Lord Condon's findings worthy of local social services report

LORD CONDON was not an especially effective Met Police Commissioner.

Nor did his inclusion in last month's list of 'People's Peers' prevent most of us laughing the process to scorn. So it's surprise that his report on corruption in world cricket is a bit a mixed bag.

He's at his best when denouncing the ICC as an ineffective mechanism for regulating the world game. And when he says ill-paid cricketers can easy targets for bent bookies. But these points take all of five minutes work out, and are little more than statements of the bleedin' obvious Where Condon is not so great is in his recommendations, and in his approach to certain outstanding allegations, notably those concerning Alec Stewart.

Players' use of mobile phones should be restricted, he says. How?

A training programme, professional education, and, - wait for it videos, should be used to deter corruption. Does it really need a video to get players to appreciate that taking money from bookmakers for acting as amateur weather forecasters or worse is wrong? This is local social services report stuff, yet these are four of Condon's first eight recommendations.

Later on there's some more productive stuff about making the ICC more effective. But once again, it hardly needed Sherlock Holmes to latch onto this. Even Dr Watson more of a role model for Condon in my lengthy experience of him could have done that.

Where he lets us all down is in his handling of the individual complaints.

Of the 56 matches that have been claimed to have been fixed, only two didn't involve teams from the subcontinent. Plainly it is there that the problem is rooted. Yet Condon is happy to link a lot of this to 'friendly fixes' in county games in the Seventies, though making a county match more interesting has nothing whatsoever to do with the sort of stuff MK Gupta has been singing like a canary about.

He obviously thinks the England and Wales Cricket Board should have done a little more investigating of their own before deciding to stand by Stewart, although their attitude is understandable to those of us who know him.

Yet so far Condon's only had a preliminary chat with Stewart.

Wouldn't it have been better for Condon to have done something more substantive, both in fairness to the player and as a way of showing how these investigations should be handled?

Because given the way South Africa have so speedily rehabilitated Herschelle Gibbs, now back in Test cricket, and the ducking and diving of the Pakistan Cricket Board, only at the international level will proper justice be meted out to those who have dragged the game through the mud.

As Condon surely knows the best way to stamp out crime is certainty of conviction and severity of punishment. Certainty of conviction was hardly his speciality at the Met and a lot more evidence will be needed in his final report to suggest he'll do any better with world cricket.

Jump on for a crazy ride

WHILE there are plenty who think it should have been Gerard Houllier or Alex Ferguson, I'm glad George Burley is the Manager of the Year.

Shortly after Ipswich finally got promoted, Burley came on my radio phone-in and said while it had been hugely disappointing to lose out in the playoffs three years running, and a lesser club might have sacked him, he really felt Ipswich would have a better chance of surviving in the top flight because of it.

Even so, a lot of us thought they'd go straight down. Instead, Ipswich finished fifth, failing to score in only three of their 38 Premiership games.

Everyone waited for the dam to break, and twice - at Sunderland and Chelsea - they shipped four goals and were thoroughly outclassed.

But each time the Tractor Boys came back the stronger. So much for resilience born of suffering. And so much, too, for Burley's quiet wisdom and authority.

His players don't seem to spend too much time in the pub. Joe Royle's allegedly did, so Joe's out on his ear. Harsh? I don't think so.

Managers expect top dollar these days and to spend, spend, spend while in the post.

They must expect to go when things go wrong. And they did for Joe because he laid out 17 million - more than Burley has had - on players at Manchester City who either weren't up to it, or who Joe couldn't get the best out of.

My first witnesses, my Lord, are George Weah and Paulo Wanchope and there's a disorderly queue of others waiting outside.

Besides Royle will be back there's always a managerial merry-go- round where people like him, Harry Redknapp and Kevin Keegan, who actually got Royle's old job yesterday, can get back on board - so I reserve my sympathy for the many other 52-year-olds who get made redundant and never work again.

But the uncertainties of managerial life provide a valid reason why Terry Venables, six years older than Joe, chose a five-year contract with ITV over a longer stay at the Riverside.

Besides given Steve Gibson's legendary generosity, Tel might get a good offer just to keep in touch on the phone every week or two.

Middlesbrough's last-day win over West Ham pushed them three places up the table, and brought in an extra 1,050,000 in prize money.

So much for those who say such end-of-season encounters don't matter.

The fact Gibson will get through it all in five minutes flat doesn't matter. What does, is that some of it goes towards Bryan Robson's severance.

Robbo still retains a reputation as one of England's finest. It's not in his interests to be humiliated any longer now it's obvious he will never take charge again.

Nor is it in Ferguson's best interests or Manchester United's that he stays beyond the end of next season.

The issue for the papers was whether he was offered enough to be an "ambassador" and it's a wonderful comment on football's breathtaking arrogance about money that a six-figure sum for a bit of gladhanding is apparently to be regarded as derisory.

But that wasn't it at all. The real point is the deep, dark shadow cast by Matt Busby remaining on the board, and helping to blight United's fortunes for years.

Would it be any different if it's Fergie? I doubt it. He should be big enough to walk away without recriminations.

o WHEN Gary McAllister was voted man of the match in the UEFA Cup Final, he donated it all to the hospital that helped his wife fight cancer.

Now footballers are paid a king's ransom shouldn't this become the rule rather than the exception.

For instance, David Seaman will apparently make 600,000 out of his benefit game this week.

He says some will go to charity, while not saying how much.

But should a high earner like him trouser money from fans who earn in most cases a small fraction of what he does?

Testimonial money was fine when even stars were paid next to nothing.

Now, as Trevor Brooking has said, it's becoming insupportable, and in my view just another sign of football having lost its soul amid an increasingly disgusting loads-of-money culture.

'Radio' always on the right frequency but Wiltord's a turnoff GUS POYET is another of those overseas players who couldn't have done more for their chosen club he'd been born just outside the stadium gates, and he'll be much missed at Stamford Bridge.

"La Radio" is a voluble highly engaging and, above all, deeply committed athlete who has scored some vital goals for Chelsea and provided a lot of inspiration when other heads went down. And his courage in coming back from two serious knee injuries is a further tribute to his dedication.

Good, too, that another model import, despite his problems with referees, Patrick Vieira, has been named Carling Player of the Year.

After an uncertain start to this season no one has done more to keep Arsenal running, and his cry of frustration after the Gunners went out of the Champions League wasn't the petulance of a sick kid like Anelka, but the genuine anguish of a man who had given his all, only to find it wasn't enough because of the deficiencies of others.

Which brings me to Sylvain Wiltord. "Anelka with more attitude" was how he was described to this newspaper prior to his arrival by someone who knows him well and he wasn't wrong, was he?

Wiltord must take his share of the blame for Arsenal's unnecessary European exit and defeat in an FA Cup Final they largely dominated.

But does it bother him?

Apparently not. Instead of apologising to the fans at Arsenal's last match he flounced out.

The sooner he's on his bike permanently the better. Sadly, though, he'll probably go somewhere else for even more money than he's getting at the moment.

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