Premiership managers will be reaching for the thesaurus in December as they are asked to take part in Cliché-free December.
"I'm fed up to the back teeth of all the clichés," said Ed Balls minister for sport. "So we had a blue sky meeting and came up with cliché-free December."
Balls has said that for every cliché used by a Premiership manager a thousand pounds will be donated to the Ed Balls Charitable Foundation.
"Basically, at the end of the day," said Balls, "We want to see an interview with no implausible maths, such as a hundred and ten percent, or every blade of grass. If the team's been lucky, we'd like the manager to say so and not refer to rubbed greens."
Managers of teams from Arsenal to Wigan have been shamed into taking part.
"We told the managers that it was for a good cause, and it would show them to be more imaginative than people think they are," said Balls. "Some of them have a mountain to climb to come up with new phrases."
Some of the managers are looking forward to broadening their vocabularies.
"At the end of the day," said David Moyes, manager of Everton, "it's a big ask. I'm sure we can rise to the challenge and keep December cliché free. I'm setting my stall out early and taking each day as it comes. What do you mean? That'll be five grand?"
