The Asian Cup in Qatar highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of football in the region. John Duerden was there

You had to feel a bit sorry for Qatar. Despite having over a decade to prepare for the 2022 World Cup after the events of December 2 in Zürich, the tiny nation in fact had just five weeks before it was put on the spot. On January 7, the 2011 Asian Cup kicked off in Doha giving an international media, one that needed no second invitation to demonstrate the extent of FIFA’s madness, the chance to scrutinise Qatar’s hosting capabilities/football culture/traffic and pretty much everything else.

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An internatioanlly renowned midfielder who failed to live up to the hype but became a cult hero anyway. Damian Hall tells a heart-warming tale

Reputations, it is said, take ages to build but can be destroyed in an instant. This adage, though probably quite apt generally, is not at all true of John Jensen. He earned a reputation very quickly and lost it in a painfully slow, grinding kind of manner.

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Bohemians are the latest League of Ireland club facing struggles to stay afloat. Aaron Rogan reports from Dublin

Prolonged contract negotiations between players and clubs often end in ignominy, but recent events at League of Ireland club Bohemians had a lot more at stake than loss of face. Days before Christmas the club was served with a winding-up order by two players who, along with eight others, had been negotiating severance packages after Bohemians revealed they could not honour their contracts for next season and that they hoped to provide a budget in line with the FAI’s licensing criteria.

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Saul Pope explains the monetary chaos, calendar change and political factors affecting the Russian Premier League

The new Russian Premier League season will be different, but not in a way many fans hope. With the gulf between the big boys and the rest growing ever wider, the league is getting more predictable – the top places will go to Zenit St Petersburg, CSKA Moscow, Rubin Kazan and Spartak Moscow. The difference is in the length – 2011-12 is to be a transition season of 18 months’ duration, with the season that follows swapping from the current spring-autumn calendar to, like much of Europe, an autumn-spring calendar.

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Star players in the Championship are often on loan from big Premier League clubs and unlikely to stay for long. Adam Bate explains why this trend is distorting competition

There have been many changes to the game over the last 20 years. One aspect that sometimes gets overlooked is the changing nature of the football loan system. It’s not like the backpass rule or the tackle from behind – you don’t instantly see the impact it has on the football field. And it’s not as conspicuous as an Arab sheikh or a Russian oligarch when it comes to transforming a club. But if there is one thing that is distorting the Football League Championship today it is the use of the loan system.

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