Beware losing Anfield's soul

Oct 11 2006 Red Watch, by Steven Kelly, Daily Post

THE bungs inquiry seems to have gone on forever but has been given two more months.

Cynics are suggesting any momentum built up by the BBC's documentary will be lost by then. There is a flat out refusal to look at the bigger picture here. You can predict what's going to happen because of the Ashley Cole verdicts. The player, the manager and the club were all fined for meeting in secret. Only the agent was banned.

It has always comforted supporters to believe that agents are evil-doers, that their favourite players could not possibly be involved in such chicanery.

But agents are mere employees, acting in the best interests and at the behest of their clients. Don't forget it was Cole who called an offer of 55k "an insult", and he's nowhere near the front of the gravy train either.

Here we get to the heart of the problem as far as the fans are concerned. Liverpool have been mentioned as one of the clubs coming under the scope of the extended inquiry, but at the moment we have victim status only.

However supporters will always question deals which do not seem to work for the club's benefit.

Wages, transfer fees and ticket prices are all outrageously high. Some £35m was spent on Heskey, Diouf and Cisse alone. We'll be lucky to eventually get £12m back and yet we're supposed to be outraged that a small fraction of those losses might be the subject of the inquiry.

Talk to your fellow Liverpool fans about the transfer deals they deem to be 'questionable' and I'll bet any player named was a hopeless failure in a red shirt. The successful players and the bargains? Well, what about them?

And those same fans will probably be the ones who spout with religious fervour about spending £200m on a new stadium because "we need more money to spend on players". Yes, because we've been really stingy up to now haven't we?

So we have to tear our beloved Anfield down so we can eventually spend £20m on a player and give him 100k per week? The amounts of money make your head spin, and few people seem to realise who will end up footing the bill.

When we're stuck in a soulless bowl having paid £50 to watch the overpaid serving up the underwhelming, remember this: you were the turkeys who voted for Christmas.

Here's hoping for more home points >>>