Columnists Archives - Page 41 of 78 - Inside World Football

David Owen: A team of African-Europeans in honour of Eusébio

In 2002, I travelled to Sedan in northern France to watch a match against Lens that featured some of the Senegal players likely to represent their country in the opening match of that year’s World Cup against France.

Afterwards I wrote: “If Dakar-born Patrick Vieira were playing for the country of his birth, Senegal would have a real shout at springing the World Cup’s first upset.” I was wrong, of course: Senegal beat the then World Cup-holders,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Twitter World Cup Year – LOL!

Brazil 2014 will be the first World Cup dominated by twitter.

Not the first World Cup of the twitter age, but the first since twitter became an unstoppable juggernaut thundering through every town and city on earth.

For those who despair of the idiocy and indiscretion that drag down the positive side of this social phenomenon, a World Cup consumed by twitter commentary could be a depressing thought. It could be yes,

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Six lessons for 2014 and beyond

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“History… is the lesson and the example of the future,” Alphonse de Lamartine, Antar.

As one year rolls into another there is only the fading memory of what came before and an anticipation of what might be. Football’s cycles work to a different calendar, but it is worth considering how the lessons of 2013 might provide examples for what the future will hold in the second half of the 2013-14 season and beyond.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Faceless offshore funds and the mafia – funding football’s have-nots

TPOheatmap

“Key ECB interest rates will remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time,” Mario Draghi, ECB president, reaffirming the 0.5% European bank rate on 1 August 2013.

Ever since the financial crisis first struck, central banks across Europe and beyond have been locked in an arm wrestle with the invisible hand of Adam Smith’s markets. There has been much talk of a zero interest rate policy,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Winning is everything in the football business

Looking back through my Insideworldfootball columns throughout 2013 it struck me that with few exceptions, the subjects are actually bound by a common theme.

Whatever the story, without the angle, whatever the history and characters, and wherever in the world, there is one barely disputable rule of football 2013.

Winning is everything.

Archive

David Owen: What Luís Suárez has in common with Diego Maradona

Hands up everyone who thought that Liverpool would be top of the Barclays Premier League at Christmas.

In truth, the Merseysiders are precariously perched: their next two games are away at Manchester City and Chelsea respectively. Lose those and they would probably be back below local rivals Everton and out of the Champions League places before the year-end. A New Year’s Day engagement back at Anfield against newly-promoted Hull then has the look of an ideal fixture with which to stop the rot – until you remember that the Tigers claimed their first-ever win over Liverpool on Humberside less than a month ago.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Pieth’s farewell to football

With just days to the end of the year, and his tenure as the chair of FIFA’s Independent Governance Committee (IGC), you would think Mark Pieth is extremely glad to be well rid of an assignment he admitted has been extremely difficult to manage – getting the game’s chieftains to radically change the way they do business.

In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Pieth was quoted as telling the German newspaper that he “would not take on the task again,

John Yan

John Yan: China’s CSL shows growth but can it grow up? 职业化二十年，价值几何？

The 2013 edition of China Super League Value Report was recently released by Netease.com and Total Sports. This is the second edition of the annual report on professional football in China.

The report is divided into four parts: the management of the China Super League Company, which is a body like the English Premier League Committee; the second part covers the financial situation of the 16 clubs in the top division; the third part looks at a hot issue –

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: The streets with no names but only numbers that show the other Qatar

Bose pic 9

Much has been made in recent weeks of the terrible working conditions of migrant labour in Qatar. As the hosts for the 2022 World Cup, the spotlight was always going to be on the Gulf state but even then Amnesty International’s report on migrant workers presented a dreadfully bleak picture of the conditions of those involved in the infrastructure projects Qatar is undertaking as it prepares for its historic moment in the sun.

The Amnesty report mentioned that more than 80 migrant construction workers,

Andrew Warshaw: The Sack Race is on but are there really any winners?

It’s a familiar jibe at almost every game whenever a manager is under pressure to save his job. “Sacked in the morning, you’re getting sacked in the morning,” goes the refrain, belted out with gusto by fans of the opposing team as they taunt the manager in question.

The chant has become part of the fabric of the game in English football and it is around this time of year – in other words close to the mid-season transfer window –

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Been watching the Club World Cup in Morocco?

No I thought not.

It’s taken seriously in South America, where it feels like a Champions League final to them, a chance for the Copa Libertadores winners to topple the best from Europe.

And it occasionally makes its mark elsewhere. I still remember waking to the news that Zico’s Flamengo had humiliated Liverpool 3-0 in the annual Intercontinental game in Tokyo in 1981. I thought my team were indestructible before that.

Archive

David Owen: ‘Don’t play it again, Sepp’: Casablanca’s coup should not distract from the Club World Cup’s shortcomings

Congratulations to Raja Casablanca, whose 3-1 win over Ronaldinho’s Atletico Mineiro in Marrakech on Wednesday has earned them a match-up with Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich in the final of the 2013 FIFA Club World Cup.

The Moroccan side will be following a trail blazed by the magnificently-named Tout Puissant Mazembe Englebert, from the Congolese mining capital of Lubumbashi, who in 2010 became the first African team to contest a Club World Cup final,

Massimo Cecchini

Massimo Cecchini: Tears and recriminations over who is really going to pay in Italy

Le prime lacrime stanno già spuntando da occhi generalmente asciutti e abituati a sguardi ruvidi. Non siamo ancora arrivati a quella sorta di tassa sul lusso partorita dalla Francia del presidente Hollande, ma l’emendamento alla Legge di Stabilità presentato da Stefania Covello e Antonio Castricone, deputati del Partito Democratico, ha messo già in fibrillazione il calcio italiano.

La norma – a cui la Commissione Bilancio ha già dato il via libera col parere positivo del governo –

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: What Adidas’s row with Sports Direct tells us about the direction for sport

JD Sports Adidas

“In one way the constant battling was very good because what it did was make them very competitive. Horst and his family were all very aggressive and all very successful.” Former Horst Dassler aide Patrick Nally, as quoted by Andrew Jennings and Vyv Simson, The Lords of the Rings.

As the president of Adidas, Horst Dassler was until his death in 1987 arguably the most powerful man in sport.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Can Qatar learn from South Africa?

Nelson Mandela, as we have been told endlessly in the last few days, belongs to the world. So it was no surprise to arrive at the Doha Goals Forum last week to see that pictures of Nelson Mandela were festooned all over Aspire Academy, the multi purpose sports and conference venue where the forum was being held. Even had this not been the week when the eyes of the world were glued to Mandela’s funeral a forum such as Doha Goals,