Michel Platini once bemoaned to me the extinction of the old-style ‘Number 10’, a position in which he, of course, excelled like few others.
“They have practically done away with le Numéro 10,” he said, sitting in a large office across the street from the Comédie Française.
“There is practically no longer an organiser.
The European Championship once again raises the question of whether we are right in believing that sport, and in particular football, can reach out to society in the way nothing else can. The answer so far from the Euros is a chilling one: those of us who believe in the redemptive power of modern sport need to re-examine our beliefs – or at least ask if we do not need to prepare much better before we burden sport with this heavy load of transforming society.
What goes around comes around. Ever since Frank Lampard was denied a clear goal when he crashed a shot against the underside of Germany’s crossbar at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the clamour for goal-line technology has become increasingly louder.
Fast forward two years to the 2012 European Championship in Donetsk last night and that clamour has now become a deafening roar.
This time England were the ones that had all the luck.
The latest Premier League television deal may have given some BT and British Sky Broadcasting shareholders the jitters.
But the alarm-bells will have been ringing much, much louder in non-English citadels of European footballing excellence from Barcelona to Munich.
The new tide of money that the £3 billion ($4.7 billion/€3.7 billion) settlement will send flooding into English Premier League club coffers from the 2013-2014 season should do much to restore the competitive advantage of English clubs in the top European competitions.
Some spread themselves out on restaurant seats, in shop doorways or on any piece of concrete they could find a spot to catnap. Others sat quietly, frequently yawning, peering longingly at their watches, drinking countless cups of coffee. The younger ones, faces still painted, scarves still brazenly hanging from their necks, continued the revelry of the previous few hours, laughing and joking, laden with cans of beer and dried sandwiches.
Welcome to Poznan railway station as we waited,
It can be so easy to jump on a bandwagon, particularly when it comes to race relations. Once the tide of popular opinion gets rolling, why not hop on and enjoy the ride alongside the rest of the onions in the cart.
The huge uproar at the outrageous anti-semitism, blatant homophobia and openly held Nazi ideals exhibited and highlighted in the Ukraine and Poland has rightly been condemned.
In classic tabloid journalism style,
Racist chanting, fans clashing with police, Governments threatening a boycott over Ukraine’s human rights record – and all manner of other negative publicity on an almost daily basis. Nobody can say European football’s governing body weren’t warned.
Later this week, I am travelling to the 2012 European Championship to try to see for myself just how risky UEFA’s decision was in granting the tournament to Poland and Ukraine.
In all likelihood,
The non-selection of Rio Ferdinand for the 2012 European Championship now resembles one of those tragedies where you start with one story and end up with something so different you can hardly recognise the starting point. And to think that Ferdinand should be the one who suffers the most collateral damage when he is not even involved in whatever John Terry may or may not have said to his brother Anton.
However, unlike many others in the game,
European football is proving more resilient than many businesses in the face of the fiscal and economic shadows hanging over Europe.
But, as the new Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance* makes clear, not everything is rosy in the rose-garden.
Take Spain, home of arguably Europe’s two leading clubs – Barcelona and Real Madrid.
With Manchester City winning the Premier League, Chelsea the Champions League and Malaga qualifying for Europe’s top competition next season, it may feel to some as though football’s soul has been permanently corrupted by the influence of ‘new money’.
Which is why events in Burgundy last night should warm the soul of football purists everywhere. Another of those teams who have reaped the rewards of a wealthy foreign owner, Paris St Germain, were beaten by a team,
Didier Drogba’s Champions League-winning penalty in last Saturday’s heart-stopping shootout in Munich may have been the greatest moment in the history of Chelsea football club but it also exposed arguably UEFA’s cruellest, most unjust regulation.
Just a fortnight ago, Chelsea came sixth in the Premier League equalling their worst, repeat WORST, position for a decade.
Under normal circumstances such a poor return by one of the richest clubs in the world would have relegated them to the Europa League.
Two European football giants, Bayern Munich (pictured below) and Chelsea (pictured bottom), will meet for the UEFA Champions League final this Saturday evening (May 19) in Munich. The match, pitting two of the biggest football nations, brings to the fore the power struggle we have seen between Germany’s Bundesliga and England’s Premier League, and between two economic powerhouses.
Back in 2009, we identified the Bundesliga as the main challenger to overtake the Premier League as the dominating force in European football.
This may not come as much comfort to Blackburn Rovers supporters, but one result of their relegation and how Venky’s, their Indian owners, have managed, or rather mismanaged, the club, is that, at last, high profile politicians may be persuaded that self-regulation in football does not work.
This could even lead to legislation. I am given to understand it might it, and if it does, it will mark a significant development in British football.
The conventional view in English football is that the Football Association, in going for Roy Hodgson as the next England manager, has made the safe choice. The argument is the people’s favourite, Harry Redknapp, would have been the bold move.
How utterly absurd. Redknapp (pictured below, on left alongside Hodgson) would have been the easy choice, hailed by the media and the supporters. It is Hodgson who is the brave, unconventional appointment, and the FA ought to be congratulated.
Penny for Harry Redknapp’s thoughts. Just when neutral fans everywhere were anticipating an imminent call from the English Football Association to the man dubbed the “people’s choice” to be the next England manager, the favourite to replace Fabio Capello has been overlooked in favour of Roy Hodgson.
The move has inevitably led to a media frenzy and emotion-packed accusations that the FA have bottled it, that yet another major blunder has been made by the inner sanctum responsible for choosing Capello’s successor.