Compare and contrast

Class.

 

Classless.

At a very late hour on Wednesday evening, 31 August 2011, The Everton Football Club Company Limited announced the transfer of Snr. Mikel Arteta from the club to The Arsenal Football Club plc. In the hours following the transfer, the manager of The Everton Football Club Company Limited's first team playing squad, Mr. David Moyes, was quoted thus:

"Mikel indicated to me that he wished to join Arsenal if a bid came in.  I am very disappointed to lose him but the prospect of Champions League football was something I wasn't able to offer him."

This seemed rather strange, especially given the very late hour at which the deal was concluded; the implication here by Mr. Moyes was that Snr. Arteta pushed for the transfer in his desire to leave the football club. This is completely at odds with a interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation in which Snr. Arteta stated the importance of The Everton Football Club Company Limited retaining its best players for the forthcoming campaign. 

Further supposition that Snr. Arteta was acting out of character, given the universally accepted truth that he is one of the most genuine men in the sport of professional football, came from Dan Roan of the British Broadcasting Corporation, in the following statement:

"Arsenal offered £5m on Tuesday and £10m on Wednesday afternoon - both bids were rejected. Any deal was dead until around 1900 BST, when Arteta told Moyes he wished to leave.

"Moyes spoke to the chairman, Bill Kenwright, and said he did not want to keep a player who did not wish to play for Everton.

"Arteta was Everton's highest-paid player ever on around £75,000 a week and took a big pay cut to join Arsenal."

Having read that, and knowing the parlous financial state of The Everton Football Club Company Limited, one began to smell the proverbial rat; every high-profile departure of a player from The Everton Football Club Company Limited in recent has been accompanied by more spin than one's washing machine generates at the final stages of a boil wash. It was now obvious that Mr. Arteta's departure was precipitated not by an ambition to join The Arsenal Football Club plc in order to participate in Champions League football (if that were the case, why not demand a transfer request at any time in the last four seasons, and why should he renew his contract only last year?), but by the desperation of the club to satiate the reasonable demands of its creditors.

And, when Snr. Arteta spoke on the matter, in order to defend himself from claims of disloyalty to The Everton Football Club Company Limited, he as good as confirmed this to be the case without seeking to be undiplomatic; asked by Sky Sports News if he wished to leave The Everton Football Club Company Limited, Snr. Arteta replied thus...

‘No. It’s true that I met the manager and told him that I thought it was a good opportunity for me and I think that the club is in a situation where they need to sell someone.

‘Leaving Everton means the world to me. This is my family and I can see from the reaction people have had with me that it is a proper family. Everyone was devastated.

‘I know I have left a mark here on the club because I get on with everyone really well. I want to thank my team mates, every one of them have been brilliant for me all these years. I want to thank the fans too. I never expected to feel so much love from them.’

‘I have Everton in my heart and I’m not going to earn more money, I just think it’s the right time to move and hopefully they will understand. I appreciate what they have done for me and it has been an absolute pleasure to play in front of them.

‘The chairman was on the phone telling me he didn’t want to lose me but I think they have to in these moments. They don’t want to put the club in a situation where in one or two years the club is in bits.

‘I just want to thank the fans. Some will get upset. What I can say is that I have given all I have for Everton….everything. I could play better or worse but I always try my best. I made my decision for the best of the club. Thanks a million times for the love, the support and how good they have been with me and my family. I am always going to be an Everton supporter…….there’s no doubt about it.'

Emphatically not the words of a man seeking a change in employment, I am sure you will agree.

So, what are we to make of this? It goes without saying that Snr. Arteta leaves the club with his head held high, and his integrity intact; he is one of professional football's finest ambassadors, and I sincerely wish him nothing but the best in his endeavours at The Arsenal Football Club plc. He will, without doubt, receive a marvellous, warm reception whenever he returns to Goodison Park.

On the other hand, Mr. David Moyes, a man whom I thought possessed equal integrity, now appears to have sold his principles for the sake of £3m a year in order to present the distortions and lies fed to the supporters by the board of directors of The Everton Football Club Company Limited, in order to deflect the well-deserved opprobrium due to them as a result of their incompetence. Mr. Moyes could have chosen to  contain his comment on the matter to, "Yes, I'm disappointed to lose Mikel, but these things happen in football, and we carry on"; instead of which, he chose to attempt to hang the responsibility on the player for his departure.

Mr. Moyes has now diminished himself in my eyes; and, whilst I still regard him as the only asset in the management of The Everton Football Club Company Limited, and the best possible manager for the club in their current straitened circumstances, I have lost the respect for him that I once had.  His recent pointed criticism of those seeking to broker change within the football club only serves to reinforce my opinion.

I speak these days with the detachment of the outsider, for the antics of the denizens of the boardroom of The Everton Football Club Company Limited have pushed me way beyond ambivalence and into my current state of not being interested in whether or not the club thrives or dies. The problem for the club now is that there are an increasing number of people just like me, a number which increases every time Mr. William Kenwright CBE opens his mouth, or when the club's camp followers "troll" internet discussion boards attempting to stifle criticism under the guise of assumed identities, rather than actually working for the benefit of the football club.

Do others remember when The Everton Football Club Company Limited actually commanded respect, rather than ridicule?