Columnists Archives - Page 64 of 78 - Inside World Football

Mihir Bose: As football becomes more of a business, moving jobs for money is no longer a sin

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We may have reached an historic moment with modern, highly paid footballers. They may finally be ready to tell the truth when they move club. The truth is that what motivates them is not the glory of the club they are going to, nor its wonderful supporters, nor even the honours they might win, but how much money the new club will put in their bank account.

I have long believed that the refrain of modern footballers,

Andrew Warshaw: One year on from the World Cup ballots and the scepticism is showing no sign of slackening

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Happy Anniversary? Depends where your allegiances lie. But my, how time flies.

Exactly a year ago today, December 2, we were sitting in the cavernous Messe in Zurich eagerly awaiting the results of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup ballots.

You could almost cut the tension with a knife as one after the other, the candidates gave their final presentations in a bid to get over the line after months of painstaking,

Andrew Warshaw: Gary Speed suicide shows high-profile football figures not immune to pressures of life

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Bill Shankly, the legendary former Liverpool manager, is remembered for many things, not least his famous remark – paraphrased by all and sundry since – that football isn’t life and death, it’s far more important.

If ever that observation, made in good faith at the time by a passionate man who lived and breathed the game, was shown up to be somewhat of an exaggeration, it is right now as the football world continues to take stock of Gary Speed’s untimely death.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Blatter’s outrageous racism comments have done untold damage to him and FIFA

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Sepp Blatter may believe the furore he provoked by his comments on racism in football is behind him. He could not be more mistaken. He will have to live with the consequences of his absurd comment that if there is racism on the field of play it can be got rid of by a post-match hand shake.

Worse still, the damage he has done to FIFA, when the organisation is already so beleaguered, cannot be overestimated.

Archive

David Owen: Could financial fair play be ruled offside by an all-out eurozone crisis?

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Here’s a thought for these turbulent financial times in Europe: Could UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations (FFP) survive a collapse of the Euro?

These are the rules through which the governing body’s boss Michel Platini hopes to save European football from itself by, to oversimplify outrageously, obliging clubs to operate on a break-even basis.

Columnists

David Gold: Is Beckham’s success in the US yet to come?

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David Beckham’s American adventure had the fitting end it was meant to have, as LA Galaxy beat Houston Dynamo 1-0 in the MLS Cup final on Sunday – but then in showbiz, things always seem to go to plan.

So where next for Posh and Becks? So far Beckham’s career has gone from Manchester to Madrid, to Los Angeles to Milan and back (twice), and so Paris would seem a logical next step.

Andrew Warshaw: Why didn’t the rest of the world care as much about Blatter racism remarks as Britain?

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Now that the outrage over Sepp Blatter’s unfortunate remarks about racism is receding somewhat, let’s take stock of the entire episode.

Blatter’s comments, as we all know, made headline news across the UK but the fact is they were hardly reported anywhere else; at least not with the same ferocity. Why was that?

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: It’s time European sports administrators studied US model to combat match fixing

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Britain and Europe have never been easy bedfellows and the turmoil of the eurozone may lead to a further, even permanent, alienation. Yet, ironically, in sport Britain is not on the periphery of Europe, but leading the way.

Nothing illustrates this better than the vote on Tuesday (November 15) in the European Parliament about match fixing. This, as UEFA President Michel Platini keeps repeating, is, “the biggest threat facing the future of sport in Europe”.

Archive

David Owen: Football and the power of the poppy

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

Like a high proportion of my fellow Brits, when that moment comes, I shall be standing silently with my head bowed in a gesture of solemn remembrance.

So why does it make me so angry when November rolls around each year and, like snowdrops in January, Premier League football shirts sprout scarlet poppies?

Archive

Sepp Blatter: Mistakes were made, some of them horrific, but we are determined to remedy the ills of the past

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Dear readers of insideworldfootball

On the occasion of the 13th edition of the International Football Arena (IFA) conference in Zurich, on November 7 and 8, I will present updates and reflections that underline our road towards a different FIFA. The 200 opinion leaders from around the world, gathered at the IFA, will witness our determination to remedy the ills of the past, and how we intend to improve the way we do business.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Football must stop looking to the past to resolve the issues of today

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The Carlos Tévez and John Terry affairs could not be more different. One is a case of an employee allegedly not wanting to do his job; the other is about an employee allegedly behaving badly while at work.

They both illustrate the behaviour problems of today’s footballers, more so during high profile matches which are subjected to unprecedented public scrutiny through the internet and social media.

They also illustrate that those involved in running football including the players union,

Columnists

Alan Hubbard: Is there really a place for football on the Olympic menu?

Bar one, I have covered every Olympic Games since Tokyo in 1964. The one I missed was Atlanta 1996, when I was sports editing The Observer. Colleagues who were there tell me I was a good judge.

In all those Games, I have also covered every Olympic sport. Bar one.

Football.

Andrew Warshaw: How much longer can Teixeira survive?

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How long can Ricardo Teixeira possibly last as the increasingly tarnished head of the 2014 World Cup organising committee? Unpopular in his own country and embroiled in all manner of scandal, Teixeira is the great survivor.

While those around him – the latest being Brazilian Sports Minister Orlando Silva – have either resigned or been kicked out, Teixeira, like a cat with nine lives, seems to wriggle out of every crisis that envelops him and his country.

Columnists

David Gold: Ayre’s call for individual television rights deserves more than scorn

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And so there I was, putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) on an explanation of why Liverpool’s chief executive Ian Ayre was right to bring up the issue of the collective television bargaining agreement that exists in the Premier League, and whether top clubs should go it alone in signing rights agreements with broadcasters.

True, he has less chance of success with this battle in the Premier League boardroom than a tourist has of leaving Mexico without getting clenbuterol into their system – and for that true football fans should be thankful.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Marcel Schmid bravely predicts women’s football will influence the male game

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The theme of this year’s International Football Arena (IFA) conference, Football: from craze to madness, may suggest we face a sporting Armageddon. But Marcel Schmid, the man whose brainchild the conference is, refuses to take a pessimistic view of the state of the game.

“The football world is upside down, but the world is upside down, isn’t it?,” he says. “It is not only football in a state of chaos,