IOC

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.

Read more >

Evening Standard

Golden guy: Steve Redgrave. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

Sir Steve Redgrave may be the bookies favourite to light the 2012 Olympic flame but his advice is to not to put any money on him.

Given that he has kept the opening night free from TV work the assumption is that on July 27 Britain’s only Olympian to win five golds will enter the Olympic Stadium with the flame?

“Of course, I’d like the honour but, if you look through the history of the Games, they always try to have somebody who’s a little bit more unexpected,” he says. “So being favourite is not the best place to be. I think LOCOG [the 2012 organising committee] will do something a little bit different.”

Read more >

Evening Standard

Tony Blair in the Olympic stadium: 'Our presentation was not Britain seen as a sort of tourist guide book. It was really about London as a thriving metropolitan global city'. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

Tony Blair may not have been invited to William and Kate’s wedding but he is reasonably confident he will be in the Olympic stadium next July when the Games start.

In fact, he’s so confident that he did not even bother applying for tickets. “I guess,” he says, “there’s a chance I may get some. I would like to see some of the athletics, the 100 metres final obviously. And I hope that I will get invited at least to the Opening Ceremony.”

We are sitting in what will be the royal box of the Olympic stadium. The former Prime Minister, making his first visit to the stadium, has been shown round by Seb Coe, the chairman of 2012, and Blair has just told me: “This is much more intimate than a normal stadium, very cosy, don’t you think? When I compare it with the Beijing Olympic Stadium, here you can feel very close to the athletes.”

Then he reflects on the moment it all started.

Read more >

Insideworldfootball.biz

FIFA is facing its own News International moment with its corruption scandal. News International thought that by saying phone hacking was the work of one rogue reporter, Clive Goodman, the royal correspondent, and his confidant Glenn Mulcaire, it could isolate the problem. As the world now knows, it could not.

FIFA is in danger of making a similar mistake if it thinks the corruption scandal has been dealt with once the Ethics Committee finishes its work on July 23. Let us consider what is in store for this day.

On that day, we shall know the fate of Mohammed Bin Hammam for his alleged attempt, in May, to bribe members of the Caribbean Football Union in Trinidad during his aborted FIFA presidential campaign. It is alleged that bribes of $40,000 (£24,000) were paid or offered to each member. Caribbean Football Union officials Debbie Minguell and Jason Sylvester, who were suspended along with then FIFA vice-president, Jack Warner, will also hear their fate.

Read more >

Evening Standard

Brown and Cameron: illustration by Paul Dallimore. Image coutesy of Evening Standard

David Cameron has little reason to say a good word about Gordon Brown. But, next year, as he takes his seat for the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, he may reflect that the former Prime Minister has been responsible, albeit unwittingly, for an unexpected success story. London, the only city to host the Olympics three times, will also be the first in modern times to come in under budget. Not quite a golden legacy but at least, in this area, Labour has left Cameron some money – the Government will be getting back more than £800 million from its Olympic budget.

To appreciate how unexpected this is, consider the spat between the chairman of arguably the most powerful Commons committee and the highest civil servant in the department responsible for the Olympics. It came in 2008, just a year after Brown’s government had finally announced that the budget for the Games had risen almost four times, from its original estimate of £2.375 billion to £9.3 billion.

Read more >