Columnists Archives - Page 63 of 78 - Inside World Football

Mihir Bose: Blatter’s turn towards Europe shows him at his best as he attempts FIFA clean up

Could 2012 be the year when football finally begins to accept that it can longer disregard the wider world?

2011 has been the year of the great “no”. The game tried hard to carry on with the fiction that all of football’s problems can be solved behind the front door of the family mansion irrespective of what the outside world may expect.

It has always been curious that the world’s most popular game is so conservative and resistant to change.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Tottenham’s de-listing from the stock market highlights uncertainty amongst English clubs

Tottenham Hotspur’s decision to de-list from the stock market deserves more than to be buried in the footnotes as one of those curious things football club directors indulge in.

Not only is it a reversal of a policy that Tottenham inaugurated more than 30 years ago, but it also highlights that modern English football clubs have just not worked out what is the right structure for them.

What a contrast to the continent where German,

Andrew Warshaw

Andrew Warshaw: Suarez and Terry race rows shows English football won’t sweep racism under the carpet

Two prominent Premier League footballers, two cases of alleged racism, two dramatic verdicts. Season of goodwill? Not for all of us.

In the space of just 24 hours, the issue of racism between players on the field has plunged the English game back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: The gulf that separates the American and British sporting model has yet to be bridged

In the last few weeks, readers of the sports pages of British newspapers may have been forgiven for thinking we are facing another American revolution. Having given the distinct impression that they had joined a new order of sporting Trappist monks on crossing the pond, American owners of English clubs have suddenly become as voluble as teenagers let out of school. Or at least two very prominent owners have.

Yet what they have said shows that there is still a vast gulf between the old world and the new when it comes to sport.

David Owen: These boots are made for scoring – how the Nancy Sinatra rule is going to change my life

I latched onto a major story on Friday.

This was the day, remember, that Britain turned its back on Europe.

That tensions ratcheted up at the Climate Change summit in Durban.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: FIFA should fear new mood after International Olympic Committee investigation

The wider impact of the investigation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Ethics Commission into Joao Havelange, Issa Hayatou, Lamine Diack, three of the most powerful men in world sport, cannot be overestimated.

The treatment of the three men may not appear all that drastic. But there is a message here about the way the IOC is prepared to react to the demands that the administrators of world sport and, in particular, football must become more accountable and transparent.

David Owen: When all is said and done, Havelange was one of the towering figures of 20th century sport

The weekend reports claiming that João Havelange had resigned as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) brought to mind two images from recent IOC Sessions.

The first is from Copenhagen in 2009.

The Brazilian, who as FIFA President once shared with the late Juan Antonio Samaranch the billing of ‘Most Powerful Man in World Sport’, is inviting fellow members of the IOC club to Rio de Janeiro to celebrate his 100th birthday in 2016.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: As football becomes more of a business, moving jobs for money is no longer a sin

We may have reached an historic moment with modern, highly paid footballers. They may finally be ready to tell the truth when they move club. The truth is that what motivates them is not the glory of the club they are going to, nor its wonderful supporters, nor even the honours they might win, but how much money the new club will put in their bank account.

I have long believed that the refrain of modern footballers,

Andrew Warshaw

Andrew Warshaw: One year on from the World Cup ballots and the scepticism is showing no sign of slackening

Happy Anniversary? Depends where your allegiances lie. But my, how time flies.

Exactly a year ago today, December 2, we were sitting in the cavernous Messe in Zurich eagerly awaiting the results of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup ballots.

You could almost cut the tension with a knife as one after the other, the candidates gave their final presentations in a bid to get over the line after months of painstaking,

Andrew Warshaw

Andrew Warshaw: Gary Speed suicide shows high-profile football figures not immune to pressures of life

Bill Shankly, the legendary former Liverpool manager, is remembered for many things, not least his famous remark – paraphrased by all and sundry since – that football isn’t life and death, it’s far more important.

If ever that observation, made in good faith at the time by a passionate man who lived and breathed the game, was shown up to be somewhat of an exaggeration, it is right now as the football world continues to take stock of Gary Speed’s untimely death.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Blatter’s outrageous racism comments have done untold damage to him and FIFA

Sepp Blatter may believe the furore he provoked by his comments on racism in football is behind him. He could not be more mistaken. He will have to live with the consequences of his absurd comment that if there is racism on the field of play it can be got rid of by a post-match hand shake.

Worse still, the damage he has done to FIFA, when the organisation is already so beleaguered, cannot be overestimated.

David Owen: Could financial fair play be ruled offside by an all-out eurozone crisis?

Here’s a thought for these turbulent financial times in Europe: Could UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations (FFP) survive a collapse of the Euro?

These are the rules through which the governing body’s boss Michel Platini hopes to save European football from itself by, to oversimplify outrageously, obliging clubs to operate on a break-even basis.

Columnists

David Gold: Is Beckham’s success in the US yet to come?

David Beckham’s American adventure had the fitting end it was meant to have, as LA Galaxy beat Houston Dynamo 1-0 in the MLS Cup final on Sunday – but then in showbiz, things always seem to go to plan.

So where next for Posh and Becks? So far Beckham’s career has gone from Manchester to Madrid, to Los Angeles to Milan and back (twice), and so Paris would seem a logical next step.

Andrew Warshaw

Andrew Warshaw: Why didn’t the rest of the world care as much about Blatter racism remarks as Britain?

Now that the outrage over Sepp Blatter’s unfortunate remarks about racism is receding somewhat, let’s take stock of the entire episode.

Blatter’s comments, as we all know, made headline news across the UK but the fact is they were hardly reported anywhere else; at least not with the same ferocity. Why was that?

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: It’s time European sports administrators studied US model to combat match fixing

Britain and Europe have never been easy bedfellows and the turmoil of the eurozone may lead to a further, even permanent, alienation. Yet, ironically, in sport Britain is not on the periphery of Europe, but leading the way.

Nothing illustrates this better than the vote on Tuesday (November 15) in the European Parliament about match fixing. This, as UEFA President Michel Platini keeps repeating, is, “the biggest threat facing the future of sport in Europe”.