Birmingham City’s still-acting chairman Peter Pannu recently dismissed Birmingham City supporter protests as something of a norm for English football. More of a norm for English football, however, is Pannu’s sense of self-worth, which is only matched by whoever is responsible for paying him £400,000 a year for his role at the football club. And attached to this heightened sense of self among certain personalities in English football is a heightened sensitivity to criticism, which almost appears to be directly proportional to the justification FOR that criticism. Pannu, lest we forget, has been Birmingham City’s senior and best-paid executive during a period of considerable on-and-off-field decline at the club. It is tempting to suggest that if Pannu was on some form of performance-related pay, Blues’ debt problems would be considerably eased at a stroke. Instead, Pannu seems unperturbed at the prospect of adding to club expenditure by involving the club’s lawyers in a rather pointless spat with the Blues fan website Often Partisan (OP). OP is written by Blues fan Daniel Ivery, whose work in covering former club benefactor Carson Yeung’s recent trial on money-laundering charges was hugely comprehensive and informative, right up to Yeung’s conviction last week on all five money-laundering offences with which he was charged and his sentencing to six years in prison. Ivery even travelled to Hong Kong on a number of occasions to report...
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