Its in the news today that Alexis Sanchez has agreed to a suspended sentence to settle a case in Spain in which he had been accused of evading tax on payments supposedly made in respect of image rights.  Tax fraud.

It is important to say that via his agent Sanchez still denies any wrongdoing in the broad sense.

The whole thing occasioned me to think about the relationship between football and integrity and the willingness of clubs to ignore or overlook an apparent lack of it.  Not relating to Sanchez directly of course (since his agent seems to still protest his innocence) but across the spectrum.  The word 'integrity' is an interesting one.  I remember our own Steve Evans describing himself and Tony Stewart in the same breath as men of integrity.

Where football is concerned, almost anything seems to be capable of being forgiven or overlooked as long as a manager thinks a player can do a job, or as long as a chairman thinks a manager can get or keep the team up.  On a day to day basis players try to con opponents and officials.  That seems to be acceptable, as does managers failing to condemn it, as long as you win.  If you can play a bit, some club somewhere will give you a contract no matter that you might have assaulted someone outside a bar at god knows what time.  As long as you can play a bit, you can wear the shirt and kiss the badge, and take the adulation of the kids who chant your name and buy the shirt with your name on it no matter what kind of person you are.

For what it is worth my rather old fashioned view is that players, managers, owners and even supporters will come and go but the football club and community they represent will continue and the reputation of and standards of that club should be paramount.  That should weigh more heavily in the mix than this weeks performances.  Football is or at least should be about more than results.  It should be about pride and (to use Evans' word) integrity.  For me, organisations that set high standards will in any event be more successful in the long run than organisations that don't.  The culture of 'being an All Black' is a prime example.  It is about having high standards in all aspects of your job and life, which will ultimately translate into good outcomes. Unfortunately football has a shocking image, but there doesn't seem to be a will to do much about it because as the pundits say 'it is a results driven business'.

I think football needs to have a look at its willingness to engage or re-engage people who have histories that tend to suggest that they might not be people of integrity, and whether the need for instant results trumps the bigger picture.

For clarity, I am not necessarily putting Sanchez in that category.  His agent says he hasn't really done anything wrong and I am happy to believe what his agent says.  People can make their owns minds up about individual cases.  I am talking more generally than that.

I'll get down off my evangelical soap box now.

-- Edited by smiler on Thursday 8th of February 2018 11:35:53 AM