Mihir Bose's Blog, page 27
October 13, 2015
Why Platini has turned out to be not quite so unique
Inside World Football
Michel Platini has always presented himself as unique. That he was a unique footballer cannot be doubted although the fact that he could not guide his country to a World Cup win means for all his great achievements as player he will always remain to an extent the nearly man, not quite in the class of Franz Beckenbauer. But it is his role as administrator in the last decade that raises questions about why and how he was ever considered a football administrator in any way different to the less than reputable bunch who have governed the world game for so long.
This reputation has been based on the fact that he is a rare footballing great willing to become an administrator. A man from the world of shorts willing to wear suits. It has also helped that he is seen as one keen to bring some romance back to a game increasingly driven by money and more open and transparent than nearly all the other administrators. Platini himself has played on this as, for instance, in becoming the only member of the FIFA executive to disclose how he voted on the controversial 2010 ballot that decided that Qatar should host the 2022 World Cup.
Michel Platini has always presented himself as unique. That he was a unique footballer cannot be doubted although the fact that he could not guide his country to a World Cup win means for all his great achievements as player he will always remain to an extent the nearly man, not quite in the class of Franz Beckenbauer. But it is his role as administrator in the last decade that raises questions about why and how he was ever considered a football administrator in any way different to the less than reputable bunch who have governed the world game for so long.
This reputation has been based on the fact that he is a rare footballing great willing to become an administrator. A man from the world of shorts willing to wear suits. It has also helped that he is seen as one keen to bring some romance back to a game increasingly driven by money and more open and transparent than nearly all the other administrators. Platini himself has played on this as, for instance, in becoming the only member of the FIFA executive to disclose how he voted on the controversial 2010 ballot that decided that Qatar should host the 2022 World Cup.
Why Platini has turned out to be not quite so unique – Inside World Football
Michel Platini has always presented himself as unique. That he was a unique footballer cannot be doubted although the fact that he could not guide his country to a World Cup win means for all his great achievements as player he will always remain to an extent the nearly man, not quite in the class of Franz Beckenbauer. But it is his role as administrator in the last decade that raises questions about why and how he was ever considered a football administrator in any way different to the less than reputable bunch who have governed the world game for so long.
This reputation has been based on the fact that he is a rare footballing great willing to become an administrator. A man from the world of shorts willing to wear suits. It has also helped that he is seen as one keen to bring some romance back to a game increasingly driven by money and more open and transparent than nearly all the other administrators. Platini himself has played on this as, for instance, in becoming the only member of the FIFA executive to disclose how he voted on the controversial 2010 ballot that decided that Qatar should host the 2022 World Cup. Even the fact that he went on to say that while he voted for Qatar he privately told them that the World Cup should be held in the winter not the summer did not quite diminish the aura of a man who was different to the others.
Yet the recent revelations and, in particular, the payment of £1.35 million by Sepp Blatter for work he had done for FIFA, and the way the payment has emerged indicate that Platini is actually no different. The gloss is different, the substance is not. And looking back at his Presidency it is clear he does not really stand out from the rest of the crowd.
This reputation has been based on the fact that he is a rare footballing great willing to become an administrator. A man from the world of shorts willing to wear suits. It has also helped that he is seen as one keen to bring some romance back to a game increasingly driven by money and more open and transparent than nearly all the other administrators. Platini himself has played on this as, for instance, in becoming the only member of the FIFA executive to disclose how he voted on the controversial 2010 ballot that decided that Qatar should host the 2022 World Cup. Even the fact that he went on to say that while he voted for Qatar he privately told them that the World Cup should be held in the winter not the summer did not quite diminish the aura of a man who was different to the others.
Yet the recent revelations and, in particular, the payment of £1.35 million by Sepp Blatter for work he had done for FIFA, and the way the payment has emerged indicate that Platini is actually no different. The gloss is different, the substance is not. And looking back at his Presidency it is clear he does not really stand out from the rest of the crowd.
FIFA and UEFA excos were kept in the dark over Platini payment – Inside World Football
October 13 - Sepp Blatter's payment to Michel Platini of £1.35 million for alleged work for FIFA which is being investigated by the Swiss authorities was never declared to the executive committees of either FIFA or UEFA.
It now appears that there were two contracts a written contract for Platini's work for FIFA between 1998 and 2002 for which around £710,000 was believed to have been paid to Platini. But then there was a further payment of £1.35 million on the basis of an oral contract and it is this the Swiss are investigating.
Lennart Johannsson, who was President of UEFA in 1999 when Blatter is alleged to have hired Platini to work for FIFA told Insideworldfootball: "I was a member of the FIFA executive then and Blatter should have reported it to the executive but he never did. I never heard about this arrangement in FIFA. This is quite a lot of money, not a small amount. I have only learnt through the media that Platini claims that he has a contract with FIFA."
Platini received the payment of £1.35 million in 2011 and by this time the Frenchman had succeeded Johannsson as President of UEFA. However, as honorary President of UEFA Johansson attends UEFA executive meetings and said: "I would have expected this payment to be reported to UEFA. Platini should have mentioned it to the executive. I would have done so. I would have said to the executive, 'I have a contract with Blatter which you may criticise. But this is the truth, this is the money I received and you should know about it.' I attend all UEFA executive meetings. I never heard about this payment of Blatter to Platini."
It now appears that there were two contracts a written contract for Platini's work for FIFA between 1998 and 2002 for which around £710,000 was believed to have been paid to Platini. But then there was a further payment of £1.35 million on the basis of an oral contract and it is this the Swiss are investigating.
Lennart Johannsson, who was President of UEFA in 1999 when Blatter is alleged to have hired Platini to work for FIFA told Insideworldfootball: "I was a member of the FIFA executive then and Blatter should have reported it to the executive but he never did. I never heard about this arrangement in FIFA. This is quite a lot of money, not a small amount. I have only learnt through the media that Platini claims that he has a contract with FIFA."
Platini received the payment of £1.35 million in 2011 and by this time the Frenchman had succeeded Johannsson as President of UEFA. However, as honorary President of UEFA Johansson attends UEFA executive meetings and said: "I would have expected this payment to be reported to UEFA. Platini should have mentioned it to the executive. I would have done so. I would have said to the executive, 'I have a contract with Blatter which you may criticise. But this is the truth, this is the money I received and you should know about it.' I attend all UEFA executive meetings. I never heard about this payment of Blatter to Platini."
October 6, 2015
Michel Platini will not be able to reform FIFA – he is part of the old guard, says Lennart Johansson
Michel Platini will not be able to reform FIFA - he is part of the old guard, says Lennart Johansson
London Evening Standard
Lennart Johansson knows how difficult it is to remove Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini from world football. In 1998 Johansson, then UEFA president, stood against Sepp Blatter for the top job at FIFA and lost. Then, in 2007, Johansson was dethroned by Platini after 17 years at the head of UEFA.
However, Blatter’s reign as FIFA president is finally nearing its end as he is being forced to step down in the wake of the scandal that has engulfed the game’s governing body.
The race to succeed him took a twist today when one of the candidates, Chung Mong-joon, claimed FIFA had charged him for allegedly breaking their ethics code as a ploy to prevent him from running for the presidency.
Platini is also in the running to replace Blatter at next February’s election but Johansson says: “Platini’s still part of the same world. That’s my impression. I doubt he will be able to reform FIFA.”
London Evening Standard
Lennart Johansson knows how difficult it is to remove Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini from world football. In 1998 Johansson, then UEFA president, stood against Sepp Blatter for the top job at FIFA and lost. Then, in 2007, Johansson was dethroned by Platini after 17 years at the head of UEFA.
However, Blatter’s reign as FIFA president is finally nearing its end as he is being forced to step down in the wake of the scandal that has engulfed the game’s governing body.
The race to succeed him took a twist today when one of the candidates, Chung Mong-joon, claimed FIFA had charged him for allegedly breaking their ethics code as a ploy to prevent him from running for the presidency.
Platini is also in the running to replace Blatter at next February’s election but Johansson says: “Platini’s still part of the same world. That’s my impression. I doubt he will be able to reform FIFA.”
October 4, 2015
Test Match Special – BBC Radio 4 extra
First broadcast in May 2007 – this remains as timeless as ever as we heard today
Test Match Special: Ball on Ball
Test Match Special: Ball on Ball
September 23, 2015
Can the puppy really savage the Rottweiler of sports broadcasting?
Londonlovesbusiness.com
In his inaugural column for LondonLovesBusiness, our new sports columnist muses on the BT vs Sky war
Rottweilers don’t run away from puppies.
Yet that is how John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, pictured the fight between his organisation and Sky for televised sports rights 18 months ago.
Sky was “a Rottweiler running away from a new [...]
In his inaugural column for LondonLovesBusiness, our new sports columnist muses on the BT vs Sky war
Rottweilers don’t run away from puppies.
Yet that is how John Petter, chief executive of BT Consumer, pictured the fight between his organisation and Sky for televised sports rights 18 months ago.
Sky was “a Rottweiler running away from a new [...]
September 22, 2015
No One is Indispensable
History Today
Mihir Bose challenges the perception of Winston Churchill as a demi-god who was essential to Britain's war effort.
Aneurin Bevan (right) with the future prime minister Harold Wilson at the Labour party conference, September 1953.Aneurin Bevan (right) with the future prime minister Harold Wilson at the Labour party conference, September 1953.At the height of the Second World War, as Aneurin Bevan relentlessly criticised the strategy of Winston Churchill, his friend Archie Lush asked him in anguish: ‘Why do you keep attacking Churchill? What do you think happens if he goes?’ Bevan replied: ‘All right. Suppose he fell under a bus. What should we have to do? Send a postcard to Hitler giving in?’
Any criticism of Churchill as war leader is now seen as unpatriotic, if not heresy. This was vividly demonstrated during the events marking the 50th anniversary of his death, when the media joined hands in promoting the idea that during the war Churchill was a demi-god without whom this country could never have won. This has since been taken a notch further in Boris Johnson’s The Churchill Factor (2014), whose subtitle, How One Man Made History, sums up the book.
Churchill’s contemporaries would have found this incredible. Churchill did play a huge part in developing his own personality cult. His history of the Second World War enabled him to fulfil his desire to ‘justify myself before history’ and put him on a pedestal from where he could look down on his rivals. Yet his contemporaries were not afraid to chip away at it. Emanuel Shinwell described the first volume, The Gathering Storm, as a novel in which Churchill was the main character, while Michael Foot wrote that, while the book was ‘vastly more enjoyable and instructive than Hitler’s Mein Kampf’, when it came to ‘personal conceit and arrogance there is some likeness between the two’. Foot, who worshipped Bevan, was deliberately trying to provoke outrage but what all this demonstrates is that Churchill’s contemporaries were not prepared to accept his myth.
Mihir Bose challenges the perception of Winston Churchill as a demi-god who was essential to Britain's war effort.
Aneurin Bevan (right) with the future prime minister Harold Wilson at the Labour party conference, September 1953.Aneurin Bevan (right) with the future prime minister Harold Wilson at the Labour party conference, September 1953.At the height of the Second World War, as Aneurin Bevan relentlessly criticised the strategy of Winston Churchill, his friend Archie Lush asked him in anguish: ‘Why do you keep attacking Churchill? What do you think happens if he goes?’ Bevan replied: ‘All right. Suppose he fell under a bus. What should we have to do? Send a postcard to Hitler giving in?’
Any criticism of Churchill as war leader is now seen as unpatriotic, if not heresy. This was vividly demonstrated during the events marking the 50th anniversary of his death, when the media joined hands in promoting the idea that during the war Churchill was a demi-god without whom this country could never have won. This has since been taken a notch further in Boris Johnson’s The Churchill Factor (2014), whose subtitle, How One Man Made History, sums up the book.
Churchill’s contemporaries would have found this incredible. Churchill did play a huge part in developing his own personality cult. His history of the Second World War enabled him to fulfil his desire to ‘justify myself before history’ and put him on a pedestal from where he could look down on his rivals. Yet his contemporaries were not afraid to chip away at it. Emanuel Shinwell described the first volume, The Gathering Storm, as a novel in which Churchill was the main character, while Michael Foot wrote that, while the book was ‘vastly more enjoyable and instructive than Hitler’s Mein Kampf’, when it came to ‘personal conceit and arrogance there is some likeness between the two’. Foot, who worshipped Bevan, was deliberately trying to provoke outrage but what all this demonstrates is that Churchill’s contemporaries were not prepared to accept his myth.
September 21, 2015
28th September 2015 Asian Media Awards – Shortlist announcement, Mihir Bose among the speakers
The speakers for this year’s Asian Media Awards shortlist announcement have been revealed.
more details here
more details here
September 11, 2015
Etienne Capoue believes Watford fans are in a different league to their Tottenham counterparts
London Evening Standard
Etienne Capoue is feeling the love. “In France, they love football but not like this,” says Watford’s record £6.3million summer signing. “England loves football very, very, very much. England is very special for that.”
Love is something the 27-year-old France midfielder had given up on before moving to the Premier League newcomers after two deeply dissatisfying seasons in north London at Tottenham.
The contrast with this move and the one he made to White Hart Lane in the wake of Gareth Bale’s world record £86m move to Real Madrid in 2013 could not be greater.
With Spurs acting like millionaires after Bale’s exit — they spent £110m on seven players — Capoue was eager to cross the Channel “because England has the best League in the world”.
The then-Toulouse player had been linked to moves to Liverpool and Arsenal but says: “My agent worked for me to find Tottenham. [Franco] Baldini [Spurs’ director of football] came to France to meet me and he said, ‘Tottenham want to play at the top of the table’. It was a good challenge for me to try to get Tottenham into the Champions League position. But we didn’t. We were not good enough to be in the top four.”
Etienne Capoue is feeling the love. “In France, they love football but not like this,” says Watford’s record £6.3million summer signing. “England loves football very, very, very much. England is very special for that.”
Love is something the 27-year-old France midfielder had given up on before moving to the Premier League newcomers after two deeply dissatisfying seasons in north London at Tottenham.
The contrast with this move and the one he made to White Hart Lane in the wake of Gareth Bale’s world record £86m move to Real Madrid in 2013 could not be greater.
With Spurs acting like millionaires after Bale’s exit — they spent £110m on seven players — Capoue was eager to cross the Channel “because England has the best League in the world”.
The then-Toulouse player had been linked to moves to Liverpool and Arsenal but says: “My agent worked for me to find Tottenham. [Franco] Baldini [Spurs’ director of football] came to France to meet me and he said, ‘Tottenham want to play at the top of the table’. It was a good challenge for me to try to get Tottenham into the Champions League position. But we didn’t. We were not good enough to be in the top four.”
September 9, 2015
We need transparency not just at FIFA, but also in club football
Inside World Football
If there is one subject everyone agrees on is that FIFA needs to be more accountable and transparent. Yet even as there is unanimity on this subject in one area of football there is so little transparency and information is so tightly controlled that it makes those who run the politburo in China look liberal and media friendly. This is in the area of how clubs communicate to the world.
Much has been made of Mike Ashley, the owner of Newcastle, barring all but one print media access when he appointed Steve McClaren as manager. But while this was extraordinary nearly all clubs make sure that information they give out regarding transfers, or other club activity, is on their terms and, increasingly, only to their own media outlets. So gone are the days when a new signing was paraded before a press conference. Now, somebody from the club's in house PR team interviews the player and this is then posted on the club's website. The same goes for almost all other clubs news.
Yes, managers do hold pre-match and post-match press conferences but this is more in the nature of a ritual with very limited information provided, not a genuine exercise in being open and accountable. And what makes the whole thing truly remarkable is such tight control by clubs has come when the appetite for football news is such that there is almost saturation coverage of football and a Premier League result can even make the mast head of a broadsheet paper.
If there is one subject everyone agrees on is that FIFA needs to be more accountable and transparent. Yet even as there is unanimity on this subject in one area of football there is so little transparency and information is so tightly controlled that it makes those who run the politburo in China look liberal and media friendly. This is in the area of how clubs communicate to the world.
Much has been made of Mike Ashley, the owner of Newcastle, barring all but one print media access when he appointed Steve McClaren as manager. But while this was extraordinary nearly all clubs make sure that information they give out regarding transfers, or other club activity, is on their terms and, increasingly, only to their own media outlets. So gone are the days when a new signing was paraded before a press conference. Now, somebody from the club's in house PR team interviews the player and this is then posted on the club's website. The same goes for almost all other clubs news.
Yes, managers do hold pre-match and post-match press conferences but this is more in the nature of a ritual with very limited information provided, not a genuine exercise in being open and accountable. And what makes the whole thing truly remarkable is such tight control by clubs has come when the appetite for football news is such that there is almost saturation coverage of football and a Premier League result can even make the mast head of a broadsheet paper.
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