Columnists Archives - Page 52 of 78 - Inside World Football

David Owen: Not being there – how television became football’s chief paymaster

Nothing in recent years has changed football as much as television.

The box in the living-room corner has spawned Manchester United fans from Tacoma to Tahiti and made top players as wealthy as successful bond traders.

Few of us now, not even the most avid groundhoppers, consume as many matches live as on TV.

Even professional football reporters, who think nothing of covering 100 games a season, will turn instantly to the screens scattered around the press stands to assess whether a foul has been committed or the ball has crossed the line.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Of talent, opportunity and global business sense

Michael Emenalo is, without question, one of European football’s interesting oddities.

As the technical director of English Premiership side Chelsea, where he undoubtedly has the listening ear of billionaire owner Roman Abramovich, the Nigerian belongs to the exclusive club of Africans who’ve transcended their club careers into positions of power in the game’s corridors.

Pape Diouf, the Senegalese who started out as a journalist and player’s agent in France, eventually becoming the president of French club Olympique Marseille and Finidi George,

Archive

‘Ideological wars’ are ‘the new bitterness’

So, FIFA have had their congress which by some – mainly FIFA – was called “historic”, and by others a “whitewash”, “irrelevant” or worse.

Under the rainy skies of the African island nation of Mauritius, 209 FIFA Members met and the individual delegates cast their electronic vote. Actually, they also cast their more traditional manual vote in a secret ballot that determined which one of three women candidates would be FIFA’s first elected Executive Committee (Board) member.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Can Mourinho make us fall in love with Chelsea?

Jose Mourinho has nothing in common with Richard Burton. But the Portuguese, like the great Welsh actor, is about to discover what it means to go back to your first love. And, while not even the most devoted Stamford Bridge fan will argue that Chelsea is football’s Elizabeth Taylor, the way Mourinho has expressed himself in recent weeks, leading up to return, leaves no doubt that his great love for the west London club almost matches that of Burton for Taylor.

Archive

David Owen: Is Spain signposting the way to a European Superleague?

Carlo Ancelotti may be about to inherit a problem.

The former Chelsea manager is, as I write this, prohibitive odds-on favourite to succeed the new Chelsea manager José Mourinho in the hot seat at Real Madrid.

If he does, the Italian will be looked to by the Spanish club’s fans to deliver a 10th European Cup to the Bernabéu’s church-like trophy-room – and the first for more than a decade.

John Yan

John Yan: 足球考也要开始考级？ Football As An Examination？

应试教育和考级模式，在中国社会当中的魔力有多大，足协领导们恐怕有着至深感受。在六一儿童节的校园足球推广活动上，体育总局副局长蔡振华和足管中心党委书记魏吉祥来到北京三高基地，关于校园足球的话题，在一个看似转暖的足球环境中，再度进入公共视野。

蔡振华的谈话内容，主要是正面集中于改善校园足球状况，包括六一节过后就将和包括教育部内在的相关部委进行沟通，为校园足球中体育教师、足球教练解决一些具体问题。并且”逐步形成和完善全国校园足球四级联赛”。这些肯定是校园足球的当务之急。足球专业出身的魏吉祥在座谈会上讲话，则吸引了更多媒体的关注。

在魏吉祥看来，校园足球的发展，需要在训练体系、宣教以及等级考试制度的建立有所突破，尤其是”等级考试的制度”。他想表达的意思，是让孩子们踢球也有奋斗目标，”像学习钢琴一样去学习踢球”。他的原话为：”是不是可以让孩子像学习音乐那样，建立一些等级考试制度，评分制度建立起来后，孩子有阶段性奋斗的目标……如果能从一级级的往上考，颠球20个一个级别，30个一个级别，虽然这样的评价机制不一定是专业的，但是可以促使孩子朝着更高阶段去奋斗，家长也会去支持一级级的系统化训练。”

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Summer loving for the Premier League

You’ve got to feel sorry for cricket. And golf. Tennis too. In fact any sport that isn’t football, and more specifically, the unstoppable English Premier League.

We are in the summer break in European football, where other sports usually enjoy their time in the sun, something that didn’t happen as normal last year when the London Olympics dominated in this part of the world.

But this time, the feverish anticipation of a new English Premier League (EPL) season is creating the headlines and the interest.

Andrew Warshaw: Are the old perceptions still the reality?

When Sepp Blatter praised FIFA’s ship for emerging from troubled waters as the waves lapped gently against the shores of Mauritius last week, cynical heads turned away in barely suppressed mirth. “How many times have we heard that before?” was their silent refrain.

As self-proclaimed “captain” of that ship, Blatter was in congratulatory mood as he cajoled his audience to show their appreciation of past misdemeanours being replaced by a new era of transparency with a collective round of applause.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: A symphony of equivocation

Since Sepp Blatter’s intriguing statement, at the last Asian Football Confederation (AFC) elective congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that 2015, the year he promised to bid adieu to the FIFA presidency, will mark the “last term, not of office, but of the reform [of football governance],” the cat has, without question, been set amongst the speculating pigeons.

Surely the 77-year-old, who will be on the cusp of becoming an octogenarian, by world football’s next elective congress,

John Yan

John Yan: 足球的消费饱和 The Worry of Football Consumption Reaching Saturation

四千万人民币一个赛季的胸前赞助，赞助商还是顶尖的国际品牌，广州恒大仍然拒绝，这个俱乐部对自身商业价值的估算，显然和其他中超俱乐部大不相同。

关于广州恒大拒绝三星成为胸前主赞助商的消息，足够让所有中超俱乐部流口水。四千万人民币的赞助价格，是以往中超联赛罕见的，但这仍然达不到恒大的要求。不过从许家印衡量恒大投资足球的回报收益看，这个房地产商有一套区别于市场主流的观念：最初两三年，投资恒大足球接近7亿人民币时，许家印就表示恒大投资足球已经”赚钱了”，因为他将所有媒体在进行中超赛事报道时，只要出现”恒大”二字，都理解为对恒大品牌的宣传推广。姑且不论平面和网络媒体，就以电视机构转播恒大的比赛，一个赛季30场90分钟的国内联赛，如果将这2700分钟都算作电视广告的话，自然是价值不菲的传播回报。

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: FIFA and football could learn about democracy from the Olympics

During the London Olympics last year much was made about how much football could learn from the Olympics. Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s president, speaking at Wembley just before Team GB played Brazil, was asked whether the world’s most popular game could learn from the world’s greatest sporting event.

“Absolutely,” he answered, “At the beginning of the game, [the behaviour] is okay in football. But, at the end, we still have problems to bring the players together.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Benitez could be a great coup for Napoli

Have Napoli just landed themselves the best manager in world football?

It would be a quite a coup for a club that isn’t amongst Europe’s elite – I think it’s time to consider the evidence in favour of Rafa Benitez being, well, the true special one.

The only thing he has in common with the great Napoli hero Diego Maradona has been a comedy beard, but he might be the best chance the club has had of real success since the Argentinian legend inspired them to glory in Serie A and the UEFA Cup in the late 1980s.

Archive

Inside Insight: Über Abschreiberlinge und andere Erstaunlichkeiten

Es schallt und raucht. Die Bildschirme biegen sich allenthalben unter dem Gewicht des Wortschwalls, der da laut und unmissverständlich aus angelsächsichen Laptops in den Cyberäther drängelt, dicht gefolgt von plagiarisierenden Deppen teutscher Sprache, die anstelle des Selbstgegorenen (weil eben schwieriger, eine eigene Meinung zu haben, als eine andere kopiert zu wiederkäuen), lieber den Schwachsinn aus englischen Landen, als die scheinbar abscheuliche Manna der “real existierende Rechstprechung” herumreichen.

Die Rede ist vom Abschreiberling, der – selber eher unzureichend mit Intellekt ausgestattet – die Kunst der Boulevaldisierung von allem und jedem bis hin zum Gehtnichtmehr beherrscht.

Archive

David Owen: The FIFA Club Protection Programme – delving into the detail

I have been delving further into the detail of FIFA’s new Club Protection Programme (CPP), the scheme designed to remove a longstanding bone of contention by compensating clubs when players they employ are injured on international duty.

I was concerned lest an unforeseen spate of injuries sent costs soaring to the point where they absorbed most or all of FIFA’s positive annual result. This stood at $89 million in 2012.

The world football governing body has now told me that they have moved to protect themselves against unexpectedly high costs.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Is ‘reform’ forgotten in Africa?

As the fraternity’s mandarins descend upon the picturesque Island of Mauritius, for the supposedly decisive FIFA congress, where ‘reform’ and ‘improving the quality of governance’ are the catch-phrases of choice, it is poignant to remember – for those who are conveniently beginning to forget – that the scandal over the award of World Cup hosting rights, for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, played a key role in igniting the ‘change’ process in the first place.