6 September 2015 Sunday Independent ∼ COMMENT | SPORT | 15

TOMMY Even the biggest THE COUCH CONLON stars reduced to helpless pawns Little room for loyalty in ’s revolving door on deadline day HEY spent nine hundred mil- still, it’s there, faithful and forever abiding. sorts of reasons, but those supporters Oularé has joined a Watford roster that marketplace in England, players from all lion quid, give or take, in the The days, however, of building a ten- can’t unknow what they once knew and expanded dramatically during the window, over the world have fetched up and given summer transfer window that year friendship with that stalwart servant still remember. having won promotion back to the Premier their all from the first day they wore the finally closed with a whimper of the club are more or less over. And you wonder if they ever wake League in May. He was joined on deadline shirt. last Tuesday. They don’t ever have to meet to become up the morning after another Premier day by Victor Ibarbo (from Colombia, via Naturally enough, the STEPHEN TAnd with that sort of money churning friends, the supporter and the player. If the League transfer deadline, dizzy from the AS Roma). Followers at Vicarage Road has teemed with carpetbaggers too, gam- through the Premier League’s vast finan- lad does his stuff on the field week in week latest carousel of comings and goings. And have already been getting to know, among ing the transfer market with blithe indif- HUNT cial silos, it is surely only a matter of time out, his anonymous fan club in the stands having checked to see the latest batch of others, Allan Nyom (Cameroon, via Gra- ference to the petrified hopes of those lifers before the open window will officially be will always do right by him. They will take newcomers, if they ever ask themselves nada CF, Spain); Sebastian Prodl (Austria, in the fanbase. re-named the revolving door. him into their lives. They will get to read a fairly fundamental question: who are via Werder Bremen); José Manuel Jurado Watford also signed a much-travelled It is spinning faster with every pass- his moods, tolerate his flaws, appreciate these people? And what are they doing (Spain, via Spartak Moscow); Alessandro journeyman on transfer deadline day. Ad- N deadline day last week, ing season. This summer’s total outlay his virtues. And when he finally moves on, at my club? Diamanti (Italy, via Guangzhou Ever- lene Guedioura had played for them before, I sat at home as a 34-year- smashed last year’s record of £835m. they will remember him with something On Wednesday morning, for example, grande, China); and Giedrius Arlauskis on two loan spells from Crystal Palace. He old footballer without a One can only imagine that supporters, approaching fondness. Both parties will a Watford FC fan would’ve heard that a (Lithuania, via Steaua Bucharest). scored three goals last season during their club and I knew the phone veteran supporters in particular, are have kept their side of the deal. lad called Obbi Oularé had joined them Even the most innocent of Watford fans push for promotion. He joined them last wasn’t going to ring. I’m a finding it increasingly difficult to keep up But all is transience nowadays; flux and from Club Brugge the day before. A cur- can hardly expect these new recruits to Tuesday on a permanent deal. Ofree agent, which means I can join with the never-ending tide of arrivals and change are the new permanence. And the sory background check would’ve told him feel the love for their club overnight. Most “Physically I was in south London,” said any club after the window closes, so I departures. man who buys the season ticket, wears the that Oularé grew up in Belgium, the son of these players wouldn’t be able to find the delighted French-Algerian afterwards, wasn’t part of the panic buys. There is No sooner have they built up some jersey and books his seat on the away-day of a former professional footballer from Watford on a map. The best that supporters “but my heart and my mind was still here one club in particular I’d like to join semblance of a relationship with one bus is having a tough time holding onto Guinea, west Africa. That the lad is 19, a can hope for is that the players place a great in Vicarage Road. Now I bring my body but they have the power and I have to player than he’s gone again, replaced by this remote but intimate relationship. It’s forward, and cost £6m. deal of pride in their own performance, and meet my heart here.” wait, which isn’t much fun. another stranger whose name they can hard to identify with a player when he’s every single time they take the field. Presumably Adlene didn’t grow up The silence reminded me of where barely pronounce, let alone spell. cruising the millionaire lifestyle; it’s harder Because, as always in sport, it’s not a dreaming of playing for the Hornets. But I am in my career right now. There It can’t be good for the nerves. The club still when he doesn’t hang around for more question of identity, but character. There’s as a declaration of sentiment and loyalty in have been other occasions when the is supposed to be the one constant, the than a few seasons. ‘My heart and been many a home-grown player, at every these ruthless times, it was surely enough phone didn’t stop for most of the day one comforting certainty in this the age I suppose we’re talking primarily about club, who couldn’t and wouldn’t deliver, no to have every grizzled old Watford fan but then it did and I knew that wasn’t of anxiety. When the job and the wife and middle-aged men and older; blokes who matter how much he’d been steeped in its crying into his cup of Bovril. good. the local boozer go, there is still the match knew English soccer when it hadn’t the my mind was in history. He just didn’t have the willpower, Deadline day has become a piece of to hang your hat on, of a Saturday; or a proverbial arse in its trousers. You wouldn’t the work-rate, the attitude required. [email protected] light entertainment and I’m not here Sunday, or even a Monday these days. But want to romanticise those times, for all Vicarage Road’ And since the game became a globalised to make a case for it being anything different, but it is also a day when players can be told to return to their old position as chattel, moved around by clubs on a whim. Clubs tend to like that, I think. I’m not talking about players like Saido Berahino, who will DION be okay whatever happens, but about the players further down the leagues THAT WAS THE WEEK FANNING who won’t be threatening any boycotts and are only concerned with earning enough to look after their families. They all get lumped in together by the public who think every footballer is a multi-millionaire. There was a time when I had more power than I do now but even then I United seem determined to sign the wasn’t able to force a move. Twice in my career I’ve been involved in what would call ‘deadline day drama’ and both times were dramatic but they didn’t really sound like fun. One time I was contacted by a biggest names and play sterile football manager who said he wanted to buy me. This is what goes on and everyone knows it. Some players might have S sports journalists, we visit the The Manchester United that has thrown their toys out of the pram at world heritage sites of sport. emerged blinking into the light is over- this point but I just got on with things, The great stadiums of football whelmed by this freedom. They are con- even though I would have joined that occasionally become familiar sumerists now and they want the world working locations. Some of to know they have money. They spent the Aus have been lucky enough to visit the summer being linked with , Maracana, Camp Nou and the San Siro. Neymar, Ronaldo and Marcus Reus before One thing that We have wwatched World Cup finals and paying at least £36m for Anthony Martial. Champions League finals in Rio, Berlin, What doubt goes through their mind Johannesburg, Rome and Istanbul. We as they consider the scouting reports on won’t be a cherish these memories, the opportunity Martial? Do they linger over the equiva- to gaze over the field where Ghiggia broke lent of the one poor TripAdvisor review, a nation or to look on as David Luiz and wondering if he is worth a fee which problem for Fred do the same. could be close to 60 million in the end if Last Wednesday night, I visited anoth- one scout is quibbling over the equivalent er great venue in football’s rich tapestry, of dirty towels. In their role as high net David de Gea is Vale do Lobo, the resort where Alex worth consumers, United need Martial to Ferguson says he experienced “the first cost them as much as possible, that way the United major fracture” in his relationship with he’ll have been a success. . United seem overwhelmed by this It was here that Manchester United burden of choice, by this awareness that dressing room met for pre-season training in 2005. In the any player could be theirs if Jorge Mendes golf club there is a picture of the United can make it so, but still happiness eludes club if I could. The manager who squad going for a training run along one them. They are, it is clear, on a journey of wanted me was as good as his word in of the fairways. Wayne Rooney is at the reinvention, hoping to effect an extraor- that he kept bidding but my club kept front looking like he has summered well. dinary transformation in which they sign turning the bids down until, late on At the back, beside , is the biggest names in the world but play deadline day, he signed somebody else Roy Keane with a face like rolling thunder. sterile football when they sign them. instead. Roy would probably dispute that this pic- Real Madrid might have been the Others can sometimes play you a ture or his angry face has any significance. more inept party during the attempt little bit. Another manager tried a sim- He describes the training that took place to move David de Gea from one of the ilar move, told me he would trigger as “brilliant” in his autobiography. But with his family. United had brought the his recent book, we learn that he had it as “a lot of crap”, which, he said, was great clubs of Europe to another with the the release clause in my contract on that was after he had argued with Carlos families along for this stage of pre-season. already been on holiday in Quinta with “over the top. The usual nonsense. WAGs. sophistication and composure of the bail deadline day. That’s great, I thought. Queiroz who had been responsible for On this reading, it would seem like his family in 2005 and having enjoyed the Singing”. bondsmen fighting over Charles Grodin I was looking at houses in the area choosing Vale do Lobo. “It wasn’t heated,” a problem familiar to many of us: the experience, he didn’t want to move to the Roy is right about golf, of course, as he in Midnight Run. and on deadline day, I had my suit out Roy said. Ferguson claimed that “Carlos burden of choice in a consumer age, the villas in Vale do Lobo which he felt were is right about so many things, even if the Florentino Perez is determined that and on the bed so I could be ready to was having a nightmare” with Roy. nagging sense that we are making the not children-friendly. connection between being right and being the world will know that his club had go, when Sky cut over to the club and The literature is, as you would expect, wrong decision when there are so many Again, everyone can understand this content has never been firmly established. right on their side even if De Gea was showed another player who played in conflicting. In Ferguson’s most recent things to choose from. point of view, although there is one issue Would there have been a torment in being left in Manchester. United were naive, my position arriving there. book — at least for another couple of In the age of TripAdvisor, a holiday, like remaining. Each resort is, as they say, a surrounded by so many golfers during this he said, giving the impression that the It was a chance to get back in the weeks as he maintains an output match- football itself, is a game of opinions. There golfer’s paradise. “We’re not here to play pre-season trip in 2005 or would Roy have negotiations had been left in the hands of Premier League and it can take some ing Barbara Cartland’s — he says Roy may be hundreds of excellent reviews of a golf,” Robbie Keane said on Thursday and felt that he was, in some sense, getting to some unpaid interns instead of United’s time to get over that if the alternative “considered the houses at Vale do Lobo hotel but human nature sometimes hov- Roy Keane has never been anywhere to know the enemy? smartest men. They created some history the next weekend is Blackpool away. to be beneath the required standard and ers over the ‘terrible’ category, questioning play golf, certainly not intentionally. In The burden of choice was not some- last week too and the fax machine that When I saw that manager the next was not willing to stay in his”. Ferguson if the dirty ashtrays have really ruined the Saipan, one of the early training ground thing that Manchester United squad was sent the documents may one day, like time I told him what a twat he was. He says there was a problem with the air con- reviewer’s holiday but wondering if we rows centred around goalkeepers who had overly familiar with. They worked under Vale do Lobo, be part of football’s glorious said my wage demands were too high ditioning in one, similar issues in the next are prepared to take the risk they might stopped training early but “won’t be too one of the great tyrants of football, a man heritage. but I think he got something better in and something else wrong with the third. be exaggerating. tired to play golf tomorrow”. In his latest who says now that discipline cost him his head and went with it. Roy, he says, wanted to stay in the “next At least Roy wouldn’t have had that media role as a coin-operated angry guy, titles but always allowed him to retain [email protected] David de Gea will have a lot of village” the magnificent Quinta do Lago burden in 2005 and when we turn to Roy took on the Ryder Cup describing control. thoughts in his head after he missed out on Real Madrid. I don’t buy this idea of an administrative failure. Somebody has hesitated somewhere. If the two clubs wanted it, he’d be a Madrid player now. One thing that won’t be a problem Betting world’s latest Power couple odds-on to have their union approved for him is United’s dressing room. There will be a lot of talk and plenty of articles written about his commit- the death of traditional bookmaking to now operate a mandatory merger control three EU member states, it can be referred one-sided operation. Betfair is a two-sided ment but footballers don’t think like NIALL bed. Indeed, I think that debate ended regime). This analysis will require a geo- to the Commission for substantive legal operation. Betting exchanges are struc- that. They all think like De Gea and when Betfair launched its Sportsbook graphic breakdown of the turnover of both and economic assessment. The Commis- tured to facilitate customers betting that they’ll know it could have been any COLLINS offering (a traditional fixed-odds platform) parties and an assessment by the lawyers sion is a one-stop shop competition regu- a particular outcome will or will not occur. one of them. They won’t be question- in May 2012. of whether local financial and, sometimes, lator and it is often preferable to have the In broad terms, it is the availability to ing his commitment, although he will Although betting exchanges and tradi- market share thresholds are met. Commission assess a transaction, rather punters of this against backing (or laying) probably have to put up with his team- ACK in July, the talented social tional fixed-odds bookmaking are funda- By way of example, for a merger filing than having a number of member state functionality in which betting exchanges mates taking the piss before he can media team at Paddy Power mentally different propositions, I expect to be triggered at European Commission competition regulators involved. Both fundamentally differ from the traditional fully relax about the whole thing. tweeted ‘Hot on the heels of the the proposed Betfair/Paddy Power union level under the primary thresholds, the Betfair and Paddy Power also generate forms of bookmaking. Footballers don’t think beyond Ladbrokes/Coral merger, we can to be a symbiotic one. The combination parties’ combined worldwide turnover turnover in a number of jurisdictions It will greatly enhance the prospect of next week most of the time so once exclusively reveal that we have would enhance the online presence of must exceed €5 billion. Each of the parties outside the EU. Whether merger filings are a speedy clearance if it can be successful- De Gea settles down and gets in the Bmerged with Betfair. Our new name is Paddy Power and enable Betfair to further must also have EU-wide turnover in excess required in some of those jurisdictions will ly argued that the exchange element of team they’ll be happy to have their Betty Power’. It was a joke, of course, but cater for its established customer base, of €250m and the parties must not gener- also be assessed by the lawyers. Betfair’s business is in a different product best player back, at least for now. He it was also a reflection on the frenetic who might bet elsewhere due to any Betfair ate at least two-thirds of their individual On the substantive side, one needs to market to the Paddy Power fixed-odds might even sign a new contract but I pace of consolidation in the gambling inability to offer liquidity in some markets. EU-wide turnover in one and the same EU look well beyond the revenues of the com- proposition. There is precedent to support wouldn’t take it as an indication he’s sector. Consolidation comes amid taxation Betfair has flourished where other betting member state. bined entity in determining whether com- such a contention. planning to stay at United necessarily. changes, the tightening of regulation in the exchanges have floundered due, in large Based on publicly available financial petition would be lessened and whether Whilst I am, unfortunately, not gifted He’s said to be one of the lowest-paid UK and elsewhere in Europe and a drive part, to its ability to offer highly liquid information, it would appear both the customers would suffer as a consequence with the mantic powers of the Paddy Power players at so a new to lower costs. markets. That is, broadly, a market with worldwide and EU-wide elements of the of the proposed merger. The starting point social media team, competition clearance contract might be a way of taking It is not a terribly long time ago that lots of money being matched within it thresholds outlined above are met. Wheth- for competition lawyers is defining the of the proposed Paddy Power/Betfair some power back temporarily, getting Betfair’s founders, Andrew Black and and where you can get your bets matched er both Betfair and Paddy Power generate relevant product and geographic mar- merger is not, in my view, a question of if, a pay rise while forcing Madrid to do Ed Wray, famously dressed as mourners, quickly and at the prices you want. two-thirds of their individual EU-wide ket(s) and evaluating the strength of the but when. What there is no doubt about, things in a straightforward way the participated in a New Orleans-style funeral Reports last week highlighted that the turnover in one and the same member combined entity in that relevant market(s). however, is that the proposed union is a next time, even if he is a free agent as and ran a coffin through the City of Lon- proposed merger will face scrutiny from state is not as clear. Both parties do appear I noted that betting exchanges and harbinger of future consolidation in the things stand. don. The purpose was to announce Betfair competition regulators. The process will to generate a significant percentage of their traditional fixed-odds bookmaking are gambling sector. He may have felt helpless last week to the world and to herald the ‘death of work as follows: competition lawyers for respective EU-wide turnovers in the UK. fundamentally different propositions and I and it was a reminder that sometimes traditional bookmaking’. However, the both parties will identity the jurisdictions However, even if there was an ‘out’ from expect that much will be made of this when it’s not just 34-year-old free agents union between Paddy Power and Betfair in which a ‘merger control’ filing must, EU jurisdiction under the two-thirds rule, the question of relevant market definition Niall Collins is a partner at law firm Mason, Hayes who can be on the outside when clubs finally puts the long-running debate on or should, be made (most jurisdictions if the transaction is notifiable in at least arises. The traditional bookmaker is a and Curran don’t behave as you’d like.