Typically I only do the one blog a day but I just wanted to follow up on the folly that is the Sepp Blatter and Christiano Ronaldo Slavery Sideshow and I didn’t want to sour the post about Nasri signing for Arsenal. Since there are some new developments, you get a second blog.
Anyway, yesterday Ronaldo did an interview with Portuguese television channel ITV in which he outright fully agreed with Sepp Blatter’s assessment that earning £120,000 a week and being asked to play football professionally is tantamount to slavery.
I would, at this point, normally go off on a tirade but there’s no need when pretty much every thinking person in the free world sees this for what it is: a crock of shit. And while the free world is reeling from the idea that the head of FIFA and one of the world’s richest sports stars have the temerity to call honoring a contract “slavery” good ole ‘arry Redknapp was busy putting things into perspective, as usual.
It’s rubbish, isn’t it? You can sign somebody at a football club who turns out to be a disaster. He might not be playing, might be no good, but you have to pay him for four years. So when somebody does fantastically, you’re supposed to just let them go? It doesn’t work like that. You sign a contract and it has to be mutual agreement, if the club receives a good offer, that’s how it works. It’s not slavery, is it? That’s absolute nonsense.
No Harry, contract labor is not slavery, you are correct as usual.
Another bizarre development that’s hitting all the blogs was briefly mentioned in the same article that I got the picture above from; Sepp Blatter is an honorary member of Real Madrid. I did a little digging and sure enough, there’s a press release on the FIFA.com website that confirms his status. I too am looking for a reason why Blatter made his unusual statement but really his honorary membership isn’t it. The “Gold and Diamond Insignia” is just something that Real Madrid give away to any and all politicians that will accept it and I think Blatter took it more for the photo op than anything else. It’s not like Blatter is secretly a member of the board or anything, he just got an honorary membership. It probably entitles him to 10% off at Denny’s or something.
No, I think this is just more of the same stuff; Sepp Blatter has a stick up his ass about the Premiership and is using any opportunity at all to stick the knife in and turn the blade. Who better to knife than the club that is one of the most emblematic of the “problem” of foreign transfers and all the other myriad issues that Blatter has on his agenda.
Don’t be surprised when he calls the Arsenal/Adebayor transfer saga something asinine (sharecropping?) in the next few days. Arsenal have to be next up on his hit list.
