Columnists Archives - Page 25 of 78 - Inside World Football

Mihir Bose: Grow up Europe. You cannot change FIFA on your own

The row that has erupted over FIFA’s handling of the much trumpeted Michael Garcia report on the 2018 and 2022 World Cup means we are once again seeing a re-run of what is now sports oldest soap opera: how shall we reform FIFA? It is not often that bad movies get so many repeat showings, even on a dank, dull, evening in Bognor. But then this is FIFA – an organisation where the past is not a foreign country but one that is always being revisited.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: FIFA corruption allegations will drive sponsors away, to UEFA?

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“The negative tenor of the public debate around FIFA at the moment is neither good for football nor for FIFA and its partners.” Adidas statement, June 2014

Adidas has claimed that football is “the DNA of our company”. So when FIFA’s longest-serving commercial partner remarked publicly about the threat to football’s image presented by the many corruption allegations swirling around its governing body, Adidas revealed fears that its own reflection might become haggard.

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David Owen: Enough is enough: but can football leaders unearth a credible challenger

Enough, as disco queen and noted football authority Donna Summer observed sagely in the 1970s, is enough.

With the Garcia report fiasco now piled on top of the 2022 World Cup timing fiasco, right-thinking football leaders have a responsibility to come together and get behind a challenger strong enough to unseat long-term incumbent Joseph “Sepp” Blatter in next year’s FIFA Presidential election.

FIFA’s mono-dimensional World Cup-based economy has been going gangbusters enough in recent times for the seemingly endless stream of corruption allegations against football officials to be no more than a superficial irritant,

John Yan

John Yan: Platini’s style breaks down the Chinese walls 普拉蒂尼：中国足球必须依靠政府

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On the eve of November 11, the so called ‘Singles Day’ in Chinese internet language, two tired French gentlemen, dragging their luggage, took the shuttle bus from terminal 2 to terminal 3 in Beijing International Airport. Some passengers recognised that one of them was Michel Platini, and were astonished, others retorted that “How could the President of UEFA be getting on a shuttle bus in Beijing?”

Andrew Warshaw: When closure opens a new can of worms

It was supposed to be all about closure for FIFA. Done and dusted. No more subterfuge. No more finger pointing. Time to move on. After all, there’s a presidential election next year.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: FBI probe suggests FIFA is set for its ‘Salt Lake City moment – but not how you might expect

They say a week is a long time in football and the pace of change at FIFA has indeed been remarkable in the four years since the decision to award Russia and Qatar the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosting rights.

Since 2010, 12 of the 24 people who voted on the destinations of those World Cups are no longer involved in the FIFA ex-co. Some, such as Ricardo Teixeira, were proved to have been guilty of taking irregular payments at one time or another.

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David Owen: Premier League club profits are improving – so who is responsible? Lord Livingston, we presume

It is, to use the technical term, early doors in the English Premier League club financial reporting season. Publication this month of Everton’s figures brings to all of three the number of clubs who have so far reported. Yet 2013-14 is already shaping up to be a landmark year for profitability in the English top tier.

Andrew Warshaw: FIFA’s spygate opens new fronts of distrust and double-dealing

Why now, who leaked the information and what could the impact be on FIFA? Those are just three intriguing questions being asked in the wake of the stunning revelations in the New York Daily News that Chuck Blazer, who strode the corridors of power at FIFA for more than a generation, turned FBI informant to spy on several of his colleagues.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: FIFA now faces an altogether different spotlight

When FIFA awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar in favour of England and the United States it was a statement that resonated way beyond the confines of the world¹s football grounds and into the geopolitical sphere.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Groundhog Day for Qatar World Cup

One day at FIFA HQ, Zurich, I expect to see the familiar world weary face of actor Bill Murray on the path to the entrance, crouched on the steps peering into the flowers. Looking for a Groundhog. There have been more ‘Groundhog Days’ than I’d care to remember around the subject of, you know, begins with a Q. Ends in 2022. Well it will end at some stage of 2022, or even 2023. Who knows when exactly?

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why ECA shows football is still failing to make cool judgements

The whole business of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, and when it should be held, has again emphasised why sport, more than any other business, must make sure that it arrives at its decisions after very careful deliberation. Now you may say surely that is true of everything we do. Yes. But sport faces a problem no other business, indeed activity, does. This is that by its very nature people who follow sport tend to make instinctive judgements.

John Yan

John Yan: CSL cliffhanger keeps us hanging on 中超”第一悬念”

In the second to last round of the 2014 CSL season, Beijing Guoan FC went to Guangzhou to play defending champions Evergrande, Before the match, Beijing had 63 points, Guangzhou 69 points. A draw would secure the fourth consecutive title for Guangzhou.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: English football’s vanity project has run its course

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What defines a nation’s football status? Is it the senior-international trophies it has historically won? The depth of its leagues? Its grassroots participation? The quality of its top division, perhaps? Or is it the quality of its national stadium?

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David Owen: Parlons Platini – a quiet chat that offers insight

The question and answer format is much resorted to in France. To one more versed in the “cut-to-the-chase” school of Anglo-American journalism, however, it can come across as woolly, evasive and self-indulgent.

By relating a conversation word for word as it happened, or purporting to, the convention both implies that every cough and splutter uttered by the protagonists is worthy of the reader’s attention and largely abdicates the editing function.

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Inside Insight: That Ramadan Thing

So, the ECA came up with a brilliant suggestion: the 2022 World Cup should be held in May of that year. Because in May it ain’t that hot yet, they say … A good idea on the face of it.