The Business End.

This time of year is always referred to in the footballing community as "the business end of the season". In today's modern sporting environment, how true that statement is. The run-in to the end of the season that teams throughout England, Europe and all over the world are currently gearing up for has arguably never been more important due to the huge monetary rewards involved in finishing the season in a good position. Last year the Daily Mail reported that Premier League teams, for example, are offered £800k per place from the bottom they finish, scaling up from lowest to highest. This, they report, means that the prize for finishing 1st in the Premier League is roughly £16m, a total which is widely agreed to be not too far from the truth. Incredible, I know, and the incentive to get in to the Premier League in the first place is even greater.


For the 8, 9, 10 (even 11 depending on just how mad the end of the season is) Championship teams that are vying for promotion to the Premier League this season, the memories of Blackpool's promotion to the "Promised Land" last season will serve as no small reminder of the great rewards that come with stepping up just one tier in the English game. Conservative estimates state that Ian Holloway's team received/are receiving a total of £60m revenue from promotion, while others, such as the Daily Telegraph, put the figure as high as £90m. For some of the clubs involved, the long-suffering Leeds United for example, these amounts are quite simply unbelievable.

It is no wonder, then, that considering the vast importance of every game at this time in the season, players and managers alike are increasingly berating decisions made by match officials in important games. Sir Alex Ferguson accused referee Martin Atkinson of not being up to the task during Manchester United's crucial league defeat away at Chelsea, claiming Atkinson got several key decisions wrong. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger then complained about rookie official Anthony Taylor's wrongful disallowing of Andrei Arshavin's goal against Sunderland on Saturday, a goal that subsequently would have seen Arsenal close the gap on Manchester United, and £16m, to just a single point. Couple this with Wenger, and Arsenal key-man Samir Nasri's, comments about the frankly bizarre sending-off of Robin Van Persie in Arsenal's crucial Champion's League Knockout game against F.C Barcelona, and the 61-year-old coach is now facing a charge of improper conduct from governing body UEFA.

Arsenal striker Van Persie was sent off for shooting at goal after the flag has been raised for offside, an action which in usual circumstances would seem like an attempt at time-wasting. In this instance, however, Van Persie claimed that he was simply not able to hear the referee's whistle over the furore of 90,000 fans. After Van Persie's sending off, which occurred with the game fairly evenly poised at 1-1, Arsenal went on to concede two goals in a five-minute period which ended their Champion's League dream for another year, and Arsene Wenger and his players were understandably frustrated.

I am not saying that managers and players are right to criticise referees and other officials whenever they feel aggrieved in any match or specific in-game incident, certainly it is hard to argue that Arsenal were knocked out of the Champion's League because of one poor refereeing decision, but what I would say is that football's governing bodies need to show more consistency with the way such criticisms are responded to. To charge Wenger and Nasri with improper conduct, and in all likelihood find them both guilty, while other players such as Wilshere and Van Persie himself have been labelling the decision "pathetic", "a joke" and "disgusting" in interviews and on their Twitter accounts shows a damning lack of consistency from UEFA. The referee of the game Massimo Busacca, as I understand it, lodged the complaint against the two men for the way in which they spoke to him and the language they used. Now this aggressive behavior is not excusable, but I would simply make the point that in the incredible tension and disappointment of the moment it should be taken in to account that both Wenger and Nasri were not in their right state of mind. Similarly, UEFA should recognise that Busacca filed the complaint immediately after the game, where he too would have still been high on adrenaline, fresh from a blasting from the Arsenal manager.

Shouldn't UEFA, as a "responsible" organisation for the running of the sport in Europe, have given both parties a little more time to reflect on the situation before charging anyone with any wrongdoing? Would the "responsible" thing to do have not been to slap Wenger and Nasri with charges that would be hard enough to swallow even if they hadn't just been eliminated from an important tournament, worth millions to those who make it to the final stages, in what they consider unfair circumstances? All UEFA have achieved with their frankly irresponsible action is to lose yet more credibility in England with many football fans, at a time when football's governing bodies are unpopular to say the least, as well as isolating one of the most respected managers in the game.

The business end can wreak havoc on anybody's thought process, apparently even UEFA's.