The Archive

Futsal has become a professional game in some countries and improves the basic skills of players but England is still not interested, writes Jon McLeod

It is the game that produced Ronaldinho and Cristiano Ronaldo. Yet despite it having fostered some of the world’s finest talents with skill, ingenuity and tactical astuteness, England has neglected futsal. From its constricted origins on the streets of São Paulo and Montevideo in the 1930s, this five-a-side version of football has spread throughout Europe and the Middle East and across the rest of Asia. In 1989 FIFA confirmed it as the official small-sided form of the game and, in the internet age, players such as Brazil’s Falcão (aka Alessandro Rosa Vieira) are becoming YouTube regulars, rivalling the most flamboyant exponents of 11-a-side football.

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For years Sepp Blatter has proclaimed how wonderful his organisation is, but a report  has highlighted how unaccountable FIFA are and a court case in Switzerland is hearing allegations that a collapsed marketing firm paid bribes to members of FIFA committees. John Sugden sorts through the murk

Two developments are raising serious questions about the way Sepp Blatter and the organisation he so prominently overlords go about their business. First, in a recently published “accountability” league table comprised of 30 of the world’s most powerful international organisations, it will come as little surprise to those of us who have been investigating world football’s governing body to discover that FIFA are languishing fifth from bottom.

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These are changing times for Match of the Day, with the BBC struggling to hold on to TV rights but launching a new mag for kids with a design so busy you contract motion sickness if you even glance at its cover. Roger Titford compares this and other titles aimed at boys with those of his youth

My eyes hurt. I’ve sustained an industrial injury through reading Shoot, Match! and Match of the Day magazine in less than 90 minutes. It’s the visual equivalent of downing two litres of fizzy blue pop and half a dozen Boost bars. Yes, suddenly and unexpectedly the boys’ football weekly magazine market has burst back into life, with the three titles all competing at the £1.80 mark.

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The BBC so was so keen to snap up the rights for Formula One that it seems to have forgotten about the football, writes Paul Hopwood

The music’s stopped and the latest round of “Pass the Rights” has ground to a halt. So, who has grabbed the chairs – and who’s left looking faintly ridiculous around the edge of the room? Well, we already knew that live Premier League fixtures would be shown, for two more seasons, by a combination of Sky and Setanta, with the BBC left with Saturday’s smug Match of the Day and an altogether more watchable edition on Sunday.

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The Championship has been a strange division, full of surprises yet lacking in quality, reports Tom Green

It’s easy to see why away fans might enjoy visiting The Valley. Tucked away in a quiet south-east London neighbourhood, it’s a proper football ground, modernised and expanded but still on its old site five minutes from the train station. The club “superstore” is more like a corner shop and pre-match catering still tends to mean fish and chips or a kebab. While there are plenty of expensive players’ Range Rovers in the car park, the statue of post-war Addicks goalkeeper Sam Bartram that looms outside the West Stand is an effective reminder of the club’s history.

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