Bibhash Dash
Football is a game of two halves, and if 2013 saw some of the best moments lighting up the game, it has also seen plenty of the dark side, as nations and governing bodies attempt to clean up wrongs and impart better experiences. The individual player and fan came to the centre once again as Inside Futbol looks back at the top 10 negative events of the last 12 months.
1) Qatar Human Rights Abuses (25th September)
Qatar being awarded the 2022 World Cup was seen as football once again spreading its wings beyond traditional European and South American locations for its flagship tournament. However, the late-September revelations around human-rights abuses for migrant labourers have overshadowed most other issues. Incidents of workers dying at construction venues, including those meant for the World Cup, have been grave enough for Amnesty International to step in. Conditions nearing slave-labour levels are just the tip of the iceberg and FIFA’s response will be key to ensuring not just a successful tournament in nine years, but also a legacy that football can be proud of – that of truly using sport to better lives. It also beggars belief that a World Cup awarded in 2010 to a country in the Middle East only saw the problems around scheduling crop up in 2013. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if saving players and fans from the extreme heat of Qatar’s summer trumps the need to maintain domestic footballing schedules by not staging the tournament in winter.
2) Public Protests, Stadium Collapse and Deaths in Brazil (June and November)
When football’s biggest tournament returns to its spiritual home next summer, many will have forgotten how much toil went in to it. For now, the sad reports of deaths at construction venues for Brazil 2014 are a grim reminder of the ultimate cost of staging such an event. Construction delays will mean further speed in putting stadia up, but one hopes it will not take the death toll up from the current reported figure of five. Brazil is already reeling from protests that marred this summer’s Confederations Cup tournament. And any further bad news will only fuel the public’s antagonism towards staging global events. The Rio 2016 Olympic Games committee would do well to take note.
3) Former FC Porto Youth Player Alex Marques Dies (17th November)
Football’s elite levels may have equipped themselves with the best medical facilities, but the lower reaches are yet to do so to their fullest extent. Former Portugal youth international and Porto youngster Alex Marques collapsed during a third division game between Tourizense and Carapinheirense in mid-November and died on the way to the hospital. The suggestions point towards cardiac arrest, and once again blow away the notion that footballers and athletes are immune to the problem because of their fitness levels. The call for technology within the game should clearly include the ability to monitor players’ health better. Contrary to a popular saying, football is not bigger than life or death itself.
4) CSKA Moscow Fans Racially Abuse Yaya Toure (23rd October)
It is said that FIFA boasts more members than the United Nations, which speaks volumes about the power of football to unite. However, racism remains the biggest elephant in that room. Manchester City player Yaya Toure being subject to racial taunting at CSKA Moscow’s home ground during a Champions League game will put Russia on the back foot going into next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi and the 2018 World Cup. Poland and the Ukraine saw their past and present of racism exposed prior to Euro 2012, and both UEFA and FIFA will be keenly observing how the Russian Football Union goes forward.
5) Match-fixing and Spot-Fixing in England (November)
Despite Arsene Wenger’s claims that British football is 99% clean of match-fixing, this year saw two major investigations begin into the issue. The first involved an international betting ring with arrests being made of players in non-league football as well as non-players involved in illegally fixing matches. The second saw more prominent players, including Blackburn Rovers striker DJ Campbell, arrested as part of a probe into spot-fixing. A league’s prominence and glamour is perhaps all the more reason for unscrupulous elements to creep in and the football associations will look to use 2014 as a watershed year to clean the game up.
6) Match-fixing Probe in Italy (17th December)
Italian football was once again rocked with a fixing scandal. And this time, it was the former AC Milan midfielder Gennaro Gattuso at the centre of it. He is one of four people currently being investigated in connection with fixing Serie A matches from three seasons ago. Gattuso, for his part, has claimed to “go out on the street and kill myself” if the charges are proven. Italy’s long and unwanted connection to match-fixing has already seen Juventus boss Antonio Conte and former Lazio captains Giuseppe Signori and Stefano Mauri serve bans. But with each new scandal that crops up, it is not clear what lessons are being learned.
7) Luis Suarez Bite on Branislav Ivanovic (21st April)
Switching between sheer genius and outright controversial, Luis Suarez’s season in 2012/13 took an ugly turn when he appeared to bite Chelsea’s Branislav Ivanovic during Liverpool’s game at Anfield. It was not his first attempt to bite a fellow player – having done so previously at Ajax – while it was also the latest controversial chapter in his career that includes a punishment for racially abusing Manchester United’s Patrice Evra. The Uruguayan was handed a 10-match ban for the bite in April and only completed that at the start of 2013/14. He is in sublime form at the moment with 20 goals in 15 games for Liverpool in all competitions. While his blighted past may not endear him to all purists, he certainly looks to have turned a corner.
8) Malky Mackay Sacking (27th December)
Managers come and managers go. But Cardiff fans, as well as their counterparts from other clubs in England, will remember the Malky Mackay episode for some time to come. Mackay’s fate had effectively been sealed in mid-December when club owner Vincent Tan gave him a “resign-or-be-sacked” order. Tan had been reportedly unhappy about Mackay’s efforts in the summer transfer window, to the extent of claiming the Scot had overspent. Club chairman Mehmet Dalman managed to stay the sacking for just four days even as Mackay categorically refused to step down. The final order came less than 24 hours after Cardiff lost 3-0 to Southampton on Boxing Day and it remains to be seen what course the Bluebirds and, indeed, their fans take.
9) Leverkusen Score "Ghost Goal" vs Hoffenheim (18th October)
Stranger goals have been scored, but Stefan Kiessling’s “phantom goal” against Hoffenheim will certainly count in the top five. Kiessling put Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 ahead against Hoffenheim when his header went in through a hole in the side netting. Bizarrely, none of the defenders, or even the referee, noticed the anomaly and the goalm stood. Retrospective action, by way of an appeal to the DFB, saw Kiessling defend himself, while the salt in Hoffenheim’s wounds was the decision to not award a replay. Credit, though, should go to Hoffenheim’s director of football Alexander Rosen, who backed referee Felix Brych for a World Cup role despite the injustice.
10) Sepp Blatter Mocking Cristiano Ronaldo (25th October)
FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s track record of guffaws does stretch quite far. So for the Swiss to publicly back Lionel Messi in a speech to Oxford University, then liken Ronaldo to a commander and back it up by imitating a soldier’s march, was perhaps no surprise. However, the ire it earned him was immense. Real Madrid demanded a public apology and Blatter almost became persona-non-grata for Portugal. Ronaldo promptly adopted a military salute as his goal celebration, while Blatter followed his antics up by interrupting a minute’s silence for the late South Africa president and anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela during the World Cup draw. We await 2014 with bated breath!
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