Football in New Zealand is being threatened by the demands of the Asian Confederation. Ed Jackson explains
In December, with New Zealand still celebrating World Cup qualification, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) announced a move which may spell the end of the Wellington Phoenix – the country’s representatives in the Australian-based A-League.
Steve Menary examined how FIFA's strict rules on "political interference" were being enforced across world football, and found varying results
If a private club suspended five percent of its members in the same number of years, asking for an explanation would seem perfectly reasonable. FIFA’s reason for suspending a dozen of its 208 members – some more than once – since 2005 is “political interference”.
Ahead of next year’s World Cup the Confederations Cup is an opportunity for South Africa to prove they can host a major tournament, while for Spain there is a chance to become record breakers. Jonathan Wilson reports
“Er, Aidan,” I asked. “What’s that yellow light?” “What yellow light?” he asked. “The one in the middle of the dashboard in the shape of a petrol-pump that looks like it might be telling us we’re running out of fuel.” “That? I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s all under control.” And usually the accusation levelled at News of the World journalists is that they don’t require their information to be double-sourced before believing it. It was about 20 minutes later that the engine coughed a couple of times and gave out.
Is football in Britain any less corrupt than in other countries?
Some football clubs are immune from the global recession. One is Real Madrid who seem to be set on buying up the best players from the main Champions League rivals, another is Manchester City who are apparently prepared to pay Samuel Eto’o a basic £250,000 per week. If Eto’o’s potential employers can afford that sort of salary is of course entirely their business, although it might also be reasonable to wonder just how much money anyone needs to earn. In view of the huge amount of money sloshing about in the sport, you could also wonder why anyone would feel compelled to top up a handsome salary with extra undeclared income. The answer might be that they do it because they can.
It's a phrase which is regularly repeated throughout the world to describe football. Ian Plenderleith looks at its numerous appearances in modern sport writing to decide if the game really is beautiful
God curse Pelé for the beautiful game. Not for having played it, but for having said it. The cliche has become so entrenched in football writing, it’s almost as though some all-powerful totalitarian linguist had banned the word “football” from public use, and we have developed this cunning euphemism instead. Never mind that football, like any other sport, is only beautiful in rare, fleeting moments. And disregard all those other profound authors from the past two decades who’ve been telling us that football is in fact more than a game. There are numerous books, columns and websites which have co-opted the five syllables as their main moniker. We can presume they all thought they were the first.