11 August 2011 | Adam Leach
Channel 4
Monday 18 July, 8pm
★ ★ ★
This episode illustrated how quickly the supply chain can become murky without robust regulation and transparency.
The stars of the show were London Nominees, a Thailand-based company that had purchased everything it needed to serve as kingmaker to anyone who wanted to buy a football club, or two.
Here’s what you need: a company (in this case, Nominees), investors (The Football Fund), a credible ambassador (former England captain Bryan Robson), connections (London Nominees claimed close links with Alex Ferguson and Mohammed Bin Hammam), a figurehead to act as owner and a PR firm (to convince the fans that the purchase will bring good fortune). All of these can be acquired and once they are, anybody with enough money can have their own club and pull the strings behind the scenes.
Football may be a sport, but this show was the perfect justification for the bureaucracy and inefficiency that transparency can bring to business. If it did not exist, the potential for dodgy power brokers making dodgy business decisions would be rampant.
