Utd tactics so squalid

[mcowen (麥克奧雲)]

THE picture says it all - Manchester United's top brass, having moved on
to Sardinia, flogging their desirable goods with all the dignity, style
and honesty of door-to-door salesmen.

And that is said with all due respect to door-to-door salesmen.

Their working practice carries far more integrity than United's achievement
in reducing the world's highest-profile footballer to the level of a yellow
duster or can of stain remover.

It will be some time before the dust settles on the David Beckham affair and
a great deal longer for the stain to fade from Manchester United's record.

From chief executive Peter Kenyon to manager Alex Ferguson and everyone else
at Old Trafford who has gone along with this entire, shabby episode, they
should feel ashamed of what they have done and continue to do.

There seems to be no end, no limit to the squalor of their tactics and extent
of their spin-doctoring as they seek to manipulate the transfer of the England
captain and mega-celebrity that begs the question: Would you buy a second-hand
footballer from these men?

First they agree a deal with a man who was not yet appointed or empowered to
negotiate on behalf of Barcelona.

Then, just when Joan Laporta is declared as the new club president at the Nou
Camp, we learn that United's door-knockers have arrived in Sardinia and met
up with officials from Real Madrid.

We now discover that little gathering took place last Friday, two days before
the first vote was cast in Barcelona. United were dealing at the double.

Yet they had not only agreed a provisional price with Real's fiercest rivals
but announced to the world the kind of business that is usually done in the
strictest secrecy. Why? Because it suited them in their desperation to keep
Beckham's fee jacked up to the highest level.

Now, you might argue that it served Laporta right, that he now finds himself
as a victim of the politicking that swept him from nowhere to the presidency
against considerable odds.

He used Beckham's name for his own purposes even though he may have felt he
had brokered a legitimate deal, subject to his own success at the polls and
Beckham's agreement of personal terms.

By yesterday he was probably feeling he'd been had. That United had seized on
his move for Beckham to alert the few other clubs with the necessary financial
clout that Golden Balls was surplus to requirements.

No surprise to learn that AC Milan had also jumped in among the interested
parties.

This is not Mansfield Town we're talking about. This is Manchester United -
synonymous with the highest standards, held in the highest esteem throughout
the world. This is one of the richest and proudest football clubs on earth and
a major plc.

Right now they are behaving like a bunch of unfeeling amateurs, oblivious to
the mud that will stick to their great name and the damage to their traditions
that will have Matt Busby weeping in the heavens.

Even worse, as that damage spreads and the wounds deepen, they say nothing.

Can't somebody step forward and tell the truth? Starting with Ferguson himself,
conveniently on holiday and deafeningly silent.

Somebody should tell him that the office of 'Manager of Manchester United'
involves an obligation to explain why the club's most famous and valuable
asset is suddenly made available for transfer.


Related link:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2002390000-2003272637,00.html

裡面有圖片拍到皇馬"談判"律師Pedro Lopez,曼聯主席Kenyon, 曼聯managing director
David Gill的鏡頭，然後最後是雙方握手達成某種協議。

不過那張照片看起來好像是在出遊中~~



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