“He that loves pleasure must for pleasure fall.” Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus.
It might seem to the cynical observer that the best young footballers have made some Faustian pact with the devil himself. Those with the most natural talent for a game they would otherwise play for the fun of it are lavished with riches from their mid-teens. They can enjoy the adulation of an adoring public when donning a shirt for their clubs or,
“It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Neil Young
Or is it? I remember a time when all rock stars, Young included, were, well, young. And then the music industry discovered irony, and we realised it was no more ridiculous for Jagger to perform Satisfaction at 55 than 25.
I don’t know if the deft through-ball with which Ryan Giggs, then aged 39 years and 363 days,
Andre Villa-Boas may or may not get the sack soon. Certainly the media pressure on him is huge and with the Tottenham board keeping the shutters down in the way the old Soviet-style Kremlin would have envied there is no way of knowing what will happen to Spurs’ Portuguese head coach. Observe I use the words head coach to describe his job, not manager.
The reason is that what is really interesting about this saga is the light it throws on the concept of director of football,
Who actually owns a football club?
“Legally it’s the owner, emotionally it’s the fans.”
A fan of Premier League club Hull City gave me this assessment while discussing his opposition to the owner’s plan. That plan is to change the name to Hull Tigers.
Who’s right and who’s wrong? Can there be any definitive right or wrong? Both have their reasons, both have their wishes and needs and ambitions.
Other than for the slightly mischievous purpose of beginning a discussion, triggered by fellow Insideworldfootball columnist Lee Wellings last week, as he looked at the chances of the African quintet going to next year’s World Cup finals in Brazil, the headline for this week’s piece would, obviously, be silly.
Lee asked me whether “it’s frustrating that people outside Africa talk about [African] nations as ‘representing the continent’, as he wondered whether “the biggest hurdle towards an African side finally winning the World Cup is that we (as in the rest of the world,
“Never was anything great achieved without danger.” Niccolò Machiavelli
Perhaps Machiavelli’s death in Florence in 1527 came too soon for him to have enjoyed the popular 16th Century Florentine game of Calcio but you sense he might have been drawn to its brutal tactics and narrative. His modern kindred spirits certainly seem to enjoy the football we love today. Heck, Henry Kissinger was even a board member on the USA 2022 bid committee.
There was one stand which attracted my attention all the time. By the southeast corner of the Xi’an Stadium, a stand full of people dressed in red, had been chanting, singing, and waving their red scarves throughout the 90-minute match.
It was a cold and windy night in Xi’an, the capital city of Shanxi province. It is also the greatest capital city in China’s history – it was the capital of the old empires of a lot of dynasties.
Taken at face value, it was just a harmless – and rather imaginative – public relations stunt. But I wonder whether FIFA President Joseph Blatter’s present on Friday to the head of the Roman Catholic church of a Latin edition of the FIFA Weekly, the governing body’s new publishing venture, doesn’t offer us a deeper glimpse into the mind of the man who has run world football these last 15 years, even though it was an idea of the FIFA communications division.
If one looks at Europe, or the so-called Western world for that matter as a whole, the headlines scream economic and financial mayhem, massive youth unemployment, rigged Libor rates, faked growth figures, dishonesty everywhere, bankster madness and a complete disorientation if not alienation of large parts of society, literally everywhere.
Nothing seems to be working the way it used to. There seems to be a disease engulfing all parts of society that threatens to destroy core values and every aspect of modern life.
The story so far on the Olympic stadium is clear. West Ham have a deal, and a very advantageous one for the Hammers. And the hope of Leyton Orient chairman, Barry Hearn, that the House of Lord’s Select Committee report on Olympic legacy would provide him a way in has not quite worked.
The report did touch on how the deal was done but the noises it made are not strong enough to help Orient to reopen the deal,
More than 83 years after 13 teams contested the inaugural competition in Uruguay, the flow of FIFA World Cup debutants has slowed to a trickle.
Of the 32 countries who have fought their way through to next year’s showpiece in Brazil, only Bosnia and Herzegovina have never been to the World Cup finals before. It was a similar story three years ago in South Africa where Slovakia were the only newcomers.
The only previous occasion when there was just the one newbie came the first time the competition visited Brazil,
It was a goal so beautifully created and finished it almost made you forget the cold.
Victor Moses was involved twice, and cleverly fed full-back Francis Benjamin. A great cross was finish with international class, by Shola Ameobi.
This moment of perfection came during Nigeria’s thrilling 2-2 draw with Italy in London. No doubt, the African champions can play. But are they contenders to actually win the World Cup in Brazil?
Considering the cold fact that Mario Cizmek is set to spend a minimum of 10 months in prison, for accepting money to fix six Croatian first division matches in the 2009/2010 season, the 38-year old is surprisingly calm about what awaits him.
He spoke frankly about his criminal activity at the last ‘Play The Game’ conference in Denmark, an international event that tackles the uncomfortable issues of ethics and good governance in sport.
The plight of journeyman footballer Zahir Belounis and his desperate appeal to be paid what he’s owed and leave Qatar could hardly have come at a more inopportune time for the 2022 World Cup organisers.
Just as the Qataris were proudly unveiling details of the design and construction for the first of their state-of-the-art stadia for the finals in nine years’ time, so all the pomp and backslapping co-incided with yet more adverse publicity about a case which human rights organisations are using as an example of the restrictive kafala employment system that prevents foreign workers leaving the country until being “released”
“Men yearn for poetry though they may not confess it; they desire that joy shall be graceful and sorrow august and infinity have a form, and India fails to accommodate them,” E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
When, four seasons ago, so many Manchester United fans adopted green and gold, the colours of their club’s first-ever kit, it was as a symbol of peaceful protest against the ownership of the Glazer family.