The English FA: Bringing the Game Into Disrepute

There’s a saying that a fish rots from the head. Truer words were never spoken when it comes to the real culprit for the never-ending string of international disappointments for the England team – the English FA.

The English FA are the only FA that refers to itself as the FA – no doubt invoking its historical importance as the founders of the rules of the modern game, and the hosts of the oldest football competition on the planet, The FA Cup. But given their unbearably asanine decisions and influence on the England team over the years, it’s become clear that delusions of grandeur are not restricted to history.

It’s hard to comprehend how, since 1966 (40 years in the wilderness) the FA from the country with the richest league on the planet, have managed to miss out on any international success, while comparative world football minnows with no pedigree to speak of like Denmark and Greece (yes, that’s Greece) have a European Championship each to their credit. But then again, it’s hard to imagine the same three-ring circus at any other national football association.

The Rub: PR vs Results

The problem boils down to the following – while other football associations are concerned primarily with results, the same cannot be said of the English FA. The FA is run by PR whores who are only concerned with promoting English football and will do anything for publicity, up to and including creating the worst possible environment for success. The irony is that nothing would promote English football more than an international victory of some kind (any kind), but that of course, is the least of their concerns.

If there is any doubt, consider the extent to which meaningless friendlies are hyped in England beyond the limits of credibility, and it comes as no surprise that results, whether or good or bad, and are exaggerated by media, managers and players alike. Is it any surprise then that the friendlies are treated as either dressed up training sessions (with limitless substitutions) or monumental clashes of the titans (like those with Germany and Argentina)? The relentless stream of absurd records and streaks that strain common sense (“England haven’t conceded a first half goal to S. American opponents outside of Wembley since 1963”) says it all. Listen for them in any Sky Sports studio broadcast (the FA's co-conspirators in this sordid tale), and you’ll see just how far out of context the FA and the English seem to put everything. The result? More hot-air than russian sauna and absurd expectations like, "We've really got a chance to win the whatever", that makes England players choke when things are really on the line. Nobody but Jerry Seinfeld cares so much about nothing.

As the FA Turns: The England Captain”cy”

If you’re not convinced, consider the role of the England captaincy in the FA. First off – who’s ever heard of a captaincy? What’s that like, a presidency? And how many times have we had to listen to meaningless interviews from David Beckham or Alan Shearer over the years, just because they’re the England captain? People act like the England captain is the prime minister, with the unheard of “vice-captaincy” recently given to Steven Gerrard as a kind of consolation prize for losing out on the “honor” to John Terry. Have you ever heard of a “vice-captain”? Of course not – only the English. The reason of course, is that in their never ending effort to promote English football, rather than go in search of real results (which is the base of the popularity of the Brazilian, Argentine and French) they’ve taken the easy way out and promoted English stars. How? They take the most popular EPL Englishmen, and trot them out as the stars of the England team, and attempt to pass off this band of under-achieving chokes as a star-studded line-up.

As such, the role of the captain has taken on a meaning all its own – completely out of context. Attaching all these contrived statistical "accomplishments" to it is just another way for the FA to say how great English football is – and that’s how you get a vice-captain named Steven Gerrard. Look, every team’s got to have a captain, and Steven Gerrard is as good as any, but when you get Steve McLaren paying a visit to Gerrard at Melwood to “inform” him of this “crucial” (which loosely translated means “important only in the eyes of the delusional English”) decision over which he’s pondered since taking the reigns, you get a dog and pony show that Barnum and Bailey would be proud of.

Have you ever heard of a captain “resigning” at a press conference, and then announcing to the world that he still wants to play for England (David Beckham 2006)? What's next? He gives us the V sign before boarding Air Force One and opening up a "captain-ential" library? How about a captain announcing before the competition that this will be his last in a shameless attempt to “good-will” himself into a permanent place in the tournamen (Alan Shearer Euro2000). This is all part of the surreal hype-machine that is the English FA, and makes coaches in other leagues do double-takes when they get the feeds from Sky Sports. Only in England my friends, only in England.

Eriksson and the FA: A Match Made in PR Heaven

And how about the 6-year reign of Sven-Goran Eriksson? He himself is a shameless, albeit tireless, self-promoter. That’s how he got caught betraying everybody including Aston Villa (a team with which he had no association, mind you) on an imaginary Arab oil-sheik’s yacht, while positioning himself to become the next manager of the club. This was nearly 5 months before David O’Leary got his bum off of that titanic. In fact, in their pathological obsession with self-promotion, the FA and Eriksson was a match made in PR heaven. The Swede never saw a microphone he didn’t like, made a deal with the devil called Becks, and even came up with the brilliance to drop Jermaine Defoe for Theo Walcott, who (surprise, surprise) didn’t step on the field once for England at the World Cup. This was right around the time when the rub on Eriksson was that he didn't take risks. All the while he's saying, “I know it’s a risk - a big risk - but sometimes in life you have to take risks.”

Yes, I’ll take “grabbing the headlines” for 1000 Alex.
This Swedish born manager, grabbed this headline, but took no actual risks, when he took 17-year old Theo Walcott to the World Cup, and never bothered to play him.
What is “Sven, the Risk-Taker?”
Correct for 1000 imaginary credibility points!

The truth is that in their obsession to promote the game, by building up their players beyond recognition, the FA created an unhealthy atmosphere of obsession with individuals, and this started long before Eriksson took over.

The Untouchables

We all remember that Alan Shearer, the anointed one, scored some goals at Euro96, but does anyone remember that he hadn’t scored for 20 months before that competition? So why was he an automatic selection for the next four years? Only the FA knows.

In 1996 there were 4 English players who had scored 25 goals or more in the EPL: Alan Shearer, Robbie Fowler, Kevin Phillips and Andy Cole. Guess how many featured at Euro96? You guessed it – 1 Alan Shearer. Why, you may ask?

Yes, I’ll take sucking up to the anointed one for 800 Alex.
Terry Venables did this in Euro96, because it was the only way to fulfill the FA’s dream of their poster boy lifting the trophy on home soil.
What is “picking Teddy Sheringham?”
Correct for 800 fleeting publicity points!

In fact Fowler and Phillips each had 3 season of 30+ goals in all competitions in the 90s, but in the Shearer-worship era of the modern FA, none of them got a serious chance to play for England, and so England’s results went as Shearer did. If he scored, they did well, if he didn’t they lost – no substitutes, no third strikers, they just lost.

Then it became Michael Owen’s turn to occupy the untouchable chair, following his publicity gold mine goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup, and he proceeded to give England plenty of goals in friendlies, and exactly nothing at all when it counted. I think Graeme Souness said it best when he stated, “International friendlies are a waste of time, full-stop”. Full-stop indeed, because when it counted, Owen was about as useless as a one-armed man in a push-up contest. But didn’t he make the English proud when they beat Argentina in that “crucial” friendly against last year?

And how about David “the King of the media-whores” Beckham? Why, oh why was it so “crucial” for him to play every minute of every game in Germany 2006? Other than a few nice free-kicks, what did they get from him? When Aaron Lennon went into the game, and made Beckham look like he was playing with lead shoes, his wife Sven stood by her man, and moved Becks to…right-back? And when the English needed a spark in the quarterfinal against Portugal, they had to do it 10 with men, due in no small part to its obsession with an ill-tempered (is there any other kind) Wayne Rooney just coming off a six week vacation. Absurdity - pure absurdity.

Why did he do this? Because after promoting Captain Beckham to cabinet minister status, and Michael Owen as the “next” England captain, and Wayne Rooney as the second coming of Zeus, they couldn’t possibly drop all of them even, if it were in their best interest, because the manager, and by association the FA would have taken all the heat if they lost.

See, losing with a mix of "stars" that every team has, and workers that every team need, there is always the lingering question of, "Did we give it our best chance?" But when you lose with a team full of stars, the stars underperformed. Either way, if they lose, which they had to know they were going to lose, the heat's off the FA because they're doing what everyone want them to do - put the 11 biggest stars on the field at once and have at it. Never mind that any Guinness drinking imbecile in the UK could manage, if it were so simple. Managing is about preparation and then getting the chemistry right - that's what the manager is paid to know because it's hard to know. That's where the risk-taking comes in.

Well, as it were, they rolled with dice and they lost anyway, but luckily for them they had a welcome scapegoat in Cristiano Ronaldo, who I’m sure will be “bringing the game into disrepute” some time this September. As they say, watch this space. If Ronaldo doesn’t break a bone or bleed profusely from wounds caused by any tackle that sends him to ground, you can bet the FA will trot out their, “bringing the game into disrepute” bag just to show how tough they are on ill-disciplined players.

Never mind that Rooney and Scholes are now serving a 3-match bans for violent conduct in Amsterdam. Never mind that Rooney gets away with cursing visibly at every referee in the EPL, and never get so much as a caution. Never mind that he gets a way with shoving and intimidating anyone with a 3-yard radius every week in the EPL, but as soon as he mouths off in Europe, or steps on somebody’s groin in the World Cup, he’s rightfully sent off by referees who don't care that he's the English golden boy, just as the referees in England shouldn't. The FA take no responsibility for that absurdity, or the complicit referees who have one set of rules for foreigners, and another for British players. But say one bad word about Mike Riley, who somehow winds up refereeing and awarding phantom penalties to Man U every time he’s on the whistle, and it’s a 3-match ban for “bringing the game…”, well you get the point.

The Left Midfield Problem

Google it and you’ll (literally) get a million hits, most of them from English IPs. What’s this all about, you may ask? Well, an obsession with star quality, fomented by the FA, created a masochistic obsession with the left midfielder that never was – one Ryan Wilson Giggs. Giggs was the most popular young player in the EPL in the years 8-1 BC (that’s “Before Captain” Beckham) and actually turned out for England schoolboys before becoming an EPL star, a fact the FA wasted no time in pointing out over and over again - I'm sure it's still on the FA site. All the while hoping some of his popularity would still rub off on the England team, no doubt.

This created the unintended consequence of focusing the country’s attention on the “who is our Ryan Giggs problem” disguised as the “left midfield problem”. Sven tried everyone in that position, a bunch of clowns with good promo value, but no quality, and of course somehow the English convinced themselves that this was the missing piece of the puzzle.

7 years AD (“Anno Disastrum”) Joe Cole seems to have cemented that position as his own, but has it resulted in any international success? So what happened to the “left midfield problem”? Well, as Giggs aged, all that hot air about the left midfield problem dissipated, revealing what was obvious – that the problems with the England team go a lot deeper than some twinkle-toes and a permanent 5’clock shadow.

Manage England? No, O brigado!

When they had a chance to hire a real international manager with a proven record, and the England team’s number, I might add, they found a way to blow that too. It was all on the cards to sign Big Phil Scolari – a World Cup winner with Brazil, and the man responsible for the resurgence of the Portguese national team to greater international success than the English, with a much worse league, I might add.

But the FA being slaves to publicity, which also means being slaves to the British media, were so obsessed with looking like everything was in working order, insisted that Scolari announce his intentions before the World Cup, after embarrassingly having to sever ties with Eriksson 2 years before the end of his contract. Now, the hyperbolic media maelstrom that ensued aside, imagine you’re Scolari, you’re managing Portugal in the World Cup, and you come up against an England team you’ve announced you’re going to manage after the World Cup? What questions would be raised about your professionalism if you lose? What if your players foul the hell out of the English players, sending a couple of players to the MRI booth, “ruining England's World Cup dream” as it would have undoubtedly been portrayed in the media?

Only an imbecile or PR slut would welcome that situation, and if the roles had been reversed, I’m certain Eriksson would have obliged. But even the prospect of being the highest paid national team manager in history wasn’t enough to lure Scolari to soccer’s version of the cirque du soleil. And for that matter, rather than admitting that Eriksson was the wrong man for the job mid-way through his term and hiring A.B.E (anybody but Eriksson) the FA couldn’t resist the need to appear to be the wise and steady hands, and stuck with Eriksson through fornication with their secretaries, crap results, and no entertainment value to their football. In fact the only thing that forced their hand was, not six years of missed opportunities, but an MTV real-world sting operation by some hacks from the tabloids. And the rest they say is history.

Just like the FA’s importance.

New Manager, Same Story

And the signs are as clear as day that McLaren, who although he made the obvious decision to drop Beckham, is falling down the same path as his predecessor. No sooner was he picked, than the immediate label of sloppy-seconds was splashed all over him. Five minutes later they were asking him who would be his next captain? The FA, trying to look like they’re just keeping the ball rolling, have picked an international manager with a dubious managerial record, and whose only international record is that of being Eriksson’s number two…pun intended. And with all the changes that he’s making, one wonders what the hell those two geniuses talked about in the boot room?

Further more, rather than taking the obvious decision to drop Lampard and play Gerrard in the middle with Hargreaves, he’s chosen to play Gerrard on the right. On the right! At Liverpool that may make sense some of the time. But they don’t do it all the time, and certainly wouldn’t if they had Aaron Lennon available (insert Jermain Pennant at Liverpool). Instead he puts Gerrard on the right, and keeps Lamps in the middle, and voila – you’ve got your headlines!

“Come watch this meaningless friendly for England with EPL stars, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and the current English flavor of the month ____! (Enter appropriate flavor of the month: Shaun Wright Phillips, Andy Johnston, Dean Ashton, etc.)”

The circus comes to Old Trafford this week, until the other FA brainchild – the new Wembley stadium – completes its design phase. Frankly I could give less than a damn about the England team, because my interests are only in the EPL, which I can’t get enough of, but that is no thanks at all to their albatross: the English FA.

The sooner heads roll at the FA, the sooner England will have some silverware to show for all their resources.