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Lee Wellings: Never mind World Cup – Zlat’s Entertainment

I have a confession.

Nothing too bad, I haven’t expanded a tournament from 16 to 24 teams or anything like that.

It’s about an autobiography I haven’t read. That of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

As I am a sport correspondent for a world network…as he is one of world’s best players…as he also has employers in Qatar (he earns more)…as he is one of sport’s most interesting characters…and the book has plenty of good reviews…don’t you agree I should have read it?!

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Michel Platini needs help not abuse

Now you may think Michel Platini can look after himself and does not need the help of others, certainly not journalists like me, who in terms of footballing skills, would not be entitled to carry his boots let alone lace them. But he might do well to consider that he needs to learn how to present his ideas better and, what is more, make sure his announcements have been preceded by proper debate so that the thinking football public,

Andrew Warshaw: Za’atari – where football provides hope and has humbling purpose

I had been warned in advance. It will be the most humbling experience of your career, said a colleague. It will move you to tears and put football into stark perspective.

It was all those things – and more.

In a week when most of the footballing banter was about the 2016 European qualifying draw or who would progress from the cash-rich Champions League, far removed from the Real Madrids and Chelseas of this world,

Archive

Inside Insight: Let’s destroy Russia, Qatar – and of course Brazil

It is a bit rough to be writing about such enormously important things like football when the world around us appears to be going completely bonkers. Wars in every corner of the square-headed globe, some idiot developing and launching ever “better” drones (they kill faster and with laser gun precision), robots that will replace humans by 2029, and are smarter – well, hardly a difficult task considering the stupidity that reigns everywhere where humans congregate.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Football’s new megastars are worlds away from the players of yore

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“I have hit rock bottom and I don’t see any way out of it,” Chelsea’s former European Cup Winners’ Cup winner, Alan Hudson

Alan Hudson is 62 years of age now but when he was the playmaker for a useful Chelsea team during the 1970s he was one of the Kings of the King’s Road. He was a household name, leading a lifestyle as flamboyant as the football he played over the 400-plus top-flight appearances he made as the creative force of clubs that consistently challenged for trophies.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: The real art of management in Nigeria is keeping the job

In the sensible regions of planet football, a manager that does the tough work of qualifying a team for a World Cup finals has earned the right to manage the team at it.

But what is obviously the logical, common-sense thing, is certainly not the established rule in Nigerian football, where they operate from a different playbook.

Over the last 20 years, as well as in the four tournaments the Super Eagles have played in (1994,

Archive

David Owen: Kosovo’s Vokrri looks forward to end of isolation

Well over 50 international football matches will be played on Wednesday, March 5.

They include some 2015 Asian Nations Cup games, Spain versus Italy and Portugal v Cameroon. They provide one of the last opportunities for experimentation for many of the qualifiers for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

And yet the most significant fixture to be played that night pits the world’s 79th -ranked team against a side that does not yet have any ranking.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Should Europe’s top clubs be depressed by deflation?

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“Inflation is unjust and deflation is inexpedient. Of the two perhaps deflation is, if we rule out exaggerated inflations such as that of Germany, the worse; because it is worse, in an impoverished world, to provoke unemployment than to disappoint the rentier,” John Maynard Keynes, Essays on Persuasion

Whether or not you have heard of John Maynard Keynes, and whatever you might think of the orthodoxies (libertarians mostly consider him a false prophet of the dismal science,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: UEFA sacrifice quality with 24-carat mistake

UEFA’s week will go from the sublime to the ridiculous

Tuesday and Wednesday are proud days for the organisation. The Champions league returned with slavering anticipation, an open tournament, some fascinating ties, and barely a negative word.

Thursdays and the ghastly Europa League usually raise questions over UEFA formats. But this week it will be shameful Sunday.

Archive

Inside Insight: No Swiss at the World Cup – really?

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February 9, 2014 is a day to remember in many more ways than one.

It is not an earthquake that hit something somewhere. It is not a flood that engulfed English villages (although that happened too) and it is not some major lottery win that would have astounded folks around Europe (although that also happened).

February 9, 2014, is a day of shame (for 49.7% of the voting public) or indeed a day of glorious victory (for the slim majority of the voters,

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Sochi and the lessons Brazil can learn

On the face of it a winter Games should hold no lessons for a summer football World cup. Yet Sochi 2014 does have lessons for Brazil 2014 and it would be unwise of the Brazilians to ignore what is taking place along the Black Sea.

Brazil it must be said starts with an advantage that Sochi could never have had. For anyone interested in football Brazil is the home of football. England may have invented the game and framed the rules but Brazil,

Andrew Warshaw: Qatar needs time to clean up its act

Amid the often emotional rhetoric and highly-charged language used by human rights and trade union leaders at this week’s European Parliament session denouncing Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers were the usual trademark demands for the country to be stripped as 2022 World Cup hosts.

This is not being an apologist for some of the Gulf state’s notoriously archaic and antiquated laws. I, as much as anyone, believe that Qatar needs to rid itself of the totally unacceptable kafala employment system that has no place in the modern era and which French-Algerian footballer Zahir Belounis so movingly brought to the attention of fans worldwide.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: South Africa must confront the bitter truth

Had Fikile Mbalula, South Africa’s angry minister for sport, possessed a statutory right to execute members of Bafana-Bafana, for their dismal performance at the last Championship of African Nations (CHAN), I have little doubt he would have been sorely tempted to use it.

I’m also certain that some equally irate fans would have gladly paid for the privilege of watching the deed being done.

Having failed to qualify for the knockout rounds of the tournament they were hosting,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Balotelli lies a crying shame

Do you want to find racism from football fans? Do you want to find racism from football fans in Italy specifically? It won’t take you long.

So no need to invent stories on the subject. Claims that Mario Balotelli was reduced to tears after being racially abused in Naples appear dangerous and counter-productive. Misguided and premature. This subject is too important to treat with such a lack of care.

One of the first things I was taught in journalism by the legendary Reg Hayter was ‘fact is sacred,

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Drifting into a storm? How football must manage its divergence in riches

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“Riches, one may say, are like sea-water; the more you drink, the thirstier you become.” Arthur Schopenhauer, Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit

It was in 1851 that the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote his Wisdom of Life. At the time European empires bestrode the globe and an upper class of landowners and industrialists dominated the social landscape within nations. A militaristic thirst for still more riches brought about the conflict of the Great War,