Pass the Sugar
Credit:
BRIAN de SALVO on why he believes a mug of tea in the UCD Sports Café tastes sweeter than anything Sepp Blatter might imbibe to celebrate his farcical re-election as FIFA President.
Earlier this season I sat at a table in the UCD Sports Café with Martin Russell and his coaching staff as his young squad reported for match duty. Martin’s team may be a little lightweight, in the literal sense of the word, but there’s no doubt about the excellence of the football they play. Fans, officials, other managers, all wax lyrical about the Students ability to serve up the beautiful game.
I wouldn’t want to sentimentalise these guys in track suits. They know how to take care of themselves in the hurly burly of professional football. They know the tricks of the trade. But what struck me was the integrity of the work that they, and many others like them with clubs up and down the country and indeed around the world, do in the service of the game. They certainly aren’t doing it for the money, this husbanding of the nation’s young talent through its rites of passage but they and their protégées are the bottom line. They provide the product we go to see. Take the dressing room out of the equation and there is nothing but the programme for a match that never took place.
There is a kind of innocence about this meeting of kindred spirits which, when contrasted with what Karl-Heinz Rummenige describes as “the daily corruption process at FIFA” highlights the obscenity of what has been taking place at soccer’s top table for a long time.
Rummenige won ninety five caps for his country, is a former German Footballer of the Year and European Footballer of the Year. He has scored a goal in a World Cup Final. He is worthy of our attention and this is what he says:
“Sepp Blatter is saying that he’s cleaning up shop but the fact that no one believes him tells you everything you need to know. I’m not optimistic because they believe the system is working perfectly as it is. It’s a money machine, World Cup after World Cup. And for them, that’s more important than serious and clean governance.”
Rummenige is the chief executive officer of his old club Bayern Munich but here he speaks as the chairman of the European Club Association. Blatter was re-elected as president of the world governing body last month in a vote simplified by the banning of his only opponent, the disgraced Mohammed bin Hammam. Few delegates protested at what was basically a farce. Rumminege preaches revolution but he thinks there is little chance that national associations will exert pressure.
“The current system is tailor made for the associations and voted for by the associations. They won’t go against FIFA,” he says.
It’s all about the money but, as most Airtricity managers will tell you, there’s little enough of that about where it really counts. On the pitch. I don’t know how much Karl-Heinz Rummenige and his European Club Association can really do to clean up world football but from my seat in the UCD Sports Café his crusade is long overdue. Pass the sugar, please.
Earlier this season I sat at a table in the UCD Sports Café with Martin Russell and his coaching staff as his young squad reported for match duty. Martin’s team may be a little lightweight, in the literal sense of the word, but there’s no doubt about the excellence of the football they play. Fans, officials, other managers, all wax lyrical about the Students ability to serve up the beautiful game.
I wouldn’t want to sentimentalise these guys in track suits. They know how to take care of themselves in the hurly burly of professional football. They know the tricks of the trade. But what struck me was the integrity of the work that they, and many others like them with clubs up and down the country and indeed around the world, do in the service of the game. They certainly aren’t doing it for the money, this husbanding of the nation’s young talent through its rites of passage but they and their protégées are the bottom line. They provide the product we go to see. Take the dressing room out of the equation and there is nothing but the programme for a match that never took place.
There is a kind of innocence about this meeting of kindred spirits which, when contrasted with what Karl-Heinz Rummenige describes as “the daily corruption process at FIFA” highlights the obscenity of what has been taking place at soccer’s top table for a long time.
Rummenige won ninety five caps for his country, is a former German Footballer of the Year and European Footballer of the Year. He has scored a goal in a World Cup Final. He is worthy of our attention and this is what he says:
“Sepp Blatter is saying that he’s cleaning up shop but the fact that no one believes him tells you everything you need to know. I’m not optimistic because they believe the system is working perfectly as it is. It’s a money machine, World Cup after World Cup. And for them, that’s more important than serious and clean governance.”
Rummenige is the chief executive officer of his old club Bayern Munich but here he speaks as the chairman of the European Club Association. Blatter was re-elected as president of the world governing body last month in a vote simplified by the banning of his only opponent, the disgraced Mohammed bin Hammam. Few delegates protested at what was basically a farce. Rumminege preaches revolution but he thinks there is little chance that national associations will exert pressure.
“The current system is tailor made for the associations and voted for by the associations. They won’t go against FIFA,” he says.
It’s all about the money but, as most Airtricity managers will tell you, there’s little enough of that about where it really counts. On the pitch. I don’t know how much Karl-Heinz Rummenige and his European Club Association can really do to clean up world football but from my seat in the UCD Sports Café his crusade is long overdue. Pass the sugar, please.
