Welcome to Premier League Mafia,Nobody! You areNottingham Forest.
Year Founded:1865
Home Ground:The City Ground
Strengths:Being a sleeping giant, have won the European Cup
Weaknesses:Not in the Premier League
You are aTown Examplewith the following abilities:
Not in this Game:As you are not a Premier League team, you do not appear as a role in this game. You are the only role PM without a non-Vanilla ability.
You win if there are no more threats to the town or if nothing can prevent the same. Please confirm by PM.
EXCLUSIVE
By George Ankers
The very existence of the Premier League is under threat from at least one malevolent force,Goalunderstands.
A secret summit of 13 top-flight clubs has been convened to root out those who would seek to ruin the competition and sources say that any team suspected of undermining the league’s integrity could be forcibly relegated by majority vote.
With the spectre of intervention from Fifa president Sepp Blatter looming should they be unable to re-establish security amongst themselves, the member clubs are expected to be ruthless in their pursuit of the troublemakers, eager to protect the vast moneymaking potential of the Premier League brand.
For reasons that no source was able to verify, Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli has been appointed as chair of the proceedings.
COMMENT
By George Ankers
English football is reeling after Hull City's shock expulsion from the Premier League on Sunday.
Though news had leaked of an emergency conference between member clubs to answer rumours of a malevolent force rotting the game from the inside, few had expected the notoriously insular Premier League administration to take such drastic steps.
Outrage, however, has quickly spread among the Hull faithful, as well as concerned neutrals, at the league's citing of "improper hiring practice" as its reason for ejecting the Tigers, whose manager, Steve Bruce, signed his son, centre-back Alex, in July 2012.
The fury is certainly justified. While perhaps dodgy, there can be no doubt that football faces much greater problems than nepotism in this modern age. If the Premier League is to retain its credibility then it must identify and deal with more egregious offences rather than scapegoat a much-loved club.
EXCLUSIVE
By George Ankers
Former Burnley manager Sean Dyche is furious about the club's forced disbandment due to Financial Fair Play breaches.
It emerged on Wednesday that the Clarets have sensationally been found guilty by Uefa of spending far beyond their means, a verdict branded as "ludicrous" by Dyche. His views are echoed by many fans, who point to a lack of summer spending since their unexpected promotion to the Premier League as evidence that such a breach could not be possible.
"It's an utterly ludicrous situation," Dyche toldGoal. "If you look at us compared to the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea ... how could we be the ones who have overspent? I don't want to talk about officials but it certainly feels like we'd be getting a fairer crack of the whip if we were a bigger club."
Dyche is now being considered as a potential successor to Steve Bruce at now-Championship-bound Hull City but the fate of Burnley should have many more worried for their futures in this strained time for English football.
In post 445, Ollie wrote:Guyett & Whiskers, not only is my role not useful but it's also a pretty common fake claim for scum to avoid a lynch. So how the hell am I gonna get out of this one?
I was looking for a scum quick hammer as that's about the only use I could see for this role but I think that maybe it could help explain my actions a bit. The obvious link betweenis why I've been entertaining club & alignment/role match ups with some semi obvious/really obvious reasoning behind them, somehow this got twisted. I doubt finding who the scum are is really some hard to decipher puzzle & we could actually 'outguess the mod' to some extent if there wasn't so much opposition to it, but never mind.Southampton & Super Saint
role PM excerpt...
Having churned out talents like Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Adam Lallana, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and many, many more over recent years, to oust you from the game would hurt your rivals almost as much as it would hurt you. If you are lynched, the player who placed the hammer vote on you will also immediately be killed.
The mafiawiki was no help about how to play it (it's the first time I've had it). It said don't claim it early if you're town & if I claim it late I'm a policy lynch so whatever. Catch 22.
I mentioned it here, maybe elsewhere, I don't know....
In post 354, Ollie wrote:
Yeah my role is linked to my team clearly & also linked well in my PM so it's stupid as fuck to dismiss this kind of talk.
So that's that. Has it it helped? Nah!
COMMENT
By George Ankers
Swansea City's fall as the latest victim of a Financial Fair Play crackdown only exposes some dark truths at the heart of the English game, one that the sport must address quickly if it is not to collapse entirely.
The Swans were booted out of the Premier League on Tuesday in punishment for a seemingly implausible list of transgressions that nonetheless appear to be borne out by a series of documents obtained byGoal, with Fifa president Sepp Blatter condemning the "poor decisions of the league" in allowing such behaviour to go on for so long.
Distasteful as it is to concede a point to football's thoroughly inglorious leader, it is nonetheless astonishing that Swansea, as we now know, ploughed over £40 million into the signing of the ghost of Duncan Edwards as a "brand ambassador", as well as loading the club with debt in order to finance left-back Neil Taylor's debilitating iOS App Store habit through exorbitant wages.
Following as it does Burnley's shock dissolution for similar offences, one can only begin to wonder what is going on behind the scenes at the Etihad Stadium, Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford and how the Premier League's biggest spenders have thus far escaped scrutiny. And the biggest losers remain the fans.
SPECIAL REPORT
By George Ankers
The turmoil in the dugout at West Brom has finally been reflected in the boardroom of the Premier League as the Baggies were expelled from the competition on Friday.
Having gone through three managers already this season, the Midlands club's fans were already concerned that those higher up at the Hawthorns had lost control of the situation and, with the Premier League in the midst of such ongoing chaos, it was decided at a meeting of the remaining clubs that an administrative weak link could not be tolerated.
The Baggies had established themselves as a regular fixture in the lower-mid-table of the top flight, despite often blending into the background when compared to some of the more glamourous teams further up the table, and their removal - following that - once again only reinforces the strangehold of English football's biggest clubs over the rest of the league, particularly as it comes seemingly for incompetence rather than the shocking financial skulduggery that brought on Southampton's expulsion.
"This is pretty tough to take," admits a source inside the Hawthorns, which will hope to become a Football League ground again next season. "Mind you, we'll probably still turn up to our game at Aston Villa next weekend as scheduled. It's hard to get out of the habit."
EXCLUSIVE
By George Ankers
The dissolution of Chelsea is just punishment for their "financial doping", argues prominent football critic Alphonso Scrooch.
The Blues became the biggest casualty yet of the massive ethical crackdown shredding the Premier League into a husk of its old self on Monday, the club shut down for a volcano of Financial Fair Play breaches and owner Roman Abramovich sent to jail.
Unlike the previous victims of the crisis, however, Scrooch argues that Chelsea had it coming. "Abramovich's tsunami of investment has been a disaster not just for English football but football across the globe," he tellsGoal. "This financial doping has bent the whole game out of shape. Really, it's been the catalyst for this whole situation and smaller clubs are paying the price too."
Scrooch, who runs the conspiracy-theory website Every Other Person You Know Is A Shark and insisted on speaking to Goal only while wearing a blindfold, warns that the Blues' collapse does not mean an end to this period of upheaval. "At least 60 per cent of football administrators are literally sharks," he notes. "It'll getreallyugly."
EXCLUSIVE
By George Ankers
Alan Pardew believes that Crystal Palace would never have been ejected from the Premier League if they had moved more quickly to sack Neil Warnock and hire him instead.
The Eagles' dismissal from the top flight was announced on Saturday, making them the seventh team to be pushed out of the increasingly cosy division since an emergency panel was convened in late December, with the former Newcastle manager arguing that better leadership could have prevented other teams from turning on them.
"I've got a lot of respect for Neil as a football man but I think he'd be the first to admit that he didn't sound like himself any more," Pardew toldGoal.
The 53-year-old, a former Palace player, had been closely linked to the post at Selhurst Park as Warnock attracted criticism for a series of bizarre rants at press conferences in which he spoke incoherently.
"He just wasn't making any sense," said Pardew of the incidents, which saw Warnock employ words apparently at random. "There's maybe an argument that the pressure's got to him a little bit. It's probably fair to say that he got more abuse from opposition fans than most. It's a shame for me, personally, because I like Neil and I love the football club. I do believe I could have turned things around."
BREAKING NEWS: PREMIER LEAGUE FOLDS AFTER FFP DISGRACE
By George Ankers
In the most spectacular catastrophe that football has ever seen, the mighty commercial empire of the Premier League has fallen after months of internal and external investigations forced over half of its members to be forcibly relegated or cease trading altogether.
Though several teams had been forced to withdraw in recent weeks, events sped into more urgent motion in early February when Stoke City became the latest side to be directly audited by Fifa, though the news was kept quiet for several days before the Potters were found guilty of massive financial malpractice and shut down. Their demise was swiftly followed by a similar scandal at Newcastle United, at which point England's top division was simply no longer stable enough to continue.
Tottenham and QPR are understood to be the clubs who first proposed a motion to formally dissolve the Premier League before any more damage could be done, with terrified chief executives hastily agreeing to salvage what could still be salvaged from the tattered remains of what had until only recently been the most successfully exported football competition in history.
EXCLUSIVE
By Oscar Rudd
It's a warm July afternoon in Sandbanks as I meet Harry Redknapp at his lavish south-coast home. I am led from the gate by Jermain Defoe to a picturesque balcony overlooking the beach, where the former manager sits on one of two comfy deckchairs (each of which has a car door built onto the arms), prodding in awkward fascination at a mobile phone as if it were an Arthur C. Clarke obelisk.
He smiles as I compliment his home, particularly the solid-gold space shuttle platform at the far end of his extensive grounds, still visible from our spot towering over the exotic imported trees and custom-built rollercoasters that make up his recently extended estate. "It's absolutely top-class work, it absolutely is," he tellsGoal. "The chairman takes care of all of that, really, and I couldn't have asked for more. The builders have come in and really done a job for us in the middle of the garden."
The renovations, coming so soon after the last of the Premier League's money mysteriously disappeared from a Monaco bank account as it was being prepared for distribution between the remaining member clubs, have been questioned by some fans but Redknapp's jowls rumble angrily when I broach the subject of the criticism sent his way.
"I've got no time for that rubbish," he fumes. "All these people on the Twitter and what have you ... I'm not having it. I'm not a fackin' wheeler-dealer and I'm not a fackin' tax evader. I'm just enjoying my retirement." He winds down the window on the other arm of his chair to shoo away his dog, Rosie, who has emerged onto the balcony sporting a diamond-encrusted doggie onesie.
As our chat comes to an end, Defoe returns to collect me. As I shake Redknapp's hand, I ask him how the former striker is settling in as his butler. "He's a top, top, top butler, there's no doubt about it," says the 68-year-old. "I'd like to get one or two more bodies in before September, though. I just haven't got the competition in the kitchen. I tried to get Younes Kaboul in on loan but he just didn't get the pie baked that I needed. I told him my Sandra could've done better and he might not like that but he's got to do better, for me."
Regular readers should note that George Ankers left Goal shortly after this interview was arranged "to spend more time with my voodoo dolls".
