FIF … OH
Fifa announced the names of the 2018 World Cup venues today. Given all the other stuff emanating from Fifa HQ you might not have noticed, and it is The Fiver’s duty to keep its readers fully informed. So in addition to the Fisht Olympic Stadium in Sochi and the Spartak Stadium in Moscow, both of which very much existed already, travelling fans can look forward to visiting the Ekaterinburg Arena, which is in Ekaterinburg, the Kazan Arena, which is in Kazan, the Kaliningrad Stadium, which is in Kaliningrad, and the Luzhniki Stadium, which is in Luzhniki. Meanwhile the venue currently being constructed in Nizhny Novgorod will be known as the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium, and there’s also the Volgograd Arena in Volgograd, the Saint Petersburg Stadium in Saint Petersburg, the Mordavia Arena in Mordavia and the Samara Arena in Samara.
If Qatar were to take the same approach to naming their venues in 2022 the world, already struggling to work out how the competition ended up there in the first place, would also have to puzzle out the difference between the Doha Stadium, the other Doha Stadium, a third Doha Stadium, yet another Doha Stadium, the Doha Arena and the not another Doha Stadium. Whatever happened to the more creative approach that in the last couple of tournaments saw stadia named after, for example, people such as Nelson Mandela, Garrincha, Peter Mokaba and Ellis Park?
Perhaps over the next four years Fifa’s stock of creativity will be replenished, current resources clearly having already been used up by the accountants. Either that or they’ve all been a little bit busy with other stuff. Such as, just to rifle through the statements released from their Zurich headquarters since those stadium names came out just this morning, stripping the already-banned Sepp Blatter of his duties as president and awarding them instead to Issa Hayatou, the long-serving head of African football once reprimanded by the IOC for bribery. And also, booting Uefa honcho Michel Platini out of office for a minimum of 90 days, further trampling over Jérôme Valcke’s already-tattered reputation with a similar suspension and clumping South Korea’s former Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon – who just yesterday said of the organisation that “to call it a mafia is almost insulting to mafia, so blatant and arrogant is its corruption” – into the deepest and darkest of footballing backwaters with a six-year ban.
Indeed, so grim were Thursday’s Fifa-related headlines that Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, who in May told Fifa’s congress that “you, the guardians of football, will make your sport shine once again as you have in the past”, decided that, on balance, they probably won’t. “Enough is enough,” he said in a statement. “Fifa must realise that this is a structural problem and will not be solved simply by the election of a new president. They should also be open for a credible external presidential candidate of high integrity.” Statement delivered, Bach may or may not have immediately retired to his office to polish his CV.
And what, then, of England’s own Football Association? Well it is sticking, for now, with its public backing of Platini – he of the alleged “disloyal payment” and 90-day ban from all footballing activities – to be Fifa’s new president. When it announced that decision back in July, its chairman Greg Dyke admitted that “we have yet to see his manifesto” but insisted that “we believe he will fully support an ongoing reform process”. And how right they were! Indeed, Platini has gone beyond merely supporting Fifa’s reform process and has himself become an integral part of it. Bullseye, Greg! Though really the FA might as well go the whole hog and get behind the man very much at the beating heart of all of Fifa’s talk of drastic restructuring. You know the one. Reliably honest, 79-year-old, avuncular Swiss gentleman, currently at a loose end, not afraid to call a spade a spade. Or, for that matter, a stadium in Nizhny Novgorod the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium.
KLOPP-WATCH
After an afternoon in which that there internet almost broke due to desperate Liverpool fans’ overloading Google with “Klopp Liverpool manager” searches, the Fiver’s sausage-munching, lederhosen-wearing German cousin Achtung! Schnell! Schnell!! Schnell!!! Mein Gott! Himmel! For You Tommy Ze War Is Over! Funfer gave us word that the zany former Borussia Dortmund man was on his way to Anfield to sign a three-year deal with the club after agreeing terms with the club. Liverpool’s USA! USA!! USA!!!-based owners, Fenway Sports Group, had previously failed to tempt Klopp from Dortmund in both 2010 and 2012 but presumably had a load more coin and better style of cap to offer him this time round. The two-times Bundesliga gong-winner has, for some reason unfathomable to The Fiver, agreed to work with the club’s transfer committee, a group that has had fewer hits than Mr Oizo after that one he did in 1999. It’ll be fun watching him discover players cast hither and thither around Anfield and trying to turn them into winners. The Fiver wishes him well. As do Liverpool fans, who will probably enjoy watching some half-decent football with Klopp at the helm before he sods off to replace Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich next year. Enjoy him while you can.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We are right on the edge of a shopping centre so we are very hopeful that that’s going to increase the female fan base. Particularly as we go to the new stadium we are expecting our female fan base to increase. It’s also the quality of the experience of coming to a football match. In years gone by it was young males coming having spent a couple of hours in a local pub” – Gollivan have a plan to get more people in at West Ham’s new ground. A massively 1950s plan, sure, but a plan nonetheless. dg
FIVER LETTERS
“Yesterday’s tea-timely missive triggered my workplace’s rather pompously-named ‘profanity filter’, meaning I had to go via our IT-elves to get my fix. I did initially wonder if The Fiver had unwisely scrawled down its login details on the back of a bookie’s line left within reaching distance of Weird Uncle Fiver, only to actually read the thing and discover the only thing close to a profanity I could see was Justin Kavanagh’s disguised reference to ‘sh[one]te’ (yesterday’s Fiver letters). Clearly our sweary-seeking software is getting more sophisticated and another workaround for that particular adjective is required – my own suggestions would be a different spelling (‘shyte’), rhyming slang (‘shine-a-light’) or simply an evocative example (‘Efe Ambrose’)“ – David Johnston.
“Justin Kavanagh’s tale from a record shop reminded me of my days as an Our Price employee. My colleagues and I were never shy in offering our own critiques of the stuff we sold, and would often attempt to wind up customers for our own amusement. For example, the standard response upon being asked if we had ‘anything by The Doors’ was always ‘Yeah, a bin and a fire extinguisher’. I miss record shops too. You don’t get ‘bantz’ of that quality from Spotify” – Tim Grey.
“I understand you have influence in low places. Please could you use your influence to ensure Sunderland do not hire Nigel Pearson. Thanks” – Colum Farrelly.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is: Tim Grey.
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Author Dickie Felton reveals how a sweaty man-hug in Trafford made him give up his Liverpool season ticket of 25 years to support non-league Marine FC.
BITS AND BOBS
Victor Valdés has learned an important lesson, and that is: don’t cross Louis van Gaal. The theoretical Manchester United goalkeeper has found himself frozen out by Van Gaal to the extent that he no longer has a locker, and training sessions are specifically arranged to ensure he doesn’t see the rest of the squad.
Both Lionel Messi and his old man, Jorge, have been told to go before the beak, where they will face accusations of naughtiness involving their tax and so forth.
Humility’s José Mourinho says he’s “proud” of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich for not strapping him to a massive rocket and launching it towards the newly-discovered Do One solar system. “It shows the confidence of Abramovich in the manager who has won three Premier League titles with this club. I thank him and I keep working,” he trilled.
Manchester United keeper David de Gea reckons being left in the aisle by Real Madrid due to some cack-handed paperwork bungling has made him stronger. “It’s a learning process that gives football hard moments but that make you mature and grow. These are things that you learn in the world of football,” he stiff-upper-lipped.
And Theo Walcott reckons the world wants to see him leading the line for England in place of ankle-knacked Wayne Rooney. “I know everyone would like to see me up front,” he burbled. “Playing there for England, that’s what I want to do.”
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STILL WANT MORE?
We’re a bit worried about Nick Ames, as he’s been meeting big burly Albanians with guns. He escaped long enough to write about Albania v Serbia, though.
Scotland fear Robert Lewandowski, which isn’t bloody surprising since he’s scored about a billion goals recently, but Jonathan Wilson wrote about it.
You want 10 things to look out for in the upcoming Euro 2016 qualifiers? Well you are in luck, as Tom Bryant and John Ashdown carved out exactly that number.
Enough of this glitzy glamour football nonsense – Sachin Nakrani has been to Marine FC in the Evo-Stik Northern Premier League, and it sounds like he had a lovely time.
Germany are a bit light on the striker side – will this be a problem? Jason Humphreys has a ponder.
The many faces of Jürgen Klopp.
YouTube, get your Classic YouTube.
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