Ok, it’s a little late but you can all just bloody well deal with it. Here’s my personal top 20 films of 2011, it’s got some surprises and some certainties but i’ll justify them all to the best of my ability.

20 – Senna

In a list like this, it’s inevitable that some films will need to be justified whilst others you’ll have to justify not putting them higher and I fear that this will be the latter. I didn’t dislike Senna by any means, it’s in my top 20 after all but it just didn’t resonate with me the same way it did with others. For starters I didn’t agree with the tone throughout, the forced shoe-horning of certain characters as your ‘baddie’ just didn’t seem necessary. It also tried too hard to make Senna himself out to be a hero when he was probably more than a little bit of an arse himself. Overall the film tells a compelling story and the final scene is something definitely to be experienced but it’s not quite the masterpiece I was expecting.

19 – Source Code

I loved Moon, it’s one of the finest Sci-Fi films of our time and a brave, original debut by Bowie Jnr. With this in mind, I couldn’t wait for his next effort, a seemingly more conventional take on the genre. The cast was solid, the premise was exciting and the trailer set the pulse racing in all the right ways. The final product was ultimately a little disappointing though, with the promising set-up not quite satisfying as you’d want it to. It works, but….you’re not really happy with the answers it gives.

18 – Super 8

I love JJ Abrams. I know there are others who feel differently but I love everything he touches. He created the best show of all time in Lost and he entirely reinvigorated Star Trek for a new generation, he even made Mission Impossible watchable. Super 8 was an entirely different proposition to the rest though, it was a love story to a childhood memory. It’s also about an alien but kind of also not really about an alien. On paper the film is nothing to write home about but everything melds together so well that it really leaves a lasting mark. It also proved that you can never have too much lens flare.

17 – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Who knew that action films could still be exciting? It shouldn’t even really be a surprise that Ghost Protocol is excellent, it’s directed by Brad Bird and stars the chronically under-rated Tom Cruise alongside a hugely talented supporting cast. It features an exploding Kremlin and a man running down a building, what’s not to like?

16 – Crazy Stupid Love

I know, right? A terrible choice. It’s a paint-by- numbers romantic comedy starring Steve Carell and undoubtedly not worthy of a spot on anyone’s ‘best of’ list. Well, just….just watch it before you judge me. It’s also got Ryan Gosling in it, and Emma Stone, it’s even got Julianne Moore! It’s funny, it’s well paced and whilst it’s not groundbreaking work it is really quite sweet. I apologise for this choice, normal service will be resumed soon.

15 – Another Earth

I wasn’t even aware this film existed until a late night scouring session on IMD. The complete lack of attention it received at the box office seems entirely without justification though. It’s a touching, moving look into humanities ability to forgive through tragedy…all set in front of an intriguing sci-fi setting. I’ve always maintained that the best sci-fi films aren’t a story about a sci-fi world but one that’s existing among a sci-fi world – and this is definitely the good kind. Never does the film focus squarely on the second Earth that appears in the sky but it’s a key part of the wider story.

14 – Kill List

Oh the tragedy of the botched ending. For the vast, vast majority of its runtime Kill List is the best British film in decades. It’s wonderfully acted, brilliantly directed and minimally but effectively scored. It’s tense, scary, touching and it totally draws you in….and then it ends. It ends and you sit there with your mouth wide open, eyes flitting about dramatically and the thought starts to form in your mind….”That’s it?!” I’ve watched it twice now and the ending still bemused and irritated me on the second view. It’s like a scene out of an entirely different film, it’s horrible and it’s such a shame because it’s usually so hard for one scene to ruin an entire film. It gives you a complex, deep ending but with no pieces. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle without the box. With this in mind, it drops Kill List from a comfortable top 3 to somewhere in the teens.

13 – Blitz

JC will love this, a Statham film in my top 20. There’s not much to say about Blitz except to say that it stars the reliably awesome pairing of Paddy Considine and David Morrisey and is just bloody entertaining. Statham plays the typically monosyllabic tough guy that he’s trademarked but it never becomes a problem and he even manages to add a little humanity to the role. It also briefly stars Joseph Dempsie of Skins fame, but he manages to keep up his amazing habit of getting killed in everything i ever see him in.

12 – Limitless

Hollywood’s full of high concept, low inspiration productions right now and most are ultimately disappointing. Fortunately this is one of the few that truly pays off. Bradley Cooper plays an incredibly charismatic writer who’s had his world turned upside down after taking a pill that ‘activates the other 90% of his brain’ (despite the theory behind that being entirely untrue) and makes him super-smart, super-rich and somehow super-well dressed. The ending’s a little predictable and Robert de Niro is clearly not going all out but you don’t really mind. It’s a fun ride that holds up to multiple viewings and one world in which I’d actually like to see a sequel.

11 – Insidious

Paranormal Activity is the best horror franchise of recent years in my eyes. It’s a fresh, original take at stirring childish fears and it works at such a subconcious level that you don’t realise how intense it is until the payload is released. The only film that came close is the original (and the best) Saw film and therefore it lead to no little excitement in me to learn that Insidious would be created by the brain children of both the aforementioned films. It’s another haunted house offering and it’s clearly filled with ideas that they couldn’t legitimately fit into either the Paranormal Activity or Saw films, but that’s not to the detriment of the final product. Insidious might not be quite as good as PA or Saw individually but it’s far scarier and more stylish and there’s a previously innocent early 1900′s song in there that you’ll never listen to quite in the same way again. Insidious is fantastic.

More to come…

Last week I wrote an article regarding the unfair levels of parachute payments handed to sides relegated from the Premier League. You can read the original article on the link below:

http://irritatingfootball.wordpress.com/2011/08/28/parachute-payments/

Inevitably, the final day of the transfer window only served to put an exclamation mark on the entire saga.

Not content with having brought in Kevin Nolan on a reported £50k per week and John Carew who was previously on something similar at Villa, West Ham went out and strengthened beyond belief. In came Tottenham and (former) England winger David Bentley. Arsenal midfielder Henri Lansbury also joined, rumoured to be having his entire £30k paid by the London club. As if that wasn’t enough though, they then went out and signed Ivory Coast international Guy Demel.

Granted, they finally sold Scott Parker to Tottenham, but the parachute payments have allowed them to reach the safety of the closed transfer window without being made to also sell the likes of Carlton Cole, Robert Green and Julien Faubert. This is a club with one of the worst operating losses in the league, how does this set any kind of standard for the rest? So much for the hard stance on debt…

Meanwhile, Forest were forced to make do with what they already had on deadline day, with the chairman repeatedly referring to the difficult restraints that will be imposed by the upcoming FFP rulings. We don’t have £16m coming in a year, so how are we supposed to compete with the likes of the relegated sides??

As I mentioned in the previous article, it’s getting increasingly obvious that we’re not supposed to.

It seems to have slipped into the status quo without so much as a question, the Premier League strong-armed the Football League into approving a re-evaluation of the parachute payments system, increasing money received by each club from an already-lofty £16m over 2 seasons to a frankly unbelievable $48m over 4 seasons. This happened almost overnight and nobody batted an eyelid, and for the life of me I cannot understand why.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of the parachute payments, this is effectively a four-year bail-out plan handed to the three sides relegated each year from the Premier League. It’s divided into annual payments, two of £16m and two of £8m. Going into effect this past summer, West Ham, Blackpool and Birmingham City have already benefited from these new batch of payments and the former have wasted no time in using it to their advantage.

The main goal of the payments are to cushion clubs from the revenue reduction that comes with relegation from the Premier League, and on paper that’s perfectly fair enough. Teams can’t expect to be competitive in the Premier League if they have to keep their budget within touching distance of one that could survive relegation after all. That’s not up for debate, but is £16m really the price they require? Putting it into perspective, that amount on its own would cover a team’s entire annual wage bill for a squad consisting of 20 players earning over £15k per week. In short, the parachute payments in their current form don’t so much help teams recover but help them maintain Premier League spending in the Championship.

I would be far more inclined to accept it if the payments continued to be over a period of just one or two years, but four years?!? This is ridiculous. Frankly, if teams haven’t managed to get their contracts and finances sorted after 3 years and £40m then they don’t deserve further help and should be subject to sanctions, not even more hand-holding. It would also be a pill more easily swallowable if the rest of the Championship were receiving help in a similar ballpark. Sadly, the new deal only promises Championship clubs not affected by parachute payments merely £2.2m a year. I cannot imagine a justification for a team receiving £13.8m more than other teams in their league a full 12 months after being relegated, and even less for them receiving £5.8m more a full 3 years after the drop.

The latest message coming out of the football league is that new Financial Fair Play ruling are going to come into effect from the beginning of the 2012/13 season. These rules are designed to stop teams spending far beyond their means and give a more level footing for all. Your outgoings must be relative to your revenue which seems sensible, but this tends to make an annual injection of £16m all the more advantageous. Football has become a sport blighted by mediocre players with huge contracts (i’m looking at you Bullard) and FFP genuinely seems like it’s trying to see an end to those kind of deals with sensible spending. This new parachute payment deal seems to be trying to achieve quite the opposite however. If this isn’t an open invitation to throw around as much money as you like, what is? As usual, the messages sent between the various footballing bodies are painfully mixed.

The official press release at the time of the new payments claimed that they were changing to try and close the quality gap between the Premier League and the Championship. I genuinely cannot see how that is a legitimate outcome. With added income such as gate receipts, Championship television deals, inevitable player sales and the like all coming in on top of the parachute payments, this means that all but the most financially stretched clubs are going to have an awful lot of their bailout money left over when all’s said and done. Not everyone will be so lucky.

As previously mentioned, the financial benefits of the new system have been illustrated by the actions of West Ham this summer. Very little effort has been made to adapt their expenditure to a more modest level, they’ve held onto high-earners like Robert Green, Mark Noble, Carlton Cole and Julien Faubert and more. On top of this, they’ve gone out and actually added to their wage bill, spending £4m on Kevin Nolan and bringing in John Carew too. Both are undoubtedly on Premier League wages. I should note that this isn’t a criticism of West Ham at all, they’re purely taking advantage of a ludicrous system and they’re guaranteeing their own immediate future. Their squad is now of a standard that means that they are almost certainly going straight back up, and it’s all thanks to the unfair advantage of parachute payments.

…..but wasn’t this always the plan?

There seems to be only one endgame for this new set-up, and that’s a far higher percentage of relegated teams boomeranging back up to the Premier League at the first attempt and this in turn creating a collection of 25/26 teams rotating up and down like clockwork with the odd fairytale exception. As for the rest of us? We simply can’t hope to compete with the spending power that the parachute payments offer without foreign investment (severely curtailed by FFP) and therefore getting promoted becomes an even more distant dream.

A cynic would point out that this scenario fits conveniently into the desired modus operandi for Premier League chairmen like Phil Gartside, who recently proposed abolishing relegation altogether in favour of the financial security of a break-away league. He wants a closed shop similar to the NHL or NFL in America and if it’s close enough to being the same teams going up and down every year, then his extravagant suggestion suddenly holds more weight. Convenient eh?

It’s easy to hate West Ham for their spending during this window, but it’s not their fault. It’s the system that’s broken, a scheme seemingly put in place to intentionally bring about a breakaway elite tier and widen the gap even further.

That’s just a conspiracy theory though, right? Please leave me your comments with your thoughts, I always value those.

UPDATE: I’ve added a bit of an update to this post at the link below:

http://irritatingfootball.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/boomerang-bonds-update/

And so it came to be. With almost crushing inevitability, Sepp Blatter was today re-elected as FIFA president in a ‘landslide victory’ from his one-horse race. The appointment has sent a clear message, one that confirms how rugs have been swept under, washes have been whited and curtains have been drawn. It’s almost as if the last fortnight hasn’t even happened.

I don’t often admit to agreeing with David Bernstein, but the way he’s conducted himself during this procedure has been honourable for what little good it has done him. The FA’s decision to abstain from voting in today’s election was the strongest message we could send and when all the dust has settled, at least we can say we were on the side of honesty and fairness.

Whilst this has settled well on the British streets, the decision was not met with universal praise to say the least. Aside from the 34 countries who followed England’s decision to abstain (and even those could have their true intentions called into question), the rest of the world’s delegates have lined up to take potshots at Bernstein. The worst of which was Julio Grondona, the Argentinian FIFA vice-president who openly pleaded for England to effectively up sticks and sod off. He was quoted as saying: “We always have attacks – mostly with lies and with the support of journalism which is more busy lying than telling the truth.”

Whilst he was formulating this opinion he was evidently ignoring last week’s suspension of Mohammed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner for the very thing the FA simply want investigating. Jerome Valcke (FIFA’s General Secretary) is now also being implicated. The very reason that Blatter was unopposed in the election was that Bin Hammam was forced to withdraw due to the severity of the claims but it seems as though this has been ignored. FIFA and Blatter seem merely amused with just taking a few to the side and investigating. The sensible suggestion would be to let Interpol conduct the investigation, they can fly there on swine and pay with pots of Leprechaun gold.

If you think the FIFA ethics committee will do anything substantial with their investigations either then you’ve clearly underestimated the scale of corruption involved. The top three people in the organisation have all been implicated, they will effectively be investigating their bosses. A little know story is that Blatter was ‘investigated’ for financial irregularities and mis-management by the Swiss authorities in 2002 over the demise of FIFA’s marketing partner ISL. He was cleared of any wrong doing by the Swiss, and he then managed to derail the internal investigation by FIFA on a technicality and his accuser was removed from office immediately. Blatter is currently also being investigated by the Swiss Government over a recent visit to Burma which is in breach of the Swiss Government’s sanction laws against the country. He’s also facing a rapidly approaching deadline in which he must provide the Swiss Parliament with certain financial information which Blatter seems very reluctant to release. With all this going on, is it surprising that FIFA magically decided to let him go without as much as a questioning?

Regardless of whether the man has not been complicit in this corruption, he’s been in charge for the entirety of the period in which it has grown to ‘epidemic proportions’ inside FIFA. Even if he is guilty of the former, he still ought to be fired for sheer incompetency due to the latter.

Let’s not forget that the FA aren’t exactly asking for blood here. All they had proposed was that the election ought to be postponed until all corruption charges are settled and guilty parties are given the relevant punishment. This seems like purely common sense, but only in the halls of FIFA could an organisation be damned such for suggesting that criminal charges should be concluded before we decide who is best to lead the association for the next four years.

Such clear thinking, logic, and honesty seems totally out of reach in Zurich however. How do you get to the bottom of a problem when the people who are to blame are most likely the ones involved? It’s telling that the only people who are willing to talk are the ones who’ve already been outed. Blatter has created his house of cards and they’re all diamonds. He’s responsible for his organisation becoming nothing short of the footballing mafia and such staggeringly dense decisions such as handing the World Cup to Qatar are clear and open examples of this. Backhanders are rife through the halls of FIFA, money talks and everybody’s listening.

So what can we do about it? The bottom line is that FIFA needs us more than we need FIFA, Bernstein has given his best shot to allow transparency and honesty to shine through and he’s been met with hostility and ridicule. It’s time we back out of FIFA, it’s time we take away the most commercial league in the world, one of the highest-profile national sides and the world’s most profitable football association and we leave them to it. We almost certainly wouldn’t be alone. Australia, America, Germany and Spain were outspoken in their criticism of the World Cup allocations and could possibly be persuaded to follow. How would or even could FIFA cope without the most profitable organisation and their world champions too?

This is all pie in the sky however. David Bernstein will likely be strung up in Soho Square and we’ll come back to Blatter, cap in hand looking for approval. It’s not even as if we can look forward to a brighter future when Blatter is up for re-election again in 2015. The favourite to replace him…..? Michel Platini

This Saturday sees the curtain fall on another football league season. QPR and Norwich have finished in first and second respectively and the play-off sides are almost set in stone. Everyone should be sitting back, formulating tactics for the play-offs or drawing up potential signings for next year’s Premier League campaign. Instead, there’s chaos.

If you’ve lived under a rock for the past two months, you’ll be unaware that the FA have charged QPR with seven counts of breaches of regulations regarding third-party player ownership, or ‘The Tevez Rule’ to most. It all boils down to the signing of Argentinian midfielder Alejandro Faurlin in murky circumstances…..two years ago. These charges were laid at QPR’s feet almost two months ago, but for whatever reason they decided to wait until the eve of the final game of the season before making a decision. Let’s not pretend that this Friday will certainly see the end of it either. If the decision is not to QPR’s liking then they have the right to appeal which could take up to another week to sort out and if so, will result in the play-off semi-finals being delayed and the likelihood that clubs will only have 4 days to sell all of their tickets for the home leg. There’s zero possibility of the play-off final being re-arranged in this circumstance though, what with the ever-so-precious Champions League final dominating the ground for most of the following week. What a mess, and all so avoidable.

It’s all classic FA of course. The dour, cliquey, hypocritical and comically inconsistent ‘home of football’ that’s overseen such disasters as the Wembley build and the recent Rooney swear-gate farce to name but two. They’ve gone out and made a strong statement following the Tevez affair and have totally failed to act on it. The Sun article that outlined the action that they should be taking has been quickly distanced and it’s becoming more and more obvious that the only penalty handed out will be a conveniently-inconsequential 5 point deduction at most, or more likely a fine. Let’s face it, the FA haven’t shown any evidence of a vertebrae in recent history, why would they start now?

Men are a simple breed. We have always lived by an unwritten series of ethical and moral guidelines. Now you can rejoice, for these have finally been scribed.

MAN RULES #1:

Every man should know what channel Sky Sports News is, even if you don’t have Sky.

  Addendum: You should also be able to name two female presenters at all times.

Barbeques are acceptable in all weather you can stand up in.

All men should be at least competent at either FIFA or Pro Evo, preferably both. There are no excuses or exceptions.

Knives and forks should only be used if they make the eating process quicker.

The only time it’s acceptable to cry at the cinema is if a dog dies.

All men should have one professional football team and one only. This should be the team from his nearest city or town, regardless of quality or division.

  Addendum: If applicable, you are expected to support your father’s team regardless of where they’re from. This supersedes the main rule.

The first person to visit the men’s room on a night out deserves and will accept his punishment.

Never swim in anything shorter than shorts.

Never ever point or signal at another man’s crotch. It’s his job and his job alone to discover if he’s left his zip down.

Men don’t watch badminton or gymnastics. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Olympics.

Men don’t buy birthday presents for men they’re not related to.

  Addendum: Joke presents are forgivable.

If your team loses to another man’s team, allow him his moment of glory. Your time will come.

No man can ever watch too much sport.

All men are required to have watched Die Hard, The Godfather, Alien and Star Wars.

Astronauts and adventurers are awesome. Dancers and male air stewards aren’t.

Pub golf is both a sport and a legitimate form of exercise.

Always keep at least one empty urinal between you and another man if you can help it.

High fives are infinitely more awesome if you do it Top Gun style.

Men don’t share anything, especially umbrellas.

  Addendum: Umbrellas shouldn’t be used by men at all.

Man points are legal tender.

Men do not use moisturisers, eye-liner, concealer or lip balm.

Never turn down a free beer, even if you’re working in the near future or at that particular moment.

  Addendum: It’s ok to refuse if it’s offered by a stranger and already open.

Cold pizza is an acceptable breakfast.

No man should have an opinion on Meryl Streep because no man should have watched one of her films.

Men should always know the difference between flip-flops and sandals.

Men don’t turn up to a barbeque empty handed.

  Addendum: If you do, you must volunteer to man the grill one hour for every beer you take.

Never are you permitted to talk to a stranger at the urinal.

It’s OK for men to be scared of spiders, but not dogs.

Only ever use a toilet cubicle if it’s closer to the door than the nearest free urinal.

No man turns down the chance to go to Hooters.

It’s perfectly acceptable to race elevators.

Fridges outside the kitchen are for red meat and beer.

Men should not be afraid to lick a plate.

Men do not dress their pets in anything but a chain around its neck.

Men don’t complain about weather.

  Addendum: Unless you’re at a cricket match.

Instruction manuals are only permitted for use after an hour of frustration and swearing.

A man only calls another man after 3am if it’s important or funny.

Dan Newham

OPENS TO FLASH STUDIO

JC: Hello and welcome to 10 O’Clock Live! It’s very interesting that things have happened this week.

LL: You’re right, this has certainly been a week. Tonight Jimmy is going to make some quips about these things that have happened, David’s going to interview a trade union leader again, Charlie’s going to rant very loudly and i’ll.. probably try on some shoes.

ADVERT BREAK

DM: Welcome back. Now to Jimmy with the news

JC: Hello, oh god i didn’t plan for this….(Jimmy is clearly struggling)…..ermm…..jesus……..Mubarak?

*CROWD APPLAUD RAPTUROUSLY*

JC:…..Berlusconi likes sex?

*CROWD ROLL ON FLOOR LAUGHING*

JC: Cameron?

*CROWD BOO AND THROW TOMATOES*

JC: Bankers!

*CROWD GO INTO APOPLECTIC FIT, ONE MAN DIES*

JC: That was the news, apparently.

- Cuts to David sat at the main table.

DM: Thanks for that, that was terrible. Why am i doing this? This should be my bloody dream job. Anyway, today it was announced that the British government have been caught surreptitiously selling our arms arsenal to th…

*DICKHEAD IN THE CROWD CHEERS AT THE MENTION OF ARSENAL*

DM: Sigh. Anyway, here’s an interview between some so-called experts. Here’s Bob Holness, Keith Chegwin, a member of the audience and a coloured fellow.

- The participants talk loudly over each other for 84 seconds without listening to a single point anyone makes.

DM:Right, that’s all we’ve got time for now, frustrating isn’t it?

ADVERT BREAK

- Return to studio, Laverne jumps in front of the camera doing a ‘wacky’ face.

LL: Hello you cheeky monkeys. Tonight i’m looking at the sky and wondering: Are clouds real? The answer is that I don’t really know. I’m really only on screen so the genuine talent can have a bit of a rest and get into position.

CB: For god’s sake shut up Lauren you tit. Right, listen to me now. This week saw lots of shit things happen by people who are fucking useless.I’M SO BLOODY ANGRY THAT I COULD MAKE A BOWEL MOVEMENT COMPELLING BECAUSE I’M A GENIUS WHO’S WASTED ON THIS.

- Cuts to Mitchell

DM: Wow. So now we’re going to have a ‘Ask the Audience’ section. Press the buttons in your hands about things you want to hate….*waits*…and the winner is social cuts. Well….erm…aren’t they crap?

*CROWD GO CRAZY AT THE MENTION OF SOMETHING THEY’VE HEARD ABOUT, DON’T REALLY UNDERSTAND BUT STILL DON’T LIKE*

JC: So now we’re going to look at some of the publications you the viewers and crowd will be interested in reading tomorrow. Firstly, the Beano this week is leading with Dennis the Menace torturing the softies. How innocently homophobic.

LL: Shoot magazine is asking: Is David Beckham a God? Look at his legs.

DM: OK Magazine is yet again discussing the trifecta of female conversation; legs, shoes and periods.

CB: Right, that’s enough for one night. See you for next week’s show if your brain hasn’t melted during this one.

END

(I should actually note here that I quite like 10 O’Clock Live, it’s just bloody frustrating and takes the easy laugh too often!)

Firstly, please don’t get me wrong, I loved THAT interview. Sheen was a breath of fresh air, he was a character. Sadly, this all seems to have gone to his head. If you read this in time, click the following link and you’re taken to the weird world of his ‘Sheencast’. If it doesn’t work, you were too late and you should consider yourself eternally grateful.

http://www.ustream.tv/charliesheen#Sheen

Basically, it’s a collection of tossers in hats kissing Sheen’s ass and he’s showing off like a teenager – to 120,000 people! Clearly Sheen-mania is still going strong. The problem comes in the fact that he now realises he’s spawned something fun with the whole ‘winning’ thing and is using it so much that he’s on the verge of killing it within a week. Much like he looks like he’s killing himself, it’s as if his face has melted.

I suppose this is to be expected, he’s a crack-addled mental. Nothing good is meant to last. I give it a week before people are bored of this little train wreck.

UEFA haven’t made many friends this week. The outrage over yesterday’s announcement of ticket prices for this year’s Champions League final has been widespread, and every word uttered in anger is dead on the money.

Ticket prices in England have long been a sore subject for me, they’re quickly getting out of control and nowhere is this felt more than in the Premier League. Earlier this season, Arsenal announced the country’s first £100 league match ticket and the move was rightly criticised – but they were still purchased in their hundreds if not thousands. Birmingham City – the epitome of average – are charging up to £40 for their home game against WBA later this month and that’s for one of the lower-band games. It’s inevitable therefore that this swell in prices is also happening on the continent and even more so in the biggest club competition in the world.

Some of the prices that were announced yesterday for the Champions League final are simply breathtaking. The facts are as follows. General sale tickets (of which there are 11,000) are being sold for a minimum of £150. Yes, you read that correctly, £150 for the cheapest ticket! The most expensive tickets in this section are a staggering £300. This is just for one ticket to a 90 minute football game remember. It’s almost double the maximum price for any ticket to 2009’s final in Rome and prices are up 15% across the board compared to last year’s final in Madrid.

25,000 tickets are also being sold to each set of fans involved in the final and these go for at least the princely sum of £80. What concerns me the most is just how this figure is now being considered to be quite reasonable, a sign of the times right there. UEFA say that there will be ‘a number of’ tickets available at that price band, which appears to me to be hinting that there won’t be a huge number. What’s also ominous is that they’ve decided against releasing the price bands for the rest for now. These £80 and £150 seats are expensive enough on paper but then you must also consider that these are the lowest priced tickets, they’re going to be located in the worst parts of the ground, up in the gods and away from the action.

With the 25,000 for each team and the 11,000 general release ticket taken into account, this also means that only 58% of the crowd will be a fan of either team in attendance, and likely only 70% of them will be proper football fans at all. Isn’t this typical of the modern game?

Michel Platini announced last year that by moving the final to a Saturday he would be hoping to see more families in attendance. Despite this goal, the announcement that a typical family of four for this final would be charged £676 seems to suggest that they’ve either gone back on this dream or are even less in touch with reality than we first thought. But wait, UEFA Marketing Director Giorgio Marchetti is quick to remind us that children get a 50% discount on their ticket with this package! He’s clearly ignorant of the fact that despite this, one child ticket still costs more than any adult ticket for any English domestic game anywhere all season.

The shocking exploitation doesn’t stop there either. Every single one of these tickets is also subject to an additional admin fee of £26, or £36 if bought from outside Europe. This is just for processing and (presumably, although not confirmed) delivery. For comparison, buying a ticket for this year’s Superbowl in America would have cost £12 in fees on top, merely 33% of what UEFA are charging and the Superbowl ticket would have had to travel to a different continent.

Presuming that this admin fee is flat across all tickets (and this is conservatively excluding the £10 extra for any non-European purchases), this will net UEFA £2.2m alone, remember that this doesn’t include any of the actual ticket money. The complete figure for ticket sales is estimated to be more around the £14m mark. Just to put this into context, Forest will only expect to pull in approximately £9m in ticket sales for an entire 46-game season and we’re not a badly supported team by any means, averaging around 22,000 per game.

Back to Marchetti, his arrogance was staggering when he suggested that prices could well have been justified if higher: “This is the market price. Do you think we would have trouble filling Wembley if the prices were higher? You think it would be different?”

It seems as though he’s missed the point entirely. This isn’t a case of whether the tickets will sell (sadly they will, three times over) but it’s more about whether or not you should take advantage of the fans who keep you in a job.

Marchetti continued to try to justify the prices at the swanky launch party in London: “The prices are based on the type of event and when you compare it to other events we don’t think that the Champions League final is overpriced. We do not want to squeeze every single penny out of the market. We have to benchmark this event against other comparable events, like for example the final of the Euros and the World Cup. Last year there was already a significant increase compared to the previous editions but it’s nothing to do with being in London and it is still priced below comparable events.”

Sure, these tickets are close to being on a par with the South African World Cup Final this past summer with tickets starting there at £106 (but capping much, much lower than £300), but there’s a major point being missed again. The World Cup final is the biggest sporting event in the world. It’s an event that happens once every four years and with FIFA’s rotation policy, often means that it’s something that only happens on that continent once every 12 or 16 years. A World Cup final in your country may be something that never happens in your lifetime. The Champions League final however will be hosted in England 5 or 6 more times before I pass on and happens every 12 months. It cannot be compared.

The World Cup aside, let’s see if the pricing really is comparable to similar events shall we? The 2012 London Olympics showpiece event will be the 100m final, for which tickets start at £50. This is an event that lasts three times longer than the football and includes the finals of four different events. Wimbledon Centre Court final tickets start at £104 across the board. A county seat for the Grand National costs £75. Tickets for all five days of Melbourne’s Ashes test match would have cost £106. Last year’s FA Cup Final at Wembley saw the minimum price set at £34.40 – with no admin fee. It doesn’t seem as though these prices are comparable at all, regardless of what Marchetti says. This entire argument is also working under the misapprehension that the other events are priced fairly too, but that’s a whole new article right there.

UEFA claim to be the protectors of football, the leaders of our game and the ones tasked with ensuring its future. This isn’t the way to go though, this is nothing more than bleeding dry the desperate. It’s the fourth or fifth step along the path to ruin and the sickening thing is that as long as these tickets are being snapped up at their extortionate prices by fans, UEFA will keep winning and it will keep getting worse until you and I can no longer afford to support our club.

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If you’ve stuck with me this far, i’d be very interested to know what you think about the whole debacle and your opinion on some of my points raised above. I always appreciate a comment on my stories so fire away!

This one ought to be shut down under a severe breach of the trade description act. It does concern me how the once-quality dependent BBC has taken to giving prime time hours to a bloke with little to no genuine comedy talent. In fact, almost the entire original comedy line-up on BBC Three is generally turgid. Next on the line of utterly appalling ‘celebrated’ comedy is the humour black hole known as ‘the Morgana Show’ fronted by ‘funny woman’ . I guess the problem with stand-up and sketch comedy doing so well lately is that the genuine quality only stretches so far…

After all, Charlie Brooker can’t be on everything…

Here’s some of his work. Bear in mind he actually gets paid for this….