Watch England vs Belarus Online
October 15, 2008
Today England face Belarus in the Dinamo Stadium at part of the World Cup qualifying campaign, with kick-off scheduled to be at 7.30PM. You can watch the match online or on Setanta Sports.
England are in fine form after their 5-1 win against Kazahkstan at the weekend, and the only absentee from that match will be Ashley Cole who is out with a hamstring injury. Wayne Bridge is likely to start in his place at left back.
Although Belarus may be seen to be the underdogs, they have still managed to hold both Argentina and Germany to draws recently, whilst beating Holland last year in a Euro 2008 qualifier match. However they will be without arguably their best player, Alexander Hleb, who is sidelined with ankle-ligament damage.
To watch the England vs. Belarus football match online, click here and then select one of the 3 packages. Or, you can subscribe to Setanta Sports here and watch all of the away England World Cup qualifier matches.
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English football needs a Kevin Pietersen
September 9, 2008
England play Croatia on Wednesday and you know what? It won’t be a surprise, or a disgrace, if they lose.
Why? Because Croatia are a technically gifted, cleverly organised, highly motivated international team, who beat England twice to reach Euro 2008 and outplayed Germany when they got there.
I also half expect it to happen simply because England are so terrified of losing.
This fear of failure pervades the national team. It comes across in the insistence on tactical discipline and conservative team selection even against the weakest of opponents (think Joe Cole against Andorra) and the consistent failure of the team’s senior players to be their confident, inventive selves while on England duty.
For a while it was the same with the England cricket team but recently things have changed. Here’s what Kevin Pietersen said last month after taking over as captain:
“The recipe for success I’ve tried to use is to be confident and play without fear. To express yourself once you go over the white line and trust your instinct and your practice.
“That’s what I want my lads to do, to play without fear. International cricket can roll into a routine of train, play, train, play and I want the guys to get the passion back.
“I think fear has crept in a bit. The more you fear, the more you worry about stuff instead of being a clear-thinking person.”
How English football could do with someone like Pietersen — a player or coach who could inspire the team, help them shrug off their fear and let their talent shine through, accepting the fact that sometimes it’ s not going to come off and that, yes, you can lose to teams like Croatia, with no disgrace at all.
There’s a piece in the Guardian today suggesting that winning ugly might do Fabio Capello’s England a lot of good right now.
I’d suggest that playing well and losing might not be such a problem either.
PHOTO: Joe Cole (L) shoots and scores during England’s World Cup qualifier against Andorra in Barcelona September 6, 2008 REUTERS/ Eddie Keogh
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Blatter to Visit South Africa Next Week
September 5, 2008
While most of the world is in qualification mode for the 2010 World Cup, the host country South Africa is also in ‘qualification mode.’
FIFA president Sepp Blatter visits South Africa next week and organizers of the 2010 World Cup are confident the head of football’s organizing body will like what he sees.
There’s been talk of moving the World Cup from South Africa to another country more prepared to handle it, like the United States or Germany. So this visit by Blatter and his cronies takes on a significant measure of importance.
Will they like what they see? Will they deem the country fit to host the biggest sporting event in the world?
Blatter begins a four-day visit to South Africa September 14, during which he’ll visit World Cup facilities in Johannesburg and Cape Town, World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC) chief Danny Jordaan said.
“We have made tremendous progress and we hope to showcase this progress to him during his visit,” Jordaan told journalists while wiping sweat from his brow.
While the news that FIFA might move the World Cup startled the local organizing chiefs, they’re sure FIFA will like what they see this week.
“We are confident that we can host the competition. Long before 2010 all the (10) stadia for the competition will be ready,” Jordaan said, adding that an expected change in government next year will not affect the game hosting.
General elections are scheduled to be held next year in South Africa.
Approximately three million tickets will be sold for the 2010 World Cup in which 32 teams will participate, the LOC head of legal and tickets department, Leslie Sedibe, said.
A total of 120,000 complimentary tickets will be handed out to FIFA and LOC officials as well as “builders” of the stadia, he said.
The World Cup, will be preceded next year by the FIFA Confederations Cup, to be staged in four stadia across South Africa from June 14 to 28 next year.
The draw for the Confederations Cup, will be made on November 22 this year and the tickets will be put on sale five days later, he also said.
An estimated three million people will be at the stadia for the World Cup’s 64 matches while 30 billion people across the globe will watch the matches on the television, organizers said.
South Africa, which budgeted 30 billion rand (3.8 billion dolllars/ 2.6 billion euros) to host the World Cup, has recently requested a supplementary budget of three billion rand to meet the rising cost of materials from the government, Jordaan said.
“We have engaged government on a 10 percent increase on the World Cup budget. The increase is due to the effects of the global economy and the rising costs on our budget, including the rising cost of diesel” he stated.
MY POV: As I’ve stated before, it would be devastating to African football should FIFA move the Cup from South Africa. I’m more than confident Blatter and his henchman will like what they see next week. They better … why wouldn’t they??
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Ghana Denies Match Fixing Allegations
September 2, 2008
In yesterday’s post, we talked about allegations that the 2006 World Cup match between Brazil and Ghana was fixed.
Today, a strong statement by the Ghana Football Association (GFA), who say they are going to take legal action against Canadian author Declan Hill and his publishers over claims the Black Stars 2006 World Cup clash with Brazil was fixed.
The GFA is denying claims made in Hill’s book ‘The Fix’ that has been serialized in the German news magazine Der Spiegel.
The claims are that an Asian betting syndicate influenced the result which led to Ghana’s 3-0 loss to Brazil in the second round in Germany.
The football association has also lodged a complaint with the Ghana Police Service to investigate the matter in view of the allegations made against the FA and players of the senior team.
“Without prejudice to the foregoing, we have decided to seek the advice of our lawyers on any further cause of action that may be available against Declan Hill, and publishers of the defamatory statements.”
Randy Abbey, a GFA spokesman, said that as much as it was a serious allegation, the FA would not jump to hasty conclusions but will read the book before investigating.
Still, an internal investigation needs to take place. Maybe some FIFA monitoring and maybe some independent council to further investigate are in order
Honestly, is anyone surprised? Not that Ghana is involved, but that match fixing takes place?
Let’s hope these allegations are proven incorrect, for the good of the game.
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Ghana-Brazil 2006 World Cup Match Fixed?
September 1, 2008
I’ve been away from the blog for a bit too long. That’s life.
So today, Day One of a little project I’m going to undertake, where I post on the blog for 31 straight days. So dear reader, stick with me.
Today’s big news, besides the ongoing transfer talk and the huge acquisition of Manchester City by a United Arab Emirates business group concerns the accusation of match-fixing at the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
According to German weekly news magazine Der Speigel, the 2006 World Cup knock-out stage match between Brazil and Ghana was influenced by an Asian betting syndicate. What do we mean by influenced?
Fixed.
The magazine reports large sums of money had been bet on Brazil winning by at least two goals and a former Ghana international acted as an intermediary.
Ghana lost the last 16 round match 3-0 in Dortmund on June 27, 2006 which put Brazil into the quarter-finals, where they lost to finalists France.
The information in Der Spiegel comes from Canadian investigative journalist Declan Hill, whose book about betting on sport around the world is published in German on Tuesday.
Der Spiegel also claim their investigations show two matches in Germany come under suspicion after huge sums were placed on them by a Malaysian who has been convicted of attempted match-fixing.
According to the report, William Bee Wah Lim placed 2.8 million euros (.1 million US dollars) with Asian bookmakers on Kaiserslautern losing a first-division match at Hanover in November 2005.
As a result of Hanover’s 5-1 victory, he won 2.2 million euros.
Lim placed almost 4 million euros on Karlsruhe beating Sportfreunde Siegen in a second-division match in August 2005. Karlsruhe won the game 2-0.
A Frankfurt court gave Lim a two years and five months prison sentence in June 2007 after he was convicted of attempted match fixing in the German regional league and Austria’s first division.
He was released on conditional bail, but has since left the country and a warrant for his arrest was issued in January.
The German Football Federation (DFB) have said they will investigate Der Spiegel’s allegations concerning the two Bundesliga games in 2005.
“DFB and the German League have so far no reference points that the matches mentioned are to have been manipulated,” said a statement on the DFB website.
“Immediately after becoming known of the suspicious factors DFB president Dr. Theo Zwanziger and German League president Dr. Reinhard Rauball affirm both federations aim at a comprehensive clearing-up of the affair.
“Already on Saturday morning an inquiry was started to look into the games concerned.”
German football endured the most serious crisis in its history in 2004 when referee Robert Hoyzer admitted having received 70,000 euros to influence the results of 23 matches, mainly second and third division games, between April 10 and December 3, 2004.
MY POV: This would be absolutely devastating news. No one wants to see professional football turned into professional wrestling, especially at an event as big as the World Cup.
If this story is true, all the work FIFA’s undertaken to prevent this very situation will be for naught. An immediate inquiry needs to be undertaken, much like Germany’s doing, to make sure world football isn’t polluted by gambling syndicates.
I found this excellent interview on Der Speigel’s website with the author of the book, Declan Hill. Here’s the whole interview. I’ve included a small excerpt. It’s a riveting account of Hill’s attempts to track down the characters involved in the scandal. It reads like a James Bond 007 spy thriller.
SPIEGEL: You have spent three years investigating the international betting mafia. Have you lost all pleasure in football?
Declan Hill: I love football the way one loves a woman, but by now I ask myself quite early on in a match, whether there is anything suspicious going on. There are no precise statistics about betting manipulation in football, of course, but it is shocking how often people in the world of betting talk about matches that have been manipulated – not just in Asia or Eastern Europe, but also in the major football leagues, such as in Germany, and even during world championships.
SPIEGEL: On June 27, 2006 the match ended 3:0 for Brazil.
Hill: The Ghanaians played as though they were putting their whole heart into it, but then there were a number of stupid mistakes: passes didn’t succeed, the defense was careless, the team collected three stupid goals. After the game I was in the stands in Dortmund with tears in my eyes because I was convinced, at least emotionally, that the match had been fixed. I phoned Chin from the stadium: “I didn’t believe you, but you are a genius.” He said: “How can I be a genius if I earn so little money with this?”
SPIEGEL: Did you speak with (Ghana Captain Steven) Appiah about the accusations?
Hill: Not just with Appiah, but also with the goalkeeper Richard Kingson and other national players too. They all assured me that they were completely unaware of the manipulation of the team in Germany. However one of the players did admit that he had been approached by Asian betters in 2004 during the Olympic Games. And they all said that Appiah was the captain of the team and that you would have to talk to him. I then met with him in an industrial area in Accra. We talked in his car and he said that he had been approached a number of times in the course of his career and that he had taken money too. The first time was in 1997 during the under-17s World Cup in Malaysia and also in 2004 at the Olympic Games in Athens; however he had been given money in order to win games, not to lose them. He had then shared the bonus among the players.
SPIEGEL: Ghana’s team captain, who was until recently signed to Fenerbahce Istanbul, says that he has accepted money from third parties twice during his career?
Hill: That’s exactly what he says. I had trouble comprehending this, so I spoke to him again over the phone, and he repeated his account.
SPIEGEL: And during the 2006 World Cup in Germany?
Hill: He was approached there too, but he says that he refused. I also asked him whether the Malaysian had gone to other players too. He replied: “Yes, I think he did the rounds.”
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