Football Agents, head coaches, ex-players (present company excluded) and numerous others involved with the game are just desperate to see their little names up in lights and spoken about. I am sick and tired of all these fevered ego’s tainting our once beautiful game.
By Matty Lawrence
Honestly, I don’t know how there aren’t more headed goals in football with the size of the inflated heads littering the game. Name names, I hear you cry. Oh, don’t worry, I’m just about to, starting with the triumvirate of egotistical bores currently making a mockery of Manchester City; Pep Guardiola (Manager), Yaya Toure (baby/football player) and Dimitri Seluk (Toure’s agent).
Of course we know this spat has previous. Toure was unceremoniously dumped by Guardiola at Barcelona. The thing is, this happens in football hundreds of times over and most people don’t make a big deal of it. Step forward the afore-mentioned clowns.
Guardiole Disses Toure
Seluk says that Guardiola disrespected Toure by not including him in the Champion’s League squad. Guardiola will now not play Toure because he believes he has been disrespected by Toure and Seluk. Toure has disrespected half of Manchester by his silence and numerous abject performances over the last twelve months.
Incredulously, last season Seluk accused Manchester City of disrespecting his client by forgetting his birthday. What the hell did he want? A parade of employees at the training ground all willing to pleasure Toure while jugglers and a marching band played ‘Happy Birthday.’
Anyone would have thought that Toure was doing this for free. Looking for signs of appreciation from the club. The guy is getting paid £240,000 a week. I reckon Toure can afford to buy his own birthday cake, or more likely, birthday cake factory. If all else fails, just turn the other cheek: is that really too hard to comprehend?
To be honest, I don’t hold Guardiola entirely unaccountable. Guardiola has won more trophies than every manager in the EPL put together. Why on earth does he feel the necessity to respond to this guy, Seluk? He looks more like a dodgy arms dealer than a respectable agent?
Don’t comment, turn the other cheek and get on with your job. City wouldn’t then be dragged into this odious argument that we all know won’t be resolved until Toure gets the hell out of Manchester. Nothing of any benefit has been achieved; Let’s stop massaging the ego’s of a trio of spoilt little boys and step back in time.
Ad Addicts
My current annoyance (on top of the thousands of others, of course) is ex-players hideous involvement in advertising. I feel that I should clarify my position here: if personalities want to advertise a worthy cause for free, or donate their money to charity, then I will just about bite my tongue and swallow a few millilitres of blood. But, if ex-players are whoring themselves out just to try and satiate the addictions of the general public, then they are well and truly off the love-list.
As with any rule, there may be the odd exception. Any ex-player who needs to pay a tax bill, or pay his way through rehab, then they are free do what they want…..as The Soup Dragons once said. What I will not have is the likes of Robbie Savage, Charlie Nicholas, Stuart Pearce and David Beckham trying to encourage the public into a downward spiral. Not unless they are donating all their fees to addiction charities!! In which case, don’t do the f**king advert in the first place.
Granted, with the name of the whisky Beckham advertises, he may have got confused and thought he was doing something for the United Nations. Seriously, though, what’s the deal with this? Are some of these ex-players that desperate to see their faces plastered over billboards at the expense of troubled members of the general public? No surprise that most of these billboards are close to the pavement on street corners. The analogy is not lost on me.
The Joey Show
Enough of the past. Let’s swiftly move our focus back to current players, who at least have a slight modicum of relevance. I’m sure we have all been following the soap opera that has been the Joey Barton show, this last couple of weeks. In all seriousness, I’m absolutely devastated that Barton has slipped back into his routine of pantomime villain. Last season he was a fantastic ambassador for himself and Burnley FC in helping them back into the English Premier League.
I know hindsight is a wonderful thing. At the time I thought he should have re-signed at Burnley. Instead, Barton plumped for Rangers FC. I’m pretty sure only because it suited the agenda and timeline of his forthcoming autobiography. If that’s not the case, then this is all one helluva coincidence. For a man who says he doesn’t have an ego and can apologise so as not to escalate an argument, this charade is being turned into a first-class promotional tour for his autobiography. Strike while the iron is hot and all that.
If Joey Barton really lacks an ego, as he alludes to, he could have quelled this situation days ago. Allay this with words in his autobiography where he admits he cannot back down from confrontation and you have a sizeable contradiction: one that even Joey’s much loved Nietzsche may not be able to fathom.
I’d love all of these personalities to concentrate on the game in hand – FOOTBALL! Stop worrying about your precious ego’s and bank accounts. Anybody who is successful realizes that the money and magazine covers follow. There really is no need to chase the headlines: metaphorical, or not.