Columnists Archives - Page 48 of 78 - Inside World Football

David Owen: A big step forward, but where do you draw the new technology line?

I don’t know if Michel Platini is a fan of Ashes cricket.

If he is, he might have allowed himself a wry smile at the way debates relating to the sport’s attempts to harness technology to improve the quality of on-pitch decisions have provided an engrossing sub-text to the live action as the series has progressed.

Platini as far as I know still opposes use of the sort of goal-line technology that the Premier League will deploy for the first time at Anfield on Saturday when Liverpool and Stoke City kick off the 2013-14 season.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Europe shouldn’t set Qatar 2022 temperature

FIFA admit it was a mistake to award two World Cups – 2018 and 2022 – at the same time.

But anyone expecting them to admit giving 2022 to Qatar was a mistake has a long wait.

As the issue is clouded with controversy and debate we get further away from a simple, important truth. That there hasn’t been a World Cup in the Middle East and that there should be a World Cup in Middle East.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: World Cup worries for Africa

As many within the fraternity would remember, the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa were coined as the ‘African World Cup’, for obvious ‘feel good’ reasons – being the first (and hopefully not the last) World Cup to be hosted on the continent.

But with five of Africa’s six teams knocked out in the first round of that tournament, it was anything but a successful advertisement for the strength of its football.

John Yan

John Yan: From Belgium With Hope

在都灵的Football Avenue论坛上，我见到了意大利足球传奇人物，吉亚尼·里维拉，1969年的金球奖先生、1970年世界杯意大利的10号。这位AC米兰名宿，和同时期国际米兰马佐拉，为一时瑜亮。里维拉来演讲的话题，是关于青少年足球培训，着重于青少年业余足球培训的各种细节，从”足球父母”如何在配合孩子学业的过程中，将足球作为孩子成长的重要工具，到孩子们训练周期的安排，以及不同年龄组别孩子在接受培训后，教练和父母应该特别注意把握的一些心理培训尺度等等。

当年的”金童”，如今已是七旬长者，里维拉和巴乔一样，都是意大利足协的青少年足球推广大使，这样的”大使”，不是被安排为引发观众尖叫踩踏、临走时挥一挥衣袖的偶像，而是真正加入到青训普及工程中，用自己的专业知识和社会影响力，来着力推动青训的导师。

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Hooligan threat still exists

Football Hooliganism never really was ‘the English disease’ alone. The English were just good at it and, perhaps, the best at reporting it.

But English football has had another uncomfortable reminder it still exists in a nation whose reputation for trouble at football was once ‘world infamous’.

This season was only three days old when football fans and horses were back in the news. Preston fans invaded the pitch and charged at their local rivals Blackpool in a League Cup match.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: The debt we owe Luis Suarez

There may not be many people who feel kindly towards Luis Suarez at this moment, apart that is from his mum. Yet this whole unedifying Suarez transfer saga may well help us understand and, even possibly, get a workable buy out clause in future contracts. And that can only be for the good of the game.

Now transfer talk invariably involves coded language where words acquire a wholly different meaning. So the player who seeks to move –

Andrew Warshaw: Qatar 2022 – A third option

It is only an idea at this stage but one which perhaps might work and should be considered.

For the last few months, seemingly everyone involved in football politics has had their say over whether the 2022 Qatar World Cup should be staged in summer or winter.

The latest voice to be heard on the issue is that of Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the FIFA-appointed expert whose inspection team went round the world in the build-up to the December 2010,

Archive

David Owen: Putting football into perspective

The anniversary of Hiroshima fell this week, as it usually does, in the middle of football’s silly season.

Millions for a few weeks consecrate every spare minute to fretting over what coloured shirt a dozen or so millionaires will be wearing next month; or to reading significance into meaningless matches.

Yet 68 years ago this happened.

It’s progress, I suppose.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Nigerian football totters on the edge

If you’re a coach that recently delivered your country’s first Africa Cup of Nations trophy in nearly 20 years and also happen to be the only living player in the continent with the distinction of captaining your country to the same title, you would think that the least that could be expected is the prompt payment of your wages.

But that is not the case for Stephen Keshi.

The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has failed to pay his salary for nearly half a year –

Matt Scott

Matt Scott: Cardiff has a certain kind of attraction

At home to Barnsley on April 9 Cardiff City picked up the point that would ultimately guarantee their promotion to the Premier League. But Mehmet Dalman could have been forgiven for sitting out the celebrations with his fellow board members in the Cardiff directors’ box.

Because 125 miles away in London David Green QC, the director of the Serious Fraud Office [SFO], was considering whether allegations over bribery and corruption at Eurasian Natural Resources Corp [ENRC] justified a formal criminal investigation.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: The Disappearing Players

What motivates footballers? Playing or their bank balance?

It’s easy for critics to say footballers are mercenary.

But it’s also easy to trot out the old adage: ‘players just want to play’.

I think we’d agree that for most young players, the chance to earn fortunes while doing what they love is a winning combination. But if one of these pivotal factors is removed, where does that leave a footballer?

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Concentrate not on what players say but what they do

On the face of there is nothing in common with sagas of Papiss Cisse and Gareth Bale. The Newcastle player did not want to wear a shirt carrying the logo of Wonga claiming that this was against his Islamic faith which prohibits profiting from money lending. Gareth Bale, by all accounts, merely wants to exercise his right to play for another club. And who can deny this right given how ideal this move must seem to a player at the top of his game?

Archive

David Owen: Why Sky versus BT may turn into a long-running Premier League fixture

The season has yet to kick off, but this is a big week for the Barclays Premier League.

On August 1, the seed sown in spectacular fashion just over a year ago by BT, a traditional telephone company, is scheduled to bear its first fruit with the launch of its BT Sport channels.

Two days later, BT Sport will begin its live football coverage with Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard’s testimonial match against Olympiacos of Greece.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Intrigue in South Africa

When Lord Palmerston, the 19th century British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, made the oft-quoted comment that there are no “permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests”, in the cold-blooded pursuit of agendas, he certainly wasn’t thinking about the South African Football Association (SAFA).

But he jolly well could have been.

With barely eight weeks to the election of SAFA’s president and executive committee on September 28, the impending polls have reawakened old enmities,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: When small clubs ruled Europe

Who’s going to win the Champions League this year?

Bayern? Barca? One of the newly rich clubs – a PSG or Manchester City?

Maybe an EPL club – Chelsea? Manchester United?

Or what about one of the teams who came through the second round this week.