The clock is ticking and the behind-the-scenes horsetrading is in full swing. But like a canny game of poker, nobody is revealing their hand until they are sure of their ground. With Monday night’s deadline for FIFA presidential candidates fast approaching, cards are being clasped tightly to chests in anticipation of who will emerge as challengers for Sepp Blatter’s crown.
“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” Jane Austen, Emma
Jane Austen’s fourth novel was published on Christmas Day in 1815 the Vienna peace accord had brought the Napoleonic wars to a close. With it began a century-long era of British commercial dominance through an empire whose roots had already begun to take hold with territories in Newfoundland, the Caribbean, west and South Africa, India and Australia.
One word dominated this year’s Sportel event in Monte Carlo. That word was China. The explanation for this can be encapsulated in one word as well. That word is money.
“Il n’y a pas le feu au lac” – “The lake’s not on fire.” Swiss saying
If the famous Lake Geneva is not painting the sky with flames – and, quite obviously, it never has nor will – it’s said to be difficult to rouse a Swiss to any sense of urgency. Other French-speaking nations believe that in the land of the cuckoo clock and precision watches, time moves slowly.
The slick first public appearance of Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool seems to have caught English media and football fans by surprise, and has already made him a favourite with many.
Michel Platini has always presented himself as unique. That he was a unique footballer cannot be doubted although the fact that he could not guide his country to a World Cup win means for all his great achievements as player he will always remain to an extent the nearly man, not quite in the class of Franz Beckenbauer. But it is his role as administrator in the last decade that raises questions about why and how he was ever considered a football administrator in any way different to the less than reputable bunch who have governed the world game for so long.
As rumours swirled around Zurich on Wednesday that ethics investigators were about to throw the book at Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s headquarters was bathed in thin autumn sunshine and looked a paragon of normality. From the outside at least.
From my name, you might think me as Welsh as a laverbread breakfast. But I’m not, so I have been able to observe the recent Welsh sporting resurgence with cool, objective detachment.
German media and fans are united in agreement that after just eight weekends of the Bundesliga the championship is decided. Although the club bosses won’t entertain the same opinion, the frenetic 5: 1 victory over supposed challengers Borussia Dortmund has eliminated any lingering doubts concerning the dominance of Bayern.
“We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.” John F Kennedy
Strategy for both the Eastern bloc and the NATO allies during the Cold War was simple: arm yourselves to the teeth until the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction guaranteed neither side would be stupid enough to go to war.
The football world is agog over a SFr2 million payment made by governing body FIFA to Michel Platini, the man who aspires to be its next President, in 2011 – for work completed in 2002.
“Si monumentum requiris circumspice [If you seek his monument, look around]” Christopher Wren, epitaph on Wren’s tomb
Ever since the Great Fire of London devastated its capital, Great Britain and its inhabitants have had an obsession with architecture. It is a nation that has spawned many Great Builders, such that naming only Wren, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Sir Joseph Bazalgette or Sir George Gilbert Scott is to commit a gross injustice to the others who came before and after them.
Auguste Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’, also displayed in this week’s cartoon (or, at least a variation of it), best qualifies the goings-on in FIFA, where the top floor stays lit up, even late at night these days.
He tried every way he could, for months on end, to distance himself from the ignominy and disgrace that that has snared so many of his former colleagues.
Friday’s shenanigans at FIFA prompted a number of sporting sages to prophesy the demise of Sepp Blatter well before the February 26 Congress that is supposed to elect a new FIFA President. I wonder though if the big loser might not turn out to be Michel Platini.