An Open Letter to Carlos Tevez

Dear Carlos Tevez,

For five years now you've been a shedload of trouble for the entire English Premier League. With this letter, I'd like to invite you to please stop moaning about the loneliness of Northern England and return to Argentina as you have for so long suggested you'd like.

The biannual farce which into which the "Carlos Tevez submits Transfer Request" headline has degenerated - which while admittedly spurring me to write this letter - has become a parody of a a parody, like a Monty Python sketch which starts funny but then feels as if it never ends. While we all understand how trying it is to be parted from friends and family (some of us have even shared your heartbreaking isolation in a country in which we do not speak the language), complaining every six months about a situation into which you walked of your own volition has turned what begun a sympathetic posture into a cynical one.

Please understand I'm not trying to minimise the pain of separation from your daughters at all. It's just the predictability with which this storm-in-a-teacup occurs means you have exhausted any supply of public sympathy for your plight. (And "earning" 200,000+ a week should preclude us from using the world "plight" anyway). Unless it is for obviously laudable reasons a transfer request is often met with scorn from your current team's support base. After being trotted out several times now, the recent spate of "I miss my daughters" has morphed from a tragic reality of a footballer's life into seemingly a ploy where - though undoubtedly true you miss your girls - the aim seems to be directing public ire away from you in a situation almost entirely of your own creation.  If this sounds familiar, think "Bomber" Thompson.

Welcomed to "Manchester".  Will he be farewelled as fondly?

It was said of the great basketballer Shaquille O'Neal that, with the exception of his last teams Boston and Cleveland, whenever he moved clubs, he did so amidst acrimonious circumstance. The same could be said of you - at Boca, at Corinthians, West Ham and finally Manchester United you have left more enemies than friends. Which, on the face of it, is really quite sad and perhaps - just perhaps - gives the public eye a big glimpse of your inner happiness. In a game where one often has to look out for themselves first, you and Kia Joorabchian have done so admirably; but if your latest statements are to be believed, it hasn't contented you.

Many of us have had to move intercontinentally. It is exceedingly difficult, though ultimately rewarding - it allows us to grow, to see that life is much larger than the small corners of existence we previously inhabited. Some of us are rewarded romantically, spiritually or even fiscally for the pain of separation.

You certainly have earned signficant monies as a result of your footballing success - so why not put some of that where your cakehole is? Rather than having said sweet baked good and eating it too, take (one mother of) a pay cut to play in South America - for none of us are able to figure out how Madrid or Milan - or, heaven forbid, Chelsea - are closer to Argentina than Millionaire's row in Cheshire. It's not that we don't feel for you, but many of us think you're trying to use this situation to your gain. It seems your position is that you are disadvantaged by playing for City; a move to Real or Inter would be "fair".

Unfortunately, that is a posture for the misguided.

In careers, we are forced to take the good with the bad. In football, if you want the big bucks and the best competition, you are forced to move. It is a flat fact of existence at the top level of almost any profession. Sacrifices must be made for a career - or for family. And while we applaud you for your devotion to your daughters, we also implore you to put up, or shut up. For the ball is in your court.

Sincerely,

A very bored former admirer.

The author would like all who read this to know that he has no truck with Monty Python and indeed thinks they were amongst (if not THE) the greatest comedians of all time.

Finally the AFL season can start

This offseason has probably been the most dramatic in recent AFL history. And, not a moment too soon, the break ends tonight as Carlton take on Richmond at the MCG. Thank goodness - because as car-crashingly enthralling as reading about the "St Kilda Schoolgirl" and her ... err ... exploits has been, it will be blessed and welcome relief to jam match coverage in amongst the tabloid-style back pages to which we've become so accustomed.

The offseason of 2010-11 for the AFL really started over twelve months ago when it became apparent that "Little Gary" would not sign a contract extension with Geelong, meaning he would effectively become a restricted free agent at the end of season 2010. Since then, AFL off-field shenanigans have included (in no particular order) Mark Thompson's lie-induced burnout; Ablett's inevitable re-enactment of the LeBron James masterpiece "Leaving Cleveland"; Brendan Fevola's self-destruction; Nick Riewoldt's wang; Zac Dawson's disco biscuits; the creation of a new franchise; a Collingwood premiership and subsequent uprising of the Magpie army; the gutting of the National Rugby League as Israel Folau and Greg Inglis changed (or threatened to change) codes; James Hird's Second Coming as Essendon coach; further rumours about stars leaving their clubs for what amounts to GWS slush-funds; Ricky Nixon's precipitous fall from grace and finally, thankfully, nothing at all about Port Adelaide or Fremantle.

Andrew Demetriou must surely be relieved that Melbourne, a town notorious for it's blanket coverage of AFL-related issues, will finally have actual deliverable content to space out the negative headlines. Aside from the form of Ricky Ponting - and how many words can you print daily on that? - the scarcity of sport worth speaking about has left Melbourne newspapers with little else on which to speculate throughout the Summer. Had the ignoble misadventures of Ricky Nixon, Sam Gilbert, Fevola and the horribly overpromoted Melbourne schoolgirl occurred in the Summer of 2007 amidst a 5 - 0 Ashes victory, the Melbourne Victory's phenomenal second season and the retirements of Warne, Langer, Martyn and McGrath, the AFL's offseason of new frontiers may well have garnered only a fraction of the attention it did this year.

The spotlight thrown on this off-field malarkey was only intensified by Australia's performance in The Ashes and waning public interest in cricket. As most sport becomes fully and painfully professional, they lose much of the larrikinism and fun which attracted the mug punter to them in the first place. Faced with the choice between a team full of bullies, pouters and bores or following the World Game (with very little television coverage), Joe Public decided it was best simply to re-invest in the coming Aussie Rules season. The league revelled in the exposure, initially falling victim to the old adage that any publicity is good publicity. This theory was recently discounted somewhat in The Economist; the AFL was only to learn how wrong that statement can be in February as first Brendan Fevola, then Ricky Nixon committed professional seppuku.

The AFL plays the politics of sports much better than any other code in Australia. No other competition in the nation felt obliged to have its say on the bidding process save the AFL, yet Demetriou managed to sound both condescending and patronising to football's governing body all at once. The failed FFA bid for the 2022 football World Cup meant only more airtime and column inches. The League invited - and loved - the attention, yet as the summer wore on it became obvious that those at League headquarters couldn't wait for the season to begin. The stream of life malapropisms committed by AFL brethren had made life in the public eye nigh-on unbearable. What were once a player's endearing foibles now appear glaring character weaknesses. Football's never been played by saints - but now media coverage and the blogosphere mean for better coverage. What was once left uncovered rarely remains so now.

Finally, the season is upon us. Now perhaps we can get around to covering what really matters: the game itself.

"Bomber" Thompson's strange rhetoric

Mark Thompson is unrepentant as to the manner in which he left Geelong in October. No surprises there. In fact, in today's Age he actually came off sounding as if he was the one who was wronged in the messy marriage-breakup that was his exit from the Cattery.

His quotes in that newspaper are telling as words like "I can look myself in the mirror and just say I'm happy with everything that I've done" and "I gave anything I could possibly give. I walked away from a very lucrative contract" give an insight into his mindset: mildly hurt and surprised by the furore his decision has generated. But what he fails to realise is that by defending himself in this manner, he can only further infuriate the Cats supporters who saw his last season derailed by the constant circus surrounding Gary Ablett's possible move to the Gold Coast. Ablett eventually walked and so did Thompson. It's probable the Geelong faithful will wish the Brownlow Medallist more good favour than their former coach. It's also likely that Li'l Gary's departure will be seen as a much lesser act of disloyalty.

Because make no bones about it, Thompson tried to curry favour with both board and public in order to rid himself of his obligation to Geelong and re-join his former club Essendon. By claiming burn out, he didn't lie but withheld portions of the truth so as to reflect more sympathetically. He's re-stated his lack of desire to continue as a senior coach and thus feels justified, but by claiming ill-health - which is what burn-out equates to - only to re-surface a mere month later at another club makes him look economical with the truth.

There's little doubt that "Bomber" was burnt out. Indeed, in his interview yesterday he looked very well, rested and much healthier than he did during almost all of his stint at Kardinia Park. This can only back up his side of the story but from the outside it looks very much as if Thompson's head was turned toward Bomberland by all that he sought: less stress, re-uniting with a former club and a new challenge. When he realised the grass was greener back in Melbourne, it was down to him to engineer an excuse for leaving.

It's often said that some coaches are re-building masters and others don't have the stomach for that aspect of the job. Thompson had been the coach at Geelong for a decade and the reconstruction of that Cats side from afterthought to Premiers took the best part of those ten years by which time he was facing another remodelling. The fact that many of his best players are approaching retirement meant a bevy of personnel decisions and probable rebuilding from scratch. To be blunt, he just wasn't up for it.

Perhaps ten years of intense scrutiny in the fishbowl of Corio Bay took it's toll. Most tellingly of all, Thompson yesterday said "Being a senior coach, you just get criticised very heavily a lot of the times in your life and you almost become immune to it and that’s where I’m at" before continuing to say "I don’t have a problem with Geelong at all. If they have (with me) it's their problem. I gave anything I could possibly give. I walked away from a very lucrative contract ...".

Therein lies the problem: Thompson feels no remorse because he's been pilloried so heavily over the years that his response is one of a learned behaviour: go with his instincts and stick to any decision he makes. The criticism has given him such a thick skin that even he struggles to see through it. Thompson is happy with everything that he's done only because he's been desensitised by the scrutiny he's endured, even to the point of refusing to examine his decision-making process.

Were he to look at his departure objectively then perhaps he would think he owed Geelong hierarchy the complete truth. Of course that's unlikely.

Also irksome is his statement about "giving anything possible". Actually, it's complete rubbish. By resigning, Thompson broke his contract and as such forfeited any monies due to him. This doesn't constitute not giving up anything, only not receiving money for work which he did not complete. Giving implies he bought his way out of his contract, something which patently did not occur.

It was perhaps the most poorly kept secret in AFL football that "Bomber" would eventually take the senior assistant role at Essendon. New coach James Hird wanted him and he wanted to come. However he didn't escape the Cattery with his dignity intact. By telling half-truths to his comrades fearing the whole story would make him look bad, he has just made himself look worse. It's too bad that this ill-judgement means he will not just be remembered for two premierships and the fantastic play the Cats have delivered over the past decade. He will now, like Norm Smith, always be remembered for the way he left.