Naivety is not a state of mind often associated with Simon Jordan, who has never been anything less than a streetwise bruiser when it comes to defending the interests of Crystal Palace, the club of which he is chairman. Good on him, too. Football could do with more people who possess his clarity of thought and purpose.
Yet to hear Jordan rage yesterday about the outcome of a Football League tribunal settling the transfer of the teenager John Bostock from Palace to Tottenham is to be left pondering the imponderable; did he really expect anything else?
Jordan is surely not an ingenue when it comes to football's financial realities, although clearly even he was taken aback by the iniquity of the ruling that will see the Premier League club pay Palace £700,000 for Bostock, a sum that could rise to £1.25m, depending on how many first-team appearances the teenager makes for his new club.
"For a tribunal to reward a purportedly bigger football club in Tottenham to take one of the most gifted young English players in the country for a sum of £700,000 is nothing short of scandalous," said Jordan, pointing out Palace had turned down a £900,000 offer from Chelsea when the player was 14.
Some people might argue the folks at Stamford Bridge have got more money than sense, that their conduct in the transfer market bears no relation to reality and should be treated as such. Much harder to ignore, however, is that Arsenal recently paid Cardiff £5m for Aaron Ramsey, who is two years older than Bostock but - with 11 first-team appearances in the Championship last year, compared with the latter's four - could hardly be described as the finished article.
Comparing the two young players is a futile exercise. Ask around and you'll find some who prefer Ramsey, others who are enthralled with Bostock. But in any such discussion there is one common theme; both are "can't miss" prospects, in as much as any teenager can be said to be such a thing.
Yet Arsenal paid £5m, Tottenham less than 20% of that. Even those enamoured with Ramsey would be hard pressed to argue he is five times the player Bostock is, and if they did they would probably fail a drugs test.
So why did Cardiff walk away from the Ramsey deal smiling, while Jordan feels like he has been mugged? The answer is Arsenal paid the going market rate for the player, while Tottenham were able to take advantage of a tribunal system set up to deal with transfers involving under-17 players like Bostock which invariably leaves the selling clubs open-mouthed at its unfairness.
No doubt there are some who will feel Simon Jordan is the last person in need of sympathy. If you can't find it within yourself to weep for a flash multimillionaire then perhaps you might weep at the failure of English football to develop enough young talent, partly because the best of the best are forced to play reserve-team football while the first 11 is packed with expensive imports.
As the Palace chairman pointed out: "We have a national team who can't qualify for the European Championship and we have a shortage of players of the required standard to compete in world football. One of the reasons the Premier League is the best in the world is because it is made up of 50% foreigners. So when big clubs buy our own younger players and don't use them, how the hell does that benefit the national game?" The answer is it doesn't, which is why there needs to be a change in the tribunal system.
The introduction of a free market in talented 14-year-olds would, rightly, be seen as an affront to our sensibilities. Far more palatable, however, would be the introduction of a new framework giving clubs like Palace not just an initial transfer fee for a player but also a decent share of any future transfer fee should he subsequently change clubs.
At the very least this would give smaller clubs the future prospect of a decent return for their efforts in finding and developing good young players. Even better, it would make bigger clubs think more carefully about the financial consequences of hoovering up young players. Seven hundred thousand for John Bostock is little more than a punt to a wealthy Premier League club like Tottenham; £700,000 today, and £10m in eight years' time is a serious investment requiring serious consideration followed by years of serious nurturing.
Why Billy Joe Saunders should fly the flag
It is always a mistake to think that sport can provide a conclusive solution to society's wider ills, but it is always heartening when it makes an effort. Which thought brings me to the choice of an athlete to carry the British flag at the coming Olympic games.
Presumably, those in charge of such matters have a long list of deserving candidates. Hopefully this list includes the name of Billy Joe Saunders, who apart from being a very promising young boxer with a decent chance of winning a medal in Beijing is also a member of the Traveller community, one of society's most routinely abused and belittled minorities. Scan the pages of newspapers and you will spend a long time looking for a positive portrayal of anything to do with Gypsies but even the most twisted bigot would struggle to caricature Saunders, whose combines tremendous natural talent - his grandfather was a bare-knuckle champion who learned how to box in fairground booths - with a tremendous work ethic.
Back in 1996, the Irish Olympic Committee chose Francie Barrett, another boxer from a Gypsy background, to carry the flag. At the time Ireland had a deplorable attitude towards Travellers but the sight of Barrett filling such a totemic role was an overdue reprimand to the hateful hordes, even if ultimately it didn't eradicate the racism that informed their opinions. Handing Saunders the Union Jack in Beijing would be a similarly telling rebuke.
Colussus to pariah: a problem for A-Rod
God forbid there are any Guardian readers who are living miserable lives but on the off chance that there are one or two it might console them to take a look at the current plight of Alex Rodriguez, the third baseman of the New York Yankees, who in the space of two weeks has seen his pubic persona transformed from that of a sporting colossus and admired family man to that of a sporting pariah and adulterer. Not since Icarus has anyone fallen so far, so swiftly. The source of Rodriguez's
difficulties have been disputed allegations of a relationship with Madonna, with whom he shares an agent and an inexplicable interest in Kabbalah - a "scandal" that reached its apex (or possibly nadir) with the news that Rodriguez' wife has now filed for divorce.
Lampard is off to Inter - get over it
Head on the block time. Frank Lampard will be an Inter Milan player before the start of the new season. He is great player and a bright lad who deserves, and should want to, ply his trade in another country before the end of is career.
It will happen. He knows this, just as Chelsea know it. If only both sides would acknowledge this fact and spare us the interminable PR campaigns with which each side is trying to gain moral high ground as they edge towards the exit door.
