Help Football
This is part of our efforts to improve football. In this column we discuss the key issues facing football – using more technology, money in the game, diving / simulation, developing young players and football training in general, changes to rules (governing football and clubs) and a lot more.
The Curious Case of the Lost Moral Compass
Guest writer Jony Ball wonders why John Terry is getting special treatment when no other profession offers such protection to those who discriminate against fellow professionals.
The Arab Football Spring
The performances of the North African national football sides in 2011 have reflected the political actions of the Arab Spring. The failure of Egypt, the champions of the past three tournaments, to qualify for the 2012 African Cup of Nations (ACN), alongside the absence of regional heavyweights Cameroon and Nigeria, has thrown the tournament wide…
English Football Wages: 1984 to 2010
Football wages are a ridiculously easy target – whether it’s the high wages paid by Chelsea and then Manchester City, the astronomical wage bills of Barcelona and Real Madrid fueled by unequal TV deals or the retirement homes that front as football clubs in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, football wages have steadily increased…
Just Play Football
If ever there is a time to push football it is when the dark nights draw in and the jackets go on. Push football? I know, we all watch it; comment; log on; and couch surf our way through hundreds of hours of football. Yet, the number of us playing the sport can always grow….
Hearts’ Thrashing Shows Financial Fair Play Is Misdirected
When Tottenham stepped off the pitch at Tynecastle, having subjected a Hearts team who finished in 3rd place in the SPL last season – and briefly looked to challenge the Old Firm duopoly – the laments for the state of Scottish football were loud and numerous. It’s not hard to see how this position came…
The next step for Financial Fair Play
It is fact that the gap between the “haves” and “have nots” in European football grows evermore larger. Last season in the English Premier League proved this adroitly when Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure reportedly earned more per week than the entire Blackpool squad. The same situation manifests itself in every league. Success breeds success:…
Warner And Hammam: Guilty As Charged?
The BBC has obtained a document authored by the Carribean Football Union (CFU) detailing claims that Jack Warner had full knowledge of and participated in the distribution of cash bribes to members of the CFU at a special meeting promoting Mohamed Bin Hammam’s Fifa presidential bid. In a report by the CFU general secretary Angenie…
Match fixing investigation threatens to rock Turkish football
60 people have been detained as part of a major investigation into alleged fixing within Turkish football. The chairman of current champions Fenerbahce is part of those under arrest by the authorities in the Eastern European country. Police launched a mass operation across 15 provinces of Turkey, searching club premises and detaining club players and…
Effects of the Financial Fair Play Regulations
On the 27th of May 2010, UEFA announced the approval of the Financial Fair Play(FFP) regulations. The aim of these regulations is to make the football clubs self sufficient. With the advent of these sanctions, every football club has to break even i.e. spend what they earn.There have since been numerous discussions about this so-called…
FIFA Politics: Sepp Blatter accuses Mohammed Bin Hammam of bribing Jack Warner
The FIFA Ethics Committee has opened proceedings against Jack Warner and Mohammed Bin Hammam over possible charges of bribery (official FIFA statement). The committee is due to meet (and most likely decide) on May 29th, just a couple of days before the June 1 elections date (and funnily enough, on a Sunday, right after the…
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