Sepp Blatter finally resigns, a few days too late!

Let me start by saying this.  I’m glad that Sepp Blatter finally found it within himself to do the honourable thing and step down as FIFA President.  But he should have done it Thursday, to save FIFA the embarrassment and humiliation of re-electing him to the top job there, only to then face another election process in quick succession.

But the whole debacle over the arrests and how FIFA responded to them, showed up the organisation as completely corrupt, and thinking themselves untouchable.  It showed up an organisation that had no transparency and no accountability to the people that ultimately pay their wages, the fans around the world who watch football, and play the FIFA branded video games.

In the aftermath of the arrests, the election should have been postponed, or at least Sepp Blatter should have announced that he was not going to stand for re-election.  He might have had a vision for Football, or Soccer as it’s known in some countries, but he had no vision when it came to the optics of the situation both he and FIFA were facing.

The optics were only made worse by Vladimir Putin offering his support to Blatter.  That should be a warning sign in itself.  If Putin offers you his support, turn it down.  It makes you look a hell of a lot worse.

Now he has stepped down and an emergency congress will elect a replacement, maybe we will actually start to see the change that is necessary in FIFA to bring it into the 21st century.  Maybe we’ll even see them take the decision to move the 2018 and 2022 World Cup venues due to the corruption allegations.  But progress in these sorts of matters is always slow, and I won’t hold my breath waiting for them.

The lottery of the penalty shootout

In this World Cup so far, we have had 4 second round and 2 penalty shootouts.  In that sense, we have had 2 of the most different penalty shootouts that you could have possibly had already during this second round.

The first one involved Brazil and Chile, where there were as many penalties saved as there were scored.  The second one involved Costa Rica, the unexpected unbeaten team of this World Cup, and Greece, and in that one, only one penalty was missed, by Greece at a crucial time, their fourth penalty, which meant that Costa Rica had to score to win, which they did.  Costa Rica didn’t miss a single penalty, and that is one of the rare situations where you can truly say that a team went through on penalties on merit, scoring every single one they took.

Otherwise, the penalty shootout is a lottery.  Saved penalties, missed penalties, over the bar, wide, hitting the woodwork, easy saves, spectacular saves, we’ve seen them all at various points.  It’s no way to end even a Johnston’s Paint Trophy match, let alone something as big as a World Cup match. 

No team ever deserves to go out on penalties, and it hurts to see it.  Some commentators seem to be under the false idea that a penalty shootout is something that all neutral fans love.  In fact, I find this not to be true at all.  Most true sports fans, the ones who want to see a great game, no matter who teams, no matter what the sport, absolutely hate the penalty shootout.  It turns a game of skill, heart, passion and conditioning, into a game of chance, a game of luck, a game of who can win the lottery.

In sports like basketball and hockey, you get overtime periods, and you keep getting overtime periods until you score.  In Soccer, you have 2 15-minute periods of Extra Time, no more and no less.  Then you are onto penalties.  Golden goal extra time was trialled, as was silver goal, where you had until the end of the 15 minute period to reply, depending on how late the goal was scored.  For some baffling reason, both players and fans complained about these, and they have been quietly forgotten by most within the game, and most fans as well. 

But, if after 2 periods of extra time, you cannot separate them, then you should have additional periods of extra time, where the next goal finishes the game.  It should be a moment of skill that wins it, not a moment of luck.  It would also stop the horrible situation that we get in most extra time games, where one or both teams ends up playing for penalties, for some, most or in some cases, all of that second period of extra time. 

Costa Rica’s penalty shootout was the exception that proved the rule.  Scoring every penalty you take, you can’t argue that they didn’t deserve to go through from that match, especially as they had a pretty blatant handball in the 18 yard box, missed by the referee, and that meant they didn’t get the penalty they should have had, but in the end, it didn’t matter, justice was done, and Costa Rica continue as the surprise undefeated team of this World Cup.

But I hope that sometime soon, we can finally persuade the footballing authorities, to do away with the lottery that is the penalty shootout.  It’s no way to decide a game, especially not at a World Cup.

Viewpoint Sports: Does being 'booked' actually mean anything?

I've been thinking about this for a while, during various times watching either live football or football highlights programmes.  You watch a player commit a foul, and the referee decides that the foul is serious enough to warrant a 'booking' as it is called.  So the referee calls the player over, produces a yellow card, and puts the player's name and/or number in a little black book that he carries.

Sorry, but what kind of penalty is that?  What does going in the referee's little black book actually mean?

Apparently, not much.  A yellow card is a 'caution' that is issued to the player concerned.  That's it, merely a caution.  In Rugby Union, a player that is yellow carded is sent to the 'Sin Bin', for 10 minutes, temporarily reducing the team by 1, which in other sports is sometimes refered to as a "Power Play".

On this day, there were 5 Premier League matches in England.  Between those 5 games, there were 17 yellow cards and 2 red cards.  Now one of those reds was a straight red card, and upon viewing the footage, even that seemed harsh.  The Scottish Premiership saw 2 matches today, one of which had no yellow or red cards, the other had 5 yellows and no reds.  7 top flight games in the UK, and between them all, 22 yellow cards and 2 red cards.

In the English Premier League today, one team, Southampton, had 5 yellow cards issued against them. That's almost half a team in the referee's book.  It's not as bad as an infamous match in the 2006 World Cup when Portugal and the Netherlands were issued 16 yellow cards between them and 4 players got yellow carded twice and got sent off. 

It seems that cautions mean nothing.  Maybe it is time to change what a yellow card actually means in Football. 

Now there are two possible options.  One is to make a yellow card mean the same as it does in Rugby Union, 10 minutes in a penalty box or sin bin for the player shown the card, temporarily reducing the team strength by 1.  Such a move would stop the cynical fouls that result in bookings that prevent what look to be potential goals.  It would also make players think twice before making silly challenges as your team being down a player for 10 minutes is more of a penalty, than a mere caution.  Upon a second yellow card, it would still become a red and a sending off for the duration of the game. 

The other, is to separate the yellow card and red card offences, in other words two yellows would not be an automatic red card, and have various penalties, probably various cards, for differing lengths of time in the 'Sin Bin'.  You could have three levels of penalty, worth 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes depending on how serious the foul was, and the red card would still mean sending off. 

I like both thoughts, and to be honest, either one would have more of a deterrent effect than a mere caution. 

Viewpoint Sports: Blatter on Racism; Shake hands.

This is the video clip where Sepp Blatter, FIFA's gaffe-prone President, once again opens that golden mouth of his and sticks both feet in right up to the knee, on the topic of racism.



When your time at the governing body has been tainted by the whiff of a suspicion of corruption, and the stench of it pervades, then you really need to be very careful what you say.

Viewpoint Original: The Plymouth Argyle situation.

There is a break for Premiership and Championship clubs this weekend as International matches are played.  Paul Sturrock of Plymouth Argyle must be happy to have the internationals take the attention away from the performance of Plymouth Argyle.

5 matches, 2 draws, 3 losses, no wins.  23rd in the Championship and currently in a position that would mean relegation at the end of the season.

Paul Sturrock has made a pledge to stay on and help Argyle turn the corner, rather than resign and move aside for someone else.

Now, it would very easy for me to say that Paul Sturrock should resign.  It would also be relatively easy for me to say that Paul Sturrock should stay and help Argyle turn it around.  But for me it’s never been about easy options, but about seeking and telling the truth.  So here it is.

Paul Sturrock, the only person who can make the decision when or whether to go from Plymouth Argyle is you.  Sure, fans like myself will say their piece, as they are perfectly entitled to do, but at the end of the day, only you, in your heart of hearts, will know if you CAN turn it around or not.  IF you know you can, then you will have my full support.  But if you know it is not possible for you to do this, deep down inside of you, then I would suggest that you step aside from the managerial role and make room for someone who can do it.

After the past few years of success that Argyle has enjoyed, this is the kind of start no-one likes to see.  Second from bottom is not where Argyle belongs.  We all know that.  There is still hope for an automatic promotion place.  But it has to start with the very next match, otherwise, even getting to a play off spot will be almost impossible.

England Out of Euro 2008

Obviously, this story is having repercussions across the world of football, but specifically, in the headquarters of football in the UK, The Football Association, who have decided to hold an emergency board meeting at 8.30 am UK time (0830 GMT/UTC).

My prediction... by 8.30pm (2030 GMT/UTC), Steve McLaren will NOT be manager of England. My belief is he will have been fired, because, as he stated earlier tonight, he is refusing to resign.