Two writes debate whether clubs are treated unfairly by national associations
Yes ~
In light of the current battle between the major European clubs and the French and Australian federations over players being released for November’s friendly in Melbourne, the uneasy agreement that has existed for a century between countries and clubs may be close to severing. Arsène Wenger and FFF president Claude Simonet seem set to be the chief protagonists in this dispute.
With growing doubts over football's dependence on TV, we asked five people from diverse areas of the game where they thought the relationship was going
Michael Dunford – chief executive, Everton
"I think the general assumption – rightly or wrongly – is that it would be unrealistic for anyone inside football to put hand on heart and say they believe that the prices paid for television rights will continue to keep rising. The general belief is that, in terms of price, we have now peaked – and once you have peaked there is only way to go.
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.”
Craig Brown's reign was a pretty joyless one, but the blame for Scotland's plight lies elsewhere, says Ken Gall. And bidding for Euro 2008 will make things worse
The strangely high-pitched booing at the end of Scotland’s wretched World Cup tie against Latvia (courtesy of thousands of primary school children fortunate enough to receive free tickets) marked a slightly surreal end to Craig Brown’s term as national manager. Yet the manner of Brown’s departure was symptomatic of much of his eight years in charge. Once again we had the passionless Hampden occasion, the tie against a Baltic state (entire stretches of his reign appear to have taken place against these countries) and the unmerited victory somehow ground out against palpably more gifted opponents.
Harry Pearson casts an agnostic eye over some recent additions to the bulging pile of religious tracts on England's World Cup triumph and its aftermath
If the BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme had been a clairvoyant, he might have altered his most famous line to: “They think it’s all over… but it’s only just begun.” Because if a Hollywood movie were ever made about the 1966 World Cup final the tagline on the poster would surely read: “One team, one trophy, 100,000 books.” As a letter in last month’s WSC observed, the further away that Gilded Saturday Afternoon In Late July gets, the greater the significance it seems to assume. If the number of volumes devoted to 1966 in the past few years increases exponentially by the end of this century, our descendants may indeed begin talking of it as The Greatest Story Ever Told.