A dirty rotten game

IT'S a beautiful game and up there with eating, drinking, sleeping and mating as one of mankind's most indulged activities. But it isn't half a dirty, rotten business.
Football Leaks: the dirty business of football is the latest and most damning expose yet of the top game's dependency on insider shenanigans that would shame the Wolf of Wall Street.
And for those of us who fear the bubble might one day burst on the 'Greed is Good' English Premier League, the book's revelation that an agent stands to trouser £41 million for selling Paul Pogba to Manchester United is a flashing light.
Another is the news that Zlatan Ibrahimovic was picking up £367,640 a week. Same agent, same club. There are many more where these came from after an investigation by Der Spiegel journalists Rafael Buschmann and Michael Wulzinger.
All this is hot on the grubby heels of last month's top stories in the sleaze department: Barcelona star Neymar facing trial over his move from Brazil, raids by tax inspectors on Newcastle and West Ham, and Joey Barton being banned for having placed 1,260 bets on matches – many of which he played in.
None of this affects the spectacle and we can still be confident the game at the highest levels is not fixed – the sheer eye-watering salaries they get for being honest pretty well guarantees that.
But what Football Leaks and its worthy predecessor, The Secret World of Jose Mourinho, do is highlight a new and malevolent influence on the game – the role of the agent.
There is no suggestion of anything untoward about the Special One or his agent, but Jorge Mendes had so many Real Madrid players on his books when Mourinho was there that he based his Gestifute company in the Bernabeu offices.
As the money has multiplied, agents have morphed from merely interfering to integral – and no one plays a bigger part than Mino Raiola, the agent in question over Pogba and Ibrahimovic. He doesn't stop there as a third United summer signing, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, is also on his books.
Nor is it just the size of the fees that takes the breath away – the sheer complexity and intrusiveness of the deals are equally mind-numbing.
Raiola had inveigled his way into Borussia Dortmund as they were desperate for someone to bring in big players to break the Bayern Munich stranglehold. And the Dutch-Italian former pizza waiter cut a deal whereby he would get a huge slice whether Mkhitaryan left Dortmund or not!
It is ironic that Pogba features so prominently in this tale – a work in stuttering progress on the field but a prize cash cow for his agent. He is also a barometer on how things have changed at United since Alex Ferguson left.
Fergie was aware of the Frenchman's promise, but unconvinced he could be the midfield fulcrum he needed so persuaded Paul Scholes out of retirement instead.
Pogba's cause was not helped by Fergie's raging antipathy towards Raiola. "We were like oil and water," the great man wrote in his biography, and he let the kid go to Juventus for a token fee. You'd have to pay a bit more than a penny to get his thoughts on Raiola now.
Another leading figure unimpressed by the gangling youngster was Real Madrid president Florentino Perez. Alerted to the bargain £150,00 that Pogba was going for, he said: "Come back and tell me when he's worth £100 million."
Not the kind of economics they teach at Harvard Business School - or at Strasbourg University, as Arsene Wenger would affirm. But it tells us an awful lot about the thinking at the distorted top end of the current game.
Perez is only interested in the big names – as much for their merchandising as their playing potential and back then the unknown Pogba would not have sold a discarded shin pad.
Fergie, ever the football man, didn't want an unhappy player - and unhappy agent – poisoning the atmosphere so sacrificed a sizable future fee for the safe option of Scholes.
What also must alarm the legendary old school boss is Raiola's growing input on United's recruitment. Agents are said to be the lubricants that make transfers possible but if a deal is not in their interests, they can also make them congeal. In other words, they call the shots.
By amassing a stable of big names, an agent can have a massive influence on transfer policy which is why you see several players with the same agent at a particular club.
What is most disturbing for United fans is that Pogba was a 'statement signing'. Alarmed by the post-Fergie drift under David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, the Glazers and executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward felt they had to make a statement. The biggest one the club's wealth made possible was to break the world transfer record.
This, they reasoned, would make people sit up and take notice, keep the United brand in the minds of their 330 million diaspora – and keep them buying their tat. Indeed, you get the feeling that they secretly wish the fee had been £20 or £30 million more!
On the field, the jury is still out but there's no ignoring the owners' desperation or how that has led to them becoming beholden to agent power and all its consequences.
No football fan needs reminding of the spiraling inequalities in the game as a whole, but it is worth quoting the view of one of the minnows.
Accrington Stanley chairman Andy Holt's take on the whole business was: "The Premier League should hang their heads in shame when so much money can go to one agent when the pyramid is so stretched."
Indeed. Think of grass roots development, small clubs folding, tea ladies sacked and where our satellite subscriptions are going. This week provided yet more eye-popping evidence that there is something deeply rotten in the state of Denmark.

CAPTION: Mino Raiola appears to have been paid handsomely by Paul Pogba, Juventus and Manchester United for his role in the £89m transfer. — AFP