Columnists Archives - Page 50 of 78 - Inside World Football

Mihir Bose: Why English football cannot follow the Murray example

Andy Murray’s success has led to much talk of how British sport is finally getting rid of the sporting monkeys that have so long perched on its back. This is an understandable reaction.

When you win a coveted sporting crown after 77 years you are entitled to celebrate. And the triumphant feeling is all the more understandable given that it has crowned two years of success which has done much to make the British feel that the nation is no longer a sporting pariah.

John Yan

John Yan: Dalian Wanda’s disastrous football sponsorship 赔了夫人又折兵的足球赞助

赔了夫人又折兵的足球赞助

卡马乔悄悄地走了，正如他悄悄地来。他连衣袖都懒得挥一下，因为他腋下汗渍惊人，更因为他可以轻松卷走645万欧元。

卡马乔连临别赠言都没有，因为他压根就没有”临别”过。输给泰国青年队后，卡马乔回到了西班牙，和中国足协所谓”双方同意结束合作关系”后，他的律师7月1日来到北京，轻松利落地拿下未来一年半卡马乔和他教练团队全额薪资——这是国内媒体的报道。中国足协连一个官员都没有出面和对方律师面谈，只是派出了三个律师，其中一人为中国足协工作人员。大连万达集团代表石雪清也参加了会谈。

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: The Real deal in Bournemouth

How much would you pay to see Real Madrid play your local team?

And I mean Real Madrid, not Real Madrid’s third team, or youth team?

There has been a great deal of debate, as well as excitement, about the confirmation that the first team will come to play Bournemouth, a club on the English south coast who have reached the Championship, one below the Premier League, for the first time in 23 years.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Will Cameroon’s woes ever end?

Whilst amusing – even outrageous – events provide much-needed cannon fodder for writing interesting commentary, my unhappiness with the pervasive absence of astute management across the African game, whose administrators appear to be falling even further behind their global peers, often leaves me in a depressed mood.

And the ever unfolding diary of (mal)administration, in Cameroonian football, rudely reminds me that the continent’s leading nations continue to revel in their nasty old habits.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Concern about money is the real reason for the spat between FIFA and UEFA

When back in 1992 Bill Clinton launched his campaign for the US Presidency his campaign team told the workers forget all the other slogans, remember: It is the economy, stupid.

Much the same can be said of the spat between FIFA and UEFA over the World Cup in Brazil. There can be little doubt that concern about protecting FIFA’s money lies at the heart of the attack on UEFA launched by Jerome Valcke,

John Yan

John Yan: 国足未到选帅时 Lippi the next head coach for Team China?

当那三封道歉信出现时，我小小地惊诧了一下。大致浏览了署名中国足协的那一封，其他两封不看也罢。

新闻客户端的推送功能，让我知道有这三封道歉信的出现，可见网易移动内容的同事，还确实在继续关注着国足消息，道歉信也上升到了”重点新闻”的级别。只是”615耻辱”已经过去了9天，为什么到了6月24日才有了道歉信？为什么道歉信一出现就是三封？

最紧要的是，为什么道歉信的口吻，仍然不能”说人话”？

Archive

Inside Insight: Just another day at the Confederations Cup of contrasts

Spain’s Confederations Cup semi-final win on penalties over Italy in Fortaleza was marred by more protests as 5,000 protestors clashed with police who responded with tear gas prior to the game.

Inside the stadium a 58,000 capacity crowd watched Spain break the world record by marching to 29 consecutive competitive matches unbeaten. A match that to the world’s TV audience had drama and celebration of the positive football kind – in abundance.

The vast majority of colour in the stadium was the yellow of Brazil and TV pictures couldn’t resist the image of the parents feeding their baby at half time.

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Is hosting worth it?

Brazil. World Cup hosts. Olympic hosts. 2014-2016. What an opportunity, what an honour, what a privilege and a pleasure.

But during a fraught fortnight off the pitch at the Confederations Cup the Brazilians – and FIFA – have been reminded that hosting is a double edged sword. Underestimating the power of the public can have major consequences, whether or not their ire is deserved, whether or not the event is actually the cause of the trouble.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why world football should learn from the Americans

Those in Brazil who are now so angry about staging the 2014 World Cup should blame their fellow South Americans, the Colombians, for making it such a high profile political event.

It was the Colombians in 1973 who both invented modern football World Cup bidding and linked it to politics. Seeking the 1986 World Cup, they entertained a visiting FIFA delegation lavishly and at a reception the president of Columbia, Dr Borrero, made it clear that hosting the competition would prove Colombia had arrived as a nation.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Discovering the art of defending

Whilst working on the BBC’s telecast of the 2002 Africa Cup of Nations, occasionally sharing work space with ‘Match of the Day’ pundits, I couldn’t help but ask Gary Lineker, the former England striker, a nagging question I had – about his memories of that Italia ’90 World Cup quarter-final tie against Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions.

For anyone who watched that nail-biting tie in Naples, 23 years ago, the two penalties Lineker subsequently converted,

Jean Francois Tanda

Jean Francois Tanda: Pieth cuts an unconvincing TV figure

Guido Tognoni is a former high ranked FIFA manager. Today, he is a leading critic of Sepp Blatter and FIFA’s Executive Committee. Mark Pieth called him a “former poodle” of Blatter and “a commodity trader” with no moral right to criticise him.

Canadian governance expert and lawyer, Alexandra Wrage, once was a member of FIFA’s Internal Governance Committee (IGC). She left the group, basically saying it was a waste of time to work for FIFA as the football governing body refused to implement serious steps for a change.

Archive

David Owen: Balancing a £1bn profit with reality

I don’t know about you, but I always thought that company accounts were supposed to reflect financial reality.

Not, it seems, when the value of professional footballers is concerned.

Over the five years between 2008 and 2012, clubs competing in England’s Premier League booked a cool £1 billion-plus in net profits from the sale of players.

This means, in effect, that those players were undervalued by the same amount in the clubs’

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: More humiliation for Toon Army

Do any supporters anywhere openly suffer as much as those of Newcastle United Football Club?

No club moves from stability to disruption, from good stock to laughing stock, from hope to despair, like Newcastle. They are world champions at humiliation, and they could probably do with any silverware this brings.

Their latest drama has fallen snugly into the ‘you are joking?’ category they occupy so frequently.

The appointment of Joe Kinnear as ‘Director of Football’,

Archive

David Owen: Protests show it’s time for Big Sport to shake off complacency

Demonstrations in Istanbul; a protest over high ticket prices by football fans in London; demonstrations in Brazil.

Decidedly, the world has changed, but the question is, ‘Have the grandees who run Big Sport taken notice?’

Yes, it is simplistic to bracket these three manifestations of frustration and rage together.

The Istanbul protesters seemed indifferent to, or even mildly positive about, their city’s prospects of hosting the 2020 Olympics – although they have thrown a spanner in that particular works.

John Yan

John Yan: 倒霉的不该只有卡马乔 Sack Camacho or sack football in China

解雇主教练是一种经济省钱的危机公关手段，职业足球环境下绝对如此。

因为当一支球队成绩一塌糊涂的时候，作为管理者，无法解雇一支球队、无法解雇一代球员，于是解雇一名主教练，既能平息民怒，又能转移视线，还能节约人力资源投入成本，不论从管理学角度，还是经济学角度，这都是最容易的解决方案。

哪怕这未必是最正确的解决方案。