Columnists Archives - Page 58 of 78 - Inside World Football

Mihir Bose: Lies, damn lies and alienating statistics

One important reason why football of all ball games is the most popular game in the world is because it is simple. Its rules are easy to understand and have none of the complexity that, for example, rugby has. Football’s celebrated off side rule may be a diverting after dinner conversation with which to bait those who do not care about the game but it is nowhere near as mind blowing as trying to work out why a penalty is given in rugby.

Archive

David Owen: Pep’s next step, why Germany may have been the logical choice

David Owen_IWF

I can’t tell you exactly why Pep Guardiola, the hottest property in football management, decided this week to hitch his wagon to Germany’s Bundesliga.

But I don’t think it would have happened had it not been for a choice made by an obscure New Zealand football administrator in Zurich on 7 July 2000.

Andrew Warshaw: Cypriot football searches for unification across a fractious political divide

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

When Greek and Turkish Cypriot football officials staged their landmark re-unification talks this week, among the keen observers waiting in the winter sunshine for the eagerly anticipated arrival of the respective federation leaders was 81-year-old Sevim Ebeoglu.

Sevim, perhaps more than anyone else, epitomises what it would mean for the Turkish side of the divided island to be re-integrated with its once friendly neighbour.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: What has the FA done, Daddy?

The 150th anniversary of the Football Association certainly deserves to be celebrated. Any organisation that has reached such a venerable age has the right to celebrate its birthday and no doubt get a telegram from the Queen, or however Her Majesty marks such occasions these days.

But the tipple for the occasion should not be Krug champagne but a glass of Prosecco. For all the warm words that are now being showered on the FA from far and wide the best thing that can be said about the FA is that it still exists.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Football’s moral quagmire

Let us get this right. Luis Suarez is no more a cheat than most football players. I agree with those that argue that the moral spasm his handball goal has evoked is way over the top if not a touch hypocritical. I wonder if the critics have been to many football matches or if they have perhaps been too busy with other things to concentrate on what they are seeing.

If we are saying Suarez was cheating,

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David Owen: Football authorities need to think through their reaction to Boateng walk-off – and so do we

David Owen_IWF

I hate to be a wet blanket, but I have the tiniest sliver of sympathy for football administrators in the predicament they face following the actions of Kevin-Prince Boateng and his Milan team-mates.

The powers-that-be now have to decide how they are going to respond when a similar walk-off happens in a competitive match – as assuredly it will.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why English football will never shake off its Europeanisation

skytransfercentrepage

Consider this question. In the next few years Britain may decide to leave the European Union. At no time since this country joined what was then the Common Market 40 years ago has there been such a strong anti-European feeling. And this is a mood that seems to be going beyond the traditional ‘fed up with Brussels’ to ‘get out of Europe’ clamour.

But even should a referendum see the people of Britain vote to leave,

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why the past will haunt the present in 2013

Those who forget the past, said the great American savant George Santayana, are condemned to repeat it. Football in 2013 runs the same risk. This is because many of the administrators who run the game seem to have forgotten the past. Or perhaps they never cared for the past despite their many references to it in public utterances.

This explains why 2013 will be for the world’s favourite game a question of dealing with issues many thought had long been settled.

Columnists

Delroy Alexander: Zero tolerance of racist traditions

Delroy-Alexander

By Delroy Alexander

On first hearing the “Selection Manifesto 12” from a powerful Zenit St. Petersburg fans group, Landscrona, I like many was quick to dismiss it as an idiots’ intent on promoting some obscure and objectionable views.

However, the demand for the sacking and non-recruitment of black players and exclusion of gays is part of a serious selection policy proposal, intended to influence and set the agenda at a club with a less than stellar record on integration.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Winter whisperers must not knock Qataris from their core 2022 message

So what has Qatar in common with South Africa? On the face of it you would think this is an absurd, Christmas quiz, question. But it is not.

In footballing terms they have a lot in common. The common factor is both countries are pioneers for the world’s most popular game, staging the World Cup in their part of the world for the first time. And both countries have had the need to convince the world they are worthy of having this honour.

Andrew Warshaw: Football wasn’t born in Qatar overnight just because of 2022

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

It is just over two years since that momentous December day when Qatar stunned the footballing world by winning the race to stage the 2022 World Cup by a landslide.

At virtually every turn since, Hassan Al-Thawadi and his campaign team have had to cope with negative reporting about the methods used by the tiny Gulf state to achieve one of the most jaw-dropping results in the history of sports event bidding.

But if you think Al-Thawadi – the razor sharp,

Columnists

Delroy Alexander: Greater moral not technical guidance needed

Delroy-Alexander

I can’t count the number of times I’ve ran the line at a weekend youth football game for my son and his friends during the many programmes that we run in the Caribbean and for strangers that are a man short and in need of a man in black.

It’s hard for me to imagine kids in those games turning on me for making a questionable decision. But that’s exactly what seems to have happened to Richard Nieuwenhuizen on Sunday,

Archive

David Owen: Will Platini’s Euro 2020 experiment have a bearing on the race to succeed Sepp Blatter?

David Owen_IWF

Some thoughts on Euro 2020:

● Yes, a 24-team tournament is too unwieldy for most European countries to take on; but it is simplistic to suggest that this alone forced UEFA’s hand, necessitating the adoption of Michel Platini’s Grand Experiment – a competition spread around the great arenas of the European continent.

Turkey, pipped at the post for Euro 2016, could have coped with the expanded format and would, I’m sure,

Andrew Warshaw: The global clamour for goal-line technology is finally bearing fruit

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

Did the ball cross the line? It’s a question fans have been asking ever since the 1966 FIFA World Cup final when England striker Geoff Hurst’s extra time goal against Germany was dubiously yet innocently allowed to stand by the Swiss referee on the advice of his Soviet linesman.

The other more pressing question is why nothing has ever been done, in the 46 years since, to avoid countless similar occurrences of the referee getting it wrong,

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Ivan Bravo – I can die happy now Spain have won the World Cup

It is not often in football you hear many people talk about Roman Abramovich, Florentino Perez and Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Crown Prince of Qatar being “visionary men”, and all in the same breath.

The first two are widely regarded as using football clubs, Chelsea and Real Madrid, as their play things, an impression strengthened in the Russian’s case by the way he got rid of his last manager Roberto Di Matteo.