Sugar daddy given Short shrift as Keane uses ‘box office’ value again
Credit must go to Ricky for a well-won point against the odds, but questions are once again going to be raised about the ownership of our club, something that both Keane and Quinn seemed eager to try and explain last week. Niall’s take is that American billionaire Ellis Short came on board as the Irish investment hit a stumbling block during the recession, but Sunderland AFC is still owned by the Drumaville consortium.
Keane reckons that Short was very involved and held several meetings with him to discuss the future of the club and suggested that Drumaville had little or no say in what goes on at the club any more. Short was also ringing Keane on a regular basis trying to find out what was happening. After the 4-1 defeat at home to Bolton last November, Roy’s finale as Sunderland manager, he chose to ignore the American, which later led to a rebuke from Short. Over-zealous, but it’s not that unusual for an employer to want to be able to speak to an employee when the shit hits the fan.
Quinn had cleverly preempted Keane’s piece by giving a load of interviews late in the week. Usually behind the scenes tittle-tattle would be saved for during the week when it’s quiet, rather than the day before visiting a Champions’ League side. Quinny clearly had a rough idea of the claims Keane would be making and he pulled the first punch to try and fight the fire. He failed. Niall himself has always described Keane as “box office” and he must have known that no matter how hard he tried, Roy’s craic would make the bigger story.
What’s worrying me now is that we’ll become involved in an embarrassing tit-for-tat argument which begins to destabilise our season. Keane’s admitted that our squad is full of also-rans that he signed purely to make up the numbers. Not only that, he appears to have had a dig at Ricky Sbragia, claiming that some of his coaching staff were too pally with players, something which resulted in half of player fines being returned upon Roy’s departure.
We’re sitting pretty in the league so we don’t need behind-the-scenes squabbles. Keane wasn’t content with his exit being low profile; Quinn wasn’t prepared to have our mystery American owner’s barely-known name dragged through the mud. Between the two of them they need to knuckle down and reach a compromise.
There’s a big feeling on Wearside that, as per the rule book, Roy acted like a big kid when he couldn’t get things his own way, so what’s he been up to since leaving? A trip to Universal Studios in Orlando to ride roller-coasters with former assistant Tony Loughlan. Way to show ‘em, boss. As much as I still like Keano, you couldn’t make it up sometimes. It’s nice that Roy also cleared up him never buying a house in Sunderland and instead commuting from Manchester, a two hour drive, for his occasional visits to the training ground. His version is that he just never found anywhere suitable for the family. I’m no estate agent, but I’m sure with his budget I’d have been able to find him somewhere nice enough without breaking the bank.
One thing is for certain after last week’s fiasco, we need a definitive answer to what’s going on at the club. So far, Niall Quinn has only discussed Ellis Short’s involvement with SAFC when pushed to extremes, such as intense fan pressure or Keane seemingly blurting out the truth. If Short’s involvement is purely a financial one with an aim to make money without ever setting foot near the city, then fair enough. If it’s a hobby and a nice way to pass a bit of time then it’d be frustrating but we’d know. But if he’s serious about Sunderland we need to know just how much power he wields and what his plans for us are.
* Read Martyn McFadden at www.a-love-supreme.com
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