Moving the line with the goalposts.

Unsurprisingly the goal-line technology debate has opened up again during Euro 2012 and what a surprise, it involves England!

This time however England actually benefitted from the incorrect refereeing decision during their group match against Ukraine. With England 1-0 up Ukraine were giving everything they had to grab themselves an equalising lifeline to stay in the tournament they’re co-hosting. In the 62^nd minute they thought they’d got it when Marko Devic’s shot looped in to the goal but was scooped out by John Terry on the line.

When it first happened on live TV I thought it was definitely over the line but then I started doubting myself as there is a man with a Wii remote stood a few feet away to make a decision. Surely he’d get it right, it’s his only actual job for the evening but no, it turns out a quick video replay proved he was indeed wrong not to give Ukraine a goal as the ball had clearly crossed the line.

A Game of Two Books.

I’ve noticed recently that a lot of football clubs have had their appeals turned down by the FA. Liverpool’s Alexander Doni had his wrongful dismissal claim turned down yesterday and QPR’s Shaun Derry lost his appeal earlier in the week for his red card against Manchester United where he fouled an offside and diving Ashley Young. If you can’t get let off for that, when can you?

This has made me wonder: why are clubs still bothering with appeals?

Seriously, I can’t actually remember the last time the FA overturned a decision. The ratio must be close to 500/1.

An Expensive Mistake.

Fabio Capello has resigned as England manager, a whole 592 days late.

Yes, it was 592 days ago when England were knocked out of the World Cup in South Africa by the Germans in what was a wholly embarrassing experience for the England team. Capello should have gone then, but he lingered on, until now.

It’s been a very forgettable reign for the Italian when you actually look at it. He was appointed manager way back in December 2007 holding the position for just over three years. In that time England have progressed from being a bland, under-achieving international football team to being a bland and even more under-achieving international football team.

What's the going rate for a World Cup?

I think it’s fair to say it’s been a torrid year for Fifa. First we had the World Cup bids that resulted in one tournament going to the largest nation in the world and one going to a nation the size of a postage stamp; then we had the whole Andy Gray sexism debacle leaving a huge question mark over who will partner Martin Tyler on the upcoming Fifa 12; and then we had the inevitable questioning of corruption within the octual organisation of Fifa.

This really is one of the most obvious statements in the world: Fifa are corrupt. It’s right up there with: oil is a valuable resource; Hitler wasn’t very nice; and Badger loves mashed potato! For some reason the world has only just realised this and several members of Fifa have been hauled in front of Fifa’s own ethics committee to answer to these charges of corruption. The very fact Fifa have an ethics committee is actually quite amusing.

It's not Rio's, it's mine.

Did you know that Fabio Capello is still in charge of England? It’s an astonishing yet true fact that I have just recently learned. I thought he’d been sacked after that embarrassment at the World Cup in South Africa.

But apparently not, he’s still in the hot seat which is a bit of a miracle considering he’s only done a little bit better than Steve McClaren, a bit like the way the iPad 2 is a little bit better than the iPad.

If Carlsberg did football matches...

…they’d be pretty bland. England played on Wednesday night. No really they did. They flew all the way over to Copenhagen to face Denmark in a friendly. Naturally, it being a friendly most of the senior stars conveniently got injured again. Steven Gerrard I’m looking at you. The match itself featured all the young talent England has to offer. In other words: Aston Villa.

Nil Points.

A few days have passed now since the big decision not to give England the 2018 World Cup and the dust has hardly settled. It was on Thursday when Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, opened his envelope and revealed that it would be Russia who would be hosting it. Not England, not Spain/Portugal, not Belgium/Netherlands. But Russia. Fair enough.

The backlash to it has been fierce in places, and you can understand it to a degree. England’s bid, which was clearly the best bid on the table in terms of stadia, transportation, history and policing, managed a mere two votes and was subsequently eliminated from the running in the first round. At that point I was desperately looking round for Graham Norton, it’s like Eurovision all over again!

How does this happen? How does the best bid come out last? Well the probable reasons have all been surfacing over the last few days. Primarily the blame is being put at the BBC’s door for airing Panorama, a show that looked into the controversial subject of corruption within football’s world governing body, Fifa, claiming that three officials took bribes in the 1990s and that Fifa vice-president Jack Warner is still to this day involved in selling on tickets to touts. This was aired on Monday.

Obviously the bid team tried to calm it down branding the programme ‘an embarrassment’. Many have said they shouldn’t have aired it before the host nation was revealed. I personally think they should have aired it, we have a free press, deal with it Fifa. But to be honest, what did it matter? England were not going to win the bid anyway. That much is clear. We sent David Beckham, PM David Cameron and even Prince William and they still couldn’t persuade them to choose England’s bid. It’s not exactly a secret that Fifa aren’t too keen on England.

Fifa’s main reasoning is that they wanted to give the tournament to a ‘developing’ nation. Which they seem to be doing recently during Sepp Blatter’s era in charge. He awarded South Africa with the 2010 tournament, and now Russia and Qatar have benefited from his methods. So if this was Sepp’s big plan, why did England even bother making a bid in the first place. Why did we waste £15 million just to sit there and take last place. Last place! Even Belgium beat us! We were beaten by a Blackadder punch-line!

Whatever the reasoning behind it, Fifa have certainly been under fire since. Commentators in England have been damning to say the least, with the whole thing just not smelling right. Roger Burden, acting chairman of the FA, has decided not to run for the position permanently stating that he can no longer work with Fifa as he can no longer trust them. Although this is seemingly a small drop in the ocean it will certainly rock Fifa’s boat and they will have to address this issue rather than ducking it as they have always done in the past.

There is a real sense of injustice and betrayal in the country. Apparently the bid team were promised more votes than the two they received, however they did not materialise. So did Fifa officials straight-up lie to our faces? Maybe they made the exact same promises to Russia. Who knows. Either way the system is a colossal failure that clearly needs to be changed. But don’t hold your breath.

Are Fifa corrupt? I don’t know, but there is a lot of smoke, that much is for sure. I don’t really mind Russia being awarded the tournament, it will be the first time an Eastern block nation has hosted the games, and Russia are actually an up and coming team in the world game. What I don’t understand is Qatar. In 2022 Qatar will host the World Cup. That’s right. Qatar.

They managed to win with their bid against the USA, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Now, okay don’t give it to the States, they had the World Cup in 1994 and Japan and South Korea both had it back in 2002, so they we’re never going to realistically get it. But I genuinely thought Australia would win it over Qatar. The Oceania Football Confederation has never hosted a World Cup, and although technically Australia now play as part of the Asian Football Confederation, they are their best chance of becoming hosts.

Australia, as a nation, are sporting mad. Football over there has boomed in recent years for whatever reasons. World Cup fever takes over the country every time it’s on. The A-League is making good progression even with the meagre resources it has. They have some of the most passionate supporters in the world who are always out in force in other nations when they hold their World Cups. Okay, it’s not the biggest sport in their country, it probably ranks behind Aussie rules and cricket, and maybe even rugby, but you’d be surprised to see how big football is getting over there. I really think they are a World Cup away from it really taking off over there. Giving the tournament to Qatar just feels like a missed opportunity by Fifa in all honesty.

Giving the 2022 World Cup to Qatar bemuses me. They will become the smallest country to host the games, and I seriously want to know how they hope they’re going to pull it off. All of the games will be a stone’s throw from one another; how on earth are they going to effectively police this? Surely it would have made more sense to share it with a neighbour, maybe Saudi Arabia, for example. It would be like hosting the World Cup in Glasgow, only with even more trouble. It gives hope to Liechtenstein’s next bid anyway.

But this isn’t the main reason why it bemuses me. During summer Qatar has a habit of reaching over 40’C. Celsius! Not Fahrenheit. Celsius! That….is…..insane! During the summer months Doha’s temperature varies between 35’C and 47’C. How are the players going to handle that? The standard of football will obviously drop but not only that, there’s a serious question whether this is going to be a safe place to play football. There will need to be water breaks, at least one or two per half, but not only for the players, the fans will need it just as much. There’s a huge health and safety risk here, people will get sunstroke, will dehydrate, and will faint. And these are just the minor health implications! It's alright being a local but what about the supporters who are coming from other nations? Let's say Sweden, they might not be used to the relentless heat of the Middle East.

There’s been talk of moving it to the much cooler Winter period. But that would disrupt every countries league seasons. It’s bad enough when the African Cup of Nations is on never mind a World Cup. I just love the fact that none of this has been brought up, Qatar have just been given the World Cup and now we have to sort it out. If Australia had the World Cup, it would have been in the middle of their Winter. Perfect.

Qatar winning the bid just highlight’s Fifa’s problem. It does make them look corrupt, even if they aren’t. Fifa’s current system is just wrong in my opinion. It encourages bribery and corruption. You literally have to win the vote of a Fifa official, so you go and talk to them and present your bid and hope you sway them into voting for you. So it’s understandable how bribes could exchange palms. At least we can be happy knowing that we didn’t grease them.

Because there are two rounds of voting I often get left confused as there have been cases where officials have voted with one in the first round and with another in the second round. I don’t think they should be allowed to make ‘promises’ to bid teams as it just isn’t right. Maybe Fifa just wanted to punish us for our media, or maybe it was just to embarrass us in front of the world.

Either way, football’s not coming home. Not for a long time.

Soapstar Superstars.

Believe it or not soap operas are the most popular thing on TV right now. Usually found sitting in the prime time slots of weeknights, like an unwanted tramp pondering around the Chelsea flower show looking for a damp cigarette, soaps feed on the poor souls who can’t leave the house on a school night.

Some people have their favourite, whether it be BBC’s Eastenders, ITV’s Coronation Street, Five’s Neighbours or Channel 4’s…. wait what do Channel 4 have? Not Brookside the other one. Oh yes Hollyoaks. I’m not even going to get into Hollyoaks right now but for a brief synopsis it’s thirteen out of work manikin doppelgangers talking to each other about how to make an omelette using only left over Shreddies and a broken wine glass. Titillating stuff.

Yes soaps have been wasting our precious hours on this Earth for quite a while now and to be honest I just don’t understand why they’re still going. Well, they get such high ratings so it isn’t a massive surprise actually. It’s like some sort of hypnotic monotony that, if your subjected to it too often, will take over your body and force you to sit and watch every night until you start empathising with the characters on-screen as if they were real family members. No you cannot adopt them. People get so obsessed with these things to the point they think they are actually real. But I must stress, they are not.

I know a few people who don’t watch the soaps themselves but stay updated with what’s going on via a tabloid newspaper with nothing else better to do then tell their hard working journalists to write about Dev’s love life or how many times Grant blinked in last night’s episode. I say journalists but to be honest it’s just a few badgers and a Speak & Spell.

Not all soaps are bad though. My favourite, which I have to admit I follow in the tabloids, is the one about the footballers. I’ve forgotten what it’s called but it was on over the summer, they went on holiday to South Africa, Adrian Chiles was in it. Doesn’t matter. Anyway I’ve loved this soap for a while now and yes I’ve got my favourite characters I like to follow.

We’ve been treated to some great storylines over the years. Remember when Fergie kicked that boot at Beckham? It was so intense. When Glen Johnson was caught stealing from B&Q. I was shocked. How about when Martin Keown jumped around on Ruud van Nistelrooy. I always knew he was a baddie. The writing is so fantastic, you would actually believe that footballers are idiots! Recently though I feel the scriptwriters have tried to up their game but it‘s gotten a little too far-fetched. It started when they gave Darren Bent a Twitter page to enhance audience interaction. That didn’t go down too well. They had to write him out of it in the end and the easiest way to do that was to send him off to Sunderland. Unfortunate, as I thought his character had potential.

After that they subjected us to that wearisome love triangle storyline with Wayne Bridge and John Terry. Team-mates at club level and international level, married man and general love-rat Terry stabbed Bridgey in the back and slept with his ex girlfriend and mother of his son, Vanessa. It sent shockwaves throughout the world, time stood still, people were starting to question not only Terry but themselves. It was gripping stuff. Alright it was over the top but the masses loved it. 

They did drag it out for far too long though. There was the drawn out non-handshake, merchandising went mad with the creation of Team Bridge and Team Terry t-shirts (one of which didn’t sell too well) and then they wrapped it all up by having Terry’s wife actually take him back and sending Bridge off to football purgatory (Manchester City). Rubbish ending that. They never even told us what happened to the kids, oh wait I forgot, nobody cares about them.

Since then though we’ve kind of been starved of a good storyline. Nothing to get your teeth into really. Gazza turned up to a stand-off with a KFC bargain bucket, they tried to re-create the non-handshake and there were some boring changing room bust ups in the South African holiday special. Nothing other than that. But lo and behold the scriptwriters have gone back to one of the show’s favourite characters: Wayne Rooney.

Now, I don’t want to have a go at the writers but they’ve gone with another prostitute story for him. I’ll give you the gist: Wayne, fresh from entertaining and generally wowing audiences over the summer in Shrek Forever After, has once again been found cheating on Princess Fiona whilst she was pregnant with his son. He did so in a five-star hotel with a prostitute, who stayed quiet for a while only to reveal her client’s evil intentions to a group of badgers in exchange for a pot of money and a free lunch.

Not the best storyline I’m sure you’ll agree, Wayne’s been put in this situation before with some other prostitute. Now, in that storyline Fiona took him back and that was that really. So you’d expect her to dump him this time round. It’s hard to judge, there’s been a few cheating storylines recently: Ashley Cole, a man who says ‘lol’, ‘rofl’ and ends every sentence in a conversation by saying ‘text back kiss kiss’, has recently divorced his handbag Cheryl; and Peter Crouch was involved in something but that storyline died a horrible death due to lack of interest.

I for one hope that whatever she decides to do it’s dealt with quickly as I’m bored of the cheating stories now. As long as Wayne doesn’t do too many speeches to the media I don’t care what happens to him. I don’t think he’s allowed anymore anyway. Ofcom get inundated with calls every time he opens his festering hell-hole of a mouth. We have a watershed for a reason! I want better stories guys, c’mon, you guys used to be great. I remember when Adrian Mutu was forced to pay his former employer £14 million for shovelling narcotics into his nostrils with a trowel. Such an expensive habit. Or when Ben Thatcher straight up assaulted Pedro Mendes and we had Pedro-cam for about three weeks until something better came up. Bring back those days.

It’s just lazy writing really. We, as fans of this long-running soap, expect more. In tonight's episode Wayne and friends are playing away in Switzerland and I expect someone to be hit by a steel chair at the very least. Don’t worry, it’s on Sky tonight so you won’t miss Corrie.