Local Sport

Jail for former ECFC owners?

Former ECFC owners John Russell and Mike Lewis have pleaded guilty at Bristol Crown Court to charges of fraudulent trading, which resulted in ECFC being plunged into million of pounds of debt. A brief look at football court cases however, would suggest that justice is not often served as the sentence rarely matches the crime.

West Ham are currently being charged with a breach of rules by the Premier League concerning the signings of Argentinean internationals Tevez and Mascherino. The charge relates to details surrounding disclosure of the ownership of the players and that West Ham misled the Premier League - despite the fact that every news organisation in the country amazingly was aware of the terms concerning the players and that their ownership appeared in every news report at the time of the transfer, yet 8 months later like an asthmatic sloth the Premier League have leapt into (legal) action.

FIFA rules breached subsequently in order to allow Mascherino to join Liverpool have however been completely overlooked. Rumours that the Premier League are set to hire Ally McBeal and Perry Mason as their legal representative team have as yet been unconfirmed.

Former South Korea coach Guus Hiddink has recently escaped a 10-month jail term for defrauding the tax authorities to the tune of £1.4m euros. Hiddink had claimed that he was residing and paying taxes in Belgium where he owns a small flat, despite not actually living there. Hiddink claimed he is "an honest man", and that "This whole affair is all down to administrative errors." In comparison, suddenly the Premier League don’t seem like quite such a bunch of incompetent fuckwits…

However, it's not just the management in football that find themselves in front of the beak. During a 3-0 victory for Birmingham over Aston Villa in 2002, dodgy keeper Peter Enckelman failed to control a throw-in from one of his defenders and allowed the ball to roll under his foot into the net for the sort of clip that has Dennis Nordan in orgasmic rapture.

Such was the absurdity of the goal that one fan (who was celebrating his birthday) ran on the pitch and danced a jig in front of the embarrassed goalie – which subsequently landed the fan a four month prison sentence and Birmingham a £25,000 fine and warning about future conduct. Compare this with the actions of a Tottenham fan who earlier this season ran on the pitch to attack a player. The fan threw a wild punch at Chelsea and England midfielder Frank Lampard who ducked, ensuring he didn’t become Frank Lamped, before the fan was dragged away by stewards. Inexplicably, this fan avoided a jail sentence and was fined a meagre £300 – and Tottenham were completely exonerated from blame by the F.A.!? In an even more amazing paradox, Eric 'Le Twat' Cantona escaped porridge in 1995 for his kung fu kick on a fan. Bizarrely the fan did serve a brief prison term after being found guilty of provoking the attack – whilst Cantona was given the feeble sentence of 120 hours community service.

Overall, it seems if any lesson can be learnt from these legal presidings it's that violent intent or financial gain is grounds for leniency, but cheesy dancing in the penalty area will not be tolerated (Peter Crouch beware).

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