Broken Dreams

by Tom Bower

  The allegation of a special relationship – a potential conflict of interest – between David Dein and Jerome Anderson was vigorously denied by David Dein, who denies any knowledge about Anderson’s methods for inserting himself into deals or persuading players to transfer their business after their arrival at Arsenal to his agency. Publicly, Dein has expressed his ‘trust’ of Anderson. ‘He’s not an agent looking for the next transfer,’ he told a public audience. ‘He’s been a great help to the club.’

  The ‘help’ to the club, praised by Dein, exactly illustrates the potential conflicts of interest at the heart of football. Jerome Anderson is an agent representing footballers to their manifest satisfaction, yet Dein, on behalf of Arsenal, is pleased to pay Anderson for the work he does for the club. In Dein’s description, the agent delivers the player and makes sure the transfer happens. Since the club has benefited, Arsenal is prepared to pay the agent. In particular, Dein is grateful to Anderson for ensuring that Ian Wright, the club’s famous record goalscorer, never transferred away. The player’s interest might not in those circumstances be paramount although Anderson insists, ‘I make every effort to ensure my client’s wishes are met.’ Jerome Anderson cared for Arsenal, and, in anticipation of the club’s requirements, he had unexpectedly become the agent of Paul Robinson, a goalkeeper at Leeds and a candidate if David Seaman should retire. ‘You’re tapping my goalkeeper,’ Ridsdale accused Dein after a Premier League meeting in October 2002. Dein was puzzled by this. Anderson had provoked the loss of a valuable ally.

  David Dein has emphatically denied any favouritism towards Anderson. ‘Since Arsène Wenger’s arrival at the club in October 1996,’ he says, ‘there have been eighty-six player movements – in and out. Jerome Anderson has been directly involved in eight of the transfers. Ninety per cent of the transfers have been through other agents. Every agent is treated equally.’ That statistic inevitably omits the players recruited by Anderson after their arrival at the club.

  In the interests of his club, David Dein has campaigned against the appointment of an independent regulator of football and rejected stringent controls over the clubs’ chairmen while advocating control over agents. In the interests of England, he had approached Sven-Göran Eriksson, employed as Lazio’s manager, in the middle of the season. Eriksson’s abrupt departure was England’s gain but annoyed Lazio’s managers. Dein’s ambition to become chairman of the FA, the regulator of all English football, and the supremacy of Arsenal in the Premier League magnified the controversy. The FA was an ineffective regulator and if Dein, antagonistic towards regulation, became chairman, the FA’s weaknesses would not be remedied.

  The unease coincided with the first trembles of the financial earthquake everyone feared would shatter English football. Despite the fact that Arsenal won the Double – the FA Cup and the Premier League Championship – the club’s financial director was predicting losses of £22 million in 2001–2, proof of unusual management of the club’s finances. The cause was Arsenal’s wages bill, a problem familiar to the club’s rivals in the Premier League. Clubs in the lower divisions – beleaguered by worse woes – feared bankruptcy. Keeping the dream alive for the vain and greedy had risked the entire business. And not a murmur had been uttered by Professor Fraser, the chairman of the Independent Football Commission. Football’s own regulator was silent as the game moved towards an unprecedented crisis.

  13

  ANATOMY OF DREAMS

  ‘I’ve made a mistake,’ Sir Alex Ferguson blasted. In February 2002, the manager of Manchester United uttered his rare confession to a trusted friend at the end of a depressing week. His ambition to win another championship title at the end of that season was evaporating. Despite spending record sums for new players, Manchester United was being trounced by inferior teams. ‘I should have bought Rio. That was my mistake,’ confessed Ferguson.

  Rio Ferdinand, the 23-year-old defender, was dazzling admirers at Leeds United. His £18 million transfer from West Ham in November 2000 had proved to be a valuable investment. Every week his reputation was enhanced and his place in England’s squad for the World Cup in the Far East was assured. Ferguson rued his stubborn rejection of the entreaties of Pini Zahavi, Rio’s Israeli agent. ‘He wants to come to Manchester United,’ Pini had urged repeatedly in the year before the sale to Leeds. ‘And you need a good defender.’ Ferguson rejected the advice, relying upon Wes Brown and eventually Laurent Blanc, an ageing Frenchman past his prime. Millions were eyewitnesses to Ferguson’s punishment that season. Standing on the edge of pitches across the country, flapping his arms in rage as shots passed Manchester United’s defenders into the net, Pini’s exhortations echoed around Ferguson’s head: ‘He wants to come to Manchester United. He dreams of coming to Manchester United. He’ll be good for you.’

  Ferguson’s conversion coincided with his decision to reconsider leaving Old Trafford after fifteen years. Over Christmas lunch, Kathy, his loyal wife, had asked, ‘What are you going to do after you retire?’ By New Year’s day, Ferguson had persuaded Peter Kenyon, Manchester United’s chief executive, to defer his retirement. Four weeks later, Kenyon heard the confession: ‘Not buying Rio was one of my biggest mistakes. We’ve got to buy him.’ Nothing had changed in the football world. Money was the chosen solution to every problem, even at the risk of plunging a club’s finances into disarray.

  As Manchester United’s fortunes tumbled over the following weeks, Ferguson pondered his strategy to fulfil his dream. Fortunately, his relationship with Pini was close. Ferguson had recently flown to Israel and, in recognition of his fame, had been honoured by an introduction to the Mistaharim, a top secret Israeli undercover army unit who specialized in posing as disgruntled Palestinians in the West Bank. Ferguson was excited by his glimpse into Israel’s secret war and, a few weeks later, returned the compliment by welcoming the commander of the Mistaharim and his son at Old Trafford and introducing them to the team. Counting on that bond, Ferguson phoned Pini to evoke reassurance about Ferdinand’s continued enthusiasm for a transfer. ‘Talk to Leeds,’ urged the agent, dreaming of the £2 million commission. Ferguson was grateful. ‘We have the right to be the best of the best,’ he reaffirmed. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’ His club’s profits would be £34 million that year; they could afford to buy the best to fulfil his own dream.

  Peter Kenyon waited for his opportunity to approach Peter Ridsdale. During those weeks the finances of English football deteriorated. The bankruptcy of ITV Digital in March 2002, depriving the seventy-two clubs of the Football League of £315 million for the three year deal, was crippling; and the Premier League clubs, despite earning £937 million in 2000–01, could not recover from the previous years’ haemorrhage of money in transfers and wages. The illusion that football, earning £1,269 million during the current year, was a ceaselessly money-making machine had soured. Crippled by the players’ wages, Chelsea’s accumulated debt was £97.7 million. Bates sought to sell players but there were no buyers. His bankers ordered a search for a buyer of the club. Four miles away, Mohamed Al Fayed’s bid for Fulham to keep up with the stars had produced a net debt within two years of £61.7 million and the certainty of another surge in debts. The backlash from the financial plight plaguing Italian and Spanish football, abandoning players without pay for five months, was that Premier League clubs were struggling to survive. Below the Premier League things were worse; across the English League wages were being cut and redundant players, abandoned by agents and chairmen, were hunting for work. The excitement of promotion and the fear of relegation – the sport’s emotional motor – had been replaced by the threat of bankruptcy and worse. Suspected dishonesty at Swindon, the unpopular relocation of Wimbledon to Milton Keynes, the uncertainty at Fulham, the unresolved perils of Gillingham and the prospective bankruptcy of Nottingham Forest, the debatable legacy of Brian Clough, were among the casualties of a sport struggling to survive, bereft of inspired leadership by the FA. Their investigation of Dennis Roach had made no pro
gress and Aston Villa’s dossier about John Gregory remained unexamined. The panacea for the sport, the Independent Football Commission, had disappeared. As Richard Scudamore had anticipated, the ‘independent’ regulator was ineffective while the FA’s own independence had been compromised.

  Agents could not avoid the consequences: the three new publicly quoted football agencies owned by Jerome Anderson, Jon Smith and Paul Stretford were bleeding from the lack of activity. Their profits were dismally low. Smith’s pre-tax profit was just £640,000 compared with his predicted £100 million; Stretford’s pre-tax profits were £7.8 million; and Jerome Anderson issued an earnings warning, albeit that his profits would rise threefold to £1.27 million thanks to non-football activities. All their share prices slumped. Stretford’s was down from 50 pence to 7 pence and Smith’s from 52 pence to 9 pence. Fear was creeping across the sport and the official response was absurdities and internecine warfare.

  A symbol of football’s malaise was the decision to rebuild Wembley stadium. On 26 September 2002, the FA concluded its negotiations and signed the contracts to construct a stadium for 90,000 spectators and the surrounding infrastructure for £757 million. A German bank provided a £426 million loan at market rates of interest over sixteen years. When completed in 2006, the stadium would be the most expensive in the world with the probability of opening in the midst of a financial crisis in football.

  Leeds United was a particular example of the common threat. The club had borrowed £60 million on a gamble that buying star players would secure the championship, bringing lucrative rewards. But the strategy had failed; during 2002 Leeds would not earn £20 million from European matches. In common with most other Premier League clubs, Leeds was operating at a loss and the bankers, wary of the club’s £77 million debt, were demanding the repayment of loans. Ridsdale was pledged to recoup £15 million by the sale of players by July 2002. Reducing the debt was preoccupying Allan Leighton, the club’s deputy chairman and the owner of 7 per cent of the club’s shares. ‘This is a watershed year,’ he predicted. Leighton was intolerant of the notion that unidentified benefactors with £20 million to spend on vanity would inevitably ride to a club’s rescue. ‘The fundamentals are askew,’ Leighton realized. Clubs depended upon trading players but FIFA’s new rules banned transfers for many months every year. ‘No normal business can survive by banning sales to raise cash,’ complained Leighton. Selling players was imperative for Leeds.

  The news on 21 May 2002 was encouraging. At the end of the Premier League’s two-day summer meeting in a country hotel in Northamptonshire, Peter Ridsdale was approached by Peter Kenyon: ‘I wonder whether we could talk about your players for sale?’ ‘You can have Lee Bowyer,’ replied Ridsdale, referring to the midfielder who was popular with the fans but notorious as a racist and for associating with thugs. ‘No, I’m talking about Rio Ferdinand,’ said Kenyon. ‘No way, for any money,’ countered Ridsdale. ‘We’ll pay £20 million,’ continued Kenyon. ‘Is that for one leg or half a leg?’ scoffed Ridsdale.

  Despite his repudiation, Ridsdale was obliged to report the offer to the club’s directors. To his surprise, the reaction was not dismissive. ‘We’ll sell him for £30 million,’ said Allan Leighton decisively. ‘We need the money. £12 million profit in less than two years is too good to miss. It’ll be the deal of the century.’ Ridsdale’s disappointment was ill concealed until David O’Leary spoke: ‘I couldn’t oppose a sale at £30 million, so long as we can spend some to replace Rio.’ Ridsdale hoped the sale-wouldn’t happen. He had agreed with Leighton to raise £30 million by selling Olivier Dacourt, Lee Bowyer and Robbie Keane, and he anticipated no problems. He thought Rio would not be moving. Leighton had a different opinion: not only might Rio be sold, thought Leighton, but O’Leary would also be fired.

  The supermarket executive, recently appointed to save the Royal Mail from collapse, was impatient about failure. Like any business, the fortunes of football clubs either rose or fell, the momentum was never static. Over the previous two years, O’Leary had tried for success but Leeds had fallen short of their ambitions. ‘He’s a 60:40 man,’ judged Leighton, ‘who’s not delivering.’ The dream of a young British-born team nurtured by O’Leary had been sustained until the end of 2001, but had been shattered after the criminal trial of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate for assaulting an Asian youth. O’Leary had condemned Bowyer and Woodgate for ‘disgracing’ their club, and simultaneously criticized the FA for ‘political correctness’ for disqualifying the two from the England squad. Since O’Leary attracted derision for that warped judgement, Leighton understood the manager’s limitations. O’Leary was culpable for too many mistakes, the author of too many lame excuses, a source of endless contradictions and a man who blamed everyone, including his own players, but never himself. The embarrassment about the insensitivity of his autobiography, Leeds United on Trial, published just after the end of the criminal trials in December 2001, was compounded by his comments to promote his book that Bowyer and Woodgate should both have been imprisoned. Bowyer, O’Leary seemed to have overlooked, had been acquitted. The club, Leighton concluded, had spent £93 million on players and won nothing except appalling publicity and ridicule for defeat in the third round of the FA Cup by Cardiff, a minor club. Millions of pounds had failed to buy success. ‘Football is a simple game made complicated by people who ought to know better,’ Bill Shankly once said. The complications, Leighton realized, were caused by those who foolishly extolled their self-importance. English football’s crisis was aggravated by the bewildering dearth of competent managers. Compared with Arsène Wenger and Gérard Houllier, the Irishman was not clever enough, especially to change tactics during a match. The famous quip by Terry Venables – ‘half-time is when we managers earn our money’ – was so relevant. Only four managers in the Premier League could think on their feet, Leighton believed. O’Leary was not among that elite. Determining the fate of David O’Leary over the following weeks would be a yardstick of the football business, its mysteries and weaknesses.

  Peter Ridsdale had identified O’Leary as a failure since 1 February 2002. At a board meeting he confided his concern about whether the Irishman was capable of improving the club’s performance. ‘I doubt if he’ll be the manager next season,’ he told his fellow directors. Five days later, O’Leary presented his strategy to Ridsdale for the remainder of the season. Olivier Dacourt, said O’Leary, was a candidate for sale. The manager, who, Ridsdale complained, spent too much of his week playing golf, blamed the player for the club’s failures. Two months later, on 20 April, Leeds was defeated by Fulham. Ridsdale was incensed and the following day, he telephoned Leighton and other directors. ‘O’Leary has got to go,’ he insisted. The directors’ unanimous decision, at their next board meeting, was to dismiss the manager as soon as possible. A few hurdles remained. O’Leary was contracted to appear as a studio expert in the BBC’s coverage of the World Cup. Ridsdale’s favourite to replace O’Leary was Martin O’Neill, the sensible manager of Celtic. Since the two would be sitting together in the same television studio, Ridsdale decided to avoid embarrassment and to delay the dismissal during the tournament.

  Finding a replacement was a priority and there was only one ideal candidate – Martin O’Neill – and his appointment was vital. He was invited to visit Ridsdale’s home in Leeds to discuss a contract. Ridsdale had neither sought nor obtained the permission of Celtic’s chairman, but had informed a senior director of the Scottish team. After one more meeting in Ridsdale’s home and two more in London, Ridsdale believed that O’Neill had accepted the job and the terms of the contract. Since any oral acceptance would not have been legally binding, Ridsdale listed the alternatives. As reserve candidates, he contemplated Steve McClaren, the manager of Middlesbrough, Mick McCarthy, the manager of Ireland’s national team, and Terry Venables. The latter was Leighton’s favourite.

  Leeds, Leighton believed, needed someone of considerable experience with a burning hunger to prove himself, a man renowned as
the best coach in England. Terry Venables’s quip – ‘half-time is when we managers earn our money’ – appealed to Leighton. Identifying Venables as a solution to the predicament of Leeds was a remarkable twist of the virtues within the Premier League. Venables’s resurrection since August 2001 had been public and profitable. ‘Are we going to be embarrassed?’ Brian Barwick, the head of ITV sport, had been asked when Venables was proposed as the principal commentator on Saturday night’s The Premiership programme. ‘No,’ replied Barwick, ‘Terry is part of the ITV family.’ Moral judgements about footballers in Britain were easily avoided and, after ten years, memories were effortlessly expunged. Venables’s appearance as the expert on British television reflected the football community’s usual nonchalance towards dishonesty. Three months after the creation of the Independent Football Commission the disregard for veracity in football had not altered.

  Reintroducing Venables as a manager of a Premier League club might have proved embarrassing for Ridsdale. On 11 October 2000 in Helsinki, the Leeds chairman had announced ‘Terry’s got too much baggage’ as the reason Adam Crozier had rejected Venables’s candidature as England’s coach. In 2002, the 59-year-old was still disqualified by court order from acting as a company director after admitting nineteen specific instances of corrupt, dishonest and deceitful misconduct and deception, and he remained condemned by several High Court judges for giving unreliable sworn testimony. Allan Leighton and Ridsdale were undeterred by those stigmas. Similarly, the Premier League would not object to a discredited businessman’s participation in a competition sponsored by Barclaycard. Football’s executives could be relied upon to remain silent about the association of a dishonest businessman with a bank. In their increasing desperation to find a manager before the new season, Leighton and Ridsdale were prepared to ignore Venables’s ‘baggage’. ‘There’s no one else,’ confessed Ridsdale.