Sky's Jeff Stelling Comes Out on the Wrong Side in Liverpool's Uncivil War

Sky's Jeff Stelling Comes Out on the Wrong Side in Liverpool's Uncivil War

http://football.fanhouse.co.uk/2010/09/27/skys-jeff-stelling-comes-out-on-the-wrong-side-in-liverpools-u

Comrades! On Saturday afternoon, two brave left-wing struggles were played out in front of the nation. These ideological battles weren't held on the nation's streets – these were no poll-tax riots, no Jarrow Marches – but instead they occurred on Sky Television. They were very revealing, all the same.

The first brouhaha raged on Sky News. As 'Red' Ed Miliband won the leadership of the Labour Party, the channel's commentary team spluttered in disbelief. How did the anointed Blairite wonk David Miliband fail to win, they wondered? This didn't correspond with the gossip in the Westminster village! What were these people doing?! It didn't seem to cross their minds that the leadership of a party which grew out of the trade-union movement might be influenced in some way by, er, votes from workers in trade unions.

Over on Sky Sports News, there would be a similar detachment from reality on display. After Liverpool and Sunderland's annual circus act – that free-kick farce wasn't quite the comedic tour de force the beach ball was, incidentally, on account of it being totally legitimate – thousands of fans stayed behind on the Kop to register their wish for Anfield co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr to up sticks and bugger off. Back in the studio, one of the club's most famous sons had been moved to impassioned oratory.

Phil Thompson, the man who picked up the 1981 European Cup for Liverpool, popped his head above the parapet and stated that RBS, to whom Hicks and Gillett owe hundreds of millions, "cannot allow them to refinance this football club". Referring to the demonstration as "a huge thing", he made a "plea for anybody who makes decisions not to allow the refinance to happen because ... it will kill Liverpool Football Club and it will kill football." Thompson then suggested that boycotts might be the way forward, albeit obliquely: "People say if you go and support the club, purchasing tickets, then you are supporting the owners, so no, I won't do it, I am not going to go because the more money I put into the club the longer I could possibly keep them there." Excellent stuff.

But as the cameras swooped across the famous one-time terrace, and mics picked up the protest songs, a Sky presenter once again missed the point spectacularly. "Maybe they should concentrate on what's happening on the football pitch," opined Jeff Stelling. Exactly why Liverpool's fans should remain silent while their club runs up over £200 million debt simply for the pleasure of Hicks and Gillett's company went unexplained by Stelling. But the implication was clear: the common supporter, just like the union member, should leave well alone and sit on the sidelines quietly, as the big boys get on with playing their big-boy games.

To be fair to Stelling, a genuinely nice man who usually positions himself on the side of all that is good and righteous, he seems guilty here of little more than lazy thinking. Folk in the media love to paint football fans as mouth-breathing numbskulls standing outside the stadium cheering as a new player is signed; as groups of testosterone-fuelled morons leering lasciviously at scantily clad "soccerettes"; as obsessive knowledge freaks answering questions about Derby County's 1969 promotion-winning side for a massive £15 cash jackpot.

But they're not so comfortable when the fans mobilise and challenge the status quo. Instead of painting them as bolshie troublemakers who can't love their club if they act up like that – which was effectively Stelling's unthinking angle – they should spend awhile discussing the issues, and questioning exactly how it's come to this. Happily for Sky Sports News viewers, Thompson was on hand to grab the mic, because financial chicanery affects fans across the board. As he explained, the minute the good results stop, Manchester United – nearly £800 million in debt – will be flailing around just like Liverpool. And of course implosion has already occurred at giants such as Leeds United, Sheffield Wednesday, Newcastle United, and two-time European champions Nottingham Forest – as well as at smaller clubs across the land for decades now.

Yet – rightly or wrongly – it's going to take a behemoth to topple before attention is paid. Liverpool and Manchester United are the two best-supported clubs in the country. Both are in a parlous financial state. Yet television all but totally ignores their plight, the odd filibuster from the likes of Thompson excepted. Instead of patronising the protestors, television should allow them to proselytise. Because the way things are going, unless their voices are heard loud and clear, in ten years time there'll be precious little left on the football pitch for Stelling to concentrate on.

A good read and a definite eye opener to how the clubs situation is misinterpreted in the media, deliberately more often then not.

great eye opener for sure!

I think lots of people should start writing to the regulators about LieSports. Firstly about copyright infringement when the fans banner had the Poodle's face on it. Secondly about the persistent lies by scum like Jamie Pantscrapp and Slimeball Stelling.

You'd be surprised at how they sometimes go down against broadcasters even when the broadcaster hasnt been that bad. LieSports on the other hand, have been abusing their position for a long time.

Highlighting what we want the media to tell everyone who is ignorant of the state of
play at this moment&for the future.

Nice One RB.

                              NOT A PENNY MORE.

So all Jeff Stelling said was "Maybe they should concentrate on what's happening on the football pitch,". Whats the big deal with that?

Its Jeff Stellings job to a) get a rise out of Phil Thompson because its funny watching Thommo be so biased towards us and more importantly b) be Devils Advocate and give the other opinion so Thommo can give his. If he just agreed with Thommo the conversation is one way and would quickly end.

Think back to when the whole bung scandal was going on and Jeff Stelling was doing the host job in the studio. Bolton were playing someone or other and he was doing an after match interview with Allardyce and after a few pleasantries he got onto the bung subject. "Have you ever took a bung?" he asked Fat Head. The interview ended shortly after.

He's not the kind of bloke to not understand what's going on with us but he does have a job to do and that's to get information out of people.

Given what Thommo is quoted as saying i think he done a top job of letting him say it all without interrupting, he could of been a cock and not let him have his say.

You can't hang a man for on sentence, especially one as innocuous as that one.

I agree with the above.  He's seems like a top bloke who loves his own football club and is a great front man on a saturday afternoon.  he let Thommo say his piece without interruption, and the reason he did this is because he like Thommo, is a genuine football lover.

he didn't even really make much of job at trying to be devils advocate.  it was was quick sentence that he didn't really put any heart into.  Thommo had said everything anyhow.

I think we are being too sensitive and jumping on anybody he doesn't agree 100% with us.  In fact i bet Stelling does agree with us, but his position probably doesn't let him say so.

as for one post calling him scum, i really think you need to get a sense of perspective on what makes someone scum!

I too think that was just a lazy slur, although a terrific article nonetheless, very well written.

I think Stelling is about as genuine as Tom Hicks(trying to) sing YNWA.

He's not stupid. But frankly any guy who has an orgasm about Stenhousemanure clawing 1 back ina 6 nil defeat against Airdrie Rovers or some such sh*te, shouldn't be tuned into.

The loosely plausible face of a particularly scummy outfit. Yes I do think Stelling is scum.
He's covering up fraud and lies, knowing full well whats going on.

I also believe that over the medium term, media companies will effectively become the owners of football clubs and whole leagues - IF they have their way.

IF Stelling was a football fan, he should have shown some integrity years ago. All we're seeing is an actor who's part of a disgusting agenda.

I think Stelling is about as genuine as Tom Hicks(trying to) sing YNWA.

He's not stupid. But frankly any guy who has an orgasm about Stenhousemanure clawing 1 back ina 6 nil defeat against Airdrie Rovers or some such sh*te, shouldn't be tuned into.

The loosely plausible face of a particularly scummy outfit. Yes I do think Stelling is scum.
He's covering up fraud and lies, knowing full well whats going on.

I also believe that over the medium term, media companies will effectively become the owners of football clubs and whole leagues - IF they have their way.

IF Stelling was a football fan, he should have shown some integrity years ago. All we're seeing is an actor who's part of a disgusting agenda.

You don't like anyone do you!

Stelling's okay, and in fact if you've seen his Middlesborough rant, he's actually quite funny.

Soccer Saturday - Jeff Stelling's great rant on Middlesbrough

Great article, fantastically written.

Why Liverpool fans have to come together and act NOW to save their club - and perhaps all of football - before it's too late

On Saturday at Anfield, thousands of Liverpool fans remained behind after the game to register their protest against their club's 'owners'.

Over on Sky Sports, as cameras cut from the sit-in back to the studio, Jeff Stelling - the usually immaculate presenter of Soccer Saturday - offered a withering look, and muttered something along the lines of "perhaps they should concentrate on what's happening on the football pitch".

If ever a presenter can have got something so spectacularly, insensitively wrong, then it is him. Phil Thompson, a man with Liverpool in his veins and someone who cares passionately about the club, almost exploded in indignation beside him.

The former European Cup-winning captain, the former assistant manager, and lifelong fan of the club took him to task in no uncertain terms. For Tommo, the issue of ownership is the number one priority at Anfield at the moment. The only issue, in fact.

If Hicks and Gillett are offered refinancing by greedy banks to allow them to retain their control as owners of Liverpool, he argued, "it will kill Liverpool Football Club, and it will kill football."

Thompson even went as far as to suggest that, as a supporter, he wouldn't pay to buy tickets or merchandise from the club because "if you go and support the club, purchasing tickets, then you are supporting the owners, so no, I won't do it, I am not going to go because the more money I put into the club the longer I could possibly keep them there."

So who is right on this? Is Jeff Stelling correct in suggesting that fans should stick to what happens on the pitch and let the off-field stuff take care of itself, or is Phil Thompson right to fear for the future of the game he has been involved with for the past 40-odd years?

Regular readers of this column will know that is a rhetorical question, of course, because every Liverpool fan should be aware by now that if the current owners somehow persuade money-grabbing financial institutions to prop them up, then the future of Liverpool is threatened.

Why? Well, because under those circumstances, no money will be put into the club, meaning interest payments will get higher, debts will continue to rise, and eventually will exceed what the company is worth. At the current rate of debt growth, in fact, that situation will arise within the next 12 months.

The wider implications are obvious too. If Hicks and Gillett can get away with such behaviour at Anfield, then the Glazers will get away with it at Manchester United, and countless other ruthless, avaricious leveraged buy-out merchants will get away with it at countless other clubs. And eventually the whole pack of cards will come tumbling down.

On October 1, the Americans are due to repay almost £200million in loans to their current lenders, the RBS, and by the middle of the month the bank could legally call in that debt. They are trying to find that money - through refinancing - to be free from their obligations to the English-government owned bank, so they can continue on their obscene plan of buying LFC with the fans' money.

If they can be stopped from getting that refinance, and if the RBS can be persuaded not to extend current loans (which is still a distinct possibility, believe me), then they will be forced to allow the bank to sell the club quickly and cheaply to avoid bankruptcy, though for George Gillett that prospect may already be too late.

Which is why Phil Thompson's comments were so heartfelt. He knows the future of the club hangs in the balance NOW. Not last year, when a similar sit-in protest saw only a few hundred fans stay behind. Not next year, when perhaps tens of thousands of fans will be sitting outside, refusing to go through the turnstiles.

The deadline for the future of Liverpool Football Club is October, and maybe the deadline for the whole of football is October too. Football fans have to pick their battles, and that battle is upon us all.

Liverpool fans are finally coming together in recognition of that point. Some are angry that others are only just coming on board now, but that is spectacularly missing the point, because it is only now that the fans can make a real difference.

Gillett is a busted flush who seems to have lost control of his own finances in the USA, but Hicks is still scurrying around the world, trying to sweet-talk banks into giving him money, pretending that he is a victim of a campaign by an 'angry mob'.

It is his last shot of the dice, and it is happening right now, as you read this. He is rumoured to be in talks with Citibank, the latest in a long line of institutions to hear his pitch.

All the disparate groups, all those fans who don't like other fans because they aren't aligned to the right group or don't like the same manager or same toothpaste, can stop those talks by joining together to make clear their views to Citibank, and to all the other banks who may be greedy enough to allow the catastrophe at Anfield to continue.

They can make clear - as Phil Thompson has so brilliantly voiced - that if Hicks and Gillett do remain in control at Liverpool, then they will boycott the stadium, boycott merchandise and make any investment in the Americans by any bank worthless.

It is a real possibility. In a recent poll on the Anfield Road website, fans were asked to vote on a simple question with two alternatives:

1) Hicks and Gillett retain control via refinance or RBS extension.

2) RBS take temporary control of the club on the proviso the club is passed on, as soon as practicable, to a responsible owner (this carries with it the possibility of LFC being placed into administration and a nine point penalty being imposed by the Premier League).

The response was deafening. More than 97 per cent of fans would rather Liverpool took a nine point penalty and go into administration than face more time under their current owners.

It is an interesting poll, not least because it is basically the choice being faced by the RBS right now. Remember, this is a bank who have made MILLIONS out of Liverpool fans by lending a sum even they admitted was far too high to Hicks and Gillett.

So there is no guarantee they will do the right thing. But as Phil Thompson so eloquently pointed out on Saturday, the future of football may depend on them doing the right thing. And if they don't, then there may well be nothing left of their investment to profit from.

It is a point RBS will do well to remember, and any other bank thinking of propping up a morally bankrupt regime.

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/david-maddock/Why-Liverpool-fans-have-to-come-together-and-act-NOW-to-save-their-club-and-perhaps-all-of-football-before-it-s-too-late-David-Maddock-Column-article589785.html

Yes I do think Stelling is scum.
He's covering up fraud and lies, knowing full well whats going on.

Extremism at its very, very best.

What ever you say about Stelling the fact of the matter remins at this.

His comments got a rise out of Phil Thompson a liverpool legend and if any of the Sky Sports generation are going to listen to anyone it's Phil Thompson, so in a way Stelling for what ever reason gave Thompson the opportunity to hammer home our plight to the people/fans watching, this in turn educates the masses.

So whilst he may be a w**ker, he done us a favour in a sense and he can keep commenting for all I care as long as Thommo is there getting air time setting the record straight and sending out the message about our owners loud and F***ing clear.

What ever you say about Stelling the fact of the matter remins at this.

His comments got a rise out of Phil Thompson a liverpool legend and if any of the Sky Sports generation are going to listen to anyone it's Phil Thompson, so in a way Stelling for what ever reason gave Thompson the opportunity to hammer home our plight to the people/fans watching, this in turn educates the masses.

So whilst he may be a w**ker, he done us a favour in a sense and he can keep commenting for all I care as long as Thommo is there getting air time setting the record straight and sending out the message about our owners loud and F***ing clear.

Exfuckingactly.

I'd be surprised if Thommo didn't say to Jeff "I need to get this out there now, we need shut of these bas**rds" and he was accommodated with such an innocuous sentence that its obvious that there was no sentiment in it. It was the vocal equivalent of a springboard for Thommo to dive off with his lament of our plight.

I think focus is needed in the right direction and this isn't it.

I think Stelling is about as genuine as Tom Hicks(trying to) sing YNWA.

He's not stupid. But frankly any guy who has an orgasm about Stenhousemanure clawing 1 back ina 6 nil defeat against Airdrie Rovers or some such sh*te, shouldn't be tuned into.

The loosely plausible face of a particularly scummy outfit. Yes I do think Stelling is scum.
He's covering up fraud and lies, knowing full well whats going on.

I also believe that over the medium term, media companies will effectively become the owners of football clubs and whole leagues - IF they have their way.

IF Stelling was a football fan, he should have shown some integrity years ago. All we're seeing is an actor who's part of a disgusting agenda.

Give me strength!  You know, life really is to short!

"But the implication was clear: the common supporter, just like the union member, should leave well alone and sit on the sidelines quietly, as the big boys get on with playing their big-boy games."

Which is precisely what Hicks did.
If you read the Dallas blogs you will see that the average US "sports" (sic) fan is catered for short of sitting  in a velvet armchair.
They are mostly apathetic overweight brain deads who play sports in "World" Leagues that only Yanks play.
(They have to do well in something)
Popcorns and beers abound as they sit in their Bermudas chilling with their teams.
(With apologies and exception to our American cousins who have divine choice by supporting this club!)

I suppose we, who were bred supporting the lads in the sixties on f...ing freezing terraces, lighting fires with Bitter programmes and keeping warm by being pressed up against the bird in the Kop you and 22,000 others always fancied, are made of different stuff.

Thats why, Mr Hicks, on You Tube you refer to us as fans from a Different Planet.
That is why, Mr Hicks, when you first regrettably were accepted in to our club by the Merchant of Greed Mr Moores you publicly announced how you loved the passion and the emotional fix of "sports" fans. How they are financially and emotionally locked in to lining your pockets.

We were the new Weetabix eaters, for you, werent we?

The common supporter, which we are ... will not leave well alone and sit on the sidelines quietly as the big boys play their games.. with our money and our emotions.
You see. WE own this club and we have earnt the right to say what happens.

Mr Stelling and the Scum-Loving Mr Murdoch, please note.