When the World Cup ended, many thought Japanese football would slump but, as Justin McCurry reports, the exact opposite has happened
Strange things are happening at Gamba Osaka. It isn’t just that the perennial underachievers are closer than ever to winning J-League honours; they are doing so in front of crowds not seen since the heady days of the league’s launch ten years ago.
Wednesday 1 Norwich reach the First Division play-off final, beating Wolves 3-2 on aggregate after a 1-0 defeat at Molineux. David Jones declines to discuss his team’s decline (“What I think will stay in-house”), while Nigel Worthington is taking each day as a bonus: “Before the start of the season I’d have settled for eighth or ninth.” Cardiff miss the chance of a play-off final on their doorstep by losing 2-0 at home to Stoke in the second leg of their semi. In the other Second Division tie, Brentford beat Huddersfield 2-1. After two years in administration, Airdrie go into full liquidation and consequently lose their place in the Scottish First Division – any new club launched under the same name would have to start in the Third. A Turkish man is jailed for 15 years for the murder of two Leeds fans in Istanbul in 2000. Four others are found guilty of lesser charges.
Tuesday 2 Nine Austrian players refuse to fly to Israel for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier. “It is far too dangerous there,” says one of them, Walter Kogler. Joe Royle says he is suing Man City for a £500,000 pay-off, on the basis that they were still a Premiership club when he was sacked in May, even though they had finished in a relegation spot.
The recent wrangle ove coverage of the World Cup is only one symptom of the fear that the TV rights boom is over. Alan Tomlinson looks at the ramifications for FIFA
Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, is the quintessential marketing man, a salesman for sport’s biggest event, the World Cup. You’d think it would be the easiest selling job in the world. Guido Tognoni, FIFA’s top media man for ten years until 1994, once told me: “In FIFA you don’t have to sell the product, it’s a self-seller. FIFA lives from one event, the World Cup, and this event lives from marketing and television receipts.”
It's looking grim for Mexico, unitl now perpetual World Cup qualifiers from concacaf. Simeon Tegel looks for clues to the recent failures of the central American giants
If there was ever a country that should have been able to assume automatic qualification for the World Cup, then surely it is Mexico. With a football-obsessed population of 100 million, a league as rich as any in the Americas and a 110,000-capacity home stadium at a height of 2,400 metres, the country seems blessed.