Layer 467 . . . A Message on Headed Notepaper

.
This is a fucking outrage - and all credit to the Guardian for highlighting it:

Parents angered by schools' promotion of home tuition schemes

Parents say tactics used by schools are pressurising them into signing up to home tuition schemes
by Sue Learner

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/may/10/parents-protest-promotion-home-tuition

Parents across the country are protesting about letters from their children's schools that help to market a DVD home tuition scheme. In return for sending out the letters on school headed notepaper, signed by the headteacher, the schools receive a payment for "administration costs".

The critics complain that some parents are signing up to the Student Support Centre's literacy and numeracy programme, which can cost thousands of pounds, because their school is advising them it "may be of benefit" to their children.

The headteacher's letter states: "I have been asked to distribute information on behalf of the Student Support Centre and, having reviewed the service they provide, feel it may be of interest to you and of benefit to your children." It adds: "Neither I nor the school actively endorse the service."

Bob Jefferson, whose daughter attends Towerbank primary in Edinburgh, calls it "an abuse of trust". "I don't feel that it is appropriate for the school to be promoting a private company. Quite a few parents at our school were upset about it. I know schools are strapped for cash, but it seems they are getting paltry sums of money, so why are they selling their souls to the devil?" he says.

Why indeed . . .

Contact details

More than 25,000 primary and secondary schools have sent out the SSC material, says the company, one of the largest UK providers of home tuition materials. Parents are urged by schools to return the form whether they are interested or not. They are asked for their contact details, which are passed on to the company.

The programme of DVD lessons for key stage 1-4 is backed by a tutor helpline, and children are given regular tests.

Of course they are. Tests and more tests - it's the only game in town. Forget education and forget the development of 'character' - it's all about testing now.

Zoe Hall signed up when her daughter was in year 8 at what was then Lindsey school and community arts college in Lincolnshire (now Cleethorpes academy). "She brought home a letter and, because it came from the school, I trusted it. I thought she could do with some extra maths tuition. So I returned the slip. A sales lady came to the house. She said: 'You can't put a price on your daughter's education', which made me feel very guilty."

Hall signed up at £65.60 a month and quickly regretted it, but was unable to cancel the contract because she missed the five-day cooling-off period (since changed to 14 days). "It makes me feel so angry," she says. "It has been a waste of money and has caused arguments in our family."

Hall says her daughter tried to follow the DVDs for six months in year 8. "She found it too hard. I don't think she even needed it in the first place. The sales woman assessed her as needing to do the programme, but she sat her mock GCSE in maths at Christmas [in year 11] and got a B [without using the programme]." At the end of the four years of her agreement, Hall will have paid out £3,148.80.

Martin Brown, principal of Cleethorpes academy, says: "We agreed to distribute the leaflets because we are often asked by parents where they can access good educational support outside of school. Having looked at the material provided by the Student Support Centre, we were confident that it could be of help to students as a home-based complement to their schoolwork. We do not endorse this company and we make this quite clear in the letter we send out. Our role is simply to distribute the leaflets, collect the return slips and pass them on to the company." 

These people have "a role"? No they don't. They just suck Satan's cock, as the sainted Bill Hicks would say.

There's outrage here about schools (and their headteachers) aiding and abetting commercial enterprises whose only interest is getting money out of gullible and concerned parents. There's outrage about doing this shit for the sake of a few quid. There's outrage about parents being fleeced for no good reason.

But the real outrage, which this article seems to overlook, is what's being inflicted on children. You can kind-of understand business people wanting to con their way to some big bucks. This is what we expect. What is TOTALLY unacceptable is the whole business of schools actively promoting the non-stop, ceaseless cramming of children who have much better things to do with their after-school time. And yes - playing computer games and kicking footballs and watching TV and reading books for pleasure are all MUCH better for kids than coaching and cramming for the fucking tests. Headteachers who secretly (or openly) welcome parents hiring private tutors (or purchasing expensive DVDs) to cram kids on the basis that their schools (and their careers) are bound to benefit from it are fucking hateful shits of the first order. To hell with the lot of them.
.

Layer 411 . . . Glorious Winter Weather, Heathrow Chaos, British Business Ownership, PLCs, Gradgrind Gove, Betraying Our Children, Booktrust, Dylan's Favourites, Spotify, Trenet, and Boum!

.
Day Three in Melbourne, Trott undefeated on 168, the lead more than 400, Bresnan playing a blinder, the Aussie batsmen all out for little more than 100, and with only their bowlers left to bat it'll all be over before lunch tomorrow. How long have we waited for England to play this well, and for Australia to play this badly, in Australia?


 http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/28/the-ashes-2010-australia-england

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/dec/27/ashes-2010-england-australia-live

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/cricket/match/53517


.........................................

The 'Definitive Collection' of Charles Trenet is now available on Spotify. Includes 'La Mer' and 'Boum!'. C'est magnifique!

Apparently the basic (free) version of Spotify is again available to anyone who wants to download it in Britain. No 'invitations' required.

Also on Spotify I stumbled across 'The Best of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour'. Bob's choices are, as you'd expect, immaculate.

Matzo Balls                   by Slim Gaillard
Alimony Blues               by Eddie 'Clearhead' Vinson
Tulip or Turnip              by Duke Ellington
Midnight Hour               by Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown
Let Me Play With Your Poodle        by Tampa Red
Deep Purple                  by The Ravens
Tennessee                     by Carl Perkins
John The Revelator       by Blind Willie Johnson
Pistol Packin' Mama     by Al Dexter
Telephone Is Ringing     by Pee Wee Crayton
Mystery Train               by Little Junior Parker
This Train                     by Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Take The 'A' Train      by Duke Ellington
Good Morning Heartache        by Billie Holiday
etc . . .

................................................

This glorious winter weather

Snowy slopes, blue skies. Ignore what you read in the papers – most people are having a lovely break

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/23/glorious-weather-christmas-break-move

by Simon Jenkins

The world is mad. Most Britons have, like me, just enjoyed the most glorious weather of the year. The western shores of the British Isles have seen a week of almost continuous sun, open horizons and star-filled nights. Freezing air has kept the early snow from melting. With brief exceptions, main roads have been open and supplies plentiful. An exquisite Christmas beckons, with snowy slopes and blues skies, a photographic negative from the usual greens and greys.

So what is the Britain we have read about in the papers and watched on the news, one of relentless, total misery? It must be one that is enmeshed in London and can't stay still. It is a metropolis of the damned, hyper-mobile, frantically trying to get into or away from itself, stranded in motorways and on railway platforms, entombed in detention centres that claim to be airports. The inhabitants all incant, "I was only trying to get away for Christmas", to a chorus of "When is the government going to do something?" An aviation company was even quoted as claiming it was Whitehall's job to keep it supplied with de-icing equipment.

The Heathrow airport boss, Colin Matthews, even said he would "give up [his] bonus" because of the snow. Most travellers could not care less about his bonus: they want a plane. As for the bonus, the truth is out. It is apparently no longer a reward for exceptional achievement. It is standard remuneration on top of salary, at risk only if it snows and is considered a risk to public relations.

Philip Hammond has been browbeaten by sufferers from acute seasonal mobility disorder, and by their media cheerleaders. It would be gratifying if, just once, a transport secretary had the nerve to stand up and tell everyone that when the weather is bad it is a good idea to leave their cars in the garage, tear up their rail passes, forget Marbella and tuck up at home with a good book. They should see their loved ones some other time. Normality cannot be guaranteed.

Simon's taken a heavy panning for this article on CiF, and of course for most people the snow and ice have been a massive inconvenience and often dangerous. However, it's good to get a half-full view of the effects of the winter weather. For many of us the snowy landscapes and cityscapes ARE beautiful - if we only have time to walk, and stand, and stare.

Maybe more people ought to re-think the wisdom of travelling during the winter, and reconsider the benefits of just staying at home. Maybe people ought to invest in better clothing, better boots, and some bags of grit. Maybe people ought to plan for snow and ice, instead of just hoping there won't be any. Maybe the people who run airports and railways and buses and ambulance services ought to re-think their priorities and do some proper contingency planning. Maybe we all should re-think our attitude to the elderly and the disabled and the housebound. Maybe we should all re-think what we do in our homes and our families, and re-think how we spend our time together. Or our time apart.

...............................................

Heathrow's chaos is indicative of a wider national malaise

We have the oddest and most regressive constitution for private ownership anywhere in western capitalism

by Will Hutton

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/25/will-hutton-british-ownership-rules

It was not Heathrow's finest hour. The pain was there to see in the pictures of thousands of passengers delayed without information, left to camp for hours on inhospitable floors. Less visible were many thousands of others, like some friends of mine, who, courtesy of the internet and the closure of Heathrow's slip roads, thankfully never made it to the airport at all. The freakishly heavy snowfall would have disrupted any world airport, but not for as long as Heathrow, which was still suffering acute delays three or four days later.

The country has never seriously debated what good ownership of assets might constitute – whether by a football club or a public company. Instead, the response to the social and economic irresponsibility of some private ownership has been to call for nationalisation and public ownership, while the response to the waste and lack of innovation of some public ownership has been to call for private ownership. There has been too little attempt to think through what the constitution and process of ownership might be that would create great owners, whether in the public or private sector, or among the many other forms of ownership, ranging from partnership to co-operatives.

Instead, with the rise of the neoconservative right, there has just been the unquestioning assumption that the best form of ownership is private; in Britain, that necessarily means our idiosyncratic variant of the public limited company. This represents the oddest and most regressive constitution for private ownership anywhere in western capitalism. British company law makes no requirement on shareholders and directors to have any obligation to be good stewards of their assets, their employees or their customers. Shareholders' rights to do what they want with their shares to maximise their immediate value is more stark than anywhere else and directors' responsibilities are only to serve the interests of these madly unconstrained shareholders.

The debacle at Heathrow is one consequence of this insouciance, but the wreckage stretches across the economic landscape. British companies think, strategise, innovate and invest their way to success far less than their competitors in different ownership regimes. They know the penalty for one wrong move is to be taken over as responsibility-free shareholders sell out to some opportunistic predator advised by London's network of lawyers, accountants and investment bankers who grow fat on the lush fees.

No other capitalist economy organises its affairs in this way. When British Airports Authority was privatised in 1986 – with the not unreasonable aim of making it more innovative and freeing it from the stultifying anti-investment rules of the Treasury – there was no creative thought about what constitution of ownership would be the best for an airport. The Americans require their airports to be owned by, not for, companies whose constitution obliges the owners and managers to put the public interest of efficient and comfortable travel first. In Britain, the issue was not even aired. BAA was simply to become a British public limited company, whose sole objective would be profit maximisation.

This self-serving ideology is betraying Britain. The public limited company is a remarkable institution. Incorporation allows the sharing of risk by many providers of private savings. In return for incorporation, the company receives the licence to trade and to make profits as long as it observes the law of the land. The public company is the great engine of capitalist growth. But the constitution of the company matters. Shareholders and directors can be required to take interests into account other than their own immediate profits. Other countries do this and prosper. Not the British.

The lesson is that ownership counts, a view that as disaster piles on disaster is at last gaining some transaction. I chair the recently established Ownership Commission to investigate how better ownership might be achieved, from both introducing mutuality and co-operatives into the public sector to potential revisions in company law for public companies. It reports next autumn. The subject matter is not just technical stuff. This Christmas, there will be people who are not with those they love thanks to BAA's priorities. Good ownership matters very much indeed and Britain has too little of it.

.............................................

Michael Gove is betraying our children yet again

The decision to stop funding Bookstart, with its free books for the young, is unnecessarily cruel

    * Editorial
    * The Observer, Sunday 26 December 2010

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/26/editorial-child-literacy-books-education 

For most book lovers, the affair starts early and the earlier the introduction is made, the deeper the affection. The benefits of parents reading to their children, as a bonding experience and as a step on the road to literacy, are well documented. Promoting that activity was the founding purpose of Bookstart, the government-sponsored programme which gives starter packs of literature to every child in the country.

The scheme is run by an independent charity, Booktrust, but it depends on a £13m government grant. The trust says that, with the support of the publishing industry, it gets £4 pounds in value for every £1 it receives in public money. It was announced last week that, as of next year, Booktrust will get nothing.

The arguments for austerity are well rehearsed. The money to reduce the deficit has to come from somewhere. A soft target for cuts is presented by this relatively new service, which has yet to embed itself in the nation's consciousness as a cherished institution. It surely would, if allowed to continue. The coalition is, in theory, committed to investment in early years development. Ministers lose no opportunity to express their determination to give children from all backgrounds the best start in life. But they have clearly decided that giving out books is an inefficient way to achieve that goal.

It is impossible to know what return the state might be getting on its investment in Booktrust. The system hasn't been running long enough to tell whether the beneficiaries are more literate than they otherwise might have been, or whether they have more vivid imaginations, or whether they love books more. Only a minister inspired by Thomas Gradgrind, the crudely utilitarian headmaster in Dickens's Hard Times, would attempt such a calculation.

In fact, the decision to axe Bookstart over Christmas suggests education secretary Michael Gove gets his inspiration from a different Dickens character… Free books for children? Humbug!

.

Layer 257 . . . The Philosophy and Economics of Football; Arsenal and Emotional Intelligence

.
Yesterday Arsenal closed the gap to 3 points from Premiership leaders Chelsea, and 2 points from Man Utd.  All three have played 28 games. Arsene Wenger said some time ago that he thought Arsenal could still win the Premiership this season. Do I give a damn? Yes - slightly.

I read somewhere this week that England's Premier League clubs have more debt than the rest of Europe's clubs put together.

Portsmouth FC were officially declared bankrupt this week.

We've had fake sheiks, fake billionaires and people like the Glazers who somehow managed to buy a prestigeous club by borrowing loadsa cheap money and then making the club itself liable for its repayment. This is all bullshit. I hate the Premier League, and the people who run it.

It's a vile state of affairs. In Germany, for example, clubs are still owned by the supporters, as are Barcelona and Madrid. The cost of tickets is such that the children of less well off families can still afford to go to matches, and in fact buy season tickets without too much sacrifice. Does this matter? Yes it bloody does. I don't really care too much about prawn sandwich eaters going to matches, just as long as the pie and chips eaters can also still afford to go. In other countries they don't, generally, pay players insane amounts of money, and they don't generally buy them for ridiculous amounts.

The Premiership stopped being interesting at the point where the richest clubs bought up all the best players, and were themselves bought up by fat cat billionaires. Yes - there have been exciting matches, and incredible levels of individual skill - but so what? Who cares apart from the hard core supporters?

What neutrals want to see is clubs nurturing their own talent, not borrowing massive amounts of money in order to snaffle up the established stars. Personally I hate seeing the so-called Championship clubs being denuded of the talent they've raised themselves - enticed away by the bribes that are successfully offered by the biggest clubs, or even the moderately big clubs, in the Premiership.

Arsene Wenger has been castigated by so-called afficionados of the game for refusing to give up on his youth policy and for insisting that the young players he's trained and raised himself should be allowed to play in the first team. Most people laughed when he said his team could still come top. Well they're not laughing now. Chelsea and Man Utd must be crapping themselves.

What's more, Arsenal have done so well in spite of having key players like Van Persie and Walcott out with long-term injuries.

The thing I really like about Arsenal, though, is Wenger's philosophy of the game.

On the Internet coachkev wrote this:

"Arsenal uses a 4-4-2 system. Wenger is constantly working to refine this system on the levels of both group and team tactics.

The team's defence is very attack-oriented. They attack their opponents early with a midfield press that alternates between a diamond formation and a back four. This tactic represents a calculated risk that the coach and his players are willing to accept (since most of the players are English and French, they have been playing without a sweeper since they were children).

Wenger demands aggressive, ball-oriented defence from his players and cultivates it with lots of practice games in tight spaces. When Arsenal gets the ball, its attack is very forward-focused. Square passes and runs parallel to the endline are to be avoided.

However, contrary to the "typical English" playing style, Arsenal relies mainly on short passes in the opposition's half - until they get close to the goal, where every player is encouraged to take risks and go for the goal with confidence and determination. Errors are allowed, but playing carelessly and losing the ball is forbidden.

Wenger places special emphasis on communication within the team. Every exercise is accompanied by shouts and commands that are loud and clear - aggressively so, if the situation requires it - and successful plays are greeted with cheers and applause. Players are expected to be actively engaged with one another and to cooperate in building team spirit, morale and enthusiasm for the Arsenal style."

"Actively engaged with one another." "Spirit". "Cooperate". "High morale". "Enthusiasm." All words  and concepts associated with emotional, interpersonal and spiritual intelligence.


Alex Thistlewood wrote this:

The club has become a preeminent destination for talented youth the world wide, and has established a footballing ethos the envy of every team in Europe but Barcelona. Arsenal is a club unique in their philosophy of bringing along a cadre of players who grow up together and want to win for each other, prizing an attacking style, while competing at such a high level. It’s an almost unprecedented venture in modern football. In terms of finances and talent, Arsenal is better positioned for the future than any other club in the League, and perhaps Europe.

Chelsea have been inconsistent this season, and I'm sick of reading about the antics of John "The Penalty" Terry, who's crap this season, and Ashley "Text Sex" Cole. Lampard's generally been off colour. Cech had a very poor start to the season and is now injured. Joe Cole hasn't regained his former brilliance. The replacement goalkeeper's called Hilarious. Balack must surely be ditched soon. I feel sorry for Drogba and Anelka, who've been superb. And who gave JT his tragic haircut? Vanessa Perroncel? Has he looked in a mirror?

As for Man Utd - they've had lots of injuries to their defenders, and have done very well in spite of that. But they're also inconsistent. Their defence has been pretty crap. I feel sorry for Rooney, who's been brilliant all through the season, and has really grown up this season. I hope he gets the player of the year award.

On Match of the Day just now even Alan Hansen said he's becoming an Arsenal supporter. They're a team that's greater than the sum of their individual parts. Man City did them a huge favour today by humiliating Chelsea 2 - 4. It has to be Arsenal's season. What a story that would be.

.............................................................................

"Polymath James Riordan can list Professor of Russian Studies, international children's author, translator, Radio 4 broadcaster, editor, sports historian, sports coach and Moscow Spartak footballer as just some of his hats.

One of his aims at Worcester is to combine work in both sport and children's literature, cooperating with the Children's Literature, Literacy and Creativity Reseach Centre and the School of Sport and Exercise Science."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Riordan

Jim Riordan has watched Portsmouth for 66 years but has seen them wrecked in just a few seasons.

Pompey embodies the passion, hopes and companionship of a working-class community and the fans will not let their club die

by Jim Riordan

My Pompey are going to rack and ruin. The club are so deep in debt through mismanagement that they have had to sell everything saleable, from the 112-year-old stadium to half-decent players. Today, administration. Tomorrow, oblivion?

As one of the oldest fans (I saw my first game at Fratton Park in 1944: having first pick on servicemen such as Ted Drake, we won 9-1 against Crystal Palace), I'm lucky. I witnessed the double-championship years of 1949-50 when Portsmouth were probably the best team in the world. I followed the club from First to Fourth Division and back, then down again under Alan Ball. Less than two years ago I "lived the dream" of winning the FA Cup. But that dream turned into a nightmare. Who is to blame?

The oligarch who cut off all funds? The chief executive who paid himself an alleged £1.4m a year, which we couldn't afford? The manager who asked for more, and more, and more?

Or are the Premier League and FA responsible? In their rush to rake in the millions that TV brings, they have perhaps turned a blind eye to what has been happening at our club. Dick Turpin would be more fit and proper than some of Pompey's recent board members.

A football club is far more than those that run and ruin it. The club represent the community, thousands upon thousands of fans throughout the world. Like virtually no other club, Pompey embodies the passion, hopes and companionship of a tight-knit, working-class community that regards the club as theirs. In desperation, these real fans sing "Portsmouth till I die!" and "Please don't take my Portsmouth away". So when the FA does FA for FA (Fans Always), remember that we will not let our club die.

These are not empty words. Fans have formed the Pompey Supporters Trust to bring together fan groups from up and down the country and try to gain a voice and an ear. Such is the eagerness to help that in less than three months the trust has gained well over a thousand members (at £5 a time) and generous financial support from all over the world, especially Australia and North America. It has its own bank account and website. Trust members are more than willing to take part in talks about the future of our club. But we have also drawn up our own Plan B for forming a new club if things go pear-shaped in administration. This has involved negotiations with local football clubs, coaches, builders etc. And agreement on a ground share with a local club, Havant & Waterlooville, increasing ground capacity to accommodate an estimated 8,000 core support from Pompey.

The new club would recruit players from academy and Football League cast-offs, and a manager with extensive local knowledge. If that means starting out again in, say, Conference South, so be it. At least the club would be run by and for real Pompey fans. I may not see top-class football again in my lifetime. But I'd like my children and grandchildren to have the chance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/feb/26/portsmouth-football-club-future

Comrade Jim
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/31/comrade-jim-riordan

....................................................................................

Barney Ronay is one of the Guardian's best writers.

Do the press want a World Cup disaster?

Thanks to John Terry we have a narrative for England's World Cup failure, with a villain, sex and a tempting notion of hubris

This week brought the World Cup abdication of Wayne Bridge, who has decided his position in the England squad is "untenable", a brilliantly grave and high-minded use of a word you might more normally associate with elite public office rather than sitting next to Aaron Lennon on a coach and occasionally standing up to do some special jumping on the touchline. It's a shame for Bridge. As a quite-good left-back he will be a loss. On a personal note I'll miss him because he's part of a dwindling band of sportsmen who resemble the kind of skinny, beaky, moist-eyed, old-fashioned 1970s-style youths you might have seen shouting something out of the window on the top deck of a bus, or hanging around near some swings in 1981.

My first thought was that this is not the right move for Bridge. You should always go to the party. Get out there. Even though you know it's going to be painful and you're going to spend the whole evening "being fabulous" in a slightly hysterical way, laughing too loudly and ultimately making an exhibition of yourself on the dancefloor by appearing to be too into the lyrics of I Will Survive. It's still much better than spending June on the sofa eating Galaxy and watching Midsomer Murders through a haze of tears and snot.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect has been a swell of support – including one entire radio show devoted to the subject – for the idea that the Bridge/Terry affair is part of a conspiracy by The Press to stop England winning the World Cup.

One theory is that The Press can't help it. They're like a veteran indie band called Stumbledork or Deathfinger or Bogusfringe. They only know one song: and it's a really depressing one (whereas I imagine in Germany the press are more like a triumphant old-school hair metal franchise, all fist-pumping spandex positivity).

The point is that The Press have only two stories here: England win the World Cup or England don't win the World Cup. One of these is a lot more likely, and so The Press is already diligently turning it into a coherent story, with a villain, some sex and a tempting notion of hubris. The Press now has a narrative for failure. We have a story arc, even if it's the same one – debauchery, decadence, pitfalls of celebrity – as last time around.

It's also worth noting there really is no such thing as The Press, no brotherhood of red-faced, sherry-stinking men and women gleefully tossing Wayne Bridge's roughly scissored scalp about like an office stress ball. There are just individual red-faced, sherry-stained men and women, jammed together out of necessity. The England team itself is like a vast, creaking, timber-lashed raft of the Medusa, with its own laptop-clutching parasite crew scattered across its back, huddling, fighting, building tiny shelters, hacking bits off, carving their initials and generally servicing their own petty short-term needs.

England won't win the World Cup, because other countries have better players. And when they don't it's all going to be about Terry. This is the only story left now: The Man Who Shagged Away The World Cup. From a purely press angle Bridge has carried out a passive-aggressive act of self-immolation, a World Cup suicide bombing. It's quite clever really.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/feb/27/wayne-bridge-world-cup-press-conspiracy

Horribledisturbingmentalimagegate

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/03/the-fiver-john-terry

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/nov/02/premier-league-ledley-king-tottenham

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/barneyronay

...................................................

Owen Gibson wrote this in The Guardian:

Curious Links In A Twisted Chain of Ownership

When Sacha Gaydamak bought a 50% stake in Portsmouth from Milan Mandaric in 2006 he set in train a complex sequence of events that ended yesterday with the formal announcement that it had become the first Premier League club to go into administration.

Throughout his tenure there were questions about whether he was merely acting as a front man for his billionaire father Arkady, who was convicted in his absence in France last year on charges of illegal arms trading and sentenced to six years in prison. He fled to Moscow.

..................................................

by David Conn

Portsmouth's collapse must prompt football to examine itself

The Premier League rejects the idea that this is a major embarrassment that should prompt a bout of soul-searching. Portsmouth's collapse is due to rank bad management and overspending, they say. That is true, and it is the administrator's job to decide whether the problem results from even worse practices than that. But as far as we know, Portsmouth did nothing against any rules; they followed the accepted Premier League model for a club – overspending, beyond the club's true means, financed by loans from an owner and banks.

Portsmouth's core problem at the end of Sacha Gaydamak's ownership last summer was that he, who had passed the fit and proper person test and satisfied the league he owned the club rather than his father, the now convicted gun-runner Arkadi Gaydamak, had become simply not rich enough. Then the overspending became unsupportable and Pompey, three owners later, have collapsed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/feb/26/portsmouth-administration-premier-league

..............................................................................

Stoke City announce they are debt-free

Stoke City have announced that they are externally debt-free on the day that Portsmouth went into administration.

Figures announced for the year 2008-09, the club's first season in the Premier League, show the Potters made a net profit of £503,000 at the end of the last trading year, after transfers, and had an increased turnover of £54m – up from £11m in their last season in the Championship.

Stoke's manager Tony Pulis, who counts Portsmouth among his former clubs, said: "This is a great testament to the Coates family, who have put so much into the club.

"The chairman, Peter Coates, has been a fan since his boyhood and he knows this club inside out. He and his family have put so much into the club.

"This is a family club, run for the fans, and by local people. There should be an inquiry into how Portsmouth has been run."

The Coates family have already invested £17m, interest free, and plan to inject another £24m. Pulis said: "It must be unique for a club like us to be free of external debt, and that underlines how indebted we are to the Coates family.

"The most important thing about this club is that it stays in existence, and we have had success on the pitch to match the investment."

...............................................................................

Arsenal announce £35.2m profits and slash club debt

Arsenal have announced that they have slashed their debts by over £100m after making pre-tax profits of £35.2m for the six months ending 30 November, 2009.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/feb/26/arsenal-financial-figures

..................................................................


http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/audio/2010/jan/13/manchester-united-debt-glazers

Manchester United fans prepare to show their true colours at Wembley

http://www.bcst.co.uk/aggregator/sources/104
.