Andrew Warshaw: UEFA flexes its political manliness over women’s election
As Europe’s blazered football leaders filed out of Budapest following one of the shortest UEFA congresses on record, how many of them were examining their consciences?
Columnists
A new coach and the battle for the presidency
After the seemingly endless rumors came the official announcement: at the end of the next European Championship the coach of the Italian national team will not be Antonio Conte. It is no surprise. The offer from Chelsea (about €21 million for three years) was too good once it arrived, while the not so good prospects for the Blues (Italian national team, not Chelsea) were not helped by Serie A giving the coach too little room for maneuver in preparing the team.
The latest Greek affair shows how Infantino and Theodoridis are not Knights in shining armour
“Politics, these days, is no occupation for an educated man, a man of character. Ignorance and total lousiness are better.” Aristophanes, The Knights
There was of course no football 2,400 years ago when Aristophanes was writing his plays, and still less a FIFA or UEFA. But were the Old Comedian to be as popular a satirist now as he was then, he might be expected to use the same words to describe the people who have been governing our game for us as he used to describe the polis of ancient Athens.
Inside Editorial: Has the solution become the problem at FIFA?
The Panama Papers will very likely change the world of offshore finance forever. That football, its rights holders and its marketing agents have been using the same corporate and financial tools to avoid tax (sometimes legally) is no surprise. But what should be a surprise is that FIFA’s shiny new president has been so quickly dragged into the scandal.
Andrew Warshaw: All the President’s men?
When Sepp Blatter celebrated his 80th birthday this week in the bosom of his ultra-loyal family, perhaps with more than a touch of resentment at seeing his contribution to the game all but ignored during last month’s presidential hand-over, the man who replaced him was just completing his first week in charge.
Inside editorial: Did soccer just have its WMD moment?
Reflecting on the way FIFA history is being rewritten with its new reform championing president, one wonders if two weeks ago football (we’ll soon be calling it soccer) had its WMD moment.
Matt Scott: UEFA’s oversight on Olympiacos has opened dangerous ground
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Juvenal, Satires
“Who watches the watchmen?” This question, first posed by classical writers thousands of years ago, is perhaps one we would do well to ask ourselves now, as civil liberties hard won in the second millennium are gradually eroded in the third.
Andrew Warshaw: Gunfight at the ‘It’ll-all-be-OK’ corral
Fortune favours the brave. Or in Gianni Infantino’s case, being in the right place at the right time.
David Owen: Infantino spending plans may be less generous and less ‘dangerous’ than they appear
Jérôme Champagne has come out swinging in these final days of the FIFA Presidency campaign, claiming that spending pledges tabled by UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino are “very dangerous”.
David Owen: Will Chinese transfer splurge be the death of FFP in Europe?
Manchester United exec Ed Woodward sees the newly-acquisitive Chinese Super League (CSL) as “another useful market if we are looking to sell players”. And the recent £20 million-plus deal that took Ramires to Jiangsu Suning, to the considerable benefit of Chelsea’s bottom-line, surely demonstrates that he is right.
Mihir Bose: Clubs should treat fans not as customers but investors
The sorry Liverpool saga about season ticket prices, increasing prices, fans walking out, then price rise rescinded, has once again raised the question of what is the place of fans in modern football.
Andrew Warshaw: Of smoking gun-slingers and mud-slingers
At the start of the FIFA presidential race, all we heard was the need for a clean campaign, with each candidate energetically promoting his own cause. No finger-pointing, no duplicity, no mud-slinging.
David Owen: Infantino’s general secretary and the Confederations’ unhealthy grip on FIFA
Even the slickest, best choreographed media events – and I have attended few slicker than this week’s descent on Wembley by FIFA Presidential candidate Gianni Infantino and his footballing legends – have revealing moments.
Andrew Warshaw: TV or not TV
When candidates of opposition political parties in US and British elections, and in many other countries for that matter, want to convince the voting public that they are best person for the job, they frequently go head-to-head on television as an important way of their getting their messages across. So what’s so precious about football?
David Owen: In defence of Adidas
‘Oh shut up, silly woman,’ said the reptile with a grin
‘You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.’
From The Snake by Al Wilson
My social media threads at the start of this week were full of the sarcastic indignation that is part of the medium’s stock-in-trade.