There’s a hugely culturally important scene in the movie So I Married An Axe Murderer, where Mike Myers (playing his own dad) explains How Stuff Works to his son’s friend. “Well,” he barks, “it’s a well-known fact, sonny Jim, that there’s a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world known as The Pentaverate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and who meet triannually at a secret country mansion in Colorado known as … The Meadows.” The friend humours him by asking who’s in this Pentaverate. “The Queen, the Vatican, the Gettys, the Rothschilds,” comes the reply, “AND Colonel Sanders before he went tits up …”
I was reminded of this when I read of the latest theory about football bias: in this case, the notion that Match of the Day pundits, including Ian Wright, are biased against Arsenal. This claim is hotly disputed – mostly by the pundits in question, but also, tacitly, by all the fans of other clubs who know that, actually, it’s their club against which Match of the Day is biased. And the newspapers and the referees. Well – I have news. But before we go any further I want you to be absolutely sure that you want to take football’s reddest pill, because there’s really no going back once you have. OK?
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