17 Oct 2013 | Football

False Starts?

The 2013-2014 Season in the English Premiership is all but nine days old and the other Euro leagues somewhat younger.

The oddest thing is that very few of the participants actually know who their teams even are. This is all because the so-called ‘transfer window’ is still open meaning that for another week millions of Euros are sitting in bank accounts not knowing where they’ll end up (except in the cases of the two fortunate Spanish giants who simply dip into the German supported EU slush fund when they want to spend big. Everyone else has to pretend to be accountable {except for the Middle Eastern oil mongers’ off shore havens known as Man City, Monaco & PSG…}

And as the money sits waiting, so do players, supporters (remember them?) and the hapless coaches who still do not know who they’ll be coaching from 2nd September.

Football has an annual seasonal calender that commences in August and lasts until May. The only other occupation that readily comes to mind that has annual start/stop dates is that of academia. The scholastic calendar pratically mirrors that of Soccer but there the similarity ends (for the time being).

I cannot imagine a head teacher allowing students to turn up without having pre-selected his/her staff. Obviously ‘subs’ are allowed during the year for maternity/illness cover but to begin from the beginning without knowing your team is just silly.