New Fifa president is taking a leaf straight out of Sepp Blatter’s book with his proposal to expand the competition and the way he is going about itNot for the first time when it comes to global football’s discredited overlords, the closing lines of Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who come to mind. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. Ever since the former Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino almost accidentally ascended to the Fifa president’s office following the fall from grace of Michel Platini the question has been whether the Swiss-Italian who hails from the next village along from Sepp Blatter’s birthplace represents a break from the past or a continuation of it.Allegations that swirled about...
It’s a really troubling conclusion but is backed up by the fact that the best we can do in terms of home-grown options is a mere handful at mostly struggling Premier League clubsWhat a thoroughly depressing week for English football. By the end of it there was almost a feeling of relief at the Daily Telegraph’s investigation turning up a few more names, because it allayed the suspicion that the object of the whole exercise from the start had simply been to bring down the England manager.While that false impression prevailed there had been a certain amount of sympathy for Sam Allardyce, on the grounds that entrapment should be used only as a last resort to bring criminality to light,...
Some will be unhappy but who is enthused by the English candidates to succeed Sam Allardyce?It is 16 years now since the Football Association had the temerity to appoint its first foreign England manager, namely Sven-Goran Eriksson, and it can be enlightening to look back at the coverage of the time and remind yourself how many people seemed to think it was the end of civilisation as we knew it.The Daily Mail is a good place to start when it comes to the froth of moral indignation that greeted the Swede. “England’s humiliation knows no end. In their trendy eagerness to appoint a designer foreigner, did the FA pause for so much as a moment to consider the depth of...
Sam Allardyce’s reign is over, the buffoon paying the price for hawking himself around only a few weeks after landing the England jobThe cartoonist Mike Stokoe neatly sums up the madness of the England job with a wonderful little sketch that hangs from one of the walls of the National Football Museum in Manchester. The cartoon shows an interview for the job and the applicant sitting nervously in front of three Football Association blazers. “And if you lose one game on the trot you’re sacked.”Sam Allardyce has certainly excelled himself being the man who managed it after one match, one victory and the grand total of 67 days in office. Everything had been going so well after that win in...