapeze of sightings, gossip, rumors and machinations of those trying to buy, sell, and their agents. It's fun for the journalists and the publicists - they love it. The transfer circus encourages this escalation of the salacious gossip and the greed.
It also encourages, promotes and even expects, rule breaking, corruption, shoddy personal behavior, spying, lying and deceitfulness, never mind 'wheeling and dealing'. those who support this system know this very well because they are also the ones profiting from it. It's nothing more than a scandal, a twice-yearly freakshow around Britain's airports and news sources in which maturity, decency and good planning are immediately sacrificed for an ugly scramble for flesh.
If players weren't paid so much (in the PL) you could compare it to the dockside scrambles for scab labor in the bad old days or even the slave trade frenzy in tropical ports when ships took their cargo from West Africa to the US 150 and more years ago, cos it's basically all about the price of flesh.
But what I don't get is this - everyone knows this is a scandal, everyone knows it has nothing to do with the game of football, but everyone participates and no one tries to buck the system or refuse to participate. Shouldnt FIFA or whoever is in charge be looking at this hard and long, because its a total recurring scandal - this crazy circus with its freaks, clowns, bearded ladies, performing elephants and seals.
Rafael may be a 'clown', but his missus certainly isn't bearded...
And the stupid thing is that it doesn't even work in the way it should. Sometimes it takes several more days after the deadline to establish exactly what has happened, with the tales of duff fax machines (about 20 years out of date, I believe) and long tails of linked agreements in which the sale across the Pennines of some thrifty centre back from Rochdale is the tail that wags a pack of millionaire dogs from Stamford bridge to the Bernabeu.
I am really sick of it and I have to assume that everyone else is as well. Come on, let’s get back to sanity somehow.
Submitted by Lionel Stanbrook
2/9/2010
