Make sure you listen to this week’s Soccerlens Podcast that discusses Henry’s handball and a lot more.

…Or at least if you had just read the reactions from the fans and trigger-happy journalists, you’d think this is what Henry had actually done:

On a serious note, the ‘victims’ – the Irish team – have been refreshingly objective about the situation and have laid the blame squarely on the horrible refereeing and to a much lesser extent on their own poor finishing as the real reasons why the French and not the Irish are headed to South Africa.

The Irish team and management have pointed fingers at FIFA, at Blatter, at Platini – but not at Henry (who to his credit admitted that he had handballed but defended himself by saying that he’s ‘not the referee’).

This is the same Thierry Henry who dove twice in the 2006 World Cup – during the second round game against Spain when his dive led to the free kick that led to France’s comeback in that game, and during the semi-final against Portugal where his dive led to France’s only goal and thus a place in the finals (1, 2).

Once in the final, there was a Malouda dive that helped France score the first goal of the game. And yet, because France had been the underdogs in that campaign (beating Brazil in the quarters, no less)…the Italians ended up being demonized as cheats.

It’s France’s turn now. Whenever the underdog gets cheated there’s always a huge uproar – the joyous David v Goliath narrative is broken and all hell breaks lose.

But when the big dog gets cheated – which happens quite a lot in football – it’s met with a ‘you deserved it’ attitude that is completely at odds with calls for ‘better refereeing’ made the last time around.

Hypocrites, the whole lot of them – fans and journos.

Credits: DangerHere.com for the video.

19-year-old Norwegian starlet Jo Inge Berget is contracted to Udinese Calcio, but would rather be anywhere else than in Udine.

After a loan spell at his home club in Norway, the striker was expected by Norwegian media to get a call-up to the senior national team in November, alongside players such as Aston Villas John Carew and Le Mans Club’s Thorstein Helstad.

In contrast, at Udinese he plays for the Under 20s team. Is he an example of a curious collection of talented footballers to fall victim to a Serie A cultural barrier? The nature of the reception committee in Italian clubs requires another look.

Sometimes talented footballers do not fit in a particular footballing culture. Level of talent, personal motivation or outside factors can determine if a player manages to break through at a foreign club. Norwegian players do not have significant track records in Italy.

Apart from Per Bredesen, at Lazio, Milan and Bari, and Ragnar Larsen, at Lazio and Genoa, both in the 1950s, only two of the ten Norwegians ever to play in the Serie A lasted as much as two seasons. 19-year old Jo Inge Berget at Udinese is facing a similar situation – but it could be avoided.

Signed for about EUR 700 000 as a 17-year-old from FC Lyn Oslo in summer 2008, Berget was meant to quickly go the grades through the U20s team into first team training. Although the youth coaches at Udinese have been happy with his efforts in training, the progress did not go as planned.

Berget was often second choice for the Udinese U20s behind Nigerian striker Odion Ighalo, who was also signed from Lyn. He quickly became disillusioned with the situation. Already in April the next year Berget was allowed to return to his home club on a 5-month loan deal.

The young striker, who has been described by skysports.com as ‘one to watch’, showed great maturity to earn a regular spot in the top division team in Norway. Europa League-qualified Molde FK attempted to buy him from Udinese, but upon failing his medical he was due back in Udine. Berget refused to go back, publicly stating he had no intention to do so. He was allowed a loan extension in Norway until the end of the season. With the end-of-season break beginning in November for the Norwegian professionals, Berget’s situation is still not in the clear.

There is no doubt about the reasons for his strong desire not to return to Udinese at this stage in his career – language barrier, homesickness, feeling of social exclusion, and promises of his footballing chances not being fulfilled. Berget has made this clear to Norwegian media. However, Udinese insist he comes back.

In this situation no one is happy – not Berget, Lyn or Udinese. It can be questioned whether anyone is at fault for creating this situation, and Berget’s situation indicates that someone is. Berget’s situation is just like that of hundreds of other talented youngsters who go abroad to try to make it in a bigger league. In Berget’s case, the situation could be solved with such ease. When the club is happy with his progress, at 19 he could be in line to make the Zebrette’s first team soon.

What Berget seems to need is someone who is present in his everyday life, helping him link up with the club community and the local culture. In the world of football, perhaps a man is expected to hold the traditional machismo stereotype of not needing help – but for young boys who travel abroad to play football a little help is sometimes all it takes. Football author Simon Kuper writes in Why England Lose that such ‘relocation agents’ make a huge difference in the experience of new players when they are used.

Jo Inge Berget has admitted that in his first month in Italy he only ate food with chicken, because the word for chicken, ‘pollo’, was the only word he knew. He felt excluded from the banter of the dressing room of the youth team, because no one helped him get included in the social life. His own social life consists of some contact with Swedish fellow youth player Gustav Hellman, and his mother who visits him every three weeks.

Even though Berget is happy with the football education he is getting, and Udinese strongly want him back, there is no wonder he is dreading a return to such a limited life.

If Udinese had used a relocation agent, someone connected to the club who eased Berget’s transition to life in a foreign country and at a big club, it would probably have been easier for Berget to justify the 700 000 EUR price tag, and to progress quickly into the first team as he was expected to.

Life as a talented footballer has a very strong psychological side to it. Evidence for that is provided every year – from Adriano refusing to travel back to Inter, now scoring for fun in the Brazilian championship, through Martin Bengtsson, the Swedish youngster at Inter who attempted suicide in Inter’s youth team residence in 2004, to the failures of Florent Sinama Pongolle and Anthony Le Tallec at Liverpool, now both successful players.

Pressure is especially hard on players who have not yet had their breakthrough and live in uncertainty in a foreign country. The reflections of Jo Inge Berget to Norwegian press over that lacking component is perhaps a lesson for all top Italian clubs who want to convert foreign talent into Serie A-class players.

Argentinean and Uruguayan players adjust more easily to Italian life, but there is a steady stream of Swedish and other Northern European youngsters who travel to Italy and fail. Perhaps an analysis of the psychological side of youth transfers is necessary for Italian clubs, who are often dominated by ageing players.

This seems to be one aspect Italian top clubs can improve to help bring the Serie A forward again to be the most attractive league for talented footballers. Along with new stadiums and widened audience appeal, there are some steps Italian football can take to improve. Focusing on the psychological barriers in youngsters’ daily life can be a huge asset to the players and to the clubs in the future.

Don’t miss Adrian Clarke and Iain Spragg debate the beautiful game on Episode 28 of the world famous Soccerlens podcast. 

This week’s sprightly show features lively chat on possible Premier League expansion, the next destination for Man City rebel Robinho and a cheeky new way of ridding football of its diving cheats. 

England’s friendly with Brazil and Tottenham’s spending spree are covered in reader’s questions – and the perky pair also preview all of this weekend’s European World Cup qualifiers including Republic of Ireland v France and Portugal v Bosnia Herzegovina. 

Make sure you tune in!

You can listen to this week’s episode below:
Download link (mp3, 31mb, 33 mins)

Make sure you send in your feedback and questions through podcast@soccerlens.com and Clarke and Spragg will feature the best of them in next week’s show.

Subscribe to the Soccerlens Podcast

You can subscribe via iTunes or directly to the podcast feed.

It seems that whenever I write an article for this site it’s about one of two things; Scottish football’s decline or uprising. No prizes for guessing which one this falls under, with the issues surrounding that of Rangers dominating the back pages north of the border for most of the past few weeks.

We’ve known for quite a while that there’s no money to spend. Rangers have failed to buy anyone for around eighteen months despite allowing several first-teamers and fringe players leave during that same period. Their only signing of the summer was the loan deal for Jerome Rothen from Paris St. Germain. It didn’t exactly get the blood pumping. Almost envious eyes were cast across the city at Celtic who were busy spending £3.8million on Marc-Antoine Fortuné and more on others in their attempt to reclaim the SPL title, theirs for three years running before relinquishing it to Rangers last season.

But adding to the doom and gloom was the announcement that chairman Sir David Murray was stepping down and putting the club up for sale. With debts close to £30million and the club now effectively controlled by Lloyds bank. It’s a far cry from the heydays of the 1990s, a decade in which Rangers matched Celtic’s record nine-in-a-row titles, and also saw now Ibrox legends Brian Laudrup, Paul Gascoigne and Jorg Albertz amongst others plying their trade at the club.

The £12million outlay on Tore Andre Flo, a Scottish transfer record unlikely to ever be beaten marked Rangers’ highest spending spree at the turn of the century, but almost ten years on, the club is suffering from chasing that elusive dream of European glory. The best the club managed was a UEFA Cup final appearance in 2008, where they were comprehensively beaten by Zenit St. Petersburg and were widely criticised by opposing managers during that run for their negative, overly defensive football.

Essentially Rangers have spent big only to go backwards. They are no bigger a club now than they were some ten or fifteen years ago. And the current squad, with some notable exceptions lacks quality to compete with Europe’s elite. Last week’s 4-0 defeat to Unirea Urziceni, the bottom seeds in their Champions’ League group, saw them sit bottom of the group with a sole point earned in their draw away to Stuttgart. Whilst qualification from the group is far from impossible, it’s most certainly a bad start.

Their domestic domination is coming under question too. Rangers have won just five of their first nine games of the season, and ahead of Sunday’s game against Dundee United, they sit third in the table, one point behind Hibernian and four behind Celtic, although both sides have played one more game.

This slump in form has seen increased pressure on manager Walter Smith, whose current deal expires in January, and with no money seemingly available, a new deal for him and assistant Ally McCoist does not appear to be on the table. Smith to his credit has offered to continue working after his contract has expired until something can be worked out between Murray and any potential buyers, but against the backdrop of constant uncertainty it’s clear that the pressure on the management team will continue to grow.

Ultimately the hardest hit are the fans though, who have to watch their team continue to perform badly, whilst not knowing who is running the club or who may end up owning the club should a buyer be found.

Clinching the SPL title last June – never mind the halcyon days of the nine-in-a-row era – must seem like a very long time ago.

Check out Episode 26 of the world famous Soccerlens Podcast with co-hosts Adrian Clarke and Iain Spragg.

Football’s swine flu epidemic (including the dangers of spitting), the latest twist in Newcastle United’s tale and an escalating problem with hooliganism all crop up in conversation during this week’s spookily good show – as do all the usual match previews and predictions, focusing on Arsenal v Tottenham, Everton v Aston Villa as well as Lyon v Liverpool.

Rounding things off will be ‘Questions Corner’ where Spraggy and Clarkey do their best to answer a number of pertinent posers sent in from Soccerlens’ knowledgeable army of listeners.

Make sure you send in your feedback and questions through podcast@soccerlens.com and Clarke and Spragg will feature the best of them in next week’s show.

You can listen to this week’s episode below:
Download link (mp3, 30mb, 33 mins)

England manager Fabio Capello breezed into the school of excellence at Coverciano on Monday with the air of authority that comes from having won everything there is in the club game. He was there to give an inspirational speech to the school’s students who want to follow in his footsteps.

Instead, Capello launched an unexpected and scathing attack on the state of Italian football, telling the assembled audience that the game on the peninsula is now being held hostage by the Ultrás. “It’s impossible to stop the Ultrás running the game and no one has the courage to stand up to them. In England the grounds are always full.

“There is a real desire to go to a game and nothing ever happens because the stewards carry out a perfect role. It saddens me to see what is happening in Italy. The authorities and the clubs need to make some decisions and people would then return to the game and the grounds would be full again,” Capello explained.

His comments drew strong criticism from the likes of Giancarlo Abete, the President of the Italian FA, who said Capello was wrong and risked making a gross generalisation by blaming a minority for a problem that is far more wide-reaching than his comments suggest.

Gianni Petrucci, the President of the Italian Olympic Committee, also hit back, saying: “The English certainly can’t lecture us about the birth of a sporting culture. It is, after all, no coincidence that throughout the world violent fans are known as ‘hooligans’ – an English word.”

A day later, on the 30^th anniversary of the death of Vincenzo Paparelli, the Lazio fan who was killed after being hit by a flare in the Rome derby, their arguments were left in tatters. Lazio Ultrás stormed the club’s training ground at Formello, disrupting a training session with a barrage of flares and insults so they could “ask” the players and the coaching staff why the Biancocelesti hadn’t won a game in Serie A since August 30.

Tommaso Rocchi was forced to grab a megaphone and apologise for Sunday’s 2-0 defeat away to newly promoted Bari. “It’s true, against Bari we made a bad impression that mustn’t be repeated. Sunday’s attitude was wrong.” Meanwhile, the coach, Davide Ballardini, explained why he had stood by Claudio Lotito’s decision to freeze Goran Pandev and Cristian Ledesma, the club’s two long-standing stars, out of the first team after they refused to sign new contracts in the summer.

If the Ultrás thought their actions would provoke a response in Wednesday evening’s clash at home to Cagliari, then they were deeply misguided. Lazio lost 1-0 after an understandably nervous Fernando Muslera spilled a Daniele Conti free-kick, allowing Alessandro Matri to collect the loose ball and slot it into the net, scoring the easiest goal of his career. The result leaves Lazio 15^th in the table just a point above the drop zone.

To make matters worse, the Ultrás once again made their presence felt at the final whistle. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, they congregated undisturbed in front of the exit of the tribuna d’onore and door-stopped Lotito and the players, who were leaving the Olimpico. “Lotito get lost!” the Ultrás shouted before calling the players “mercenaries”.

After the game, Ballardini was asked if he was considering locking his players in at the training ground until Sunday when the Biancocelesti travel to managerless Siena who are currently propping up the table. “We will evaluate this option and probably go to Norcia in Umbria. My players have never held back, but if we want to work with serenity, then this may be an option,” he said.

Ballardini’s comments are just what Capello was driving at in his speech, for if a team is forced to move away from its training ground just so it can prepare for the next game with a semblance of peace, isn’t that a shocking indictment of the state of the Italian game?

Roma boss Claudio Ranieri – whose side slipped to their third straight defeat against Udinese last night – gave Capello his backing, relating an anecdote from his time in Turin. “Last year Juventus wanted Dejan Stankovic, but we didn’t sign him because the fans didn’t want him,” Ranieri explained. His successor, Ciro Ferrara, disagreed, reminding Ranieri that Juventus signed Fabio Cannavaro in the summer, even though the fans protested during negotiations.

The debate is polarising Italy. There are those who see Ultrás as modern day romantics who bring colour and raw authentic passion to the support of their team, which, as anyone who has been to a game in Italy can attest, is a quality that has to a large extent been lost in England.

The Ultrás themselves feel under threat like never before even though, as some claim in their defence, violence has gradually decreased inside Italy’s football stadiums. The deaths of Filippo Raciti and Gabriele Sandri prompted the government into launching proposals for la tessera del tifoso, a kind of fan passport that, according to the Osservatorio Nazionale sulle Manifestazioni Sportive, would “allow the construction of a category of ‘official’ fans”.

Anyone with a Daspo, a sort of Italian sporting ASBO, would be forbidden from receiving la tessera, sparking a debate about privacy and discrimination. Nevertheless, public opinion has undoubtedly turned against the Ultrás. A poll on La Gazzetta dello Sport’s website on Tuesday revealed 88.1 per cent of readers agree with Capello.

It’s up to the authorities to grasp the nettle and deal with the minority while remaining sensitive enough to preserve the atmosphere that makes Italian grounds so distinct from others across the globe.

Talking points

• Jean-Claude Blanc looked to persuade Juventus’ shareholders to confirm his presidency with a shrewd yet controversial piece of populism. Asked to describe the objectives of his administration, Blanc replied: “I told the shareholders that our primary objective is a third star.” Italian clubs are allowed to stitch a star on their shirts for every ten league titles they win. Juventus have won 29, but two were revoked after the Calciopoli scandal in 2006. The Bianconeri’s 5-1 victory over Sampdoria on Wednesday night takes his dream one step closer to reality.
• Newly promoted Parma are in the Champions League places after a 2-0 victory over Bari put them into fourth spot. Valeri Bojinov scored a cracking opener and dedicated it to the fans of former club Lecce, who are Bari’s fierce local rivals. Luca Antonelli poured cold water on celebrations, insisting Parma’s primary objective this season remains survival.
• Siena fired Marco Giampaolo after his side suffered a 2-1 defeat to Bologna, their seventh in ten games this season. Mario Beretta is the odds-on favourite to replace him, having already had two stints at the club, the most recent coming in 2008 when he saved the Robur from relegation. He’ll need to work another miracle this season, as Siena are bottom with just five points.
• Sampdoria midfielder Daniele Mannini has a reason to be sadder than his team-mates this morning following the Blucerchiati’s 5-1 defeat away to Juventus. Earlier this week, he revealed how he had picked himself for his own Fantasy Football team, which had until yesterday proven to be a very good decision. Mannini was the most valuable midfielder in La Gazzetta dello Sport’s ‘Magic Championship’ but last night’s performance has hampered his progress.

Update: Portsmouth admit that interview was not fake.

Last night the Guardian published a damning article quoting Portsmouth’s new owner, Ali Al Faraj, as saying that he had bought the club on borrowed money, that he wasn’t a billionaire, that he knew nothing about football and that he planned to sell on the club in six months after he had stabilised it.

Fast forward to today and the article is long gone, pulled (presumably) because the work placement guy who picked up the story from an unauthenticated source ballsed it all up. Or maybe Faraj’s lawyers (or Portsmouth’s lawyers for that matter) got in touch and threatened legal action over unsubstantiated accusations.

Whatever the case, Marina Hyde’s column on NBA’s strict vetting process that all prospective team owners must go through, offers the bleeding obvious and necessary solution to future (and current) club ownership problems – proper and thorough background checks and a peer-based vote.

But the Premier League, like any organisation, is resistant to change. Since it’s a ‘clubs’ association you’ll definitely see a resistance against regulation – why bother putting the house in order when it’s easier to hide behind non-existent rules.

A 5-step Ownership test

Let’s keep things simple here – the Premier League need to do the following for every existing and future owner:

• Financial background checks to ensure that the owners have the money AND have access to it.
• Political / criminal background checks to ensure that football does not become a laundering operation to ‘clean’ money, or that those convicted of cheating aren’t allowed back into sport.
• Investigate financial history (especially in terms of previous bankruptcies).
• Require a legal commitment to invest and stay at the club for a minimum period of time (with the appropriate get-out clauses in case of emergencies, etc).
• Require full disclosure of owner identity (and identities of shareholders if it’s a fund / trust).

This isn’t rocket science. We haven’t even begun to talk about preventing certain types of takeovers (I’m looking at you, Glazers) or holding owners to their initial promises (G & H).

Why can’t the Premier League ensure that anyone taking over a club is a) not a criminal and b) has the money to do what’s he’s proposed to and c) is in it for the long haul?

Are the Premier League so desperate for money, or so blase about the lack of regulatory oversight, that anyone, money or not, criminal or not, can buy a football club?

Remember that fabulous Parma team that lifted the UEFA Cup in 1999?

Led then by manager Alberto Malesani the team was made up of superb talent from the back to the front. A young Gainluigi Buffon kept goal, protected by a back three of Lillian Thuram, Fabio Cannavaro and Nestor Sensini. Their attacking lines included the creativity of Juan Veron, covered by the combative Dino Baggio, and Hernan Crespo to put the chances away.

I only bring up the case of the formidable team Parma entered into the UEFA Cup that year because of one simple question: of the clubs that now qualify for the UEFA Europa League, could you ever imagine a team with such talent winning the tournament under its new guise?

The delusion of inclusion

A major answer to this question starts with UEFA. The qualification boundaries for the tournament are far too broad. It seems the inclusive policies of Michel Platini in regards to the European club competitions is an attempt to force TV money around the lesser clubs to prevent, or stifle, the financial power becoming exclusive to a select few clubs at the top of Europe’s more lucrative leagues.

This, on the face of it, seems a genuine attempt to make European football more diverse. The inclusion of Debrecen, Unirea Urziceni and APOEL in this years Champions League is testament to this. The reality however is that the teams that are entered into this year’s Champions League, especially from Europe’s biggest leagues (Spain, England and Italy) make those teams that are entered into the UEFA Europa League underneath ill equipped to compete in Europe.

Coupled with this, those who enter into the tournament from smaller leagues are usually never in a financial position to have a squad that is capable of competing either. When the UEFA Europa League was known as the UEFA Cup it suffered from some serious credibility issues and the rebranding of the tournament will mean nothing if UEFA don’t change their policy about who qualifies.

European football should be about the spectacle of two great teams competing with the stadium, squad, and financial stability to cope.

The UEFA Europa League fixtures being held on a Thursday (presumably because UEFA recognise the matches would lose the ratings war with any half-decent Champions League game on a Tuesday or Wednesday) only makes this worse for the clubs competing domestically. It means that they have to travel across several time-zones to play a game of a poor standard, then travel back to their own country for a match on either Saturday or Sunday.

Imagine the kind of mental energy the players have when they return. Fulham’s performance in the Premier League this year acts of a perfect example.

Domestic (financial) survival over european (footballing) glory

The UEFA Europa League has to be a more exclusive if it is to gain any kind of respect. One argument could be that the teams from Italy, Spain and England are not taking the competition seriously and as a result blame is placed firmly at their feet for the shortcomings of the quality of matches. But what choice do they have?

Take Tottenham Hotspur who participated in last years UEFA Cup for example. Juande Ramos had left the team struggling for points in the early stages of the Premier League and when Harry Redknapp arrived he had to focus on survival and later moving up the Premier League, this left no place for his more important players during the UEFA Cup tournament and we saw Dean Parrett, John Bostock and Jonathan Obika take to the field.

To a lesser extent the same can be said of Aston Villa this year and last year. AC Milan also did the same when playing Portsmouth at Fratton Park in 2008, as did Bayern Munich elsewhere.

The best example for me is the aforementioned position of Fulham and the team they announced to play CSKA Sofia. Fulham had a fantastic year in the Premier League last year finishing a lofty 7th but Fulham are a team in no way equipped to compete with the demands of Europe this year. Their Premiership position is not guaranteed and neither is there Premier League status (they currently find themselves in 15th) and yet because of the entry requirements for the UEFA Europa League they find themselves due in the Stadio Olympico on the 5th of November.

The issue remains, because the UEFA Europa League is so inclusive the teams from the three big leagues find themselves fighting too-big-a-battle on the domestic front to compete in Europe. The UEFA Europa League’s one saving grace means it still suffers a crisis of integrity. The fact is the majority of the teams in the UEFA Europa League do not have the facilities to compete in Europe.

Granted, there are exceptions. Bayern Munich were involved in the tournament in 2007, Milan the year after that in, and Roma and Valencia have entered this year. This has mostly been down to poor domestic form however, which can never be accounted for. Some credibility is given to the tournament in the form of Champions League drop-outs also.

The cups inception was to create of competition for domestic league runners-up and that is how it should have remained. The spectacle has completely disappeared and serves usually to hinder teams taking part. Winning the tournament offers little prize money, and even less prestige.

It’s a radical step to abolish it, but what purpose does it serve? It creates no great exhibition, and offers very little intrigue apart from the fans of the teams taking part. It’s a cut throat attitude I know, but the Champions League is surely inclusive enough to satisfy the European club calendar.

Rio Ferdinand is perhaps one of the more unlikely of digital ambassadors. Before yesterday’s online-only broadcast of Ukraine v England, the defender offered his opinion on the unique way the game would be broadcast to the nation.

“I’m sure it’ll be the way forward and in the future it’ll probably be the reality. I think it’s a good way to gauge how many people are interested,” Ferdinand told BBC Sport. The Manchester United man’s view was one shared by many online who breathlessly predicted it would change the face of sports broadcasting. Perhaps the digital question was still playing in his head, judging by his performance in the game.

On the naysaying side came those who claimed that the online stream would fall prey to all matter of technical gremlins and would be watched by no-one. The reality, as is usually the case in these matters, was somewhere in between.

The impasse

It’s worth taking a moment, though, to recap how we reached the case that an England World Cup Qualifier wasn’t available to watch on a TV screen across the country.

When England fans chanted “We hate Setanta” at the Andorra qualifier in Barcelona last year, they should have been careful what they wished for.

The rights for the game, held by the Ukranian FA, were originally held by Setanta Sports. When the broadcaster went bust, the rights went to Swiss agency Kentaro, who looked to sell them on. The problem was no terrestrial broadcaster was biting.

Had England’s qualification not been assured, then it’s certain that one of the broadcasters, either on pay-per-view or free-to-air, would have snapped up the game, no matter how inflated the price.

But, with the game a dead rubber from England’s perspective, the appetite wasn’t there to pay the reported £3m Kentaro were looking for, with each broadcaster having their specific reasons for not meeting the asking price.

The English FA had nothing to do with the rights for this away qualifier so couldn’t come to the aid of frustrated fans, so Kentaro, looking for the best financial deal, employed internet broadcaster Perform to show the game across the internet via a pay-per-view website.

Several national newspapers also took up the option to show the game on their websites, while the Odeon cinema chain also opened its doors to football fans. Most crucially, the game was not available in pubs, although many hooked up projectors and streams.

Not quite ground-breaking

The broadcast itself went reasonably smoothly, with Perform calling it “an extremely successful and ground-breaking project.” Both these claims, while true in some regards, can be questioned.

The website itself was set to be capped at one million subscribers to preserve the quality of the broadcast, but it’s unlikely this limit was reached. Perform haven’t released any figures but have suggested the number of viewers was close to half a million.

However, this number takes into account the viewers in the 12 Odeon cinemas, as well the British Forces Broadcasting Service, which screen the game for free to troops around the globe. Bet 365 customers also got to see the game for free. The actual number who paid to watch was estimated to be between 250,000 and 300,000.

The project itself can hardly be described as ground-breaking either. Perform had already screened internet-only Europa League games for Manchester City, while streams of games, both legal and illegal, are watched by fans all around the globe. The only difference this time around was the high-profile nature of the game.

And while Perform may be pleased with the number of fans who chose to subscribe, not everybody was singing the website’s praises. Ian Ridley in the Mail was one critic and concluded:

“Sport is supposed to be a shared experience, a celebration of the human spirit, which is why so many still buy tickets when a match is live on television, why so many congregate in pubs and clubs – the modern terraces – if they cannot get in.”

Not everybody would have had the capacity to watch the game either. I was one of them. On Saturday, I was in a part of the country where slow broadband speeds and a slow computer would have rendered the game nigh-on unwatchable.

Conclusions, if any can be made

In many respects, it’s difficult to know what the conclude from this internet ‘experiment’. The set of circumstances that led to the broadcast were unique and unlikely to be repeated in the near future. Illegal streams will always attracted a sizable number of fans, but, at the current time, these are unlikely to come anywhere near the figures for people watching at home or in the pub.

What is does create is an interesting option for the future. There will undoubtedly be more opportunities for the likes of Perform, albeit not for such high-profile games in the near-future, and the company have shown they can pull off a high-level broadcast. They can now genuinely call themselves a player in the world of football rights, although at what level remains to be seen.

The internet is also changing the way TV is viewed, but event television, such as football matches and big reality shows, is still about watching it live rather than viewing on a catch-up service at a later date. Will so many matches over the course of the season, sporting events have a limited lifespan in this regard, unlike dramas.

Yet the appetite for to watch England lose 1-0 in the Ukraine was evident by the fact 4.3m tuned into the BBC highlights later that evening, despite the broadcaster being unable to announce they’d struck a deal until after the game, so Perform and Kentaro could maximise their revenue.

Live football on the internet, if the Ukraine game is anything to go by, will become part of our future, but is unlikely to be the complete future just yet. Those who dislike the idea of watching matches on a platform that isn’t TV will probably have to get used to the idea, but those who envisaged this changing the way we view football may want to reign in the hyperbole.

Currently, the broadcasting on this one game can be seen as an oddity and little more. It’s genuinely too early to tell if Perform’s service is significant at this point in time. The FA are unlikely to want this situation to happen again in a hurry.

And to any England fan who missed out on the game, they should take comfort in the fact they don’t support the United States. Bob Bradley’s team secured qualification for the World Cup in a vital away qualifier in Honduras. But the Honduran federation sold the rights to a Spanish media company, meaning the game was only available on closed-circuit television. Now that is definitely not the future.

Update: Ali Al Faraj has completed his takeover of Portsmouth, acquiring a 90% stake in the club. Sulaiman Al Fahim retains a 10% share.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

After Sulaiman Al-Fahim pulled the wool over the Premier League’s eyes once during the Manchester City takeover by pretending to be the owner and making pre-posterous claims on who Manchester City could sign, the actual owners quietly sidelined him and brought in a more measured representative.

The damage had been done though, and to date some of the criticism leveled against Manchester City’s approach to the Premier League can be traced back to Al-Fahim’s botched PR efforts during the takeover.

So you’d think that when Fahim came in at Portsmouth offering, amongst other things, to inject 50m into the club, wipe out the debt and finance a new stadium, you would have asked to see proof of funds before even having a second conversation.

But that’s not how it happened – Gaydamak didn’t care much – he wanted to cut his losses – and neither did the Premier League, who have in recent years allowed clubs to be mismanaged and laden with serious debt, not to mention shown no concern with the background and financial strength of prospective owners as long as they ‘talked the talk’ and looked the part.

Appearances, it seems, can go a long way when it comes to taking over a football club.

And now we have a situation where a club in relative free-fall couldn’t pay their players last week. Not a bright start and it certainly doesn’t give any hope of the squad being strengthened in January if Al-Fahim was to stay in charge.

As things stand though, Saudi Arabian businessman Ali Al-Faraj is expected to make an offer to Al-Fahim for Portsmouth and if things go as planned, could be taking over the club as soon as the end of this month. Al-Faraj was also involved in chief executive Peter Storrie’s consortium that lost out to Al-Fahim last month – and given Peter Storrie’s ambitions for the club it’s likely that he will be behind this move as well.

A spokesman for Al-Fahim said that “Sulaiman’s lawyers are engaged in talks with lawyers for Al-Faraj”, that “He expects an offer to be made today” and “In the best interests of the club he is willing to forego full ownership and if or when an offer is on the table it will be considered on its merits.”

For Pompey’s sake, let’s hope that this will be the end of their financial troubles – about time too, they desperately need to keep their focus on matters on the pitch and possibly bring in reinforcements in January – although the look of the squad suggests it’s primed for the Championship.

All this points to one thing – that the Premier League and the Football League (think Notts County) need to be more proactive and consistent in regulating club ownership in England. It should start with demanding solid proof over financial backing, include full disclosure of ownership (this need not be made public knowledge but it should be known to the Premier League and the people in charge of the club) and it should definitely include regulation to ensure that clubs are able to repay their debts without going bust or selling all their players.

Portsmouth’s current plight is a direct result of the club over-spending for several years in a bid to achieve European football – the FA Cup win masked their troubles but in the long run, Gaydamak’s inability to backup his excessive spending meant that the club was bound to suffer. There’s no need to punish clubs for spending a lot of money (that’s a separate debate), but the least the footballing authorities can do is ensure that owners can afford to keep the club afloat, and if they can’t, they shouldn’t be allowed to put the club in a position where it’s in the situation Portsmouth (or West Ham or Newcastle) find themselves in.