Engage Brain First...Then Open Mouth

Today there will be a Premier League shareholders meeting. So far, so boring, right? But, on the agenda of this meeting is a motion to urge Lord Stevens to disclose which clubs are not involved in his further investigation into illegal payments in football.

Stevens - former Head of The Metropolitan Police - , if you'll remember, has been hired by the FA to investigate bungs. At a press conference a couple of months back, he said that he wanted to further investigate 39 deals done by 8 Premiership clubs.

But these Premier League chairman think that their clubs "have been tainted by the accusations" even though they are innocent, so they want Lord Stevens to name the clubs not involved.

Um..well, I don't know about you, but if Lord Stevens says 'OK, it's not Man Utd, it's not Spurs, it's not Aston Villa, etc., etc,' it's not going to take a brain surgeon to work out which clubs are being investigated, is it ? And then those clubs really will be "tainted by accusation" if even it turns out that they've done nothing wrong.

I would suggest that Premier League chairmen engage their brains first, and then open their mouths. Not the other way around.