Tottenham's dirty tricks revealed
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Now even their own players admit it – signing for Tottenham is a mistake. In May 2007 Mido (an Egypt striker – although you would never know it) admitted that his decision to move to White Hart Lane last summer was “a big mistake”. He was speaking to the Egyptian channel Al-Mehwar. Mido signed full time for the Tiny Totts, and then promptly started seven league games in the 2006/7 season. “The hard times started with me making the wrong decision,” he said. “I made a big mistake when I signed permanently for Spurs. I know that this could result in problems but it is the truth.” Ah. Bless. In January 2007 Tottenham Hotspur was drawn against Cardiff in the FA Cup. Following a draw the replay occurred in Tottenham High St., but such was the state of the club in terms of erratic performances on the field and an inability to organise ticket sales properly, only 21,000 turned up for the replay. Desperate for money Tottenham turned to the potential income of the league cup semi-final that was now on, following Arsenal’s reserve team defeat of Liverpool 6-3 at Anfield. However Tottenham were well aware that Arsenal always cut its prices in half for the league cup matches on the grounds that the manager would use the competition to give the youth and reserves a game. The appearance of 16 and 17 year olds was common. Fearing therefore that their revenue from the game would be cut, Tottenham Hotspur contacted the FA and demanded that Arsenal be forced to charge supporters the normal price for Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur games – the A rate, making the top prices for tickets bought for the game £90 or more. However Tottenham were anxious that their unprecedented attempt to fix the prices of another club would give them bad publicity and so they set up a subterfuge. They knew, as everyone knew, that Arsenal could not allocate Tottenham the full number of away support tickets for the game that the cup because the local council and the police had ordered Arsenal to increase its allocation for away support step by step. The problem was that until this point Arsenal had only played European cup games where the visiting club had no desire to take larger numbers of supporters to the Wengerdrome. As Tottenham well knew the club had been drawn away in every single round of the league cup and the one round of the FA Cup that had been played. But despite knowing this, Tottenham cynically used this situation to hide its action over the price of tickets. With maximum publicity Tottenham demanded their “right” to its “full complement” of away tickets and put out the story that Arsenal had built the Wengerdrome in such a way that it could not house the requisite number of away supporters. The story was that David Dein felt himself above the law, and had ordered the ground built in this way. Everyone knew this was untrue, but the story spread and could be found repeated almost word for word on blogs and even on occasion in newspapers such as the Guardian (which really ought to have known better). Eventually of course the authorities confirmed that Arsenal had no choice but to abide by police instruction – to allow more Tottenham supporters in would have meant that the safety certificate would have been withdrawn and the ground closed for the game. But the FA, desperate to try and placate Tottenham, ruled that the prices should go up to the B game level – not the A level that Tottenham demanded, but not the half price Arsenal suggested. It was a moment when Tottenham’s name was covered in mud – as the true story spread they were widely reviled for their trickery. But even worse was to follow, for Arsenal true to form put out a team with the average outfield age of 21. Even those regularly playing in the first team (Senderos, Cesc etc) were youngsters. Tottenham very publicly said they were putting out their strongest team – which they did. And they lost 3-1 on the night. For Tottenham it was an utter disaster. Their first team had been beaten by a bunch of teenagers. Their ploy for getting the prices raised had been exposed. And their desperate attempt to get into Europe via the league cup final had been thwarted. (Because the other team in the final was already known to be Chelsea, their opponents would automatically qualify for the UEFA Cup, win or lose, because Chelsea were bound to qualify for the European Cup.) It was indeed one of the blackest nights for Tottenham. And then it got worse Having managed to wheedle their way into the next round of the UEFA Cup with a bye, Tottenham then complained to UEFA that they would lose out financially, and so demanded compensation from UEFA for the lost matches!!! While waiting for an answer they lost their next home match 0-4. All in all tottenham spent £27.5 million in 06/07 on new players, and just managed to scrape into the UEFA Cup once again. The only teams spending more were Chelsea (of course) and Liverpool. Arsenal spent well under half the Tottenham amount. |
