The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 13 Jun 2011 05:07 PM PDT JUNE 14 — If one had opined that PAS was more of a centrist than Umno 10 years ago, nobody would have believed it. It would have been an outrageous opinion. Yet today, it is no longer so foreign a prospect. The recently concluded PAS internal election is the latest evidence of the party's march to the centre. That election saw both the promotion of the so-called professional group to the leadership of the party and the adoption of a more realistic stance with regards to the Islamic state agenda. The participation of PAS within Pakatan Rakyat has a lot to do with the reconfiguration of the party towards the political centre. While the criticism of ideological difference against the coalition as a whole remains valid, the alliance itself is the great engine that is pulling all of its members to a middle ground. That middle ground is proving to be the Malaysian centre. This is should be contrasted with trends within Barisan Nasional, or really, just Umno. Regardless of the sincerity of the accusation, Umno and its allies insist that PAS is committing a political betrayal. They claim PAS is abandoning the Islamic state ideal and ejecting the ulama from party leadership. Rather than acknowledging the developments as simply a move to the centre, they are more comfortable accusing PAS of kowtowing to DAP. Betrayal or not, as with any move to the centre, those on the fringes will have less hold on the party. That will fuel some discontent. Umno-owned Malay daily Utusan Malaysia wants Umno to appease the fringes. Assistant chief editor of Utusan Malaysia Zaini Hassan has gone as far as suggesting that Umno should have its own ulama wing, perhaps thinking that particular manoeuvre could outflank PAS. He forgets that times are changed. In the past, the Islamisation race between Umno and PAS always ended up with PAS being the loser. PAS did not budge even as Umno encroached on the traditional domain of the former. That allowed Umno to win centrist votes and gain some voters who could have voted for PAS. That little trick might not work again after the latest PAS election. With PAS slowly nudging towards the centre and Umno to the opposite direction, the Islamisation game has only one participant, and that is Umno. With enough momentum powering both sides, Umno might find itself taking the relatively more extreme position compared to PAS. This means Umno is at risk of becoming the loser this time around. If both parties stay on their course, Umno will turn into the conservative party that PAS was. Meanwhile, PAS the centrist should be very happy with that. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| Financial fair play: Hot air or real deal? Posted: 13 Jun 2011 04:23 PM PDT JUNE 14 — Money, money, money. Despite the ongoing global financial crisis, football is full of the stuff – as demonstrated by last week's announcement of record revenues for Premier League clubs. In fact, the top end of the game has never been richer, thanks to steady increases to the broadcast contracts commanded by the leading leagues and competitions. However, due to a lack of regulation that would startle even the most laissez-faire of free-market economists, the vast majority of that money goes in one direction: straight into the pockets of players and their agents. And so we have the paradoxical present situation whereby the biggest clubs are able to attract revenues of many millions of dollars every year ... but are simultaneously still burdened by huge levels of debt. For all sorts of reasons, this can't be a sustainable situation in the long-term. The vast inequalities between the biggest clubs and their nearest challengers, both within individual nations and across the major European leagues, will ultimately create (has already created, some would argue) a sterile, unhealthy environment in which the rich clubs are the only ones with any chance of winning trophies and everybody else is struggling to merely stay in existence. In an attempt to establish greater equality, Uefa, Europe's governing body, have seized the initiative and introduced new regulations for "Financial Fair Play." These rules, which are scheduled to come into force from the beginning of the 2013/4 season, will essentially prevent clubs from spending more than they earn and punish transgressors by barring them from Uefa's competitions, such as the Champions' League and Europa League. Led by Uefa chief and former France midfield genius Michel Platini, the initiative is chiefly aimed at slowing down the growth in player wages and restricting the frightening levels of debt that have engulfed so many recklessly ambitious clubs in recent years; and that has to be a good thing. But what about instances such as Chelsea and Manchester City, where the money spent by the billionaire owners of clubs is an investment, rather than a debt? Chelsea, for example, have been "loaned" a fortune by Roman Abramovich since the Russian tycoon arrived at Stamford Bridge in 2004, and now the same process is rapidly unravelling at Manchester City, where Sheikh Mansour is happily pouring tens of millions of dollars into his new toy with no expectation of ever receiving the money back. The money spent by those two clubs clearly exceeds their revenues, but it will not show up on their balance sheets as "debt" ... so should they be exempt from Uefa's regulations? As things stand, even that kind of "gifted" investment, which leaves no real trace of debt, will be allowed. Whether the clubs affected will accept such limitations is altogether another matter. Of course, the only real test of the new regulations will come when they are transgressed by a major club spending more than they are supposed to. If Barcelona, to invent a hypothetical example, suffered long-term injuries to Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta and spent heavily on world-class replacements, thereby exceeding the spending limit, what would Uefa do? Would they wilt, find an excuse to let Barca off the hook and see the credibility of their regulations instantly collapse? Or would they have the backbone, and the necessary support from their member associations and commercial partners, to stand firm, insist upon enforcing the regulations and ban Barca from the Champions' League? Uefa will naturally be hoping that such a scenario doesn't arise; that their new regulations will serve as a deterrent to prevent clubs from spending the lavish sums they have been accustomed to forking out, and that they are never actually forced into a position of deciding whether or not to hand out bans. But the prospect of a club deliberately ignoring the regulations has to be a realistic one – just imagine, for instance, being the unfortunate official at Uefa responsible for telling Manchester City's Sheikh Mansour, a member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family, or Silvio Berlusconi, owner of AC Milan and Italy's most influential man, that they are not allowed to spend any more money. Not an easy conversation. When it comes to the crunch, would a rich club like City, Milan or Real Madrid, when given the motive and opportunity to sign a world class player for a huge transfer fee (as Chelsea did when they bought Fernando Torres in January), really be persuaded to reject the signing to ensure they stayed within Uefa's parameters? It has to be doubtful. Another difficult conversation would be in store for Uefa's commercial director, finding himself in the position of explaining to his carefully groomed television company friends, midway through a multi-million dollar broadcast contract, that one of the continent's biggest clubs had been thrown out of the Champions' League and would therefore not be appearing, as expected, on silver screens across the globe over the next 12 months. "I'm very sorry Mister Sky /ESPN/Astro, you won't be getting Barcelona and Lionel Messi this year. They've been spending too much money so it'll be Osasuna and Krisztian Vadocz instead ... I hope you don't mind." A serious rebellion could be on the cards, and one possible outcome is the disgruntled outlawed clubs and their equally miffed television partners setting up their own league with their own regulations. Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, AC Milan, Inter Milan and selected invited guests head off to form their very own European Super League; no relegation, no promotion; all games live on the league's in-house global pay TV channel; players handed exclusive contracts which forbid them from playing international football ... Might sound crazy but, as Christopher Cross once nearly said, it might be true. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan