Will the FA or anyone ever stand up to Fergie?

On Thursday, England manager Roy Hodgson included in-form Manchester United centre-half Rio Ferdinand in his squad for the World Cupqualifiers against San Marino and Montenegro.

On Friday, Sir Alex Ferguson expressed surprise at Ferdinand’s call-up and doubts about his fitness.

On Saturday, despite Rio's marauding run single-handedly creating Wayne Rooney's match-winner against Reading, Fergie hinted at his irritation with a caustic remark about the decreasing features of Rio's game. 

What's the point of cordial relations without co-operation?

On Monday, Rio withdrew citing the conflict between micro-managing his long term back problem with training, travelling and playing for England.

Cue pelters for Roy and his lack of communication and for Rio and the perceived revenge for his exclusion ‘for footballing reasons’ from last summer’s European Championship.

This, though, was another example of how Sir Alex Ferguson operates when he feels the interests of the Premier League’s most successful club are under threat. As he himself is fond of saying, ‘control comes with results’ and he needs to control everything and everybody.

Sir Alex intimidates match officials and the media and manipulates the Premier League and the Football Association. Anybody who questions his conduct is berated or banned.

He refused to speak to the BBC for seven years after they made allegations about his son’s activities as an agent. He threatened legal action. None came. He wanted an apology. None came.

Draw your own conclusions.

Only occasionally the tendency to tyranny is exposed. Like the time he was heard at a news conference trying to ban reporter Rob Harris of Associated Press for making a routine enquiry on Ryan Giggs. More often than not he gets away with it because the people who should have put a stop to this years ago are scared of him.

Can you imagine the manager of the New York Yankees refusing to talk to a rights holder for seven years without Major League Baseball intervening or the Dallas Cowboys coach demanding a reporter be banned for asking a question and the NFL standing idly by?

Perhaps Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore is too busy counting beans and his chairman Sir Dave Richards too embarrassed after yet another incident involving alcohol and a water feature.

Which leaves English football’s governing body. When he started talking to the BBC again just about the first thing Ferguson said was,

Richards' speech was daft enough without this indiscretion

“The FA treats us like sh*t.”

There is no record of David Bernstein, one of the best chairmen the FA has ever had, or General Secretary Alex Horne saying a word about Ferguson’s arrogant and damaging behaviour.

    

Only the FA have a range of objectives that clash with Fergie's agenda.

So when Roy Hodgson is forced to play midfielder Michael Carrick at centre-back against Montenegro because there is nobody else and England draw or lose a game they must win, it is because the men who should have stood up to a tyrant never did.

With United fan and former Old Trafford director, Greg Dyke about to take the reigns at Wembley, the chances of that happening are set to diminish even further.

Roy Report: It's Hodgson's choice for the Euros

Expectation is at a non-hysterical all-time low as England aim to end 46 years of hurt in Poland and Ukraine.

Roy

It's probably not a bad thing though. We always come home with our tails between our legs when tipped as the Golden Generation, or some such other tabloid tag.

So while all the pressure's on Spain and Germany, why not dare to dream? Just don't shout about it! Here's my 2-minute podcast on Roy's selections for the European Championship, or Euro 96 as Baddiel and Skinner prefer to call it.

listen to ‘Roy Report: Hodgson's choice for #eng's #euro2012 bid’ on Audioboo

Click here for the current Top Story Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!

The skipper circus goes on!

Barry is a yawn, so is the saga over the captaincy

After the farcical second coronation of John Terry as England captain, we're now presented with the seventh recipient of the Fabio Capello armband - the utterly uninspirational, Gareth Barry.

The rotund elder statesman will lead out a team expected to show eight changes from the Euro 2012 qualifier in Wales, for the Wembley friendly with Ghana.

The Manchester City millionaire has the most caps of the player's left, ergo he's the skipper despite not being considered good enough for the eighteen-man squad for Cardiff just two days before.

All this announced amid the organised media glare of an England news conference as Fabio admitted he hadn't yet had that private discussion with Rio Ferdinand as to why he wasn't going to lead the team out for Ghana.

He won't need to now. The message has reached Alderley Edge loud and clear!

The hullabaloo over who's England skipper is unnecessary theatre and a total distraction from the real affairs of the team. It also makes Fabio look like a dithering lame duck, just lucky to be presiding over a bunch of meaningless friendlies and a schedule of complete mismatches to qualify for Euro 2012.



Still, it's reported that 20,000 fans at Wembley will be from Ghana, so at least there'll be carnival and colour brought to a game which Gareth Barry's leadership rather confirms as stale.

But perhaps the booing won't just be consigned to our eleven players. To add insult to lethargy, the FA have invited Sepp Blatter as their special guest, just months after he snubbed England's bid to host the World Cup.

Rio out, Drogba doubt for the World Cup Finals

What a bad weeked for England and the Ivory Coast.

Rio Ferdinand has succumbed to an eleventh hour injury with the tournament just a week away. It would have been his fourth World Cup, a new England record.

The England skipper sustained a knee injury in their first training session in Rustenburg in a clash with Emile Heskey. Michael Dawson's been drafted in as replacement; he's the fifth Tottenham player in Fabio Capello's 23-man squad.

Steven Gerrard steps upto take the vacant captain's armband for the first game against the USA next Saturday. But Ferdinand will stay with the England squad for the opener.

But while it's bad to lose your skipper, the England squad can cushion the blow. The Ivory Coast fear they've lost their chief talisman Drogba, the man who gave them a puncher's chance of winning it.

Drogba suffered an elbow injury during their warm-up game with Japan having just scored from a deflection. He's had a weekend operation and his recovery is described as encouraging.

The Chelsea striker, known for his high levels of fitness as the Blues marched to the Premier League title this season, is the difference between success and failure for Ivory Coast, pitted as they are in the Group Of Death with Portugal and Brazil.

Sven-Goran Eriksson can't possibly have a Plan B to replace their best player and one of the world's great strikers. Working with Drogba must have been a major consideration in Sven accepting the post in the first place.

Although given Eriksson's track record, you can expect Drogba to make some kind of appearance. Sven likes to strap up his big stars and play them irrespective of injury. Remember Rooney and his metatarsal ahead of Germany 2006?

Meanwhile, Holland's Arjen Robben sustained a hamstring in their last warm-up game but despite missing the squad plane to South Africa, he's expected to join up with the squad before the tournament gets underway.

Whoever you support, it's a bad day when the World Cup Finals is denied its best players.

Click here for the current Top Story

Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!

WORLD EXCLUSIVE! The tapes from the bugged England dressing room!

The FA are reviewing their security arrangements after it was revealed the dressing room at the team’s Grove hotel training HQ was bugged. Soccermongery’s got EXCLUSIVE access to the tapes. We reveal the astonishing aftermath of the decision to drop John Terry as skipper and replace him with Rio Ferdinand!

Also on Soccermongery: why FIFA's right to resist pressure to use video evidence and why Michael Owen's top level career is over.

Soccermongery's all about your feedback, so write away, right away!