James Dostoyevsky: The King says he’s going soon. Let the run for his clothes begin
The 48th UEFA Congress in Paris on February 8 turned truly interesting after it was over.
Columnists
The Burleanu Burlesque
By James Dostoyevsky
As if football didn’t have other problems – between a Turkish club president assaulting a referee on the pitch and VAR turning into the most hated new tech distorting football results – a novel and stupefying proclamation emanated from Vlad the Impaler’s homeland, Romania this week.
Why buy?
There is a pretty good response given to a US oligarch (they prefer to call them billionaires, over there) in the series “BILLIONS”, when he wanted to buy an NFL franchise. “When you are allowed into the circle of NFL Franchise Owners, it means you are royalty. You are not”. Short shrift and all, it was a wake-up call for the US tycoon who thought that money can buy it all.
James Dostoyevsky: Gianni, quo *tf vadis?
Sometimes, it looks like he can’t do anything right, doesn’t it? He blabbers about football solving the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, he lectures about his being gay today, his being a migrant worker yesterday, and quite generally to be utterly misunderstood – every day.
That World Cup race again. It’s coming
Will anything change? Ever? Has FIFA cleaned its Augean Stables of US/Latino making? Corruption, bribery, kick-backs, nepotism, favoritism – have they all disappeared, are they gone with the wind? The wind of (US-controlled) change?
“Quo vadis FIFA?”, one might ask, eight years later.
Salty thoughts, infant style
With the Qatar 2022 World Cup gone, with Pelé having succumbed to colon cancer (“every country should now have a Pelé stadium”, GI Joe said), with Argentina having won the Cup, with (North) African football having put its foot down, with Asian football proving what Salman’s predecessor said was right when he claimed that the future was Asia…
Derision and division: Infantino’s Qatar legacy
By Andrew Warshaw
November 21 – Two weeks ago, as organisers put the finishes touches to 12 years of planning, the president of FIFA and his trusted number two – clearly alarmed about their showpiece tournament being undermined by constant criticism over Qatar’s human rights record – took the unprecedented step of pleading with the 32 finalists to concentrate on the football and not to preach morality.
A Premier League All-Star game? The devil might be in the detail
An All-Star game for the Premier League? I cannot imagine it would be my cup of tea: too much predictable outrage over who’s in and who’s out; too much showboating in a fairly limited competitive context.
Thanks Vlad – $1tn oil windfall to trigger new wave of Gulf investment
August 24 – Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, Newcastle United: Middle East-based interests have already snapped up their share of Western trophy sports assets. The region has also hosted dozens of high-profile international sports events, none more glittering than the FIFA World Cup, whose kick-off in tiny but mega-wealthy Qatar is now less than three months away.
Forest’s 3-Billion-Dollar-Man. Portrait of a Greek entrepreneur
July 13 – When Evangelos Marinakis took over Nottingham Forest five years ago, the fans were dancing sirtaki in the streets. Central England’s Midlands town, Nottingham, is stooped in history (and not only because of its role in the Robin Hood legend), just as is its biggest club, Nottingham Forest FC.
FIFA’s 2021 not-so-transparent financials
By David Owen
April 1 – There’s more than one way to skin a cat. FIFA succeeded in meeting its 2021 revenue projections. Indeed, it exceeded them somewhat, securing $766.5 million against a budgeted $742 million. But the route the football body took to arrive at this happy conclusion is far different from that expected – and somewhat mysterious.
War and a Piece
By James Dostoyevsky
While FIFA offered up some lukewarm criticism of its best friend at the Kremlin – without naming the blatantly obvious, namely the criminal attack of Ukraine – its own Gianni, The Leader – proud recipient of the Putensian Russian Order of Friendship in May 2019 – seems to have some issues with reality. And with understanding criminal conduct.
Of Codes, Ethics and Infantino’s collision course: how is he still in office?
By James Dostoyevsky
When you leaf through the Regulations of FIFA, all sorts of useful titbits come to light. The global governing body of football claims this in its Code of Conduct: “FIFA bears a special responsibility to safeguard the integrity and reputation of football worldwide.” The FIFA Code of Conduct also claims that it ‘defines the most important core values for behaviour and conduct within FIFA as well as with external parties’.