Mihir Bose's Blog, page 51

Football must watch out for the dangers of technology, just look at cricket

Have we got technology wrong? I speak as one who has always believed that sport should use technology. Yet the events in the first Ashes Test between England and Australia have made me think that technology may be becoming a sporting monster. I am well aware that the use of technology in football bears no relation to cricket, given how different the two games are. But the question is how far do you allow technology to decide events on the field of play.

Indeed watching the events from the Test match made me feel that Michel Platini may have a point when he says that he is opposed to technology. And that he would never want football decisions to be reached with the help of machinery - to introduce technology in the world game would ultimately mean that decisions would be taken not by the man on the field but by a person watching the match on a screen in a room and pushing buttons.

England shaping up to rediscover their ruthless streak

BBC’s Newsnight does not bother much with sport but on Friday it devoted some time to discussing the sporting success the nation is enjoying.

One of the questions that much intrigued the programme’s producers was what had happened to the British love for the underdog, never letting the desire to do well become a ruthless pursuit of victory in the way, shall we say, the Australians have always been rather good at?

English football – where the American Dream is alive and kicking

A foreign owner jetting in to buy a club always produces the same response. The fans hope he will be another Roman Abramovich or Sheikh Mansour. Then reality sets in and the fans, who so enthusiastically welcomed the new owner, act like jilted lovers and cannot contain their anger. So how should the Fulham fans treat Florida-based Shahid Khan's purchase of Fulham?


The first thing to be said is the sale was no surprise. Fulham owner Mohammed Al Fayed has long been looking to get away from Craven Cottage. I first heard that Fulham was up for sale almost five years ago. The only problem seemed to have been Fayed could not get the price he wanted. Now, clearly, a buyer has paid what he wanted.

But what Al Fayed may not have told Khan is that in buying into the Premiership he has also bought into what can only be called English football's own caste system. This is not quite the Hindu variety but nevertheless quite rigid and inflexible. So the question is which caste does the new American owner of Fulham belong to?

Ricky Ponting: I said 2-1 to Australia at the start of the Ashes and nothing has changed for me

Australia may have suffered an agonising defeat in the First Test but Ricky Ponting feels no need to change his forecast about who will hold the urn at the end of the series.

Ponting might well have been in Nottingham leading the ­Aussies in an Ashes series for one last time. Six months ago that thought did cross his mind before he opted to stick to his original decision to retire from international cricket.

Ponting’s views on cricket/players

Ponting on Australia’s Attack


I have always said [Peter] Siddle would be the first pick in my team every week. He has a good set of skills, the right attitude, always up for the contest and gives his 100 per cent all the time. [James] Pattinson is the same, a little bit quicker and swings the ball a little more than Siddle does. And [Mitchell] Starc is a good athlete and has all the attributes of a very good left arm fast bowler.


Ponting on Chris Rogers.


I was a bit surprised when they chose Rogers. But look at his record, the guy probably deserved to play more Test cricket than he has.

Why English football cannot follow the Murray example

Andy Murray's success has led to much talk of how British sport is finally getting rid of the sporting monkeys that have so long perched on its back. This is an understandable reaction.
When you win a coveted sporting crown after 77 years you are entitled to celebrate. And the triumphant feeling is all the more understandable given that it has crowned two years of success which has done much to make the British feel that the nation is no longer a sporting pariah. This was felt all the more keenly given that most sports the world plays was invented in this country or, at least, the laws were codified here.

Hope Powell: The women’s game is taken seriously now. The players are highly technical

It has not been a good summer for English football with the national teams exiting the Under-21 European Championship and the Under-20 World Cup without winning a game.



It now falls on the England women’s senior side to arrest that slide at their European Championship, which begins in Sweden tomorrow. But coach Hope Powell says: “The men’s [...]

Concern about money is the real reason for the spat between FIFA and UEFA

Insideworldfootball

When back in 1992 Bill Clinton launched his campaign for the US Presidency his campaign team told the workers forget all the other slogans, remember: It is the economy, stupid.

Much the same can be said of the spat between FIFA and UEFA over the World Cup in Brazil. There can be little doubt that concern about protecting FIFA's money lies at the heart of the attack on UEFA launched by Jerome Valcke, the FIFA general secretary. This followed critical comments by a senior UEFA official about the choice of a single nation as a world cup host.

Glenn Hoddle: If Greg Dyke wants to chat, I will. I want to help my country

Former England boss would like to tell the FA’s incoming chairman how to stamp out lazy coaching and make players technically sound

Evening Standard

A defeat by Egypt on Saturday saw England crash out of the Under-20 World Cup with only draws against Iraq and Chile to show for their efforts. Last month, the Under-21s fared even worse at the European Championships — losing three out of three and scoring just once — and, within a week of their exit, manager Stuart Pearce was axed.

England’s troubles have prompted talk of Glenn Hoddle returning to the national set-up.

Charm of Chennai

I had arrived in Chennai, the city formerly known as Madras, at quite the wrong time. The problem was not the hour, 1am, but that there was not a drop to drink in the city.

Chennai not only holds on to Mahatma Gandhi’s idea that drink is “haram” — evil — but goes further even than the Mormons of Utah to make drinking difficult. In Chennai, the only public places you can drink are hotels with at least 20 rooms.