Saturday, 5 December 2009

Amir Khan: ‘I’d be a superstar if I was white’

I'm not a boxing fan but it seems to me that boxers are only in the public eye and in the media when they are building up to a fight. Boxing is a minority sport, a true star will shine through but between bouts the average spectator is not interested in the boxer.

In truth very few boxers can mix celebrity and their sport, the greatest character the sport ever produced is obviously Muhammed Ali but Frank Bruno hit the heights of fame and stardom in Britain and if I'm not mistaken Frank isn't white.

If Amir Khan was an interesting character with something to offer the masses on a weekly basis then maybe he would be a celebrity. Offering nothing but a couple of weeks of hype each year and nothing tangible in between isn't going to make him a superstar.

Thursday, 3 December 2009

Can We Please Drag Football Into The 21st Century?

Time for Sepp Blatter to go, if he seriously thinks another pair of eyes behind each goal will work better than a match official watching the tv coverage then he is deluded.

Association Football needs a real makeover and we can start by using tv replays for exactly the sort of thing that happened against Eire.

Also the timing of the game needs to be taken out of the referees hands, it's so simple for a timekeeper to control the time on a game using the stadium clock. If the referee spots that a lengthy stoppage is about to happen, for example a Rory Delap throw-in then he can use his earpiece microphone to say "time off" and "time on". Then we'll get a match of ninety minutes duration not one where an arbitrary one minute is added at the end of the first half and then some wild guess at the end of the second period of play that usually benefits the home side resulting in a "mini match" of between four and eight minutes.

Sepp Blatter obviously wields too much power in football and the seeding of Portugal and France in the play-offs just shows that the current regime will use that power to get exactly what they want.