Columnists Archives - Page 51 of 78 - Inside World Football

Andrew Warshaw: Cup traditions, old and new, play the dating game

Tradition has increasingly taken a back seat in the modern age of football. Sometimes, it has to be said, for the right reasons but not when it comes to the English FA Cup, the game’s oldest domestic knockout competition.

For the last few years, the cup final, watched by billions of armchair fans worldwide despite many of them getting out of bed at some ungodly hour, has been shunted into unfamiliar territory, given whatever end-of-season slot can be found for it –

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Inside Insight: Brazil unplugged

Brazil is rocked by (justified) demonstrations. While numbers vary, it is safe to assume that hundreds of thousands have and are taking to the streets to voice anger, frustration and dissatisfaction. With what, exactly, that remains a question to some. But it is a question that seems to get a wide spectrum of answers, depending on where the writer stands and from where the “independent” observer hails.

It is clear that Brazil’s economy,

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Between self-interest, mammon and country

Dealing with the tough demands of earning one’s crust, as a professional in top flight European club football, whilst serving one’s country – regarded as a sacred duty, by compatriots, during World Cup and Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers – has always been a high-wire balancing act for players.

Unlike their European counterparts, who can normally reach any part of their continent within a few hours and return to their clubs rather quickly,

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Why English football will always struggle to get rid of dreadful coaching ideas

It was almost inevitable that the UEFA Under 21 tournament should have once again focussed English discussion on the perennial problem in English football: why is the national team so bad? More so, when the Premier League is so powerful and rules the world, at least in terms of the spectacle it provides week after week, and in its reach, exposure and ability to make money?

This is a problem that seems to be always with us like death and taxes.

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David Owen: Financial fine print makes interesting reading, especially for Arsenal and Villa fans

I have been trawling the fine print of the new Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance (so you don’t have to).

Since football fans like league tables, I have used the data to put together 26 top-threes ranking English Premier League clubs according to different financial parameters.

I wouldn’t read too much into them without scrutinising the big picture.

However, Arsenal supporters, starved of real on-field success, may have mixed feelings about the north London club’s top ranking for most cash,

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Tahiti the whipping boys

What on earth are Tahiti doing in the Confederations Cup?

They will be the biggest Tahitian whipping boys since Captain Bligh sailed the south Pacific in the 18th century and there was a ‘mutiny on the Bounty’.

It underlines the problem FIFA have had since Australia became part of Asia’s football family, and even they would not be an ideal ‘eighth’ team in a major tournament on current form.

Australia’s departure in 2006 has given opportunities to New Zealand in international and club football that may not be entirely fair,

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David Owen: Not being there – how television became football’s chief paymaster

Nothing in recent years has changed football as much as television.

The box in the living-room corner has spawned Manchester United fans from Tacoma to Tahiti and made top players as wealthy as successful bond traders.

Few of us now, not even the most avid groundhoppers, consume as many matches live as on TV.

Even professional football reporters, who think nothing of covering 100 games a season, will turn instantly to the screens scattered around the press stands to assess whether a foul has been committed or the ball has crossed the line.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: Of talent, opportunity and global business sense

Michael Emenalo is, without question, one of European football’s interesting oddities.

As the technical director of English Premiership side Chelsea, where he undoubtedly has the listening ear of billionaire owner Roman Abramovich, the Nigerian belongs to the exclusive club of Africans who’ve transcended their club careers into positions of power in the game’s corridors.

Pape Diouf, the Senegalese who started out as a journalist and player’s agent in France, eventually becoming the president of French club Olympique Marseille and Finidi George,

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‘Ideological wars’ are ‘the new bitterness’

So, FIFA have had their congress which by some – mainly FIFA – was called “historic”, and by others a “whitewash”, “irrelevant” or worse.

Under the rainy skies of the African island nation of Mauritius, 209 FIFA Members met and the individual delegates cast their electronic vote. Actually, they also cast their more traditional manual vote in a secret ballot that determined which one of three women candidates would be FIFA’s first elected Executive Committee (Board) member.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Can Mourinho make us fall in love with Chelsea?

Jose Mourinho has nothing in common with Richard Burton. But the Portuguese, like the great Welsh actor, is about to discover what it means to go back to your first love. And, while not even the most devoted Stamford Bridge fan will argue that Chelsea is football’s Elizabeth Taylor, the way Mourinho has expressed himself in recent weeks, leading up to return, leaves no doubt that his great love for the west London club almost matches that of Burton for Taylor.

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David Owen: Is Spain signposting the way to a European Superleague?

Carlo Ancelotti may be about to inherit a problem.

The former Chelsea manager is, as I write this, prohibitive odds-on favourite to succeed the new Chelsea manager José Mourinho in the hot seat at Real Madrid.

If he does, the Italian will be looked to by the Spanish club’s fans to deliver a 10th European Cup to the Bernabéu’s church-like trophy-room – and the first for more than a decade.

John Yan

John Yan: 足球考也要开始考级？ Football As An Examination？

应试教育和考级模式，在中国社会当中的魔力有多大，足协领导们恐怕有着至深感受。在六一儿童节的校园足球推广活动上，体育总局副局长蔡振华和足管中心党委书记魏吉祥来到北京三高基地，关于校园足球的话题，在一个看似转暖的足球环境中，再度进入公共视野。

蔡振华的谈话内容，主要是正面集中于改善校园足球状况，包括六一节过后就将和包括教育部内在的相关部委进行沟通，为校园足球中体育教师、足球教练解决一些具体问题。并且”逐步形成和完善全国校园足球四级联赛”。这些肯定是校园足球的当务之急。足球专业出身的魏吉祥在座谈会上讲话，则吸引了更多媒体的关注。

在魏吉祥看来，校园足球的发展，需要在训练体系、宣教以及等级考试制度的建立有所突破，尤其是”等级考试的制度”。他想表达的意思，是让孩子们踢球也有奋斗目标，”像学习钢琴一样去学习踢球”。他的原话为：”是不是可以让孩子像学习音乐那样，建立一些等级考试制度，评分制度建立起来后，孩子有阶段性奋斗的目标……如果能从一级级的往上考，颠球20个一个级别，30个一个级别，虽然这样的评价机制不一定是专业的，但是可以促使孩子朝着更高阶段去奋斗，家长也会去支持一级级的系统化训练。”

Lee Wellings

Lee Wellings: Summer loving for the Premier League

You’ve got to feel sorry for cricket. And golf. Tennis too. In fact any sport that isn’t football, and more specifically, the unstoppable English Premier League.

We are in the summer break in European football, where other sports usually enjoy their time in the sun, something that didn’t happen as normal last year when the London Olympics dominated in this part of the world.

But this time, the feverish anticipation of a new English Premier League (EPL) season is creating the headlines and the interest.

Andrew Warshaw: Are the old perceptions still the reality?

When Sepp Blatter praised FIFA’s ship for emerging from troubled waters as the waves lapped gently against the shores of Mauritius last week, cynical heads turned away in barely suppressed mirth. “How many times have we heard that before?” was their silent refrain.

As self-proclaimed “captain” of that ship, Blatter was in congratulatory mood as he cajoled his audience to show their appreciation of past misdemeanours being replaced by a new era of transparency with a collective round of applause.

Osasu Obayiuwana

Osasu Obayiuwana: A symphony of equivocation

Since Sepp Blatter’s intriguing statement, at the last Asian Football Confederation (AFC) elective congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that 2015, the year he promised to bid adieu to the FIFA presidency, will mark the “last term, not of office, but of the reform [of football governance],” the cat has, without question, been set amongst the speculating pigeons.

Surely the 77-year-old, who will be on the cusp of becoming an octogenarian, by world football’s next elective congress,