England's immigrant generation could change it all for Greg Dyke's FA.

Without knocking Greg Dyke's FA Commission too much, the chances it becomes a talking shop from the outset are rather large.

The Commission's aim of England winning the World Cup in Qatar just can't be legislated for seven years off. 

Some of those who'll win it for us are 13 and don't live in England yet! 

The Golden Generation, hung, drawn & quarter-finalled

Because just as much as this is about getting organized for a trophy push - it's also about what society may throw up in the next decade.

Yes, friends. As responsible as Premier League academies may prove, England will win the World Cup due to mass immigration to the UK. And what do Dyke, Danny Mills and Ritchie Humphreys know about that?

The acknowledgement from football's highest office that we've an England problem is positive, but pro-acting on the unknown and unforeseen is no solution.

No amount of Beckhams, Lampards and Terrys have propelled us to glory. I argue the Golden Generation were too English to succeed. Too conditioned by the Baddiel & Skinner zeitgeist, the Danny Baker colonization of football banter and other hangovers of persistent failure.

We'll win it with: 

* talent unencumbered by generations of home-grown failure
* talent unbaked by the racket of tabloid sniping
* talent with a desire to do well for their adopted country ...
* talent beyond the radar

A new immigrant consensus will subvert the flatline of failure.

Can Greg get more England players to start Premier League games?

There are families living on the twelfth floor in tower blocks, grateful of free education, hospital treatment and jobs. They won't be neighbours to the so-called benefit generation for long either.

Gael Bigirimana, the Burundi kid from Coventry, naive to barriers, walked past the Sky Blues training ground one day, popped in and asked to play. He's now a Premier League midfielder at Newcastle United. His countryman, Saido Berahino already has England honours. 

Romanians and Bulgarians have arrived in every major city looking for a new life unaffected by 48 years of hurt.

Belgium has a class of players from all corners of the world. Did the Brussels Howard Wilkinson sit down and construct this national team? If he did, it was entirely reactive, the private sector's built the careers of those individuals.

And what did Greece do apart from hire Otto Rehhagel? 

I know what we did at Euro 2004: the FA brought WAG's, an army of blazers and an overpaid Swedish boss with the other eye on the FA's female staff. The Greeks won with a procession of one-nil wins.

Yes, I know these rough diamonds would require professional coaching from early teens, to be included in academies of the kind I've mentioned and to be known by the FA's Burton boys.

But it's what they carry with them in their upbringing that could break the spell for England. 

It's essential that the FA Commission has a well-publicized set of objectives - and as importantly, no definitive timeline for delivery. Football, even society it feeds from, is changing too fast for fixed policies to be made in the here and now.

It would be best if the Commission acted more like a Prime Minister's Cabinet, meeting periodically and with each "minister" responsible for reporting back for a collective decision to be made.

Also that they are elected - or serve a term and can be replaced by another person from football - or beyond as needs must.

And it's vital they acknowledge England will win the World Cup, not by their initiatives - but by the individual enthusiasms of boys who started playing in the street - not in expensive replica kits.

Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all. The world game needs a moral backbone

The lawyer and the footballer are out of their depth. Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are treading water while the world game swirls around them.

Bigotry and corruption consume their tooth-decayed organisations and both are exposed as weak and ineffectual.

And that's even before considering the vacuum of leadership at our own Football Association. 

England has been challenged by an act of antiestablishment fascist defiance in a Premier League fixture. 

Nicolas Anelka gave a quenelle salute, reviled by most French society, when scoring for West Bromwich Albion on the 28th December. Three weeks into the New Year and the FA finally acted on what is a very serious transgression committed by Anelka.

Copycat quenelle's have been performed at Jewish holy places, next to unknowing victims and even by Samir Nasri at Manchester City's training ground entrance.

Weak Albion insisted Anelka should play until the FA sanction him, knowing full well he'd be charged and punished, because in their words it caused offence only in "some quarters".

Imagine if one these salutes were performed at Churchill's statue or Big Ben? Anelka and Nasri's vile action are a clear challenge to British society too and it seems, everyone with the power to do something would rather look the other way.

"Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all. They'll burn down the synagogues at 6 o'clock and we'll all go along like before". 

Football has a leadership crisis and the search for strong, politically-savvy, incorruptible heavyweights ready to confront the problems should begin now.

FIFA is almost beyond redemption. The discredited Executive Committee sold its soul to a medieval political ideology and Russian gangsters. And the only guarantee about Brazil's World Cup is most of the football will be crap.

But UEFA has a realistic chance of doing something constructive, positive and enlightened.

The quality of football in the Champions League elevates UEFA not just to the top of world football but to represent a constituency of interest and people almost to a level of church or nation and a mandate to combat racism - the biggest challenge to football since hooliganism in the 80’s.

Every year persistent racism, mostly but not exclusively from the east, diminishes world football’s outstanding competition. Its destructive power is a stain on the continent and its nationhood and if UEFA refuses to get tough with the imbeciles they will end up ruining it for the rest of us.

There are many examples but here are two illustrations of how useless UEFA are.

In March last year Manchester City players Mario Balotelli and Yaya Toure were subjected to monkey  chants during a game at Porto.

The next month City were ‘up to 60 seconds’ late returning to the pitch during half time of the game at Sporting Lisbon.

UEFA fined City more - 50% more - than Porto.

In October 2012 England Under 21’s played a European championship qualifier in Serbia.

England’s black players were racially abused THROUGHOUT the game. At the final whistle fans invaded the pitch and scuffles broke out.

Serbia are serial offenders yet the Serbian FA escaped with a £65,000 fine. Four players and two coaching staff were suspended and ordered Serbia U21’s to play their next match behind closed doors. UEFA also suspended three black England players.

So much for UEFA’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards racism.

Eight clubs have been ordered to play games in closed or partially closed stadiums because of racist chanting in the first four months of THIS SEASON.

The problem is growing and UEFA’s refusal to ban clubs and countries from tournaments sends the wrong message.

UEFA argue the punishments are line with their rule book. Well, it’s your organisation why not introduce different rules?

And it is no use looking to the President for leadership. Michel Platini was one of those on FIFA’s Executive Committee who voted for a summer World Cup in Qatar because France’s President at the time, Nicolas Sarkozy, told him to.

The President of UEFA ignored what was best for football and voted for Qatar because it was in the best interests of France and Paris St Germain who were subsequently bought by Qatar.

Is it co-incidence that Platini’s lawyer son, Laurent,  then landed a highly paid job with Qatari Sports Investments?

Does Michel Platini strike you as the strong, politically-savvy, incorruptible heavyweight we need to take on the cancer of racism?

Do you feel safe in the hands of football's administrators when dumb players show such defiance? 

Me neither.

Ten-match ban for Suarez: fair or foul?

The biting truth

Liverpool will NOT appeal the Football Association's ten-match ban on Luis Suarez for biting Branislav Ivanovic.

A charge of violent conduct usually carries with it a suspension of three games, but the FA decided to pile on an additional seven matches. The decision was made with such haste that Liverpool must've considered appealing.

But in the end, the risk in an appeal going wrong might've had the FA slapping more matches on the ban. He’ll now miss the last four games of this season and the first six of next.

So is a ten match ban for biting Branislav Ivanovic fair? Should Luis Suarez have received different treatment? There’s two ways to look at this.

Few beyond the confines of Anfield and their supporter-base back Suarez. He’s been in scrapes before and when he got banned for eight matches for racial abuse, he was warned as to his future conduct.

He’s even been banned for biting before when as an Ajax player, he bit a PSV player. He never played for them again.

But there's another way to interpret this:

The FA have been hoisted by their own disciplinary petard. Having slapped an eight-match ban on him before, they’ve got to be seen to be inflating that number. It makes the process look ever so slightly arbitrary. The bigger the number, the more random the punishment.

The FA stood by and did nothing as Callum McManaman tackled Massadio Haidara so recklessly and when Sergio Aguero nobbled David Luiz in the Wembley semi.

So Suarez is a convenient fall guy.

I think the FA acted in haste, under pressure from the potent cocktail of media scrutiny and public opinion but circumstances have worked in their favour.

Open letter to the FA: get a grip on discipline

Bad tackle or just pure violence?

Luis Suarez's appalling lack of self-discipline handed the FA a golden opportunity to show they have teeth after all. 
The Liverpool striker has been given a ten-match for biting Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic at Anfield.
Before the Uruguayan made a meal of Ivanovic's close attentions, football's governing body were looking distinctly soft on crime, soft on the causes of crime.

It seems the FA, under the departing David Bernstein have washed their hands of anything ugly on the field, devolving all powers to the fallibility or otherwise of the referee and his assistants.

That's got to change.

Here's my open letter to Greg Dyke, soon to be incoming FA boss about how his new administration can make an impression on the game.

SOCCERMONGERY TOWERS, soccermongery@jonnygould.com and www.twitter.com/jonnygould

Dear Greg,

I am sure you have a million and one things to do when you take over as Independent Chairman of the Football Association.



Liverpool fan: he's a nutcase - but he's our nutcase

The one thing you should do is address the perception of the FA as weak and worthless. A big job I know but there is one simple, effective and much-needed way to start.

Punish bad tackles.

As you know there have been two recent examples of reckless and dangerous challenges going unpunished because the FA prefers the taste of sand to taking action.

It is no way to govern the game.
Sergio Aguero’s two footed stamp on David Luiz in the FA Cup semi final at Wembley last Sunday was petulant and a red card all day, every day. It happened right in front of an assistant and referee Chris Foy awarded a free kick so the match officials were therefore deemed to have seen the incident and the FA, using the excuse of not wanting to re- referee incidents, declined to do anything.

Mind you Greg, they had little wriggle room after the scandal of allowing Wigan’s Callum McManaman to avoid punishment for what can only be described as an assault on Newcastle’s Massadio Haidara.

Okay, so McManaman was making his first Premier League start but Haidara was lucky to emerge with no more than severe bruising. I suspect you shared the widespread disbelief when the FA claimed the match officials had seen the incident.

Funny though how neither Aguero or McManaman were booked. Not funny actually; downright outrageous and both Foy and Mark Halsey, the ref at Wembley, should be embarrassed by their errors.

You will know, of course, FA rules permit retrospective action if they are exceptional circumstances but this is the organization that refused to invoke that clause when, in November 2008, Sheffield United’s Chris Morgan fractured Barnsley striker Iain Hume’s skull. Hume was put into a high dependency unit, needed emergency surgery and spent nine months out of the game.

It was a brutal and cowardly assault and the negligent FA did nothing, absolutely nothing to punish Morgan’s thuggery. Not exceptional apparently.

So when you take office in July you might want to bang a few heads together, just hard enough to make General Secretary Alex Horne’s chins wobble, and sort this mess out.

It would be a good start to your term in office and would send a message to fans and sponsors of your intent to make the FA’s disciplinary procedure fit for purpose again.

May all your goals as boss, be screamers.

Good luck!

Jonny Gould.

Why do football's authorities dance around John Terry?

UEFA have confirmed they WILL allow John Terry the privilege of lifting the Champions League trophy as club captain - if they beat Bayern Munich next month. Meanwhile, the Football Association have cancelled the traditional pre-match handshake as Chelsea face QPR because it would pit Terry against Anton Ferdinand, the man he's accused of racially abusing. I'm asking when will football's authorities wise up to the fact they're accommodating, rather than punishing Terry?

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England busking it all the way to Euro 2012

 Robben's strike: our statues get a great view of it.

England fans will breathe a collective sigh of relief as caretaker boss Stuart Pearce has declared, "I'm short term" after masterminding England's latest gulf in class.

Because a 3-2 friendly defeat to Holland leaves us nowhere in particular ahead of a big date in the diary.

With Euro 2012 three months away, Pearce mooted he was Plan B before kick-off. He explained he was there if Harry Redknapp (or anyone else) wasn't going to succeed Fabio Capello permanently.

Now he's incentivising the FA powerbrokers to get a replacement in as soon as possible. The Under-21 boss is committing to the senior job for however long it takes, so let's hope that's not too long.

Because at Wembley, England were busking it. After the Capello years, there was new thinking at the helm but with little commitment to it. We've just chucked an eye-watering £24m at Fabio's four-year plan: our reward for it? we're fifth favourites going into a major tournament.

Scott Parker was captain instead of stand-out Stevie and there was no room for Theo Walcott and Ashley Cole who's experience might've been regarded more highly considering the quality of the opposition.

Arjen Robben's opening goal showed the huge lack of experience we had against the truly world-class. His darting dribble and run cut a slice through our defence with almost no resistance, and as Robben's second goal confirmed deep into injury time, he posed a potent threat throughout.

Now this'll never happen. Nice pic though!

Then again there were some positives: no one was afraid to play, Daniel Sturridge, Adam Johnson and Danny Welbeck all dribbled there way into creating chances and Parker wore the armband with aplomb and responsibilty.

But after the England fight back, the Dutch deserved their winner. The composure of the Orange was greater - as was their sheer ability.

So a 3-2 defeat with the order of the goals falling in exactly the same way as England's darkest night at New Wembley - that defeat to Croatia which snatched defeat from the jaws of victory to deny us a Euro 2008 place.

Pearce is not cut out for the England job and doesn't rouse his troops as a boss. That's a strange thing to say about a man who inspired such passion and leadership among fans and teammates alike as a player.

Roll on Redknapp's arrival. He may not be the master tactician a la Mourinho, but as Tottenham's Roman Pavlyuchenko will testify, he will get his charges to "run around a bit" in pursuit of glory.

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Football needs to punish its miscreant stars

Graham Norton gets to grips

The BBC's Graham Norton Show isn't normally the platform to gauge public opinion on football, but the instant reaction of his studio audience should send alarm bells ringing at the Premier League.

Norton's routine covered Ashley Cole, who took an air rifle into training at Cobham which he not only used, but actually shot someone with. Norton's fans booed Cole on two separate occasions, taking the entertainer by surprise.

Ashley Cole's story in The Super Soaraway

Obviously with a big midweek game against Manchester United just days away, Chelsea took no action. But neither did the Premier League or the FA. A case of the Three Monkeys if you ask me.

United also faced no censure as Wayne Rooney crunched Wigan's James McCarthy with his elbow.

Sir Alex Ferguson conceded Rooney had been "a lucky boy" not to be sent off, but the only swift reaction we got from football's authorities was the England striker was to face no punishment.



See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil

Football claims to be a cradle of English culture and values. The FA have run campaigns with titles such as Respect and Get Into Football. But its ideals will soon be regarded as hollow if it doesn't take even the smallest stands against its biggest miscreant stars.

Sponsorship and TV revenue keeps rolling in - but investment from corporations isn't just reliant on ratings. They're also badging a product and if it's perceived to have diminishing morals, then football will lose its financial value.

Sky took a stand against sexism with the resignation of Richard Keys and the sacking of Andy Gray. That sets the tone for a repositioned morality and style to football from here on in.


Rooney: The 4th Monkey



Football, TV and sponsors need each other in equal proportion. It appears in these days of ecomonic austerity, there isn't one stakeholder which is any more powerful than another.

The FA would have been surprised by the public's positive reaction had they had the guts to punish Cole and Rooney. Graham Norton would bear witness to that.

It's nearly twenty years since the formation of the Premier League. It's never been more successful, but it's probably never been more complacent either.

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The FA threaten Fabio with the sack if England fail

Fabio Capello will step down as coach if England fail to qualify for the second stage of the World Cup. The Football Association's 'fears' over his future announced to the media, make it absolutely clear to Capello that failure's not an option.

It means power in the England camp has been dramatically transferred to the players for the vital final group game with Slovenia on Wednesday.

Will this group still play for the Italian?

Player power will force Capello into making a much earlier team announcement for Wednesday's game.

At a "crisis" meeting with the players after Friday's awful goalless draw with Algeria, Capello was slated by the squad for naming the starting line-up so close to kick-off.

It caused major tension inside the camp, voiced publicly by 'keeper David James, who only knew he was playing a couple of hours before the game's start. For the first time, dissention in the ranks went public.

The stakes couldn't be higher for both manager and players. A win and the 'crisis' is over and England will advance to the last sixteen knockout stages.

But failure to qualify and the Capello Project is done. The players will come home to a chorus of derision for under performance. Then that'll be forgotten come August as they don their club shirts and embark on another domestic season at home and in Europe. There'll be some low-level taunting from opposition fans as the only reminder of a cruel summer.

And as consternation grows among England fans as to why our campaign threatens to derail again, perhaps we don't have to look further than the struggle between club and country.

After all, why should these millionaires, heroes and leaders at their trophy-laden clubs, bother with such a poisoned chalice as playing for England? They and their families are the suffocating target of tabloid tales and painted as villains for their on-field exploits, rather than as heroes when playing for their clubs.

In this overly-commercialised footballing world, never has playing for England and giving all for your club represented such a large conflict of interest.

I tip England to scrape through against Slovenia, but for the reasons outlined here, we can't win the World Cup until the FA and the Premier League integrate their two clashing business interests more closely.

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