[lfc-news] All aboard the Champions gravy train - Echo

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Liverpool Echo, 13 June 2005
All aboard the Champions gravy train
By Tony Barrett, Liverpool Echo

WHO needs the Caribbean when you can go on a European tour to
destinations like Skonto, Sheriff and . . . Total Network Solutions.

Uefa's decision to grant Liverpool a place in the Champions League, that
should have been theirs by right, has probably caused more holiday
cancellations on Merseyside than an impending hurricane in the Costas.

As the verdict was announced promises made by Liverpool fans to their
families in early May along the lines of "I'll just go to Istanbul and
that's it for me until August" were suddenly made to look as hollow as a
pledge by Mike Storey and David Henshaw to let bygones be bygones.

Holiday brochures were being hidden under cushions and leftover Euros
taken from those places where "we know we'll find them" as priorities
for July shifted from lounging on a beach in Torremolinos with the kids
to finding whether easyJet have any cheap flights to Riga.

As decisions go, this one is as bad as it gets. Not content with
creating a situation in which the Champions right to defend their title
was placed in jeopardy, Uefa managed to make things even worse by
pleasing noone.

Not Liverpool FC who will now miss out on a lucrative pre-season tour to
the Far East. Not the players who will now return to training while the
cricket season is still in its infancy. Not Rafa Benitez who will have
two weeks to create a new team.

Not Everton and the other English competitors who have seen their
potential share of the Euro cash pot reduced by Liverpool's admission.
Not the good people of Anfield who look forward to a match-free summer
every year.

And what about Jamie Carragher's future wife? With a wedding date set
for early July Nicola Hart has seen her honeymoon plans jeopardised at
the stroke of a Uefa administrator's pen.

The European Champions League trophy - known to all those who don't buy
into the kind of corporate re-branding that saw Labour become "New" and
Marathons become Snickers as the European Cup - takes pride of place in
the Anfield trophy room but the competition itself stinks to high heaven.

The EU may be busy debating which countries should and shouldn't be
entitled to subsidies but Uefa have been taking millions of pounds in
subsidies from football supporters ever since the Champions League came
into being over a decade ago.

The gravy train is now rolling at full speed and there appears little
chance of a derailment. Liverpool's inclusion at the first qualifying
stage will provide an almighty boost to the coffers from the sale of TV
rights.

It wouldn't have made sense to exclude Liverpool from the competition
for the same reason as it wouldn't have made sense to put them directly
into the group stages as their status as title holders demanded.

And when I say sense I mean the financial kind and not the kind of
common sense that football fans deserve but rarely get.

Can someone pass me an atlas please? I need to know how to get to Kairat
Almaty!

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