Tales from the Secret Footballer

by Anon, Anon

  Unfortunately, in my case it’s The Secret Footballer who has the reputation for punditry, not the man behind the pseudonym, so I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. As TSF, I have been able to write columns for Abu Dhabi TV, but as far as appearing on screen there is concerned, the closest I’ve come is steering some fellow players in that direction. I suppose that’s a fundamental flaw in the anonymous model: some areas simply can’t be exploited.

  What about other business opportunities? A friend of mine is a venture capitalist for technology companies: he graduated from Harvard with a business master’s and has raised about £200m for startups down the years. He is seriously switched on and genuine with it. Last season we were having lunch at our favourite restaurant when he told me that he’d recently had a meeting with a Qatari fund that was looking to invest in a football club. “They’re great people,” he said, “and they love the English heritage. They were very keen on Nottingham Forest because of the history but they lost out, so why don’t we find a club, do the deal and install you as chairman, like Niall Quinn at Sunderland?”

  It was a good idea but certainly not that simple. Still, he had my attention.

  “I’ve had several meetings with these guys now and they are adamant that they will be buying a club in the next two years,” he said. “So why don’t you do some research and find out through your contacts which clubs are for sale as a start? Then we’ll form a partnership and become the broker for the deal.”

  This is a similar approach to that taken by Adam Pearson, who left his position at Leeds in the Premier League to purchase Hull City, who were then in the bottom tier of English football and in administration. He got them into the Championship before selling out and buying a majority stake in Derby County and trying again. Derby are a huge club that would easily fill their stadium if they were to get back to the Premier League.

  I started to make some calls, and do you know what I found? There are a lot of football clubs for sale.

  My first call was to the owner of a big Midlands club that have been down on their luck for some time. They pull in huge crowds, have planning permission to take their capacity close to 50,000 and offer first-class training facilities. There’s a huge amount of work that goes into these deals but the starting point is always a friendly call followed by lunch. During that lunch the owner told me that he had other interests that he wanted to pursue and that maybe it was time for someone new to come in, throw some money at the club and see what happened. “What would you want for it?” I asked. He didn’t hesitate, “Lock, stock and barrel, I’d take £40m,” he said. For a broker whose business would net between 10 and 20 per cent of any deal, that’s a hell of a payday.

  The work involved would be considerable, of course: there are EBITDAs to pore over (something that gives the true picture of a company’s value and profitability) and the potential to factor in. But that would be handled by experts. Although I understand and enjoy business, in this instance I would be the “football face” of any deal, telling investors why the club I was recommending was such a fantastic opportunity, while sprinkling in stories from the pitch and changing room.

  So far we have identified three clubs; the owners of two are keen to sell, while the third’s would prefer to remain involved with the club, subject to any investment. Two are in the Championship and the other is in League One. The value of most football clubs lies in their potential, helped in no small part by the wealth of the party looking to take them over. At first I looked for clubs that had no debt – not easy – but I soon realised that debt is not the overriding concern for many wealthy investors. When Pearson went into Derby, the club had debts rumoured to be in excess of £25m but he still had backing from an American consortium. The fact is that when you’re dealing with an extremely rich investment fund, as we are, £25m of debt is neither here nor there. The decision is primarily about the history and pedigree of the club, and its potential.

  Debt is really only a factor for consortia that are looking for a healthy stake in a club rather than an outright takeover. Most debt can be wiped out within a single year in the Premier League, although getting to the promised land is becoming tougher, and not just because of the strong competition in the Championship and beyond. Even if Bill Gates and all his billions wanted to buy a football club there are now other factors to consider. Recently the Uefa fair play model has seen a succession of clubs, mainly in Leagues One and Two, hit with transfer embargoes. The last club I heard of that was spending more than 60 per cent of their turnover was Swindon. (But if we’re talking about spending, whenever Swindon have an injury, they send the player to Rome for treatment.)

  * * *

  I have another link to the Middle East, now I think about it. Years ago, I went on a tour to Ras al-Khaimah. God knows why, given that nobody in our squad had even heard of it – it must have been a bent deal with some official at our club and some wealthy people in that part of the world. We landed in Dubai and drove along the coast to “the RAK”, which is about an hour north of its wealthier cousin. After a long day we arrived at our hotel on the beachfront and it was like a little bit of paradise. I’d never seen anything like it, yet I immediately felt at home. The development was brand new and the people extremely welcoming. After a few days of tough training in which our manager came up with his usual ridiculous ideas like sprinting along the beach and kicking up sand in the faces of the holidaymakers, before swimming out to sea, around the buoy and back again – something that saw a few of the African lads nearly drown – I was exhausted. Fortunately, the coaches recognised this and persuaded the manager to give us a day off. It helped that our game had been called off. I think we were supposed to play a Bahrain XI – nothing dodgy about that, then.

  On the day off the lads decided to take a bus back to Dubai to go shopping in the malls, something that appealed to me about as much as a bout of malaria. So instead I took a stroll along the front with a rucksack of beers that I’d bribed the barman at the hotel to sell me (after he’d repeatedly told me that no alcohol was to be given to players, by order of the manager). Luckily for both of us, money talks in this part of the world; I slipped him the equivalent of about £2 and he happily set about filling my bag. I set off down the beach – which turned out to be a terrible idea. It was ridiculously hot and before long I retreated inland and hailed a cab.

  “I’ll take you somewhere nice,” said the driver.

  That was a worry. I was probably heading to a brothel, but in the absence of any other options or sun cream I jumped into the car and we zoomed off down a recently finished motorway. In the event he did take me somewhere nice – a marina with cafés, shops and a golf course about half an hour down the coast. It was stunning. I took a table outside a café and ordered a Coke. In the distance I could hear building work going on, and when I stood I realised that they were building out into the sea, similar to the Palm Islands in Dubai. All around me there were agents selling property for the area. As I was thinking about taking a look, a voice said, “I know you,” and a hand shot out to be shaken.

  “Jesus,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  It was an estate agent from a property company that I’ve done a lot of business with over the years, and he was here selling apartments for the island that I could hear being built. After a couple of Cokes and his warm-up patter I agreed to take a car with him to see what they were doing. He explained that the newly added land was made up of four islands shaped like coral stretching far out to sea. There was nothing to see, of course, only small sand storms and giant boulders, but with a little imagination you could picture how beautiful it was going to be. Back in his pop-up shop he showed me models of the place and explained the tourism and business infrastructure that was coming to RAK. It sounded amazing, and I had already fallen for the place. He gave me the company bank details; I transferred £210,000 there and then and bought myself a two-bedroom penthouse overlooking the Arabian Sea. At least, I bought a picture of one.


  Now, I appreciate that what I’m about to say may make me sound like a complete wanker, and I have no excuse. I’m merely telling you how it is. I completely forgot about that purchase until about a year ago, when out of the blue the agent phoned me and offered me £400,000 for the same apartment, even though it was still not finished (thanks mostly to the property crash).

  Not bad, I thought, for something bought on a whim. Still, I fobbed him off, began to do some digging to work out what was going on – and made an amazing discovery. The island next to mine was now spoken for – by Real Madrid, who had announced that they were building a five-star hotel, apartments, villas, a training complex, a 10,000-seater stadium, a museum and a sporting academy. There were even rumours of a theme park. Why here, of all places? Well, the location is said to be equidistant from Europe and Madrid’s enormous following in Asia.

  Finally, after five years of swimming upstream through a torrent of shit, there was a bit of good news. Now I just have to decide whether to cash in or hold my nerve; whatever happens, I guarantee it’ll have been the wrong choice. Anyway, it’s a nice problem to have. I may not be able to do punditry there and I may not have a club to play for in this part of the world, but if everything goes completely tits-up, which it looks like it might, at least I’ll still have a home of sorts.

  I do have a few concerns about the area, though. When I got back to the hotel after my hard day’s flat-buying I still had a rucksack of beers. So I got some ice from the bar, took a seat on the beach and called my room-mate, who came down in record time because it was almost impossible to get a beer out there thanks to our manager. We watched the sun go down and drank the beers until they had worked their magic and told us that we really ought to check out the local nightlife. There was one club nearby and it looked extremely “yocal”, but when in Rome …

  On our way in the bouncer looked at us as if to say, “Really?” and gave me some abuse about my shoes, but for once I held my tongue. Inside we found that we were the only westerners in the place, but once the locals had had a good stare they began flashing us half-smiles that seemed to say, “Fair play for coming in. You’re idiots but at least you’ve got balls.”

  Much later, two very attractive local ladies came and sat down on the same bench as us. This was great: clearly word had got out that we were footballers and the local females had bitten. We had a chat with them and made them laugh a bit but they wouldn’t let us buy them any drinks. A little later we found out why, when two huge fellas arrived almost to a standing ovation and sat down next to these women. That was when I realised that people were laughing at us because we’d sat in the VIP section and clearly didn’t belong there – at least not in this club. Just then the owner of the place came over and whispered to one of the men, who immediately turned to us and asked, “Who the fuck are you?”

  It was time to go: the atmosphere had changed and people were leaving. We made a thousand apologies and tried to make tracks, but it was clear that we not going to be allowed to go quietly. The men stood up, and so did we; the women just sat there looking at us. I tried to apologise yet again, when one of the men pulled a knife and held it to my face. It must have been five or six inches long and had a wicked point. Nobody has ever pulled a knife on me before and, I’ll be honest, I absolutely shat myself. I turned on my heel with my friend and bolted for the door with my hands in the air, which as you know is the universal sign for “I’ve fucked up and I’m sorry but we’ll have no trouble here.” Unfortunately they followed us and we had to run down the road. I had no idea where we were heading but I did hear the roar of engines starting outside the club, where moments before we’d darted past some very expensive Italian sports cars. There was only one thing to do, and that was hide. We jumped into an alley, where we found a bush protruding from the side of an old building. We were in that bush until 3am in the morning, being eaten alive by the nuclear mosquitoes that live out that way. Only then did we dare quickstep back to the hotel.

  When I visit a new area I like to have a look around but it just goes to show that you don’t have to go too far off the beaten track before you find trouble. By the sea I own a beautiful penthouse apartment with Real Madrid as my neighbours; down the road there are people who want to stab me. The whole thing sounds remarkably like the situation I left behind at the football club I was playing for at the time.

  COULD I BE A COACH?

  You know what puts me off coaching? Players like me – players who can’t really be coached how to play, only what formation to play in and where to stand for set pieces. One of my former coaches made the fatal mistake of telling me that he didn’t want to coach me because he loved the way I played and didn’t want to change it. I took that as a huge compliment, whether it was meant that way or not, and began thinking that I was the finished article. The truth is, you never really stop learning; you only ever stop wanting to learn.

  But that mindset hasn’t stopped a couple of managers and owners asking me to come in and take up a coaching position. There is a bit of “jobs for the boys” about it, but that’s how much of this game works, I’m afraid. And it never hurts to gain your coaching badges because opportunities don’t stop presenting themselves and one day you might wake up a changed man and ready for the challenge. It’s also very handy that the badges are heavily subsidised for footballers by the PFA. So I threw caution to the wind and took the plunge.

  Choosing the place to do your Uefa coaching badges is really quite a free process. Anybody can take the course anywhere they like, providing they can put the hours in. The actual tuition takes place either at your club over the season or as a fast-track eight-day course, accompanied by a huge questionnaire asking you how you would set up your team in certain situations and what you would do to counter a team that was attacking you in a certain formation. Everybody I know copies the answers (even though there are no right or wrong responses) from the coach at the club who is trained to give the course. I have yet to meet a player who has done anything for himself from start to finish.

  Years ago everybody wanted to take the badges in Ireland because it was an almighty piss-up, but as football has adopted a more serious approach that has changed. Now there are ex-players and players alike attending FA-led courses all over Britain, depending on where they’re from or where they want to coach.

  There are pros and cons to taking your badges in Wales or Scotland, just as there are for Northern Ireland and England, and because each nation’s course is led by its FA, the way a person is coached varies according to the local football philosophy.

  Most players I know choose to take the course in England because for some reason its FA is seen as more reputable, but there is a right place to take the course and a wrong place. One local supremo hates footballers, is bitter about having never been a footballer, and fails every footballer who takes it on the smallest of technicalities – basically if they don’t agree with his approach. He would fail Mourinho given the chance, the idiot.

  There are some other anomalies when it comes to coaching. A goalkeeper, for example, must have an outfield licence as well as a goalkeeper licence, even if he only coaches goalkeepers. You won’t find a goalkeeper who is happy with that arrangement.

  Anybody can apply to take the course, so that means that a man who coaches kids’ football could find himself sharing a pitch with the great and good of the game, provided he can lay his hands on about £5,000 for the course. The mix of people that I saw included ex-players, current players, a guy who just wanted to coach his son’s youth team, a guy who was coaching women goalkeepers, and plenty of people who were involved one way or another in the local community. But even if the amateurs’ money is green, the treatment they receive from the tutors at the FA is markedly different. They will bend over backwards for the players and ex-players but they are certainly not as helpful with Joe Public.

  On the pitch you have to wear a microphone so the tutors can hear you instructing the players, and you are filmed. The session its
elf breaks coaching down into three areas:

  PHASE OF PLAY

  Taking a session to emphasise phases of play might involve a three-quarter-length pitch that is full-width. In a session like this we might be trying to teach a specific midfielder to attack the opposition by running with the ball. We’d do this using a full-sized goal and playing 9 v 8. To start the session a player behind the goal might launch a ball to the halfway line to simulate a clearance. My chosen midfielder then controls it and starts his run. My defence would be pushing up to squeeze the space so the whole session becomes realistic.

  On the B licence I would teach my midfielder to take the ball on his back foot and look around him to see where the space is, the opposition and his teammates. The idea is to help him choose the best place to take his first touch. Can he go forward? Does he go to the side? Does he need one or two touches? He needs to lift his head up and know where the space is immediately. Can he run into it? Should he play a one-two around an oncoming striker first?

  It all depends what you are trying to achieve from the session and who you are trying to improve. In first-team situations, you might practise variations of this drill all week if you know that the opposition defence is slow at pushing out after an attack. As the coach, you decide how best to deal with a situation given to you by the tutor. Again, there are no wrong or right answers: if I feel that I have a talented midfielder who is very good at running with the ball at the opposition, then I can work on this. Somebody else may chose a different approach, but I pass or fail based on how I have set the session up, whether everybody understands, and whether or not I step in at the right moment to correct something that didn’t work the first time round.