Comments on: BBC Resorts To Sensationalist Journalism Yet Again?

by: Wanderers4Ever!!

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:00:28 +0000

While I don’t condone massive “bungs” to Agents, most of whom are slimy characters anyway in my opinion, I do think that the BBC Programme was an attempt to sensasionalise the whole issue, whilst not coming up with any concrere evidence.

Do the BBC not realise that this thing has gone on for years in many other industries.

How many sales reps hand out bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates to thier clients at Christmas and wine and dine clients in an attempt to ’seal the deal’

I agree that a £10 bottle of wine or a £100 meal is not quite the same as a £50,000 bung, but it goes on almost everywhere. How many Knigthoods and Peerages have been awarded to wealthy people who “bung” money into political parties and how many instances have there been for politicians to ask questions in the House of Parliament for cash!! Remember CASH for QUESTIONS!!

The one BIG niggle I have, is that why should the Agent be paid by the Club?? Surely the Agent is acting on behalf of the Player!! and the Agent’s fee should be paid for by the Player!! If the Player wanted to “bung” the Agent a bit extra, then it should come out of the Player’s pocket and not from the Club, who are currently forced into paying an Agent’s fee!!

by: Little Dutch

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:34:38 +0000

I actually think Allardyce and Arnesen have something to answer for. But I think the upshot will be it’s all forgotten and ignored. Agree about Redknapp though, he said he liked a player, so what? Particularly because Fat Boy and Gartside have been so self righteous about Dein. Slimey cunts.

by: AW

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:24:56 +0000

The one piece of hard evidence they COULD have had would have been when they were about to make a payment to a manager but Newel went public and apparently messed up the deal, how convenient! This was never going to happen anyway, it was all set up by another agent trying to look important in order to get a job with a wealthy businessman that didn’t exist. I suppose Bolton, with ‘illegal payments’ to Craig Allardyce, and Chelsea, with the ‘tapping up’, may have something to answer for but where is the proof. I think this investigation was based around Sam Allardyce as they thought he might get the Englad job, and if they exposed the England manager as corrupt, the story would sell well. What a waste of time.

by: lc

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:01:29 +0000

That’s not a proof of a ‘bung’. I thing the BBC’s got something against Sam.
Players agent always try or force always their way to seduce clubs managers with any kind of approach. I don’t think managers ask money before taking any player. But I guess agents may paye a bung to a club manager after a successful player transfer for ‘thanking’ him as the result. I don’t think these type of dealing that the goal is only for the agent to sell as many players as he can is anything to do with corruption as it happened recently in Italy, with referees changing football results.

by: vivb

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:37:23 +0000

To be fair to the BBC unless they had got an agent to reveal all as a whistleblower they were never going to get the hard evidence they needed. I understand they had to drop a number of other allegations against other managers after lawyers reviewed the program.

The sad thing is the money leaking out of the game into these parasites pockets is ultimately ours.

by: Wenger's Immortals

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:21:46 +0000

Who loves Sky’s coverage? I can’t stand that annoying bastard Richard Keys!

Anyway, the fact is the BBC promised but didn’t deliver - all they’re doing with the ‘Football Bungs’ and Arsenal/Beveren programmes is trying to get all the football fans (of which there are many) to boost their ratings.

The Beeb don’t give a shit if the show was crap - they wanted high viewing figures and they got it!

by: dave

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:13:02 +0000

Why do you love Sky’s coverage so much ? Didnt you think ‘Grand Slam Sunday’ was slightly retarded, as is Jim White, Richard Keys and ultimately Rupert Murdoch.

by: Gareth Priest

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:10:07 +0000

I wasn’t conned into watching this - saw it as another speculative piece of rubbish from the BBC yet again who are becoming a very shoddy operation these days. Glad I went to bed early.

by: g-unit

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:08:59 +0000

wonder if big, fat sam will blame double d for this expose like he did for the england job! haha!

by: Scooch

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 11:03:23 +0000

From the moment I heard the BBC was planning another “expose” i thought it should be taken with a pinch of salt. The BBC is a corporation I’ve trusted over the years, until the Newsnight Beveren article that is.

We all know what happened there and after all was said and done (and we were completely exonorated of any wrongdoing) I decided to complain to the BBC about what had been reported.

I received what can only be described as a piss-poor response from the BBC. I was tempted to post the response on here, but I didn’t want to bore people. Needless to say it didn’t apologise and just detailed pretty much exactly what I had said in my complaint (but worded differently) describing that Arsenal hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

The BBC seem to need to compete with other corporations with their sensationalist articles and now I read/watch content from them with a healthy dose of sceptcism