Columnists Archives - Page 24 of 78 - Inside World Football

Matt Scott: TPO ban is welcome, but now the hard work begins

“There’s not any other profession in the world where investors can buy stakes in a human being.” Theo van Seggelen, FIFPro

Football, said the former England striker Jimmy Greaves, is a funny old game. But so too is the business of it. In no other sector than the sports industry do men willingly agree to become the tradable chattels of others. It is true that the football transfer market has come a long way from the time decades ago when players were instructed to move to a specific club with no input at all into the trade.

Martin Volkmar: 2014, the year of German football. And 2015?

As we settle back over the holidays and watch the pictures of the numerous annual reviews, memories of a grandiose summer come sweeping back.

For six weeks the country trembled, hoped and feared, until the final whistle on the wonderful evening of July 13 in Rio de Janeiro.

Andrew Warshaw: Going bananas but not slipping on the skin

As Sepp Blatter strapped in his seatbelt, lay back and sipped his first drink, alcoholic or otherwise, as he flew out of Morocco following one of the most tempestuous weeks of his 16-year FIFA presidency, he probably allowed him a wry smile.

Archive

David Owen: FIFA finances – new $62.7m teaser on the Marrakech express

By David Owen
It was lost – understandably – in the Kafkaesque farce surrounding the Garcia report, but last week’s meeting of the FIFA executive committee in Marrakech has left us business of football types with another financial teaser to savour.

Archive

Inside Insight: There’s good money to be made in ethics

There’s good money in ethics, really good money. More than you can get for crawling up the greasy pole to a position on FIFA’s executive committee if you are clever. And when you think you have trousered enough of it, you can time your exit with maximum effect, champion the high ground (doubtless standing on your own wallet stuffed full of other people’s cash/stash/development grants) and leave with a fantastic reputation.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Russian 2018 organisers face taxing task as inflation takes off

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“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” Vladimir Iliych Lenin

The Russian bear was dancing when it held the winter Olympics and won its bid to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. All the while it was growling a demonstration of its aggressive fighting strength in the Caucasus. But, for the moment at least, one of the world’s most historically important nations is cowed.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: This football business is not all bad

Covering the murky, newsy, side of football can be an unpleasant business.

Frequently leading you away from what you loved about the game in the first places. Encapsulated in recent years by the scandal surrounding the games governing body.

Archive

David Owen: World Cup vs Winter Olympics: manoeuvring to avoid a potentially damaging 2022 clash

One of the qualities that have underpinned Sepp Blatter’s long career in sports administration/politics is his bouncebackability. This was on display again in Monaco last week.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Two cheers for Indian football

On the wall outside DYPatil stadium in what is navi Mumbai, the city that has been developed beyond the narrow confines of the south of the island where I grew up, there is a poster which reads: Come on India, let’s football.

Martin Volkmar: Will the Bundesliga take the next step?

Could this be as good as it gets for the Bundesliga as it challenges its European ‘partners’on the field and off it for European and commercial dominance?

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Fourth pretences from underachieving clubs

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers is a master, a genius. If only it were as a football coach.

No, his gifts come in a much more productive area for the modern manager, that of positive spin and subtle self-praise. First spotted from him in that toe-curling American-flavoured documentary inside the club from 2012 and used to full effect as Liverpool meekly exited the Champions League with 5 points out of a possible 18. In a group that included Basle and the mighty Ludogorets.

Martin Volkmar: Manuel Neuer is an outside hope in the cult of the goalscorer

Manuel Neuer rightly belongs to the top three for the choice of world footballer of the year. But whether he has a chance against Messi and Ronaldo, is questionable.

But one thing is certain: Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Manuel Neuer in the opinion of FIFA, are the three best footballers on the planet.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Don’t bother pitching for sponsors if you’re not winning on the pitch

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“There can be only one,” Connor MacLeod, Highlander

Arsène Wenger might have you believe that competing in the Champions League matters; that an attractive style of play is important. But he is wrong. Football today is all about winning, and as a graduate in economics he should know that.

Archive

David Owen: Football risks being left behind in world sport’s coming Asian decade

Like interplanetary bodies whose orbits momentarily align, two of the Big Beasts of world sport were to be found for a few hours last Friday within the confines of the same building.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Women’s football stakes its Wembley claim

Next year’s women’s World Cup in Canada will definitely feel a bit artificial. Only the turf though. The football itself will be embraced like never before. You sense the next level is about to be reached for the women’s game – and the evidence was on the real turf of one of the World’s great football stadiums, Wembley.