Ball vs keyboard

11 on the field, more than 300 million cheering them on. #WorldCup #USMNT – this was Barack Obama’s tweet minutes before the start of the USA’s first World Cup match against Ghana.

With over 43 million followers, the US President’s Twitter account is the third most followed. No need to stop reading to look up who precedes him. I’ll save you the hassle. It’s Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. Ah, well,  who else? Yes, more than 50 million users waste screen space everyday reading gems like “Da rum punched me in da face” (now you can sob quietly). I really hope for her sake she was actually drunk when she wrote that.

Footballers make another breed of avid social media users. A much-followed Facebook page or Twitter account are a must for any strong brand. Just take the unprecedented amount of online adverts and clips gone viral in the past month. All because the timing is particular. The World Cup is the ultimate opportunity for online engagement , whether through sharing statistics or debating whether Rooney is still able to take a simple corner kick. Speaking of which, the England forward has a decent crowd of 9 million followers on Twitter.

Meant now not snow
— Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) June 15, 2014

Gutted to lose game last night. We move on to Uruguay now. We have to believe snow stay positive
— Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) June 15, 2014

Rooney couldn't even spell properly after the defeat to Italy.

Social media gives the idea that the barriers between athlete and fan have been brought down, notwithstanding that an army of experts and PR gurus might be behind every tweet or post. And yet, despite their abundant entourages of advisers, star footballers still try their best to end up in the deep end of some controversy through their overzealous use of technology. Whether it’s a wrongly-timed selfie, a misplaced comment, or typing in a bout of rage following exclusion from the starting line-up, the slightest slip-up could land them in trouble, sometimes with their own employers.

During the London Olympics, Swiss footballer Michel Morganella was sent home for tweeting racist remarks about his Korean opponents. He was not the only one. A Greek triple jumper did not even make it to the opening ceremony – he had already posted some other racist remark.

In Brasil, where the squads have to travel endlessly between their training bases and the different stadia they are playing in, players have time to kill. Which is why photos of bus rides and flights are the most common. In reality, in-between noble thoughts for some feel-good initiative (slipped in by the PR officer) and a nice word for a colleauge, the most interesting – or amusing – messages are those which really capture the moment .Which is the whole point of social media.

Germany’s Lukas Podolski managed admirably well. With adrenaline still running high following their drabbing of Portugal, he managed a selfie with none other than Chancellor Merkel. She actually half-smiled, not knowing whether this was a good idea in the first place. Way to go Lukas!

US Vice-President Joe Biden paid a similar visit to the team’s dressing room (probably satisfied that his President’s tweet had paid off). With his visibly embarrassed daughter trailing him, he had a chit chat with the still-sweaty lads as they were preparing to shower. It proved to be good PR, to the extent that it was streamed on the White House Youtube channel.

You can’t say theWorld Cup is not a universal event...

Football ought to help - not squeeze - economies

Whether it is Valletta vs Floriana at the stadium or Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich on TV, football remains in demand. Then there’s the banter at the bar: pesudo-technical assessments of players’ and teams’ performances, authoritative-sounding judgments on multi-million transfer deals, cheeky jibes on trophies won (or not). But it probably stops at that.  

Most don’t give a hoot whether a match could possibly be fixed. The game’s entertainment value remains. It’s the same as enjoying a Hollywood blockbuster. Nor do many of us apparently care if Brasil is spending billions of dollars while Brasilians struggle to get by. We've been there already. Despite FIFA's claim that host countries benefit from big tournaments, an audit on South Africa's 2010 World Cup showed it cost the taxpayers £3bn for a return of £323m, followed by an economic downturn.

Mistrust in the way football is run globally is certainly not a recent phenomenon. Heaps of books have been written and countless column-inches have been dedicated by newspaper editors to charges of corruption, nepotism, and so many acts of Macchiavellian proportion which have taken place at FIFA. This organisation manages a product that has untold global demand. Its flagship event, the World Cup is a guarantee of massive financial turnover.

The latest revelations of The Sunday Times have taken allegations – if ever there was the need – to unprecedented, incontestable level. The London newspaper is reportedly in possession of millions (their term) of emails that could prove that the bidding process to choose Qatar as the host country for the World Cup in 2022 was fraught with irregularities through a network of payments to buy the votes of a number of FIFA delegates, mostly representing developing countries.

Yes, in case you never cared, these decisions are voted on by just 209 delegates, each representing a national football association. The agenda is steered by an Executive Committee of 28 persons, some of whom have managed to remain glued to their seats for decades.

FIFA is based in Zurich as a non-profit organisation. And yet it possesses reserves of $1.5 billion. Why an international organisation with a role to promote and develop the game of football should pile up such amounts of money is beyond me. Until 2000 corruption of foreign public agents was not prosecuted in Switzerland and offering 'commercial' bribes was an accepted way of doing business. If that was not enough, organisations such as FIFA had their bribes deducted from tax. Google it if you don't take my word for it.

Such a universal game cannot be run like a fiefdom.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has been around since the 1970s, first as FIFA Technical Director, then as General Secretary for 17 years before taking his current role in 1998. Just in case that was not enough, he intends to run again for re-election (re-investiture might be a better word). "I am ready to continue my mission" he was reported saying.

Recently he also admitted that choosing Qatar to host the World Cup might have been a mistake. Whether he had an inkling (or something more than that) that the decision might have to be revisited remains to be seen. 

The saga goes on. The countries which competed in the bidding with Qatar, including England and Australia, are now calling for FIFA to come clean. Their top politicians are doing their best to put pressure on FIFA. The UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg described the recent claims as shocking and Prime Minister David Cameron hinted that the voting may have to be held again. 

To add more drama, a few days before the start of the World Cup in Brasil, the outcome of an investigation into the matter is expected to be unveiled. The investigation commenced some 3 years ago and is led by former US federal prosecutor Michael Garcia (he was at one point tipped to head the FBI). Garcia was due to quiz members of the Qatar 2022 organising committee this week. Now, following the latest raft of allegations, it is still to be seen whether the meeting will take place and, above all, whether he will be taking all the new evidence into consideration.

Imagine if, instead of all this, football can be governed by a more open organisation that gives voice to its consumers, i.e. the fans, or at least those of them who bother enough. Imagine if, instead of crippling whole economies to organise an ego-boosting mega event for just one month every four years, it had to fulfil a more direct and concrete social role by using the opportunity to aid those very countries where the tournament is held. Imagine if it had to invert its way of distributing its huge proceeds by pumping the bulk of the money into basic infrastructure for kids playing football all over the world. Yes, FIFA does distribute money for grassroots football, but follow-up is lacking and cases of money ending up in people's pockets are not unheard of.

I think we should start caring a bit more. This is not just a game any longer.

Life through the Panini album

That moment when you start tearing your first wrappers and it seems you’re only unveiling endless Japanese and South Korean players. Or when you realise Lucas Neill still features in the Australian national team. The despair after mistaking a sticker for the wrong number. Slowly slowly, you start establishing who are the ones with the funniest hairstyles (the Japanese still rank high here) or names (my favourite so far is Carlo Costly of Honduras – thank God I already have him).

Nothing beats the Panini sticker album to get into World Cup mode. The first edition goes back to Mexico 1970 and it has since then provided millions of kids (and slightly older collectors like yours truly) around the world with innumerable magical anecdotes of hard-fought negotiations over a missing badge, or a literally ubiquitous player (I have a high-definition mental image of the 1986 Hungary goalkeeper with the beard having found half a dozen images of him).

Gradually, you start grasping the fact you’re getting old and becoming a mature young man ready to face the grim reality of life when you stop assigning disproportionate value to the Italy, England, or Germany badge as you used to do with the lucky image of Maradona, Gary Lineker, or Roberto Baggio. Oh, the struggle to find Baggio in 1994! The misery each time I got doubles of the other Baggio, lanky midfielder Dino.

Looking back at previous editions, you will find greats and nobodies, the have-beens and the eternally promising. There are photos of players who are today, 20 kilos later, still very much part of the football scene, such as coaches or club managers. Others vanished or faded out professionally, quite a few have passed away. 

You will find countries that are no more – think East Germany, Zaire, Yugoslavia, not to mention the USSR. Along the years, newer editions sported new badges and new team shots. The latest entry is Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Despite all this, the Panini album is one of the very few things in football that remained pretty much the same throughout the years - the concept is the same we always knew since we were kids. It is one of the very few things that enable kids to actually meet and speak face to face to exchange their stickers and flaunt their latest treasures. Until someone comes up with some virtual album that allows you to buy stickers online, pay them via Paypal, and exchange them on Facebook.

Until then, I will treasure my collection of Panini albums.

NB: For the record, the goalkeeper with the beard was Peter Disztl. How can I ever forget his name?

A future Golden Ball winner could be playing in Malta next month

 

It is certainly one of the biggest sporting events ever to be held in Malta. Not to mention that it will be the highest level at which a Maltese national football team - in all categories - would have ever competed. The likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Cesc Fabregas, and Wayne Rooney have taken their first steps in past editions.

The list of teams competing in the UEFA Under 17 Championship finals being held in Malta between the 9th and the 21st May is complete, and the 2 groups drawn. The so-called 'Elite Round' of qualifiers has already reserved its share of judgments. Among the decisive fixtures, there was an England vs. Italy, a preview of the senior level World Cup match in 2 months' time. For the record, England qualified at the expense of a star-studded Italy following a 2-1 win.

As host nation, Malta will have the right to join the other 7 finalists in May. We have been drawn to play England, The Netherlands, and Turkey in the group stage. Not an easy task. Not at all.

To get to this stage, these 7 had to go through two successive qualifying stages. Just to get an idea, only once did Malta manage to pass through one - the first qualifying round, in 2010. It was the first Malta side to progress through a round of a UEFA youth competition after obtaining a 2-1 win against The Netherlands (that on its own made history) and a 0-0 draw against Andorra. That team included players who are today playing Premier League football, such as Zach Muscat (Birkirkara) and Sacha Borg (Floriana).

I hope that a sense of perspective is kept when the zealous pundits start fretting to assess Malta's performance. A lot of attention has been given to the group of players lucky enough to make the squad for the tournament, some of which have also made it to clubs overseas. Yet, these kids have a mammoth task in front of them, a task which calls for the maximum support the Maltese public could give them.

The logistical strain on the MFA is huge. The opportunity, however, is unique. The tournament will be shown live on Eurosport and it will be the last one with an eight-team format before the expansion to a 16-nation event in Bulgaria next season. So another occasion to host such a high-profile competition will be rare to come by.

Who will be the stars this time round? Will a future Golden Ball winner be gracing our pitches?

The most reputable club messes up (and they're not the only ones)

The club was accused of breaching FIFA rules which prohibit international transfers of players under 18. The investigation on Barcelona started last year when no less than 6 youth players were banned. Their transfers were brought to light by FIFA's web-based 'Transfer Matching System' - a database to which all association and clubs in the world (including Malta) have access to encode transfers of players from one country to another.

Barcelona are certainly not short of admirers of their football. I am one of them. However, they were recently in the news for the wrong reasons when they were handed a 14-month ban on transfers. That covers two transfer windows: this summer and January 2015.

Pundits are busy assessing how this could affect Barca’s chances on the pitch next season. I am less inclined to do so. Firstly, because the decision is subject to appeal, and therefore possibly changed. Secondly, because even if it doesn’t, Barcelona is not exactly lacking in quality players as to be in some dire need of inward transfers.

Rather, I have an inkling that transfers of under-age players is a widespread phenomenon and that such a high-profile case could be an opportunity for people to start taking notice of it. In some cases it may amount to nothing short of trafficking.

The rationale behind these rules is to protect minors from displacement from their country of origin. The players concerned in this case hailed from as far as South Korea, Cameroon, and Nigeria.

There are of course exceptions to the rule. For example, when the player’s parents move to the country in which the new club is located for reasons not linked to football (say, one of the parents moves for professional reasons). Another applies where the player lives no further than 50km from a national border and moves to a club in the neighbouring country within 50km of that border.

Special conditions apply within the EU for players aged 16-18. Such transfers are allowed only if the new club provides the player accommodation and adequate football education coupled withacademic/vocational education that would allow the player to pursue a career other than football.

Beyond big clubs and elite football, the movement of players (including minors) is huge. Hundreds of players seek better pastures in lower leagues all over Europe each year, especially from South America and Africa. But not only. Young players move within Europe as well to try to make a living out of football, at the risk of ending up stranded in a country they do not know when things go wrong.

It is not easy to determine what is more favourable to a promising young player. A transfer may present the golden opportunity to pursue a career in football. There is also the possibility, however, that the kid falls by the wayside and into oblivion in case s/he doesn’t make it. My impression is that the latter cases are far more numerous and make less headlines.

Every international transfer involving a minor is subject to the approval of a subcommittee of FIFA’s Players’ Status Committee. “The interest in protecting the appropriate and healthy development of a minor as a whole must prevail over purely sporting interests,” the Committee was quoted saying in FIFA’s statement. The Spanish FA, through which reporting of similar transfers should be made, was also reprimanded and fined.

The big question is how many athletes are really affected by such poaching or head-hunting practices? What happens to the ones who never make it to the cut-throat world of big stadia? Perhaps this is slightly more relevant than trying to decipher whether Barcelona will be able to challenge for the title next year without being able to buy more players.