The unending saga of Portsmouth Football Club’s ownership merry-go-round has taken on a life of its own. The club has had a staggering four owners since the start of the 2009-10 Premiership season. Some clubs haven’t had that many owners in the past decade, let alone a year. Talk about poor financial management. The club’s finances are in such a poor state that it recently requested permission from the Premier League to sell players outside the January transfer window. (more…)
FIFA medical committee chairman, Michael D’Hooghe, told the press this past Sunday that one of his big concerns going into the 2010 World Cup is the possible use of traditional African medicine by players. Apparently this is of great concern because some of these medicines, which are extracted from local plants, may contain untraceable levels of stimulants and may result in an unfair advantage.
I am a bit amused by this stance on the part of the Mr. D’Hooghe. After all, I don’t recall the FIFA medical committee making such a fuss over the local health methods used in past host countries. (more…)
It is no secret that Arsenal Football Club (AFC) is run under a self-sustainable business model. The club takes great pride in touting this fact, sometimes to the detriment of some of its own fans who want greater on field success in the form of silverware (AFC has gone five long, arduous years without a major trophy – cue the violin). According to Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, it is imperative that football teams live within their means, by which he means that clubs should only spend what they make. That is why a few years ago, after the club decided to build Emirates Stadium, Arsene embarked on an odyssey of sorts to revolutionize how the squad was constructed. (more…)
In Part II, I explained a bit about the social and spatial legislation that laid the foundation for the development of apartheid sport. But to begin to understand the current state of South African sport and what this World Cup means in historical context, you need to understand South Africa’s unique sporting landscape.
South Africans are sports mad. The madness is more than a passion, it is religion. However, observing South African sport from the viewpoint of major South African newspapers during apartheid skews one’s perspective on South African sport. Before South Africa was awarded the 2010 World Cup, South African soccer, which was a predominately a black sport, was largely invisible to most outside of South Africa. To most of the outside world, rugby, and to a lesser extent cricket, were the quintessential South African sports. Internally, stories and scores from these sports frequently rivaled political news for headlines. This reality allowed rugby and cricket to thrive inside South Africa, while support for black leagues, players, and competitions suffered behind closed doors. (more…)
So let me get this straight. Citing Article 78 of the African Cup of Nations 2010 tournament rules, the Confederation of African Football Executive Committee has decided to fine the Togo National Team $50,000 and suspend them from participating in the next two editions of the African Cup of Nations (ACN) because they withdrew from the 2010 ACN after enduring a terrorist attack that killed three people (an assistant coach, a spokesperson and a bus driver). (more…)
Someone drank some corruption juice. Nan Yong, the head of China’s football federation, and two other senior officials, a vice-president of the federation and the head of the referees’ committee, were recently taken in for questioning by police as part of a crackdown on corruption and match-fixing. Now that this embarrassing and continuing saga is spiraling out of control, China seems intent on taking the necessary steps to fix the problem. But flushing out this cancer in Chinese football might be harder than imagined given the following comments:
And there it was. Breaking News: Togo Team Bus Attacked By Angolan Rebels.
Response: Angola is a dangerous country and therefore should not be hosting the African Cup of Nations (CAN).
Of all the cogent arguments detailing why Angola should not host the ACN, this might be the worst. It reeks of a double standard and a level of ignorance that the media is complicit in maintaining.
Every year, the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) sends out a New Year’s greeting to every national federation that is a member of FIFA … except for “the football federation from the Zionist regime” of course. This year, however, the FFI made a boo boo. Mohammad-Manour Azimzadeh, head of the FFI foreign relations office, apparently forgot to take Israel off of his master New Year’s greeting list. Don’t worry Mohammad, you’re not the first to make this mistake … but from now on make sure you double check your recipient list. Unfortunately, in the future, it looks like he’ll have to do this check from a different email address because Mr. Azimzadeh has “resigned” in light of this incident.
Italy is well known for its World Cup and Champions League winning sides. But there is a dark side to Italian football that reflects developments elsewhere in Italian society.
Many football fans are familiar with Mario Balotelli’s story. Balotelli was born in Palermo, Sicily to Ghanaian parents. Abandoned by his birth parents, he was luckily adopted by Italian parents in Brecia at the age of two. That would explain why Balotelli speaks Italian like a local.
If one listens to 19 year old Balotelli speak, looks at his passport (but not his picture), or studies his upbringing, it is impossible to think that he is anything other than Italian. But his dark skin tone and distinctly African features unfortunately complicate matters. (more…)
U.S. football fans are all too familiar with the “challenges” Landon Donovan faced when he first went to Germany. You know, he missed home and all. And we all know how Americans struggle to adapt to German culture. It’s soooo alien.
All jokes aside, adapting to new leagues and countries is a common issue in international football. But the stories that typically hit the wires usually involve players who can’t cope with the weather, or miss their families, or need to adapt to new cuisine, or languages. Ahem … José Antonio Reyes.
If you love perms or Didier Drogba, you’ll love the Les Éléphants shirt …
Spain is trying to conquer the world again. This time, they might succeed.
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Football for Change is a feature in which Nutmeg Radio highlights work being done by organizations across the globe using soccer to promote development.
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