Who are three biggest names in the Premier League? The three stars, the three headline makers? You’re not thinking of footballers are you? As if they are still important. It’s all about managers now. Wenger this, Mourinho that, Van Gaal the other.
“Connectivity will be an enabler. Transparency for better government, education, and health.” Bill Gates
Eighteen months and 430 pages have gone into Michael Garcia’s report for the FIFA ethics committee into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding, and there have been acres more pages of newsprint produced on the back of it. It was the highest-profile measure to emerge from the Independent Governance Committee’s strategic review of FIFA’s operations.
Well, there will be one on May 29, 2015, and it seems pretty clear who the winner will be.
The bad part is that those who shriek “democracy”, “transparency” and shout for competing candidates, do nothing about it.
Enter football’s new old friend Greg Dyke. It is one thing to decry Blatter’s way of leading world football. And it is similarly easy to jump on the bandwagon but remain an onlooker.
It is impossible to feel any sympathy for Qatar. An oil-rich Gulf state which somehow manages to get the World Cup and then lavishes money to try and convince the world it can not only stage the event but contribute to a better understanding of the world of sport hardly qualifies for sympathy. The immediate response would be there are far worthier subjects to feel sorry for. Yet as Qatar continues to get a bad press we must ask ourselves what is Qatar doing wrong and can they ever get out of this terrible spiral of distrust and dislike?
“When his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him.” Daniel 5:20, the King James Bible
“Working hard all your life is a talent.” Ryan Giggs
Greg Dyke last week issued the second instalment of his Football Association Chairman’s Commission report and there were a number of welcome developments contained within.
It was in the Fishmongers Hall, yes the Fishmongers Hall, chasing investigator Michael Garcia through tables of lunching American lawyers, that the World Cup bid story reached the level of high farce.
Consider the scene. A lawyer who, perhaps advantageously, knew little of football when he took on the independent investigation into the 2018/2022 bid process. Hired, to its credit, by FIFA. Telling his dining peers endearingly that the only live football he had watched was his daughter’s year 12 games.
I have just returned from Monaco and an absorbing few days at the Sportel convention cum media rights bazaar. Boiling it down, I can recollect three moments worth recording for future reference.
Publish Michael Garcia’s report or be damned. The clarion call to FIFA from a collective raft of influential football powerbrokers, anti-corruption watchdogs and vast swathes of the media intensifies on an almost daily basis.
I have been privileged to receive, in advance of this week’s Sportel sports content media convention in Monaco, a briefing on 2014 World Cup viewing trends from a leading specialist in the field. The briefing – from Kevin Alavy, managing director – mediabrands at Futures Sport+Entertainment, a US-based sports research consultancy – was unofficial in nature. But it gives an idea of what to expect when the official television audience report for the tournament is published by FIFA.
Going up the property ladder, selling your existing home for profit and then moving to a bigger better home, is something we take for granted. But for football clubs finding a new home, or even making the existing one bigger is very often a nightmare and can cause enormous problems. If clubs are not careful they can go into ruinous debt which can threaten their very existence.
I have to admit I wouldn’t normally dwell on an announcement by FIFA President Sepp Blatter that the FIFA Executive Committee had decided that the football association of a rocky 2.3 square mile enclave at the tip of the Iberian peninsula cannot be accepted as a member of FIFA.
Ma Yun and his company Alibaba, have arrived on the world stage. The company’s blockbuster IPO in New York on September 19 turned the company the second biggest internet company in the world. The evaluation of the company surpassed $220 billion after the first day on the market, for the following several days, even though there was a reasonable fall in its price, it still worth more than $210 billion.
The other day, a reporter proclaimed how “sources close to Garcia” stated that Qatar won’t be sanctioned. She then proceeded to criticise the fact that FIFA’s Task Force, which deals with the international calendar – and as such also with the mayhem Qatar 22 may or may not cause – was discussing possible dates for the Qatar World Cup “as if nothing had happened”. Drip, drip sarcasm. So, here we go then:
Transparency. It’s clear to see what an easy word it is to throw around. Get it wrong, fake it, claim it, and people will see through you. But genuinely aspire to deliver it, and do it voluntarily, however tough that path is, can do wonders for reputation. Of an individual or organisation.
No-one could possibly argue with Wembley being chosen as host for the climax of Euro 2020. England’s national stadium is among the finest in the world while the country had the best bid and has not held a major football tournament since 1996. But anyone who believes there was no politics involved in last week’s decision by UEFA’s executive committee should think again.