Columnists Archives - Page 46 of 78 - Inside World Football

Andrew Warshaw: More questions than answers in the long ball game

As an autumnal evening sunlight settled over FIFA House in Zurich last Friday and a phalanx of cameramen packed away their equipment after a somewhat anti-climactic Sepp Blatter press conference that focussed almost entirely on Qatar, I found myself humming the lyrics to that 1970s hit, More Questions Than Answers, by Johnny Nash.

Two generations after it was released, I reasoned, one could quite easily apply the title of the reggae ditty to the position we are still in as far as the 2022 World Cup saga is concerned.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Brussels, not Westminster, may turn the tide for Barry Hearn’s Olympic Stadium bid

Disenchantment with Europe is now so prevalent in Britain that it seems hard to find anyone who looks to Europe to help their cause. Yet Barry Hearn, who has got nowhere in his fight to share the Olympic stadium with West Ham, may find Brussels rather than Westminster is his best bet.

At the moment, having spent three quarters of a million pounds in legal fees over three years and got nowhere –

Andrew Warshaw: Eerie calm before the desert storm

Whatever transpires at the eagerly awaited gathering of FIFA’s top brass in Zurich on Friday, any decision to switch the 2022 World Cup in Qatar from the searing heat of the Gulf summer has suddenly taken on additional intrigue following the revelation that FIFA’s chief corruption-buster is stepping up his investigation into the entire bid process for 2018 and 2022 to find out what, if any, illegal shenanigans took place.

FIFA’s executive committee,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Is ‘Open Season’ on Qatar fair?

In the three years since Qatar was awarded hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup I haven’t heard their Supreme Committee or anyone with power deny anyone the right to free speech, to question or to criticise the decision.

But what would be helpful is if the critics made sure they were accurate, well researched and fair.

Some chance.

It’s open season on the 2022 hosts, where many ‘commentators’

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Manchester United – where £50m is not all it seems

Manchester United’s three defeats from their first six Premier League matches have left the reigning champions in 12th place and the jokes are out already. Wags have begun calling them “Port Talbot” because they’re somewhere between Swansea and Cardiff.

This industrial-scale mess has prompted the new manager, David Moyes, to adopt a risky strategy. After defeat to West Bromwich Albion at home on Saturday he said his side lacked the “world-class players” required to win the Champions League.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Jordaan wins – but faces a huge challenge

If “a week is a long time in politics”, as the oft-quoted remark of the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill reminds us, 202 days is certainly an eternity.

That’s the period between March 10, when Danny Jordaan lost a second successive bid to earn a seat on the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and September 28 when he won, by a landslide, the South African Football Association (SAFA) presidential poll.

John Yan

John Yan: Money Talks EverGrandely

In a resounding match, Guangzhou EverGrande defeated Kashiwa Reysol 4:1 at the Japanese club’s home pitch in the first round of the semi-final of Asian Champions League, a place for Guangzhou in the final is almost a certainty.

This would be regarded as a great breakthrough for Chinese football, some media even described it as the twilight of the dark age. A series of records will be broken if Guangzhou could make it to the final and win it,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Chewing over the Suarez rehab

It surprised me that Luis Suarez didn’t mark his return to playing for Liverpool against Manchester United after a 157 day absence with a match winning performance. It’s so often the way with comebacks from self-inflicted adversity.

The returning ‘bad boy’ is welcomed gratefully back into the fold straight into the spotlight, and quickly reminds everyone of how much they’ve been missed with a flash of genius.

Most memorably Eric Cantona at Manchester United,

Archive

David Owen: Qatar and the 2022 World Cup – Expect Amazing, perhaps; Expect A Maze, definitely

Expect Amazing. As a writer, I was never a great fan of the Qatar 2022 World Cup bid slogan, on grounds of dodgy syntax.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see they were just one syllable away from a formulation that pretty well encapsulates what we have been going through since the Gulf state’s fourth-round December 2010 victory: Expect A Maze.

To summarise – with the third anniversary of Qatar’s moment of moments fast approaching,

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why Spurs supporters chanting yids devalue sport

Why should it matter if a section of Tottenham supporters chant yids?

I entirely take the point my colleague Andrew Warshaw has made that Spurs fans, “have for years used chants like “yid” and “Yid Army” not as term of abuse but exactly the opposite: as a badge of honour, of identity, of pride, of endearment.”

However I disagree with him that the chanting is now acceptable. Don’t get me wrong.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Bunglers’ club gets another new member

The proverbial ink had barely dried, after writing last week’s column, when Liberia became the eighth African country to be investigated by FIFA, for using an ineligible player in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

Goalkeeper Nathaniel Sherman, who received yellow cards in games against Uganda and Senegal, was fielded in their final qualifier against Angola, which they lost 4-1.

Should they be found guilty, as they most likely will be, the West Africans will be paying a $6,300 fine for their avoidable error.

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Football’s good fortune is that fans only see fixtures, not fixes

Search Google News for “Manchester City United” after the Premier League champions’ 4-1 defeat to their local rivals and you will return 12.2 million results. Search the same channel for “Singapore match fixing arrests” and you get back 14,300 articles.

Naturally there is a tremendous amount of tribal braggadocio at stake in any derby between title chasers, and Sunday’s 4-1 win for City was certainly action packed. But in the grand scheme of things it amounts only to 1⁄38 of a single Premier League season for each club.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Shake up Euro qualifiers for World Cup’s sake

It’s time to look for solutions to the potential mess that threatens to engulf European football in the season 2022/23.

FIFA and representatives of continents, nations, clubs and players are about to try and harmonise the calendar.

In the spirit of ‘ideas for solutions being more welcome than more problems’ here’s my humble offering to try and ease the disruption and logjam of fixtures.

First let’s remind ourselves of the landscape.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why the debate about the Qatar World Cup should be on wider issues

The battle to move the 2022 Qatar World Cup is developing into quite a classic. However, like many such football debates, it is being conducted on false premises.

The argument being presented is that it cannot be moved to winter because it would mean the original terms under which the bidding took place were wrong. It is assumed that when Qatar won the bid back in 2010 they and their rivals competed in a competition where they signed a document saying the tournament would be held in the summer.

Andrew Warshaw: They call themselves Yids and they’re proud of it

Sometimes in football, as in other walks of life, a debate splits public opinion so far down the middle that it seems impossible to reconcile the two sides of the argument.

For once I am not talking about the Qatar 2022 World Cup but a highly complex domestic issue in England that is generating emotion-packed comment and opinion.

Anyone who has suffered from anti-semitism knows how vile, pernicious and hurtful the insults and alienation can be.