The preening Portuguese beat the more humble Lionel Messi to yet another Fifa award last week but does he ever notice that football is a team game?Last Monday the Best Fifa Football Awards were held in London – leading one to ask when can one expect the Worst Fifa Football Awards, featuring YouTube videos of missed sitters and theatrical simulation. All the legends were there: Diego Maradona, Ronaldo (the Brazilian one), Phillip Schofield. It was the “biggest night on planet football”, as the Sky presenter said, full of “excitement, glamour and gossip”, making it sound as though it were an overblown gathering of prima donnas on the red, sorry green, carpet. Which, on reflection, is an unerringly precise summary of the...
Investigation into 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids found no smoking gun with the most entertaining revelations being FA’s inept attempt to host the eventWell, that escalated quickly. Midway through Tuesday afternoon Fifa’s sudden decision to publish the whole of the Garcia report into the conduct of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids felt like a momentous, possibly vital moment of outage. Here it was at last, the chance to digest Garcia’s toxic innards; to find, perhaps, the smoking machine gun at the heart of this entire epic saga of human folly and greed.An hour or so later, as the pages flickered past, Full Garcia already felt like something else, perhaps the great unreadable post-modern football novel we’ve been...
Fifa must deprive Russia from staging next year’s World Cup if possible doping offences by the country’s 2014 World Cup squad are found to be trueOf course there were denials. There are always denials. It is part of the dance, the fast‑paced barynya, when it comes to Russia and doping allegations. No sooner had the Mail on Sunday revealed that the country’s entire 23-man squad for the 2014 World Cup was under investigation by Fifa for possible doping offences, than its deputy prime minister, and chairman of 2018 World Cup Russia, Vatily Mutko, put up the shutters. “There have never been and will never be any problems with doping in our football,” he said. “They have written some sort of...
As world football’s governing body prepares for its congress in Bahrain, it is timely to ask whether there has ever been a new broom quite as useless as the old one or less equal to the task of clean-upCan it really be only 14 months since Fifa’s new broom, Gianni Infantino, took office at world football’s governing body – and a mere 11 since he told the world “I can officially inform you the crisis is over”? Next week’s Fifa congress is in Bahrain (but of course), and Infantino approaches it reportedly on the brink of his second personal ethics investigation since ascending to the presidency. His second! One has to admire his ethics ethic.Then again, there are strong rumours...
Punishment for a leg-breaking challenge needs to be harsher than for swearing at an official but a zero-tolerance approach from referees is required most of allStop me if you have heard this one before but Neil Taylor is really not that sort of player. Like his fellow Wales full-back Chris Gunter he is one of those slight, modern professionals who seems so softly spoken and well-mannered one wonders how he ever got so far in such a rough old game.Séamus Coleman’s leg is still broken though, so this is not to excuse the Aston Villa defender’s rash tackle in the game against the Republic of Ireland, just to ponder what can be done to set the balance straight. Related: Séamus...