Is anybody going to check if Forest are okay?
The argument against independent regulation coming to football is that if clubs are run badly they should just go bust and be replaced by clubs that are run well. That's just a different way for football to stick its head in the sand.
I feel futile in the face of Forest. Not the football, although we'll find out how defeated we all feel by that before Sunday evening. Just the whole thing, their whole deal. I read a bit here, I hear a bit there, and I become flummoxed and confused. In a puff-piece by Paul Taylor at The Athletic on Friday, praising Forest's transfer business, I read about them signing left-back Harry Toffolo from Huddersfield in the summer:
But there was always a sense behind the scenes that having Toffolo playing for Forest in the Premier League was not quite sexy enough. This played a part in the more glamorous Renan Lodi joining on loan from Atletico Madrid later in the summer — the first of many Brazilian players to arrive.
This is all written with a sort of blank approval, as if that's normal and good. After breezing through many more bewildering transfers, Taylor asserts:
But there was still a need to strengthen.
Was there?! Citation, as the kids editing Wikipedia say, needed. But the Forest fans commenting on any story about their club's transfers all seem convinced enough. Any criticism of their spending is either jealousy, they say ('Are you from Derby?') or a means of keeping their underdog champs away from the top table ('Why don't you criticise Chelsea?').
Well, I mean, I don't even know where to start with Chelsea either. Looking at them both I'm reduced to throwing my hands in the air, demanding that somebody ought to be doing something. Why isn't there a law? There should probably be a law!
Record-scratch: aye, and this is why people have been asking for football to have independent regulation. UEFA are tightening their FFP rules on amortising transfer fees along contracts — a response to Chelsea's January behaviour, coming too late. As for Forest, whether they're as flummoxed as I am or not, the Premier League seem equally incapable of taking any interest, let alone action. Shouldn't somebody at least ask what Forest are doing? This is the in-built failure of the existing owners and directors' tests. An owner's fitness is judged on what they've done in the past. What they do after the past is over is of more consequence, but gets much less oversight.