The Daily ITK Discussion Thread - The Weekend Edition 3/4 August 2013

[Third Kit '87]

I know it means nothing and won't get any kind of recognition but I've just sent an email to OFCOM re Sky's use of 'sky sources'. The complaint was that it's too easy to lie when using that term and that each source should be named.

Maybe if a few more people complained it might get noticed? Yes I'm bored but I'm angry too because they spout so much bullshit something has to be done.

I complained in a very similar manner to the BBC last week regarding them stating that Bale had 'asked to leave' despite no quotes/evidence. This was their response if youre interested...:

Thanks very much for taking the time to write in and I am sorry you feel our
football coverage has let you down.

I will try to explain a little around how we gather stories such as these ones,
but I hope you understand I cannot go into specifics around the two stories you
mention.

Before I say anything, I will say that my editorial standards, and those of the
BBC, are a huge priority, getting stories correct and double checking that they
are correct is extremely important in my day to day work.
In terms of stories like the Bale one and many others you will see, I often
get asked why there are no quotes to support what it is we write - proof, if you
like, that the story is true.

Increasingly, sports journalism and broadcasting has to rely on off the record
briefings from football clubs, agents and even players. These are instances when
you are given information from one of these sources on the understanding it is
off the record and not able to be attributed to the source, or quoted in any
way. So while we know the story is true, we may know that a club or player feels
a certain way or is trying to sign a certain player, we cannot provide a quote
within our story to support that.

This has always happened to some extent, but it is certainly on the rise as
clubs, players, governing bodies and many other facets of sport and football use
this technique in their dealings with the media.
Clubs themselves don't' always want to reveal the sensitive nature of
negotiations and talks behind the scenes, while other clubs in those same
negotiations may not feel as cagey about revealing information. That is where a
clash can occur.

I hope that goes some way to explaining why you might see information in our
stories that is not supported by quotes, but I can assure you the content is
checked and double checked to make sure it is correct.

I hope you continue to stick with our football coverage in the future, because I
promise that you can rely on our dedication to make sure our stories are correct
and trustworthy.

Don't hesitate to contact me again if you have any other queries.

All the best

 

[Oshi]

We didn't want to go near that. Even the 18 million we offered wasn't up-front. Hopefully not dependent on Bale situation but will ask tomorrow for round up from source regarding what's going on at club

We will go back in now Dempsey has gone I would of thought.

 

[Greenspur]

I would have thought that prior to watching AVB's press conference after the Monaco game. He made two clear points 1. Bale is not for sale and 2. We are still going to make heavy investments on incomings this window.

That would mean to me that any incomings are not dependent on Bale going.

For Christ sake - stop bringing logic into this..

 

[bomberH]

I complained in a very similar manner to the BBC last week regarding them stating that Bale had 'asked to leave' despite no quotes/evidence. This was their response if youre interested...:

Thanks very much for taking the time to write in and I am sorry you feel our
football coverage has let you down.

I will try to explain a little around how we gather stories such as these ones,
but I hope you understand I cannot go into specifics around the two stories you
mention.

Before I say anything, I will say that my editorial standards, and those of the
BBC, are a huge priority, getting stories correct and double checking that they
are correct is extremely important in my day to day work.
In terms of stories like the Bale one and many others you will see, I often
get asked why there are no quotes to support what it is we write - proof, if you
like, that the story is true.

Increasingly, sports journalism and broadcasting has to rely on off the record
briefings from football clubs, agents and even players. These are instances when
you are given information from one of these sources on the understanding it is
off the record and not able to be attributed to the source, or quoted in any
way. So while we know the story is true, we may know that a club or player feels
a certain way or is trying to sign a certain player, we cannot provide a quote
within our story to support that.

This has always happened to some extent, but it is certainly on the rise as
clubs, players, governing bodies and many other facets of sport and football use
this technique in their dealings with the media.
Clubs themselves don't' always want to reveal the sensitive nature of
negotiations and talks behind the scenes, while other clubs in those same
negotiations may not feel as cagey about revealing information. That is where a
clash can occur.

I hope that goes some way to explaining why you might see information in our
stories that is not supported by quotes, but I can assure you the content is
checked and double checked to make sure it is correct.

I hope you continue to stick with our football coverage in the future, because I
promise that you can rely on our dedication to make sure our stories are correct
and trustworthy.

Don't hesitate to contact me again if you have any other queries.

All the best

That's pretty much the reply I expect but that means it will go and on forever and there's fuck all we can do about it. They can make up bullshit whenever they like and they're covered by the info in the reply :-(

Well done anyway for giving it a go.

 

[EnfieldYiddo]

Disappointed to hear about Bale acting up and ties in with the info I posted other day.

Bit cheeky for him and his advisors to want us to accept such a shitty payment plan. Surely they should be asking the question if you want the deal to happen so much, why are you only offering 20 million euros up front.

Hope Bale is talked around, don't seem him messing up a season of his if he is made to stay - he will knuckle down

 

[easley91]

Surely if he stays and still wants to leave he'll work his ass off to make sure that happens. Whether he helps us intentionally by doing so or not won't matter to him. Bale firing on all cylinders can lead us to glory, even if his mind is on a move to Madrid next summer.

 

[Third Kit '87]

That's pretty much the reply I expect but that means it will go and on forever and there's fuck all we can do about it. They can make up bullshit whenever they like and they're covered by the info in the reply :-(

Well done anyway for giving it a go.

Yes my thoughts exactly, but it doesn't do any any harm to make our feelings known...I'll be following your good example and doing the same to SSN too!

 

[Scarlet57]

Hope Bale is talked around, don't seem him messing up a season of his if he is made to stay - he will knuckle down

I agree, I can't see him disappointing AVB, they seem to get on very well (West Ham winning goal celebration comes to mind).

 

[LukeBB]

I haven't seen Blind play as much, would he be a better option than Rose or BAE? In anyone's opinion?

 

[Huddlestone22]

Unfortunately I can believe Jasper's information due to the fact this 'muscle' injury seems very suspicious. Extremely disappointed if its the case.

 

[TheChosenOne]

With regard to the recent figure of £17 mill per annum quoted over 5 years - Does Bale's so called agent not realise that Bale will be looking for at least £10 mill a year for himself ?

That bring one players outlay to over half a million week. They will need to sell a lot of shirts to cover that.

 

[lol]

bernard in as a bonafide LW starter = title challenge

--------soldado
bernard--------bale

settle the D, force bale to stay (or lamela + bernard). lets fucking do it

 

[markiespurs]

Disappointed to hear about Bale acting up and ties in with the info I posted other day.

Bit cheeky for him and his advisors to want us to accept such a shitty payment plan. Surely they should be asking the question if you want the deal to happen so much, why are you only offering 20 million euros up front.

Hope Bale is talked around, don't seem him messing up a season of his if he is made to stay - he will knuckle down

Wouldn't surprise me if Bale is quite easy to manipulate, but I'd imagine that once the season does get under way then Bale will want to play.

Just a shame that his agent only seems to be interested in a big payday rather than what is best for his client.

 

[EnfieldYiddo]

It's become too late for me to sell Bale now IMHO.

2 weeks until we kick off our season, sell him and another week of faffing around (minimum) to try get say Lamela in; before you know it it's few days before Palace and it's questionable would we have core business done by then. More so, even if we do they will be a bunch of strangers.

If Levy is going to play hardball with them; he simply can't afford to now - Even if they offer what he wants; it will completely damage the start of our season.

 

[Nocando]

I complained in a very similar manner to the BBC last week regarding them stating that Bale had 'asked to leave' despite no quotes/evidence. This was their response if youre interested...:

That's pretty much the reply I expect but that means it will go and on forever and there's fuck all we can do about it. They can make up bullshit whenever they like and they're covered by the info in the reply :-(

Well done anyway for giving it a go.

Great work for giving it a go. However I think this could open up a certain precedence for our own good. If they are happy to publish unverified stories or stories that they can only claim is verified then is there a possibility of putting our ITKs with positive stories in touch with the likes of the BBC and asking them to publish these stories as they are equally, if not more, credible. Obviously this would require buy-in or authorisation from this site and the relevant ITK, but it would help our image and would give a much fairer representation. It would also give us more exclusives in terms of being publicly ahead of the news.

 

[MUNGO]

With regard to the recent figure of £17 mill per annum quoted over 5 years - Does Bale's so called agent not realise that Bale will be looking for at least £10 mill a year for himself ?

That bring one players outlay to over half a million week. They will need to sell a lot of shirts to cover that.

.
shirts that should have HP on the front !

 

[mrlilywhite]

It's become too late for me to sell Bale now IMHO.

2 weeks until we kick off our season, sell him and another week of faffing around (minimum) to try get say Lamela in; before you know it it's few days before Palace and it's questionable would we have core business done by then. More so, even if we do they will be a bunch of strangers.

If Levy is going to play hardball with them; he simply can't afford to now - Even if they offer what he wants; it will completely damage the start of our season.

Are you Levy in disguise!?

 

[HappySpur]

Jasper on SO re Bale

Thanks Gilzza

I can not iterate enough how much opinion is strewn within Jasper's opening paragraph

1) Nearly all transfers are staged (and when I say nearly, even the petro clubs use staging)
2) He doesn't mention it, but it's a good time to reiterate, that Modric.....was staged and payment 2 is due soon. They are not defaulting on payment.
3) We stage all of our transfers. We lost Vlad, because we tried to stage a 7 million pound deal
4) So RM staging Bale makes no difference to how we go about our business. We have accountants that can deal with such things and apply it to transfers now and in the future.
5) Nobody would suggest or accept a five year plan. I don't think even Levy would be that ridiculous because at the point that a club needs to pay off a player like a car loan........we demand interest payments and that's some hefty interest.
6) No matter what happens, it is highly unlikely that we would get all monies up front. Could we, like United did with Ronaldo (supposedly)? Sure, but that's a negotiation gambit and probably a desperate one.
7) You don't want us to get all that money up front. Because it will all go towards to stadium. Other teams get wind that we got full amount up front and we our effectively priced out of getting a new tea lady, let alone another player.
8) Staging is a good thing for us.


As for the rest, I have no idea. But I'm about 4 IQ points from being considered a mollusk and I found a list of issues in a short paragraph. So maybe take that as a cue to use a pinch of salt.

The worry with such ITK, is that if Bale stays, these types of things will be used by fans to turn on him, effectively proving that he should have left anyway.

 

[WiganSpur]

IF and it's a big IF Bale is being like this then he really isn't doing himself any favours. If we decide not to sell then he's going to ruin everything that made him so popular in the first place. A group of individuals and not a team like Madrid have always been in recent years would be the perfect fit for Gareth if he is indeed kicking up a fuss. I still maintain that we should not sell, and he can rot in the reserves if that's what he wants. He'll soon realise he's not going to do his attractiveness to other teams any good and I could imagine it would create an environment within the club where he is not liked by the rest of the lads.

Having said all this, for Bale to be throwing his toys out the pram does seem to be very strange considering all the positive comments made about our ambitions for the next season and his praise for Andre in May. I can only think it's Barnett trying to engineer a move for his own self interest.

 

[maccoys]

I haven't seen Blind play as much, would he be a better option than Rose or BAE? In anyone's opinion?

Saw him briefly in the U21 Euro`s. Looked decent.
He was Ajax` player of the season 2012-13.