#news World Cup corruption...another nail in the coffin for international football

Last updated at 12:32 AM on 6th December 2010

The unresolved question is what we tell the next generation of England footballers. That playing for your country is the greatest honour sport can bestow? That the World Cup represents the pinnacle of a man's career? That lifting the trophy will be the moment of moments?

Even if it is handed to you by a crook.

Now the talk is of the 2022 tournament perhaps moving to mid-winter, because summer temperatures in Qatar are, quite literally, unplayable.

Money talks: Sepp Blatter hands the World Cup to Russia and Qatar

What if the leagues across Europe do not co-operate? What if they refuse to release players, as National Hockey League teams have done for the early rounds of Olympic ice hockey tournaments? What if they mount a legal challenge to FIFA statutes governing player availability, based on disruption to revenue streams that could have reasonably been expected to remain unchanged?

Given what we think of the bid process, is this not another step towards the marginalisation of the international game, another reason for it to be rejected by players and scorned by senior coaches, another excuse for it to be treated as an inconvenience, rather than an integral part of football's calendar?

Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, has long decried international friendly fixtures. He believes managers should experiment in qualifying games with the group minnows, such as Andorra or Azerbaijan. Sir Alex Ferguson, of Manchester United, says the World Cup has been poor since 1986 (and certainly South Africa in 2010 represented the low point of recent times).

Then there is the growing campaign for all international fixtures to be clubbed together in a four-week period each year, which club managers would no doubt designate as 'International Niggling Hernia Operation Month'.

FIFA's credibility may be at an all-time low in many parts of the world after the events in Zurich, but it is unforgivable to take the standing of the international game down with it.

The next time a great player such as Paul Scholes decides he can do without another England cap, how can anyone chastise him, given the contempt felt for the governing body? So he will never play in another World Cup? So what?

Forged in corruption, farmed out by the corrupt, who needs it? Increasingly, supporters will lose sight of the football, and come to see the international game in only the most flawed terms.

Remember how boxing was once regarded as a noble art and everybody knew the champions in each division? And what state is it in now? This is what happens when the public loses faith.

This week, the FIFA Club World Cup begins in Abu Dhabi. Few care. The two major qualifiers, Inter Milan, of Italy, and SC Internacional, from Porto Alegre in Brazil, are not even involved until December 14, after the qualifiers from the small confederations have slugged it out. This is FIFA's attempt to insert itself into the club game but because the organisation is governed only by money, the match is played in either Japan or the Middle East to little effect.

A LIGHTWEIGHT ISSUE

Positive news, everybody: the recession is over. We deduce this from news that Prime Minister David Cameron wishes to personally oversee the reform of football. Major services are being cut, there are riots on the streets, but Cameron wishes to address why he was left looking silly in Zurich. You will find the answer in WikiLeaks, pal. Lightweight.

Manchester United said they took it seriously in 2008, but won it with their FA Cup team. Funny how FIFA's desire to spread football around the world does not apply here, though.

In 2009, when the competition first went to the UAE, only the two games involving Barcelona attracted gates beyond 40,000. The next biggest attendance was just over half that, and three of the games involving cannon fodder drew crowds of less than 10,000.

Maybe the World Cup will become an armchair competition too, in time. The players are losing interest already. Once, nobody stopped playing for their country; the country simply stopped asking the man to play.

Yet when Bulgaria visited Wembley earlier this year there was no Dimitar Berbatov for them, no Scholes for England. In future, there will be many more sending apologies. They may not know why they are tiring of international football so quickly, they will just know they are not alone.

And where we would have once tried to convince them otherwise, we will simply shake our heads sadly and say we understand.

Meddler Roman in a right muddle

Good management is about removing excuses. That is why the Football Association spends fortunes on facilities for the England team at World Cup tournaments. The best accommodation, the most pristine training pitches, private air travel, the highest paid coach imported from Italy.

The intention is to eliminate any reason for failure. It does not always work; but you cannot blame them for trying.

What next? Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti is coming under increasing pressure at Stamford Bridge

Then there is Roman Abramovich, a one-man get-out clause for the players at Chelsea, and not for the first time. Abramovich lost Jose Mourinho and employed an under-qualified mate, Avram Grant. Now he is paying the price for another round of senseless meddling. From significant title favourites, Chelsea may soon be set fair for a Europa League place unless they change course.

The foolish dismissal of Ray Wilkins, and the appointment of the curious novice Michael Emenalo in his place, appears to be the catalyst for Chelsea's poor run, but it is merely the most visible of the recent changes at Stamford Bridge. Popular, long-serving members of the administrative backroom staff have also gone and on one occasion recently the players arrived on match day to find new faces guarding the club car park, asking for names and vigorously challenging their right of entry.

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Did you see the photograph of the fight between Mario Balotelli and Jerome Boateng at the Manchester City training ground? Audley Harrison would have been proud. Indeed, not since the fisticuffs between Hugh Grant and Colin Firth in the second Bridget Jones film has there been such a vivid display of manly pugilism.

Small beer, you might think, but it all contributes to the idea that the place is not what it used to be. Never forget that the season began with the club attempting to arbitrarily scrap the players' bonus system.

The squad dealt with that, and came to a compromise, but since Wilkins left they must arrive each morning wondering who, or what, is next. Carlo Ancelotti is a very popular manager, but has won a single league game since October and many players will remember that Luiz Felipe Scolari experienced a similar drop in form mid-season and was gone by February.

Abramovich has created the climate for excuses and the manager knows it which is why, following Saturday's draw with Everton, he attempted to distance the circumstances off the pitch from the performances on it.

Deep down, he knows the problem. The owner has given the players a free pass, and some have taken it. Abramovich is now getting the results he deserves.

Free? Not in Qatar

We were sitting outside The Pot restaurant in Adelaide's Hyde Park suburb the other night. Table on the pavement, balmy summer evening, people strolling past, some making public displays of affection, wine flowing, lots of laughter. Couldn't have happened in Qatar, could it?

Then Saturday night we went to the harness racing at Globe Derby Park. The trots, as it is known. A slice of real Australia. Families out, having a picnic on the grass, a few tinnies, a few bets, kids rolling down the hill. Harmless enough, but drinking in public? Not in Qatar.

I've heard plenty of pro-Qatar rhetoric since Thursday's winning 2022 World Cup bid, plenty of reasons why Australia polled one vote, the greatest rejection of any country by the members of the FIFA executive committee. None of it has been very convincing; none of it has seemed to love our freedom as passionately as we should.

The most risible argument is that greater understanding of the Muslim world will result from a World Cup in Qatar; as if schoolchildren in Britain do not spend more time on comparative religious study than ever before. Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, no generation will be better informed on the religions of the world than the next one.

One wonders if Qatari educators are similarly interested in us.

More news of Brisbane Roar, rewriting the record books in Australia's A-League with a 14-game unbeaten run. Coach Ange Postecoglou is demanding further improvement. 'I watched Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-0 and they're a fair way ahead of us,' he said. 'We've a way to go and I told a couple of the boys that. They looked at me kind of funny.'

Meanwhile, in other sports news, Mitch O'Hoolihan, opening batsman for the Dismal Swamp Sunday Casuals fourth XI, says his mission to wipe Sir Don Bradman from the record books is bang on course following his unbeaten 24 against the girls of the Rooty Hill Sports and Social Club yesterday.

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT...

Too late, it would appear the Football Association have decided to grow a pair and tell the truth about FIFA.

Acting chairman Roger Burden withdrew his candidacy for the permanent role on the grounds he did not trust the governing body and would not deal with them, and the execrable friendly with Thailand in June will not take place, because it was only arranged in exchange for a vote, which did not materialise.

No doubt the Thai royal family - whose celebrations were the flimsy cover for this travesty of a game - will delight in welcoming Russia to Bangkok instead, or the stars of the Qatar national team.

Indeed, after the bid announcement on Thursday, the members of the FIFA executive committee were asked to name their favourite Qatar player. They said Eric Clapton.

The most over-played hand in football history? David Dein, international fixer. Runner-up: Geoff Thompson, our man on the inside.

Don't muck about with Ryder Cup

The numbers travelling to the Cheltenham Festival from Ireland are down by 30 per cent. The financial crisis is to blame, coinciding with the decision five years ago to extend the event from three to four days, making it increasingly expensive.

This brings us to the Ryder Cup, which has happily existed as a threeday tournament since 1927, until a freak weather pattern over South Wales this year sent the players into fourth-day overtime. As Great Britain and Europe won in unique circumstances, however, the contest is remembered fondly.

Golden memories: Colin Montgomerie with the Ryder Cup

Modern sports administrators enjoy wallowing in money, the way supporters at Celtic Manor loved wallowing in mud, so it was only a matter of time before some bright spark suggested making the fourth day permanent.

Step forward Ryder Cup director Richard Hills, who is planning to sound out the players at the US Masters in April, in the hope of introducing the new format as early as 2012, at Medinah in Chicago.

When will organisers realise that sometimes less is more? The Ryder Cup thrives on intensity. Players have to be stood down for an afternoon session, often before the morning competition is over. Pairings have to be re-examined and re-built.

This presents a mental challenge for the captain, a test of his man-management and strategy. Spaced out, this intriguing battle of wits would be lost. There was an awful lot of hanging about in Wales, but out of necessity. If Hills gets his way, it will be factored in, squeezing the spectators until the pips squeak.

This is happening all over. The Cricket World Cup is ridiculously overblown, even worse than the Rugby World Cup. The European Championship, which used to hit the ground running the way a World Cup never does, is now being extended and by France in 2016 will be as moribund as its big brother in the early stages, with 24 teams.

Had Cheltenham still been a threeday festival it might not be financially beyond its most colourful customers. The 2010 Ryder Cup had novelty value, and the supporters mucked in, quite literally.

They are not muddy fools, though, and should not be treated as such.

The one positive of England's failed World Cup bid is that there is no longer the imperative of financing a white elephant stadium for the likes of Plymouth Argyle, Bristol City and MK Dons.

Bristol City may yet avoid relegation to League One this season so clearly need to expand, while Milton Keynes - where, never forget, a football fever is waiting to happen - attracted 3,977 for the recent visit of Stevenage in the FA Cup.

Plymouth, clearly thriving under chairman Sir Roy Gardner's sustainable business model, could not afford to pay player and staff wages for November.

These new stadiums were, one presumes, proposed only to appease FIFA's specious demands for legacy. So even though we lost, by sidestepping these projects in a global financial crisis, in some small way we won.

Snowy: Bloomfield Road

No Premier League match should be lost due to the absence of under-soil heating. Blackpool versus Manchester United is a vivid moment of romantic escapism and season-ticket holders at Bloomfield Road will have been looking forward to it for months.

How many will no longer be able to attend now the match is to be rescheduled for a weeknight? How many young Blackpool fans will miss out because they have school the day after?

Under-soil heating should be a pre-condition for all promoted clubs. It should be installed in the summer, the first slice of Premier League bounty advanced if necessary to finance it. And no transfer activity should be permitted until work is complete.

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