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Delroy Alexander: Zero tolerance of racist traditions

Delroy-Alexander

By Delroy Alexander

On first hearing the “Selection Manifesto 12” from a powerful Zenit St. Petersburg fans group, Landscrona, I like many was quick to dismiss it as an idiots’ intent on promoting some obscure and objectionable views.

However, the demand for the sacking and non-recruitment of black players and exclusion of gays is part of a serious selection policy proposal, intended to influence and set the agenda at a club with a less than stellar record on integration.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Winter whisperers must not knock Qataris from their core 2022 message

So what has Qatar in common with South Africa? On the face of it you would think this is an absurd, Christmas quiz, question. But it is not.

In footballing terms they have a lot in common. The common factor is both countries are pioneers for the world’s most popular game, staging the World Cup in their part of the world for the first time. And both countries have had the need to convince the world they are worthy of having this honour.

Andrew Warshaw: Football wasn’t born in Qatar overnight just because of 2022

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

It is just over two years since that momentous December day when Qatar stunned the footballing world by winning the race to stage the 2022 World Cup by a landslide.

At virtually every turn since, Hassan Al-Thawadi and his campaign team have had to cope with negative reporting about the methods used by the tiny Gulf state to achieve one of the most jaw-dropping results in the history of sports event bidding.

But if you think Al-Thawadi – the razor sharp,

Columnists

Delroy Alexander: Greater moral not technical guidance needed

Delroy-Alexander

I can’t count the number of times I’ve ran the line at a weekend youth football game for my son and his friends during the many programmes that we run in the Caribbean and for strangers that are a man short and in need of a man in black.

It’s hard for me to imagine kids in those games turning on me for making a questionable decision. But that’s exactly what seems to have happened to Richard Nieuwenhuizen on Sunday,

Archive

David Owen: Will Platini’s Euro 2020 experiment have a bearing on the race to succeed Sepp Blatter?

David Owen_IWF

Some thoughts on Euro 2020:

● Yes, a 24-team tournament is too unwieldy for most European countries to take on; but it is simplistic to suggest that this alone forced UEFA’s hand, necessitating the adoption of Michel Platini’s Grand Experiment – a competition spread around the great arenas of the European continent.

Turkey, pipped at the post for Euro 2016, could have coped with the expanded format and would, I’m sure,

Andrew Warshaw: The global clamour for goal-line technology is finally bearing fruit

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

Did the ball cross the line? It’s a question fans have been asking ever since the 1966 FIFA World Cup final when England striker Geoff Hurst’s extra time goal against Germany was dubiously yet innocently allowed to stand by the Swiss referee on the advice of his Soviet linesman.

The other more pressing question is why nothing has ever been done, in the 46 years since, to avoid countless similar occurrences of the referee getting it wrong,

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Ivan Bravo – I can die happy now Spain have won the World Cup

It is not often in football you hear many people talk about Roman Abramovich, Florentino Perez and Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Crown Prince of Qatar being “visionary men”, and all in the same breath.

The first two are widely regarded as using football clubs, Chelsea and Real Madrid, as their play things, an impression strengthened in the Russian’s case by the way he got rid of his last manager Roberto Di Matteo.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: Blatter is the sort of showman who likes to surprise his audience

You don’t know what to expect when you interview Sepp Blatter. For a man who wanted to be on the stage since he was a child, he has always been the sort of showman who likes to surprise his audience. A book of Blatter sayings would be an instant bestseller.

Yet what struck me when I had a long chat with him at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich last week, is that there seems little love lost between him and Michel Platini,

Andrew Warshaw: Time waits for no man, not least when it comes to Chelsea’s short-termism

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

Here we go again – just like clockwork. Only this was arguably the cruellest cut of all.

Six months after winning the greatest prize in European club football – the one Roman Abramovich craved from the moment he walked through the door – Chelsea have brutally cast aside the manager who brought it about, one who gained legendary status virtually overnight.

Time waits for no man, not least when it comes to football’s mantra of short-termism.

Archive

David Owen: Two years on from World Cup bust-up, Goal payment signifies that FA and FIFA have kissed and made up

David Owen_in_IWF_tie

Suddenly the 2018 World Cup bidding campaign seems a very long time ago.

At its conclusion in December 2010, relations between the world’s oldest Football Association – whose candidate, England, was among the losers – and FIFA, world football’s governing body, were at a low ebb.

Yet today finds Joseph Blatter, FIFA’s long-serving President, dropping in on St George’s Park, the FA’s new national football centre at Burton on Trent in the English Midlands.

Mihir Bose

Mihir Bose: To say that the FA is not institutionally racist does not mean there are no glass ceilings in football

The debate on racism in football has now descended into absurd levels. On one hand, we are having accusations that the Football Association (FA) is institutionally racist. On the other hand, there are those who argue, and this includes some very powerful figures in the game, that Chelsea should never have made a complaint against Mark Clattenburg.

Both positions are absurd. Let us first deal with the Chelsea situation. As is very clear from what Bruce Buck,

Columnists

Delroy Alexander: No more monkey business

Delroy-Alexander Nov_11

As United States President Barack Obama swept back into power, I felt a real surge of pride because young, old, white, black, gay, straight, Hispanic and people of all dispositions had voted once again to make a man of colour the most powerful person on the planet.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that perhaps my own footnote in history might not be any of my professional deeds. Rather a sporting happenstance that saw me become Malia and Sasha Obama’s first “soccer”

Andrew Warshaw: Will UEFA come down on Serbia enough to cut out racism in football once and for all?

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

Throughout this week, UEFA has been trying to spread the message that racism – indeed any form of discrimination – has no place in European football.

Champions League and Europa League games were dedicated to transmitting the message that the fight against racism will be given utmost priority.

The campaign could not have been more timely, with racism at the forefront of the game following not only the John Terry affair but,

Columnists

David Gold: There’s still much to do to prepare Russia for the 2018 World Cup

David Gold_-__IWF

It may still be six years away, but the first major milestone of the Russia 2018 World Cup was reached this weekend as FIFA announced the 11 cities and 12 stadiums that will host matches at the tournament. The world knew that Moscow, St Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Saransk would be staging games. The news of note was that they would be joined by Kaliningrad, Samara, Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd. Yaroslavl missed out,

Andrew Warshaw: Has Terry jumped rather than waiting to be pushed?

Andrew Warshaw_IWF

John Terry says his decision to quit playing for England broke his heart but will the footballing public be as sympathetic towards him as he might hope?

Whatever the verdict in his Football Association (FA) disciplinary hearing, there seems little doubt that at the end of Terry’s international career, opinion will be split over the legacy he left and how he should be judged.

Terry’s announcement, three months short of turning 32,