Cod Almighty | Diary

Richard Bastard Scudamore

8 November 2013

Mardy Diary writes: Will you just look at this. No, forget about that cup match for a few minutes and take a look at this. What the fuck is this?

The Football Business Awards with 'event partner' Chelsea Football Club. That's enough for a violent boke to start with. But let's use this Friday afternoon to look at the detail of this conceited, vapid, back-slapping, money-grubbing charade.

This is the second year of this self-congratulatory guff which aims to "celebrate excellence and acknowledge success in the business of football". The awards are decided by a large panel of judges who "all share a passion for the game" and include the likes of Karren Brady (VC, West Ham), Bruce Buck (chairman, Chelsea), Richard Bevan (LMA), Alistair Mackintosh (CEO, Fulham) and Bob Fucking Wilson. Wankers.

So what are the categories then? Well, there's the "best business serving football" won by PureNet, who were entered because their "football eCommerce e deployments have seen dramatic increases in club clients' online revenues year on year". Well, I've certainly benefited from the deployment of 'e's online – this sentence alone has used 17 of them.

Next up, then, the "best/most innovative use of technology by football clubs" award. This goes to financial minnows QPR, whose "use of pioneering technologies allowed the club to gather real-time insight, which was innovatively applied to give fans a tailored customer journey across multiple channels, leveraging personal relationships with fans and ultimately driving sales". It's this sort of thing that needs to be subjected to the fit and proper persons test. Use of the word 'leveraging' in relation to supporters should lead to an automatic ten-year ban from football for the offending club and a lifetime ban for whichever nobber wrote it.

The award for "best/most innovative use of technology in football" goes to Social Pundit (fuck me!), who developed a system that "monitors athletes and staff in realtime and will alert your club every time a player tweets something potentially embarrassing to the brand". So basically, a tool for spying on your players and staff – a mini NSA or GCHQ, if you like. Lovely. A similar system could be useful at GTFC, though – each time Fenty posts a rant on the SNOS it could email him to say "shuddup John".

"Best football club hospitality" – Man City. Next!

On to the "best corporate social responsibility scheme" and I didn't even get past the list of finalists that include Budweiser and the FA (hey footballers, drink responsibly!) and Cardiff City. Presumably they based that nomination on their responsibility towards Malaysia, and not south Wales.

Next then the award for "best non-match day use of venue" for this event, which was hosted by Chelsea FC and which had a panel of judges that included the Chelsea chairman, goes to... Chelsea Football Club. No shit.

"Football brand of the year" finalists include Budweiser, Continental Tyres and St George's Park. Eh? A park? What? It was won by FIFA Interactive World Cup – a game where you get to take bribes from officials of various countries before deciding to host the World Cup in a country with dubious morals, impractical climate and no football heritage.

Bluefin Sport won "best professional service business serving football" for their National Game Insurance Scheme which "provides a uniformity of cover, economies of scale and significantly improved insurance products for the National Game". The National Game. With CAPITAL LETTERS. National Game. National Wankers.

"Football sponsorship/partnership of the year". Firstly I was chuckling at the fact that the winner was Budweiser with the FA. Then I saw that the list of finalists included Wonga.com & Newcastle United FC. Clearly this is a massive piss take, isn't it? I've been had here – oh man. What a brilliant scam. Such excellent parody. Hats off to you there.

Haha. Yeah, go on then – an "innovation award" for Cardiff City. Hahahhahaha. Yeah, for innovatively selling out the club's heritage for a few overseas pounds, right? They "have made a huge changes to make [the] away stand feel like a home from home" and similar changes to the home stand with memorabilia from all over Malaysia so the home fans feel at home. This is brilliant stuff.

The "fcbusiness football CEO of the year" goes to the Brighton CEO – who also happens to be on the panel of judges. But the pièce de résistance here, the icing on the cake, the proof that this is all one elaborate and magnificent joke is that the "outstanding contribution to football" award was given to Richard Scudamore.

This is the end. Of everything that stands.