FFP calls the tune - but it's hardly Fair Play

I've got a hotline to Roman and the Gang

What exactly is the point of Financial Fair Play, UEFA’s attempt at stopping the billionaire class from buying up all titles and trophies?

Well, it surely wasn’t designed to deter investment in second-tier clubs – but that’s the biggest consequence of Michel Platini’s greatest gesture to the game as European football’s president.

Chelsea and the Manchesters will always have suitors with a couple of bill to spare – but what of the Evertons and Aston Villas, clubs with huge support, history and that golden word, potential – but whose value is a mere fraction of a Champions League evergreen?

Will another Forest happen again?

Randy Lerner, Villa’s wantaway owner would give you the keys to Villa Park, the training ground (and a housing estate) for £150m. Bill Kenwright knows he’s not wealthy enough to push Everton above Spurs and Liverpool into the coveted fourth spot and a seat at Europe’s top table.

But when investing in players is capped at club turnover,which rich-kid would buy a wannabe team – even if Sky and BT shelled out a massive £5.1bn for the right to screen its games?

Time for a fan buyout? A Barcelona-style supporter owning revolution. Fantasy? It’s nearer in the Premier League than you might think.

Who better than 35,000 season ticket holders and thousands more armchair supporters getting behind their club's public flotation? Watch This Space.

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.

Platini's 2020 vision for Europe

A collage of games across the whole continent.

He's been at it again! The Europa League will descend into history with the Champions League set to be doubled to 64 clubs, but now attention's turned to an austerity version of the Euros.

Michel Platini's radical plans for the future now extend to a complete revamp of the European Championship.

No longer will the Euros be camped in one or two countries. From 2020, the UEFA President wants to play the games across the whole of Europe.

But why is he making such a huge change to the way tournament football's been played? Even the fledgeling World Cups of the 1930's were played in one nation.

Jonny looks at the Big Idea.

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Platini's plan is a Euro Superleague by the backdoor

Hey, call me Scudamore! I've plans to reduce your power!  

UEFA's considering ditching the Europa League in favour of extending the Champions League from 32 to 64 teams. Michel Platini’s pondering a format change to European competition from 2015. It means seven English and five Scottish teams could enter at a qualifying round stage.

What's the joke about fourth being the new first? It works for Arsene Wenger, who rates fourth as good as winning a trophy. Now try seventh - and work out the damage that does to competition in the Premier League and other top leagues around Europe.

Scrapping the Europa League effectively makes all the domestic leagues feeders for the Champions League. A bunch of Europa Leagues in fact.

Could the European Cup get bigger than this?

Seriously, there’ll be a lot of funny fixtures between teams who’ve no hope of progressing – and lots of empty stadia. Motherwell v Getafe? not even Sky's best hypemeisters would get me to watch that – and a bigger Champions League represents a challenge to the Premier League and La Liga, particularly on a global level. 

In developing football nations where new fans are exposed to lots of competing TV pictures, won't they make the connection that somehow a pan European competition is higher than a countrywide one? Of course they will.

Lovely trophy - but it's over.

For a couple of years, the thrill of being an Aston Villa, Hibernian, Real Betis or Chievo fan playing for the big one will carry the tournament, but sooner or later the Champions League brand will be dininished by rubbish football before January each season.

UEFA's plan is a Euro Superleague by the backdoor - and will effectively make all domestic leagues the feeder competition to it. I'm sure the Premier League will have words to say about becoming what's effectively the Europa League at the moment.

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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Talent is valued more than self-discipline & personal morality.

eh, like. Sorry UEFEH!

Wayne Rooney's petulant kick during England's two-all draw in Montenegro could derail our hopes of winning EURO 2012 next summer, (says the ever hopeful England fan writing this!) 

Red mist!



Our preparations in the tournament leadup are compromised too. Fabio Capello insists he'll be using different strike combinations in friendlies ahead of the finals - irrespective of Rooney's availability. It's the right thing to do.

After all, Capello must examine other partnerships, forced as he is into Plan B and C by Rooney's moment of madness.

Why do you bother?

UEFA decided on Thursday that Rooney's straight red was worth a three-match ban at the start of the EURO 2012 Finals. It rules him out of the Group Stages entirely, by which time he could be on the plane home with the rest of the knocked out team.



In a bid to curb the full wrath of UEFA's punishment., Rooney wrote a "sorry note" to the powers that be. Turns out two games of the punishment were for bad grammar.

Personal morality remains the property of the individual. Isn't having a good name still worth something? Don't Rooney and Carlos Tevez owe it to themselves to behave better?

So who's show of peevishness was worse? Rooney's thickheadedness or Tevez's refusal to warm up off the subs bench?

The last Evertonian with any pace! Moyes take note.



Manchester City fans are less than impressed with their former hero, who refused to follow Roberto Mancini's orders and play while losing at Bayern Munich in the Champions League.

But it seems as soon as these players are cleared to play or available for transfer, there's a scramble for their services - even at the expense of players with better attitudes who staked a claim in their absence.

Even David Moyes, boss of the austere, workmanlike and thoroughly professional "School of Science" claimed even though Tevez's behaviour was unacceptable, he'd make every exception to have him in his Everton squad.

Never has the line "break the rules, 'cos you are the best" been more applicable, and it's not right.

I despair of football's morality. Winning at all costs is a given at club level. It's an environment where if any manager takes a stand against a miscreant player, they merely shoot themselves in the foot.



Everton, "the School of Science": Stuart Hall

Sure, we pass the ball back to the opposition goalkeeper or kick the ball out of play for an injury but those are rather small concessions in the face of banning players or kicking them out on a freebie.

Each time, the FA or UEFA fail to sanction clubs, managers or players, the wider game loses. Power seeps to the already over powerful clubs.

So it has to be upto the Governing Bodies to make these decisions. Otherwise, what does football teach our kids?

It's a sad era when professionalism is valued less than winning.

Barcelona's gentlemen crowned greats as FIFA's guttersnipes gun each other down.

Brilliant Messi

What an extraordinary weekend in football. In the Champions League, Barcelona lived upto the hype to produce a stratospheric team display at the very moment it counted most.

At the same time, what started with Lord Triesman's complaints to Parliament over England's failure to win the 2018 World Cup bid has ended in disgrace and ignominy for FIFA. An extraordinary implosion has left Sepp Blatter as the only cowboy standing in the saloon bar shootout. The town ain't big enough for Mohammed Bin Hammam and Jack Warner.

New Wembley's first European final was supposed to be between peers. Pep Guardiola and Sir Alex Ferguson, already previous winners were aiming to claim a fourth European Cup for their respective clubs. In the end, United were trumped as the Govanator was first to acknowledge calling the 3-1 defeat "a hiding".

Because for all the tabloid headlines of drunken nights, love trysts and horrid WAGs, of bungs, dodgy expenses and allegations, it turns out winning can after all be achieved with grace, fairness, planning and hard work.

Because Barcelona play football the right way. Another concession from the generous Fergie, who looked a forlorn figure at full-time on the Wembley pitch. Beaten thoroughly - every which way.

Football, Bloody 'ell: Forlorn Fergie

Because though Wayne Rooney is a star player, he's not in the mould of one from Barcelona, where foundations extend way, way beyond the 90 minutes of game time. Rooney strayed from his Wembley instructions and Fergie bawled at him on the touchline for everyone to see. So incensed was the 67-year-old, it launched a bilious, coughing fit. Rooney to Barca one day? No chance.

Because Puyol, already a world and European champion at club and international level, who came on toward the end of the game, ducked out of his role as captain in hoisting the trophy aloft, so Eric Abidal, who spent most of the season recovering from testicular cancer could have the honour instead. 

Mes Que Un Club and Football, bloody 'ell, you might say.


Mes Que Un Club

And so to FIFA, where years of conniving and collecting dirt on each other is being mudslung for our entertainment.

The headlines are set to be sponsored by Warner, who unleashing periodic nuggets to the media, he's dubbed a Football Tsunami.

That he uses that word to describe his tittle-tattle is a measure of the man. An amoral urchin, who together with a generation of FIFA representatives are about to get their comeuppance.

UEFA's been growing in status over FIFA for many a year. The formation of the Champions League was a masterstroke, acknowledging the growth of the European city states over their countries. If the 2010 World Cup threw up knackered horses in a steeplechase, this year's European Cup was one for the thoroughbreds.

Now FIFA has no moral authority to govern the game as UEFA looks on at the top of the world game. Michel Platini constantly rejects the notion of standing for the FIFA presidency.

Meritocracy wins the day. The start of a Football Spring?

More games, more goals

Recent competitiveness in the Premier League has been a breath of fresh air - and the main reason is belief.

Rory Delap's long throw. No one can stop it!

While money still talks and Manchester City's elevation to the big-time shows it, clubs with less resource go into 90 minutes against bigger opposition with larger stature; both mentally and physically.

Birmingham's Carling Cup victory over Arsenal and Bolton and Stoke's FA Cup semi-final berths show more than ever that graft and experience can undo clever gameplans and squad depth. I thought Koscielny and Szczesny's mistake gifting Martins his Wembley winner was made of Blues second half pressure.

Fergie's "Men Win Matches" approach is even more applicable in 2011. Tactics and beautiful play just don't count as much as they did three seasons ago. Arsenal are the main fall guys of this. Yes, they're in the title race but they'll have to play with more force and individual leadership if they're to topple United to vindicate Arsene Wenger's ideals.

And more goals are being scored because manager's are more open to winning matches than sitting on leads. There are definitely less clean sheets around. Isn't it Bloomfield Road where every match has resulted in at least one goal for both teams?

Martins winner was a deserved one

Money is still the decisive factor and the longer the Champions League pays such huge bounty (together with being top of the Premier League of course), the cartel will be tough to break. It's where the cream of star players want to play. But the clutch of Europa League wannabe clubs believe the gates aren't shut to them. 

And with UEFA Financial Fair Play coming into force in two years, expect an even bigger impact on competition in the coming seasons.


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Burnley's Fair Play League hopes dashed

As quickly as hopes were raised for Burnley, they were dashed! UEFA's decided to award Fair Play places in Europe to Sweden, Denmark and Finland next term, so ending the relegated Clarets hopes of joining the Euro elite from August. But Soccermongery says the Fair Play League is distinctly unfair - to deserving clubs:

Why should Burnley manager Brian Laws have been incentivised by Europe's governing body to send out his team urging careful challenges in their last game of the Premier League season? Because that's what Laws would've been mindful of as he prepared his Clarets for their last (ever) game in the top flight, at home to Tottenham. A place in Europe via this contorted route was still up for grabs at the time.

It’s not as if they were a particularly clean team anyway. Burnley were just the highest up the Fair Play table who'd not qualified for Europe.

In fact, they finished as low as seventh. Incredibly, the six teams above them didn’t need a back door to Europe like this; they'd already qualified. Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and Villa among them.

What the Fair Play League shows year after year is that successful teams are usually disciplined enough to play the game the right way, leaving struggling hoofers like Burnley to earn this ridiculous route into the Europa League.

I suppose it might've stopped an exodus of players from Turf Moor following their relegation to the Championship. That and the parachute money, of course. But it’s still a European-style fudge and nonsense.

If UEFA awarded a Europa place to the most improved side in the Premier League, it might help that club to develop further. Stoke or Birmingham would drink to that suggestion.