Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Next undercover assignment for English newspapers

It's tough to have much sympathy for Sam Allardyce, out of the England manager job after 2 months after being taped offering consulting services on circumventing the rules of the player transfer market. But the media glee at having a major story overlooks one thing: the sports sections of the English newspapers are themselves vehicles for the "dark arts" in player moves, specifically by putting players who are legally under contract to one team into circulation as potentially available to another club, thereby undermining the player's commitment to his signed club. Note for example that the Paul Pogba transfer "speculation" has been going on for quite a while.

Legally, such cases are  potential tapping up, or tampering as the Americans say, and it's rampant.

Wouldn't it be great if a newspaper got on tape one of its own reporters offering to take cash to run a story about a star player interested in an unexpected move to another big name club? 

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