FIFA

Insideworldfootball.biz

Michel Platini’s Financial Fair Play may finally deal with the financial doping the UEFA President feels is ruining the game. But there is an equally serious crisis confronting the game which Platini and other football administrators refuse to address.

This is the failure by football’s bosses to deal with the events on the pitch where almost every game is blighted by incidents the referees do not spot. These then become the subject of calls for disciplinary inquiries by frustrated managers, and often lead to heavy penalties for the players concerned. But these are imposed long after the match is history and the whole thing is making a mockery of the game.

Take the two incidents that have marred two otherwise very good football matches in recent weeks. The first was the match last Sunday week, when Manchester City beat Tottenham 3-2, probably ending the north London’s club hopes of winning the League for the first time since 1961, a time which must seem like prehistory to most football fans.

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BBC World Service – The World Today Weekend

Join the World Today Weekend each Saturday and Sunday morning for a breakfast news show with a difference.

Every programme one of our presenters is joined by two distinguished guests.

Politicians and diplomats, writers, journalists, scientists, philosophers and comedians have all been on our panel.

We dig behind the headlines to ask the questions that are missed in the daily rush to deadlines.

Whether it’s an important newsmaking interview, the latest insights from the worlds of business and sport, or a bit of music and poetry, we find a different way to bring you the weekend’s news.

In this programme, presenter Fergus Nichol discusses, among other things, the loss of the original Corinthian spirit in sport, internet privacy and China’s growing influence in Africa and across the world with Mihir Bose ; Kate Crawford, deputy director, Journalism and Media Research, University of New South Wales; and sports correspondent Seth Bennett.

Click here to listen to the programme

Click here to read more about The Spirit of the Game

Insideworldfootball.biz

Could 2012 be the year when football finally begins to accept that it can longer disregard the wider world?

2011 has been the year of the great “no”. The game tried hard to carry on with the fiction that all of football’s problems can be solved behind the front door of the family mansion irrespective of what the outside world may expect.

It has always been curious that the world’s most popular game is so conservative and resistant to change. Witness its enduring hostility to using technology for controversial decisions. This is despite the fact that it brings the game into disrepute. The result is that millions, who watch the game at home or in pubs, often know a referee has made a mistake, even a game changing mistake, while the referee is blissfully unaware.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

The wider impact of the investigation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Ethics Commission into Joao Havelange, Issa Hayatou, Lamine Diack, three of the most powerful men in world sport, cannot be overestimated.

The treatment of the three men may not appear all that drastic. But there is a message here about the way the IOC is prepared to react to the demands that the administrators of world sport and, in particular, football must become more accountable and transparent.

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Insideworldfootball.biz

Sepp Blatter may believe the furore he provoked by his comments on racism in football is behind him. He could not be more mistaken. He will have to live with the consequences of his absurd comment that if there is racism on the field of play it can be got rid of by a post-match hand shake.

Worse still, the damage he has done to FIFA, when the organisation is already so beleaguered, cannot be overestimated.

If proof of this was needed it came in the most unlikely setting. Let me sketch the scene for you.

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