The Sudden Fall of Big Sam, England Manager
Perhaps they’ll write a book about it one day, Sam Allardyce’s 67 days in charge of the England football team. Brian Clough got plenty more than that for his 44 days with Leeds, but then he also lasted more than a single game.
There was no player mutiny here. No dramas on the pitch either – Big Sam can have no excuses there. He can say what he will about the Telegraph’s sting operation that snapped him too, but there’s nothing to report if he’s doing nothing wrong. What an absolute moron.
Because what other way can you look at this, really? A job that he’s dreamed of getting for years, which he raged about in his book over being ignored for back when Steve McClaren got the gig – the same Steve McClaren whose reign lasted a mere 18 months for 18 games, the shortest tenure in the job ever until Mr Allardyce opened his mouth at the dinner table.
“I should have got it [the England job in 2006] and, as I’m a better manager now than I was then, I believe I should be in the running whenever it comes round again. That’s not vanity or being full of my own importance. My track record entitles me to be considered.”
That’s from Big Sam: My Autobiography, published in 2015. After leaving West Ham in somewhat less than mutual circumstances, the big fella then took over Sunderland and inexplicably did what he always seems to do and avoided relegation with what was probably man for man the weakest team in the Premier League in 2015-16, certainly until he got to work in the January transfer window. Couple that with his penchant for building tough, uncompromising, defensively solid teams and when England buggered it all up at the Euros once again, Big Sam finally found himself with his dream job.
"It is no secret that this is the role I have always wanted. For me, it is absolutely the best job in English football. I will do everything I can to help England do well and give our nation the success our fans deserve. Above all, we have to make the people and the whole country proud."
Everything, you say? Yet before he’d even taken charge of his first training session with the team, undercover reporters had recorded him giving advice on how to get around certain laws on player transfers and kickbacks as well as leveraging his new role into a £400,000 gig as a keynote speaker for some Far East investors and taking the piss outta Roy Hodgson in the process.
Some of that was unfortunate and regrettable but not really a big deal. Like criticising Gary Neville’s forceful demeanour while assistant to Hodgson or calling the FA’s redevelopment of Wembley “stupid”. The bigass fee he was gonna get for the speaking job too, that was a dirty deal only in that he arranged it without going through his employers, who’d have otherwise probably been fine with it – for the record he was on a £3m/year contract with the FA not including bonuses. Even making fun of Roy Hodgson he could have gotten away with – like, that’s just sloppy pub talk. What really did him in was the transfer stuff.
Third-party ownership was banned worldwide last year and has never exactly been seen as a benefit to anyone but those with deep pockets looking to fill them. Michel Platini once called it a form of slavery, which isn’t that far from the truth – we’re talking about companies/investors owning a percentage of a player’s worth and then benefiting when they’re sold on the market. It’s treating footballers as commodities. If you’ve played Football Manager then you’ve probably had to deal with their watered down version of this when trying to scoop up some South American wonder-kid and getting told his agent requires [blank cheque] for his share of the player in order to complete the move. The most famous case of this in England was the double transfer to West Ham of Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez.
Allardyce, thinking he was talking to businessmen at a quiet meeting (that also included his financial advisor and his agent - in case you're thinking he was duped), said that dodging third-party prohibitions were “not a problem”. Apparently “you can still get around it. I mean obviously the big money’s here”. See, Big Sam knows agents who are “doing it all the time”. To his credit, at least he warned the fake investors off of offering bungs to players or managers. Remember Allardyce was accused (though it was never proven) of taking bungs (aka ‘here’s a few bucks for you trouble, thanks lad’) back in 2006 when he was with Bolton. A BBC Panorama investigation alleged that one.
The Telegraph have plenty more to this story, so they reckon. It was a ten month investigation into footballing corruption so it predates Allardyce’s England job by quite a long way – he’s just the blockbusting lead. The latest is that they’ve found evidence of eight Premier League managers taking bribes to sign players – evidence which has now been handed over to police. It’s all shady business. The agent gets a percentage of sign-on fees and transfer fees but they only get that percentage if they can get the new contract or transfer completed. Considering what contracts and fees are worth these days, a 15% stake in player earnings is rather tasty, so they leave a chunk of that in a brown paper bag behind the gas pipes for the manager who has the power to push that deal through. That kind of thing.
But that’ll have its own fallout to come, this is about Sam Allardyce right now. The man who landed his dream job and immediately set to work in trying to profit from it in ways that he didn’t even need. That’s just pure greed and power flexing. Arrogance and hubris. He put that dream job immediately in jeopardy and he’s thoroughly embarrassed the employers whom he’s ravaged with words in the past and who still gave him a thoroughly embracing reception when he applied for their most coveted position.
Words are only words, and Big Sam’s latest ones were stupid more than they were illegal, to be honest. There’s a difference between talking about corruption and actually engaging in it. That doesn’t matter though. There are strict behavioural agreements with the FA and they want their England manager to lead by example. He couldn’t keep his job after that.
“The FA can confirm that Sam Allardyce has left his position as England manager.
Allardyce's conduct, as reported today, was inappropriate of the England manager. He accepts he made a significant error of judgement and has apologised. However, due to the serious nature of his actions, The FA and Allardyce have mutually agreed to terminate his contract with immediate effect.”
Which sucks for England because while he sure has his list of character flaws, his particular no-nonsense approach to the game was about exactly what that team needed. Someone who’ll hold players more accountable, make tough decisions and get them playing with a more suited approach to international footy. Portugal didn’t win the Euros by being the best team, start to finish. They won because they survived. They didn’t concede dumb goals and they rode their luck atop a stingy defence. You know, like how Allardyce did at Bolton for so long. Even if you didn't rate him, he's still a welcome break from the usual tradition.
In his one game in charge, England won 1-0 away to Slovakia. Nothing close to vintage but they got a result, however ugly. Given that Allardyce has never worked with a pool of talent as vast as this one he was always gonna take some easing into the job – you could have expected them to get a whole lot better. But not after this. How were the players expected to respond to him now?
And spare a thought for poor old Sunderland who lost a decent manager that had made good progress and now have to start from scratch with David Moyes and, erm… it ain’t looking good right now. Hey, maybe they’ll be able to get their old boss back soon? As for the FA, given that there are more revelations to come it might be a good idea to leave Gareth Southgate in as the interim for a fair while yet before parsing the candidates.
While we’re at it, let’s not forget that FIFA shut down their anti-racism panel this week, having apparently solved the issue once and for all in football. At least some people are still pure and good.