Marking Remembrance Day in October is part of a trend of empty gestures | the game | The Times & The Sunday Times
Good article by The Times. They reveal the truth behind the Allardyce debacle:
Allardyce lost England job because of public reaction, not the facts that matter
Over the weekend, I listened to the testimony of Greg Clarke, chairman of the FA, and Robert Sullivan, director of strategy, before the culture, media and sport select committee.
The hearing took place this month and one exchange was of deep significance, because it blew a hole in the argument that Sam Allardyce should have been removed as England manager.
You’ll remember that beyond the tittle tattle of a private (but covertly taped) conversation between Allardyce and undercover journalists posing as businesspeople (he had a bit of a giggle about Roy Hodgson’s accent and the Wembley debacle), there were two serious allegations.
A furore whipped up on social media helped to seal Allardyce’s fate
ANDREW COULDRIDGE/REUTERS
The first was that Allardyce had demonstrated greed by agreeing to conduct speeches in Asia for £400,000. In fact, as the FA confirmed in testimony, Allardyce merely discussed the offer and explicitly stated that he would have to run it by the FA first.
So, to clarify, this was a fictitious contract, deliberately designed to entice, which Allardyce never entered into, and may, on further reflection have rejected, and which he stated he would have to run by his employer anyway. This isn’t a smoking gun; it is a big, fat blank.
The other allegation was that Allardyce had advised on how to get around rules on third-party ownership. Except he did not. He merely stated what the rules were in answer to questioning on the subject.
As Sullivan put it with exquisite (and unanswerable) clarity: “His statement was a correct statement of the law.”
This isn’t a smoking gun; it is a big, fat blank
I hold no candle for Allardyce. He received a large payoff (presumably because the FA knew he could not be dismissed for misconduct).
But his career as England manager was ended not on the basis of evidence or due process, but because of a furore on Twitter and beyond.
It is a sad indictment of the age in which we live.
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