Alan Stanford: International Super Villain

Obviously, everyone knew this already. Just look at the teeth.

And his attempt to destroy cricket didn’t win too many fans amongst the cricketing fraternity. Although, it improved his standing in BCCI Towers.

Alan Stanford has been accused on non-transparent practices in dealing with clients' investments. They they thought their investments were being held in liquid assets, but, in fact, they were ploughed into property. Outside the world of finance this is called “lying”. The chief investment officer instructed staff to not inform investors about Stanford’s investment practices, as it “wouldn’t leave an investor with a lot of confidence”.

The classic signs of financial fraud were apparent for all to see: “off-shore financing” is another way of saying “I’m stealing your money”; Stanford has had his banking licence in Montserrat revoked for dubious dealings; smooth year-on-year returns; and law enforcement investigations since the early nineties. Even before the SEC accused him of an $8 billion “massive ongoing fraud” the US tax authorities were trying to recover $104,236,285.85 federal tax lien.

Now there is possible exposure to the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, alleged connections to gulf gangsters and 30,000 investors have unsuccessfully sought to get their money back. Hilariously, he went on the run, and was eventually tracked down to (one of) his girlfriend’s house in Virginia. Which was also the area that Robert E. Lee conducted his last desperate rear-guard action before surrendering to the inevitable encircling of reality.

Stanford’s dad has come out to say that he thinks he’s a good guy, so I suppose that makes it ok.

Of course, it would be a bit smug of me to say that I work for an organisation that constantly vets all those that it works for, and that a simple investigation on well-known internet search programmes are a start in the process of due diligence, which, in itself, is a lengthy, but simple procedure. I won’t say any of these things, though, because, rather like Giles Clarke, I am above the fray. I don’t want the legacy of this post to be about a lying Texan.

The question is: Has the ECB moved on from the 19th century? Well, it still has the shameless appetite for foreign treasure. It still holds archaic bureaucratic practices that strangle the game. But, most pressingly, it is still run by Old Boys.

The problem with Old Boys is that when they look on another male, about a similar age, and with heaps of cash, they welcome the decent old chap into their open bosom.

“Come on in, old bean, put your feet up, relax, lighten the load and leave your cash by the door as you come in, my dear thing.”

Thoughts like “I wonder where that money comes from” would never enter an Old Boy’s cheery, port-soaked brain. Money, of course, is vulgar; necessary but vulgar. That a professional businessman like Clarke didn’t even consider the reputational risk of Stanford is remarkable, but, really, the information is there for all to see.

I’ve been having a little root around Stanford’s site. The news section has not been updated since the 3rd February. Presumably, the Communications team are hiding in their girlfriends' house. Apparently, not only does Sir Poverty inflict his smile upon his staff, but also some “flair”:

“To distinguish the men and women of the Stanford Financial Group of companies, every employee wears an eagle shield representing financial strength, integrity and commitment to our clients.”

This man is to be avoided.

The “eagle shield” is a crappy, tacky, nasty little badge-thing that distinguishes between employees that work for a ghastly boss, and employees that work for a ghastly boss with a horrendous perma-tan. In any case, it’s a shame that the Group’s commitment to its clients extends to giving their money back.

Is nothing sacred?

Bagpuss, not satisfied with taking over London, has now decided to invade English cricket.

Some goon who unashamedly calls himself Lord Marland of Odstock and ran Boris Johnson’s successful campaign for London mayoralty, (although, we all know it was actually some nasty piece of work Aussie that did the dirty, somehow Boris’ old chum was awarded the “Campaign Manager” title) wants to become the new chairman of the ECB.

Boris, flexing his political muscles further, plans to tighten his strangle-hold of the English establishment by sending Oddsocks forth to capture the ECB.

The London Mayor was heard to have said,

“Well, uh, buh buh, it’s kinda, buh, buh, gosh, right! Buh buh. The Johnson house will subjugate the masses through insidious control of its essential institutions, confounding all those who stand against us! Crickey.”

That Giles Clarke, a respected and hard-arsed businessman, has come under challenge from a minion of walking flan, is a sign of troubled times for English cricket.

Clarke hasn’t been a bad chairman. He hasn’t done anything that any other English chairman from the hallowed histories of the ECB wouldn’t have done – with the possible exception of ol’ Lord Bumsoak, whose solutions to administrative problems usually involved large vats of sherry, some well-oiled bats and twelve naked schoolboys.

But, politics is politics, and when the rats smell an opportunity, they begin to talk about strategic leadership and the need to gnaw on the rotting corpses of roadkill.

So, some nobody, whose only claim to fame is an association with the Tory party financial scandal that involved cheating electoral laws by fraud and winning over huge sums of money by misleading the authorities, thinks that he can do a better job than someone with actual abilities.

It’s a bit annoying that English cricket is such a preserve of the political right. I don’t make this objection so much for partisan reasons – my politics is somewhat broken anyhow – but it would be a fantastic addition to the game is so left-wing perspectives were brought into the game.

The Twatford affair would have been considerably more entertaining had (Sir?) Arthur Scargill been at the reins.

“Aye, Twatford lad, let me have a go at they lasses. Hallo love, we’ll keep the red flag flying here. Ooh flippin’ Norah.”

That’s right. We need more communists in English cricket.

Giles Clarke backs AYALAC all the way

It has been ages since I put “AYALAC” in a headline and filled an article by talking about myself, so let’s correct that wrong.

Giles Clarke, King of English Cricket, read my recent angry and sweary rant against the possibility of an English Premier League, Allen Stanford and everything that that bloody Texan stood for.

Giles consider my weighty words and realised the inevitable logic of my constructive criticism. Agreeing with my assessment that he was a “money gabbing traitor” and was a “total bastard”, he called a halt to all this twenty20 franchise business.

In an interview with Boris Johnson, he stated:

“AYALAC is right. Franchise sport has simply never worked in the UK,"

He went on to add,

“I still may be somewhat of a bastard, however.”

He qualified this last remark by alluding to the continuing negotiations with Sir Allen,

“I hope to give more details in the days and weeks ahead but I can guarantee that everyone in the game - from playground to Test arena - will benefit from this deal."

I really don’t like the sound of that. Ominous, isn’t it? So, we can assume that this “deal” rules out franchises, but not the selling off of English cricket and facilities to some yank.

Watch this space to see if Clarke’s innate bastardliness dissipates further.

English cricket for sale

My new best friend, Giles Clarke, is considering selling off English cricket to some bloke, for a lot of money.

I previously thought that the tender only covered a single, one-off match. That alone made me annoyed. Not as irritated as I was this morning, whilst trying to negotiate the exit of Fenchurch Street Station whilst fending off the jingoistic advancements of some freebie newspaper distributors encouraging me to honour St. George’s Day.

“No,” I thought. “Go away.”

Needless to say, they didn’t. St George’s day? What on Earth will they think of next? Let’s All Beat Up The French Day?

Anyway, this state or anger was topped today when I discovered that Allen “Call Me Sir” Stanford is planning to bank-roll an expanded English twenty20 competition to rival the IPL. Why we would want to do such a thing is unclear, but Stanford is only prepared to organise such a useless tournament if he receives assurances from the ECB that they’ll guarantee his investment plus returns.

Cheeky bastard.

This produces is a whole new layer of fury. This makes me angrier than that woman who clips her nails on the train. And I want to kill her. I want to kill her with a cheap rubber spatula such is my accrued wrath.

In a vague, feeble justification, Stanford says that England need to be at the heart of any future evolution of cricket. And hilariously adds,

“The organisation here is better, the management is better, the structure is better.”

Clearly, the Texan billionaire didn’t attempt to catch a Northbound Circle line from Tower Hill this morning, and then worked out, without any official communication, that the Circle Line was delayed, requiring him to walk to Aldgate Station to wait a further twenty minutes during the rush hour for an over-crowded train on another buggered line, resulting him in being late for work. Again. Thoughts of managerial efficiency do not spring to one’s mind in such circumstances.

In any case, the whole thing is shocking and awful and terrible and a betrayal. These people need to be sent to the same place as nail-clipper girl.

The ECB sinks to new low

Last week the ECB sunk to new depths in my esteem with two pieces of news.

Firstly, they banned that iconic link to the past: the cable-knit jumper. Of course, the ECB is not unafraid of shedding its heritage; cricket has lost what little remains of its uniqueness in a market saturated with the finest American plastics and wheezes of twelve year-olds in suits.

Replacing time-worn, proven elements of the game with the ephemeral fads of blind modernisation is all part of the new feckless strategy of a pro-active, globalised, empowered, service-oriented, ahead of the curve, excellence-focused English administration.

This may, or may not, be something to do with the new chairman: Giles Clarke, who is, by all accounts, a total bastard. Apparently, he can speak about twenty languages, is an enormously successful businessman and is obsessed with cricket statistics. So we can safely assume he knows nothing about cricket.

Look at England’s replacement kit. What really irritates me about this is the whiteness of the whites. Whites are cream; even demented, colour blind mole people know that. Clarke the twat, however, does not. Now our team look like a bunch of unemployable youths, loitering outside the local off licence debating whether they should re-attempt a cider-shoplifting expedition or try to score some scag from their mum.

The ultimate denunciation of this chav-wear came from Kevin Pietersen:

“It feels sensational.”

Secondly, Clarke’s depravity knows no end with his official announcement that the England cricket, after over a hundred years of honourable if modest achievement, is now for sale.

The ECB is currently in talks with “Sir” Allen Stanford over the possibility of England playing a collection of hired goons for a prize $200 million.

Apparently, the justification of this scandelous misuse of a noble instution is to compensate the impoverished players from their unrealised IPL earnings.

I have accepted long ago that the ECB is no longer interested in cricket, but this greedy nadir is simply too much for me to endure. I might just burn down Lords, with all their chequebooks, media contact indices and hip, unstuffy outfits left inside.

Why is usesless Boris Johnson messing around over the London mayoral position – we need a inactive, hopeless head of the ECB and we need one now.

Fun is banned

The new ECB head, Giles Clarke, has decided to outlaw all fun within the England cricket team.

In a surprising first move, he has acted to attack England's “unprofessionalism” going on to say Andrew Flintoff and Paul Collingwood should have received bans for their moments of madness.

“We're not going to get proper athletes and a decent team if people do not have the right attitude as professionals in their sport.”

This is a bit weird. Professionalism is about acted in a reasonable and respectable manner at work. Outside work time is private time. The professionalism lies in not allowing your private realm of messed up ideas and broken brains to negatively impact upon your plain work persona. Neither Flintoff or Collingwood allowed pedelos or breasts to affect their performance at work.

So what’s the problem?

You might say that a little-known businessman who likes to talk too much may have a publicity problem. Talking nonsense to the press is one way of rectifying that issue.

Ayalac is all for drunken cricketers. There should be more role models like that: people who can’t handle their booze and get stuck in light water-craft; people who pay to see nude wrigglers. That’s the stuff this nation is built upon. And we should be proud.