When The Ball Turns Yellow

I spent this past weekend in San Francisco. As I like to do when heading to the Bay Area I like to drive.  It gives me time to take in a variety of different football podcasts.

As the football calendar eyes mid April and just a month or so until the end of the seasons the subject of fixture congestion invariably comes up in English football.  This year it is not as large an issue because there is only one English club remaining in either European competition, that being Chelsea.

But the subject of fixture congestion did come up repeatedly as I travelled through central California this past weekend and I was amazed, actually, maybe I wasn’t, why there is fixture congestion in Chelsea’s upcoming schedule at all.

Let me preface this column by saying that I reject out of hand anyone who reads this column and thinks that I am disrespecting the dead or the living; I am doing no such thing. I am simply going to point out the ridiculousness of a cowardly approach in English football that I think needs to end.

In every country that still has entrants in the UEFA Champions League at this time of year, the domestic associations go out of their way to help and accommodate their remaining clubs. It is done, so those clubs, as they represent their domestic associations have the maximum possible rest prior to their European engagements.  You can check if you like. Every single team that played in the Champions League quarterfinals played on the Saturday prior to their Champions League matches, regardless of whether they would be playing Tuesday or Wednesday.

Two weeks ago last Friday Benfica was allowed to play their weekend league fixture on a Friday night ahead of the following Tuesday’s home tie with Chelsea. Two weekends ago Marseille didn’t even play a league game, and Barcelona, AC Milan, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich all played on the Saturday prior to their quarterfinals fixtures.

However, Chelsea who have secured safe passage to the semi-finals against Barcelona, are to be afforded no such care.

Chelsea will experience fixture congestion because the FA does not have the courage or good sense to stand up to Liverpool and tell them that enough is enough.  Twenty-three years is enough. Let me explain.

With Chelsea safely in the semi-finals, (they are also the only club in England who can legitimately lay claim to be involved in three competitions) they are due to play the first leg of their semi-final next Wednesday, April 18^th.

This weekend is FA Cup semi-final weekend in England with Liverpool set to play Everton, and Chelsea set to play Tottenham. Both semi-finals will be played at Wembley, one on Saturday 14^th and one on Sunday 15^th. Chelsea have asked, and have been refused, the request to play their semi-final vs. Tottenham on Saturday April 14^th thus giving them an extra day rest and making Liverpool and Everton clash at Wembley on April 15^th.

Chelsea, quite rightly are asking that they be given the maximum possible advantage prior to their Champions League semi final 1^st leg and naturally would prefer to play on the Saturday rather than at 6pm on Sunday evening.

Liverpool, however, refuse to play football on April 15^th…of any year.

The reason: the1989 tragedy at Hillsborough. Now, I have been accused in my time of not seeing it Liverpool’s way on the issue of Hillsborough. My opinion has not changed one iota, but I am not here right now to debate responsibilities or blame, although I am happy to do so and my argument is compelling.  What I am here to say is that this continual need for Liverpool to have the entire English football world come to a standstill every April 15^th is ridiculous and it is trying to put the might and fury of Liverpool’s rabid fan base above all other clubs 23 years after the event. And if anybody should ever dare question this they are automatically accused of disrespecting the dead. This of course is the approach of those who know that the truth is not their ally.

The Premier League and the FA should do whatever they can to give Chelsea as easy a ride as possible (and to be sure they are going to need it) while they remain in the Champions League but they are going to make Chelsea do that which they would rather not do so that Liverpool do not have to play on April 15^th. This is ridiculous, it is wrong and it is not respecting the fallen 96, it is simply allowing Liverpool in all their glory to play and act the victim, 23 years later and making everyone else part of it.

Liverpool tried to do this in the Champions League a couple of years ago when April 15^th fell on a Tuesday or Wednesday. They told UEFA that they would not play on the Hillsborough anniversary.  UEFA were about to tell them that they would indeed play, when they were told!  Fortunately for UEFA, Liverpool had the good manners to be knocked out earlier than they had hoped and so it did not matter in the end.

In my mind I can see no greater way to honor the 96 innocent victims of Hillsborough than having a Merseyside derby; at the very same stage; of the very same competition that the events of Hillsborough occurred; at England’s national stadium where the entire city of Liverpool could come together and pay their respects. But that would surely be too easy and sensible and would not afford Liverpool fans to play the victim.

I am floored by the fact that the footballing world is asked every April 15^th in the UK to come to a virtual standstill for a tragedy 23 years ago.

Do all NY policemen and firemen need the day off every 9/11?  How about every London Transport employee or customer needing the day off every 7/7?  How far do we go back with this? Do the citizens of Madrid need the day off every 3/11?

Lets extend this to the Holocaust and the Crusades? Does Bradford City make announcements that they will never play another football match on May 11^th because of the 1985 Bradford fire? Do Rangers demand that they never be made to play a match on January 2^nd to honor the 66 that died in 1971? Does Manchester United adopt the same attitude every February 6^th because of the Munich air disaster, which it should be noted Liverpool fans are only too happy to sing about and mock. No, they don’t and nor does anybody else.

I spent four years in the US Army back in the 1980s and on December 12^th 1985 a plane that I was supposed to be on, carrying 246 of my fellow friends and colleagues, who I had just spent six months serving with in the Sinai Desert; were on their way back to the US when their plane crashed upon take off after refueling in Gander, Newfoundland.

On every December 12^th since then I take a moment to remember my fallen friends, I do so personally and I do so profoundly but I do not expect the US Army to take the day off or all flights to be cancelled.  I do not ask everybody who knows me to feel as I do that day. Mourning and grieving is personal and I think I speak for millions of other football fans when I say lets remember the 96 of Hillsborough but please stop using this tragedy to play the victim when it is unquestionable that Liverpool fans played their part in said tragedy.  Nothing could be more disrespectful to everyone involved.

Is there an argument that the players of either side would be too grief stricken to play a game of football that day, some of whom were not even born at the time of the disaster (although it does not stop some of the fans playing that card). Are we saying that the Liverpool fans with a chance for a day out at Wembley, with a real opportunity to honor their fellow fallen Liverpool fans would not go because they would likewise be too grief stricken?  Please, lets get real here. The tragedy was 23 years ago, this is not being disrespectful, but it is time to get over it and get on with it, without ever forgetting those who went to a football match and never went home.

There would be many ways to honor the 96 on April 15^th at Wembley before the FA Cup semi-final if the FA had the courage to make it so.

Every player could wear a black armband with the number 96 sewn on it.  There could be 96 seconds of silence or clapping.  For 96 minutes prior to kick-off each and every innocent soul who was lost on that day could have his/her name or photo on the jumbotrons at Wembley. A bell could ring 96 times, but for a club to state that they will never again play a football match on April 15^th makes a mockery of everyone, especially the ones lost.

Let me pose this question: if Liverpool were in the Champions League final and it fell on April 15^th would they declare that they could not play the game. No they would not! They would play it, and play their hearts out and hope to bring a 6^th European Cup back and they would dedicate it to the 96, as well they should. And so with that example it is clear to see that this is all just for effect and for the opportunity to play the victim. The FA, who Liverpool nation believe have got an agenda against them, can be bullied, UEFA probably not.

Sorry, that is how I see it: it is time to get over it and get on with it. The world experiences tragedies on a daily basis and the world and its citizens are forced to move on, life is for the living. The FA is making one club more important than all the others and it is simply wrong and tedious.

Justice for the 96, we can remember them without needing to hide from them, and other clubs should not have their seasons inconvenienced for the sake of one.

Giorgio Chinaglia RIP

American soccer lost a giant this weekend with the passing of the enigmatic Giorgio Chinaglia.

Many might not know who he was, but look him up.  Most that do know of him will think of him as the legendary star of the NY Cosmos in the NASL where he scored 242 goals in eight seasons.

During his time with the Cosmos, NY City was his playground and boy did he play.

But I chose to remember Giorgio today for other reasons and they have nothing to do his playing days for the Cosmos, Lazio, Swansea City or why he was a fugitive from justice in Italy.

About 10 years ago Giorgio got connected with a company called Champions World. That name might not mean much to anyone but along with a guy called Charlie Stillitano, Giorgio played an integral ambassadorial roll for the folks who have these the past 10 years or so brought some of the greatest football teams to America every summer.

Next time you go out and see Real Madrid in the Rose Bowl, or Barcelona at Soldiers Field in Chicago or Manchester United at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia do yourself a favor; tip your hat, or clutch your scarf or kiss your teams badge and give a nod and a thank you to Mr. Giorgio Chinaglia.

In recent years he has been doing a radio show on Sirius. There were some who said his accent was to strong or he was too embedded in Serie A but I liked hearing his stories.

In January 2009 I was In New York and Georgio and Charlie invited me to be an in-studio guest on their show and it was great fun.  They were both very gracious and I always enjoyed them. That night, a bitterly cold one in NY, Giorgio teased me that I had become too much of a Southern California boy as I shivered in their studio.

That was the last of about 4 or 5 different times that I ever met Giorgio.  While I did not know him well, you didn’t have to know him well to recognize his impact on the our sport in America.

RIP Giorgio, you will be missed. Thanks for all you gave us.

Be Careful What You Wish For 1.

Right before this extraordinary Premier League season began Kenny Dalglish took a metaphorical open palm swipe at Arsene Wenger and Arsenal by saying that it was his intention to rebuild Liverpool with a British or English spin.

This was reflected in his spending of somewhere in the range of $160 million (net spend as the only player of value to leave was Joe Cole and he went to Lille on loan) on the likes of Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam all of whom have been some of the most monumental busts in Premier League football history. This was done by spectacularly over-paying for all four of them and using naïve new owners who just wanted to keep the fans onside, to justify such a spending spree.

So as we exit a weekend where two different English players scored in the same game for Arsenal for the first time since 1997 it is worth having a look at where each club is.

Arsenal have just won their 7^th consecutive Premier League match and have now gone clear by three points into third place and automatic entry into next seasons UEFA Champions League group stage if the season ended today.

Liverpool have just come out of week where they were beaten in mid-week by relegation bound QPR, after leading 2-0 with 13 minutes to go.  On Saturday Liverpool saved an even worse performance for the home fans and capitulated to yet another relegation bound team.  This time they did so to Wigan, who had previously never won away at Liverpool.

While the Liverpool faithful will site the fact that the Carling Cup is safely in the trophy cabinet at Anfield, it may well be worth reminding them that it took all five penalties in the shoot out to vanquish the 8^th place team in the Championship. Not exactly pulling up any trees and asserting dominance against lesser foes!

Yes, it is true there might well be an FA Cup in Liverpool’s future this season but are we now led to conclude that the once great and mighty Liverpool are nothing more now than a domestic cup team?  That said it is Liverpool’s manager himself who is claiming that those very same domestic cups are the reason for Liverpool’s woeful run of form in the Premier League.

To all who follow English football you are as you live and breathe watching the demise of one of the great English clubs and you are watching it with Liverpool’s lord and savior Kenny “King Kenny” Dalglish at the helm, and, lets be honest, it is not just his ineptitude on the pitch that has cost Liverpool this season.

Kenny Dalglish has shown in his current stint at Liverpool that he is a man who is out of his depth managing a big club in the Premier League. His naïve and incompetent line-ups and formations are inevitably met with long, rambling, mumbling responses when asked the most obvious of questions after each and every below par performance of this season. “What happened?”  To which the questioner is usually met with a mumbled insult from Dalglish, further showing that he is out of answers.

Beyond that Dalglish might stun us with comments like claiming that nobody will remember the bad league form in 30 years only that we won the Carling cup.

Sadly, the once great Kenny Dalglish has seen the modern game of football pass him by.  Liverpool currently sit 7^th in the Barclays Premier League on 42 points, a significant 13 points behind Tottenham who currently occupy the last Champions League spot. To have any claim on Champions League football for next season Liverpool will first need to overtake both Chelsea and Newcastle before setting their sights on Tottenham.

Last season Liverpool finished 6^th, 22 points behind eventual champions Manchester United. This season they are 20 points from the bottom club and 31 points from the top club, they are closer to relegation than the title.  They have played 15 matches at home this season and won just 5.  In 29 Premier League games they have scored a mere 36 goals and so under Kenny Dalglish Liverpool is actually moving further away from the title, not closer.

If the season had begun in January Liverpool would be in the relegation spots, only QPR and Wolves have been worse since the start of 2012.  If nothing else this proves they are getting worse as the season progresses, not better with just 2 Premier League wins since the new-year.

Next season will be the third straight season that Liverpool will have not qualified for the Champions League at a loss of $130 million in revenue and at the end of this season it will be 22 years since they were last crowned champions of England.  King Kenny was supposed to be the one to fix all this, or at least this is what the Liverpool fans wanted when they begged for Roy Hodgson to be fired, Hodgson who had a better record at Anfield then Dalglish currently has. . They got their King and we are reminded of the old expression: be careful what you wish for.

Whatever must they be thinking in Boston! Are they really going to give Dalglish another $150 million to spend this summer? Surely, Champions League qualification was the minimum required by NESV.

To add insult to injury it is not just on the pitch that things have gone badly for King Kenny and Liverpool. Let us not forget the Suarez matter which, whether Liverpool fans care to admit it or not has cost the club plenty of good will; when it appeared that the club was standing up for institutional racism and Kenny Dalglish was leading the charge.

Dalglish, steadfastly backed Suarez even after he had been charged and found guilty of racial abuse by an independent panel, further embarrassing the club!  And when nobody with any common sense at Anfield could be trusted to bring the issue to an end it took the clubs American ownership to insist upon apologies to put the case to bed. However, not before considerable damage had been done!

The old Liverpool guard on the pitch and in the stands might still sway in worship to King Kenny but it is becoming increasingly clear that the young guard on and off the pitch do not hold him in such reverential esteem. The youngsters are not moved by his legend and he has been living off of his legend for far too long and Liverpool fans have been fooling themselves for even longer.

Former Liverpool deity Bill Shankly famously said, “The league is a marathon not a sprint. It is where you find out if you are entitled to believe in how good you are.” Liverpool have found out.

Dalglish in his current term at Liverpool has failed on the pitch where it really counts: in the league and Champions League qualification. His dealings in the transfer market have turned out to be abject and the inherent remit of any manager in regard to the image of the club to do no damage has been stood on its head under Dalglish. He has been responsible and at the helm for one of Liverpool’s most dismal periods. He has failed across the board.

Liverpool fans ask yourself one question: what other manager would you have allowed to take Liverpool down the current path they are going down and not be asking for his head. Loses to QPR and Wigan, 7^th in the league, nowhere near the Champions League for the third straight year.

When Dalglish was brought in last year it was to rescue Liverpool’s season.  Unless rescue, means not get relegated, Dalglish has failed and has failed miserably and abjectly and the only reason no pressure is put on him is head by the fans is because he is King Kenny.

The astute American owners, who reside in Boston, must at seasons end explain to the fans that they have done it their way for a while and the results have not been acceptable.  The ownership must also explain to the Liverpool fans around the globe that they only have the clubs best interest at heart and that means their only option  is to show King Kenny the Anfield door and let someone else start the rebuild.

Be Careful What You Wish For 2.

Celtic supporters will have been disappointed that they were not able to wrap up the Scottish Premier League on Sunday at the home of their great rival: Rangers.  But the Celtic supporters who are gleefully wringing their hands at the demise of Rangers should probably give it a second thought for a minute, especially as we hear more and more of them talk about how they do not need Rangers.

They are wrong on so many levels it is comical.

Firstly, any league, any serious league that is being decided by the last week of March or first week of April is in serious trouble; no matter what the reasons might be for said title being decided so early.

Secondly, believing that romping to the title every year, being crowned champions, qualifying for the qualifying stages of the Champions League only to be ceremoniously dumped out of the competition before the group stage every year rather brings to mind another useful expression: in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

Scottish football, for many a year now has been a total joke. No Scottish national team has qualified for a major tournament since 1998. The numbers of good Scottish players outside of Scotland can be counted on one finger and if seems he has an incurable disease and might never play again.   The only thing that Scottish football actually has going for itself is that it has one of the fiercest rivalries in world football. So that league without one of its only two interesting combatants surely hurts that league on many levels.

Even a diminished Ranger is a major problem for the SPL.

Think about it: ESPN/Sky have signed a $120 million TV deal to air the SPL games over the next five years starting in 2012/2013. One of the considerations of that deal will have been the four Old Firm Derbies every year…without them, or without the ferocity of the competition why should they stick around and if they do stick around would they not have every right to want to renegotiate at a far reduced cost? Any renegotiation one would imagine could see the numbers dwindle to as low as $15 million over 5 years. That is not sustainable.

Additionally, take away the travelling Rangers fans from places like Dundee, Motherwell, Inverness and St. Mirren and you are talking about even more revenue taken from the league’s members.

Scottish football has been on life support for some time; take the Old Firm battles out of the equation and the league is officially dead.

So Celtic, as you pick up the SPL trophy next week in all likelihood, enjoy your celebration and your title, but spare a thought for your cross time rivals because you are linked to their fate more than you might imagine.

And maybe worse still, take Rangers out of the equation and the SPL will not even be able to compare itself to Spain’s La Liga. Wink! Wink!

The bags are packed, the music and anthem is queued, the butterflies in the player’s stomachs are fluttering, and the brackets are set. No, I am not talking about next weeks Final Four in New Orleans, I am talking about the final eight of the worlds most prestigious and valuable sporting competition: The UEFA Champions League.

The quarterfinals and the road to Munich begin in earnest this week and here are some predictions:

Apeol Nicosia vs. Real Madrid

This is where the fairy tale ride comes to an abrupt end for Nicosia. It has been a great ride and it has been great to see a team from a league such as Cyprus get as far as it has but in all honesty this tie will be over before it gets to Madrid.

It is not even close: REAL MADRID

Benfica vs. Chelsea.

Both clubs are coming off of dour 0-0 draws in their domestic leagues. But to me the shine seems to have fallen off Chelsea.  Two big games in 3 days vs. Manchester City and Tottenham produced 1 point and put Chelsea dangerously close to not qualifying for next years Champions League before they are even out of this year’s competition.

What is clear is that Essien is a shadow of this former self, Lampard can no longer play every 3-4 days after dire performances in Chelsea’s previous outings and whether it is Drogba or Torres, likely to be Torres, will it make a difference.

Benfica will be far stronger defensively than Napoli were and the attacking options of the of Cardozo backed up and supported by Jardel and Gaitan could do real damage.

It is close: CHELSEA

Marseille vs. Bayern Munich

The final of this year’s Champions League is at Bayern’s home stadium and I think that will be all the motivation they will need against a very weakened Marseille team.

With no chance of reaching the Champions League next season after a dismal domestic season, 9^th place Marseille will be happy to just enjoy themselves against a vastly superior Bayern Munich team. They will be without their first choice goalkeeper in Steve Mandanda and defender Souleymane Diawara.

Robben is back, unpopular with teammates but lethal.

Comfortably: BAYERN MUNICH.

AC Milan vs. Barcelona.

The tie of the round without question!  Eleven European titles between these two world famous clubs.

This will be the 3^rd and 4^th meeting for the season as they were in the same group with Barcelona winning it. A last minute goal got Milan a draw at the Nou Camp but a dominant Barcelona won at the San Siro.

Can Milan get the ball enough to hurt Barcelona and can they contain Lionel Messi? These are the key questions for Massimiliano Allegri to ponder but perhaps the biggest effect will be Milan’s lose of Thiago Silva for the next month.

But Milan has the heart of a champion so they will not go quietly, but go they will.  Of course Zlatan Ibrahimovic will have something to prove to his old teammates at a stage of the competition when it really matters and we will see if his curse of Tuesday and Wednesday is real.

BARCELONA

It is incredibly difficult to find any football story to write about this week that is not dwarfed by the uncomfortable scenes we all witnessed last weekend from White Hart Lane concerning Fabrice Muamba.

It goes without saying that everyone inside soccer wishes Fabrice Muamba the fastest and speediest recovery humanely possible. Whether that recovery will involve any further involvement as a footballer is simply not important.

What we saw on Saturday puts the sport in its correct perspective. A man’s life is on the line and we can only hope at this stage that the medical attention he received while he lay on the turf at Tottenham was fast enough that it will not have disrupted the flow of oxygen to his brain, causing any long term effect, for anything over three minutes. We do know that from the time he received the first-rate medical attention on the pitch that his heart was being operated by machinery for the next two hours. These are the things we must hope and pray for today because his fiance and his son Joshua will surely not care if he ever plays another game of soccer, only that he comes home.

Muamba a 23-year-old soccer player who, though born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been in the UK since 1999. He excelled at school earning 10 ‘O’ Levels and, 3 ‘A’ Levels (highly unusual for a professional footballer) and when asked what he would have been if not a footballer he resolutely expressed that he would have been an accountant.

He joined Arsenal as a junior and made his first team debut at age 17. Some even talked about him as the next Patrick Vieira, and — wouldn’t you know it — Vieira just happened to be his sporting hero.

I have used this column in previous weeks to discuss issues in soccer that, at their core, strike at human decency, and I will continue to do so as long as the subject requires discussion.

So it was with immense relief that on Saturday football got it right from start to finish.

When there are injuries or a player goes to ground we tend to be cynical. Are they acting? Are they diving? Are they just looking for a rest, or to trying to get the opposition a yellow or red card? Yes, we tend to be cynical, very cynical.

But the only litmus test we need apply is to take a look at how the players on the field of play are reacting. With this as our gauge it was clear, from the players faces and body language, very quickly that Muamba was in great distress. The medical attention he received was first rate from pitch, to ambulance, to hospital.

It should be noted that the level of care and the speed of care is a direct result of the 2006 collision between Petr Cech and Steven Hunt then of Reading. In that instance Cech and Hunt went into a 50/50 challenge of a ball on the ground, and as Cech slide to collect the ball Steven Hunt’s knee went into Petr Cech’s skull.  Cech was concussed, stretchered off and was out for several weeks, and that collision is the reason that to this day he still wears protective head wear.

Jose Mourinho at the time complained that the speed and level of care for Cech was unacceptable and that is why at every ground across England the medical support is second to none with every clubs medical department required to have not one but two heart defibrillators,  just in case one does not work.  On Saturday we saw the benefits of such measures instituted since 2006 and so we know that the sport can learn the important lessons.

We should applaud as a hero the Tottenham fan, a heart surgeon, who leapt into action and made sure that Muamba’s ambulance went to the most appropriate hospital where he would be receive the very best treatment, even though that facility he designated was not geographically the closest to White Hart Lane.

We do not know how this will end yet (although signs are currently very positive). We can only hope, and those who pray should do just that, that Muamba is returned to his family to live a long and fulfilling life.

But Saturday was a day where football got it right and we showed the rest of the world why it is indeed the beautiful game.

The speed in which Fabrice was attended to, the conduct of both sets of players, the managers, stewards, Howard Webb and his assistants and was most notably the fans and the BBC, was exemplary and an example to the rest of the sporting world.

The behavior of the fans, the classiness of the broadcasters as well as the Premier League, which has postponed Bolton’s midweek league match versus Aston Villa, have been superb, a true credit to our sport.

The FA has also indicated that if Bolton decides  that returning to White Hart Lane to replay the FA Cup tie is too much, too difficult, it will allow the club, without penalty, to withdraw from the competition. Sport does not matter, and everybody who touched this event on Saturday can feel responsible for bringing the global soccer family that little bit closer.

But there were two elements from Saturday that deserve extended mention: the fans and the broadcast.

When it became apparent that we were witnessing something very serious, horrific even, a hushed, eerie and terrifying silence enveloped White Hart Lane. When the 700 traveling Bolton fans started to chant “Fabrice Mu-amba” they were quickly joined by the Tottenham fans. Yes, they hesitated but only to clear their throats of the lump that had arrived less than five minutes earlier. Those who could still utter words sang the players name from the center of their being. It became very obvious, very quickly to all who watched from around the world, that the pain the players were experiencing on the pitch was being felt by those in the stands and being ably and appropriately transmitted across the globe. The fans at White Hart Lane were a credit to themselves, to football and to human decency.

Muamba surely was receiving the warmest treatment of any ex-Arsenal player at White Hart Lane, as the crowd tried to lift him to his feet through something as simple and basic as love for mankind.

Nobody wanted that game to go on, soccer allegiances were null and void: a man’s life was at stake.

This mindset is a rarity, sadly, and that is why it is correct and appropriate to laud the fans for the exceptional behavior on Saturday. It has not always been the case.

Some will remember in February 2006 when Alan Smith playing then for Manchester United in an FA Cup tie vs. Liverpool at Anfield broke his leg in what was nothing but an unfortunate challenge, no malice was involved.

It pains me to remember that as his ambulance meandered its way through traffic to get Alan Smith the treatment he deserved, a group of Liverpool fans exited a pub and started to rock the ambulance back and forth to try and tip it over, all the while singing and screaming obscenities including references to Munich. I will leave it at that, but football fans have not always behaved well or done the right thing. Saturday was a tonic.

And to the BBC which was the broadcasting outlet that delivered the pictures, it was a class act and done without blemish. While the story was without question about Muamba and getting him the right treatment as soon as possible, the network gave us only wide shots of the scenes on the pitch.

The BBC’s dedication and tact in switching from the wide shot, to players, and then to the fans was exceptional. The network showed an ability to convey the scene through silent pictures as the concern of everyone being displayed with shots of fans crying or simply in stunned silence. Some mouthed the words of Muamba’s name when no sound would come out. It was a testament to how painful events should be covered — without being gratuitous or sensationalized. There was room only for class and dignity and pictures that reflected the solemn nature of what we were witnessing.

The collective standing ovation and applause when Muamba was carried from the field delivered us, the viewer, the right sense of perspective. We were as one with the crowd. We all cared, we all cried either inwardly or outwardly, and we were all collectively frightened. I, for one, did not need close-up images of the player or the treatment. There was a story to tell and the BBC did it in an exemplary fashion and it should be commended for its great work.

When Howard Webb, correctly abandoned the game, the world was relieved.

However, what might be of even greater concern, and not such relief, to the world of football, is that since the year 2000 there have been 40 incidents of players collapsing either during training or in an actual live game. On 40 occasions since 2000 a player has lost his life as a consequence of either heart or chest ailments that have gone undetected by footballing medical departments.

Perhaps the most famous two recent examples are that of Marc Vivian-Foe and Daniel Jarque.

Marc Vivian-Foe collapsed during the semifinal of the 2003 Confederations Cup between Cameron and Colombia. His death, it was subsequently revealed, was caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and, though I am no doctor, I believe that is to do with the heart.

Daniel Jarque played for Espanyol in La Liga, and died of cardiac arrest after a training session in 2009. Jarque’s case received further attention after Andres Iniesta scored the winning goal of the 2010 World Cup final for Spain against the Netherlands. As Iniesta turned away from the goal to celebrate with his teammates, he lifted his Spanish national shirt to reveal the words “Dani Jarque siempre con nosotros” (Dani Jarque, always with us.). And, yes, you guessed it: Iniesta got a yellow card for it (from Howard Webb coincidentally).

We speak a lot in soccer about what the governing bodies of the sport should be doing to better the game, and we are right to do so. What is continually disappointing is that we have heard nothing from FIFA or UEFA since Saturday about what might be done to alleviate such a problem, they are after all the governing bodies for the world and Europe respectively, and any directives would have to come from them.  As fans we continue to protest about goal-line technology and other such things, but perhaps we have unearthed once again an issue within our game that is just slightly more important than whether a ball crossed a line.

To be fair it would be nice if football could do more than one thing at a time, or even one thing at a time but the governing bodies once again show such an abject lack of leadership that it makes the most optimistic football fan bow his head in despair.

It is time for all the world governing bodies, the confederations, federations, and associations around the globe to do more. Stricter, tighter and more exhaustive examinations and testing of players must be instituted. Further usage of EKGs and specific testing of the tissues that surround the heart, not just the heart itself, must be demanded.

There is much to do in this regard and the scenes from North London on Saturday brought tears to our eyes for two reasons: I wept for Muamba, but I also wept because, though it would be nice if it did not take incidents like this, it seems that, since Saturday afternoon, soccer is a family again.

On Sunday there were great scenes in Liverpool and at Wolves and Newcastle. There were great scenes in Madrid where the Real Madrid players displayed t-shirts alternating between supporting Muamba and also Eric Abidal, the Barcelona defender who will undergo surgery for a liver transplant in three weeks.

And who says the pre-game handshakes are not powerful, vital and an important part of our game?

We have our family back.

Get well, Fabrice. The world wishes you well. You and your family are in our thoughts, prayers and part of all we dream of.

I wrote a column for Goal.com on the weekend along the lines of what i wrote here last week.  Goal.com as they are required to do edited down to a word count that meets what they need and they also take out anything that they think will be unnecessarily incendiary.  I have no such editorial rules as I beginning to become equally sickened once again by the blame that is being spread around the disaster (tragedy is not the right word) of last week in Port Said. So here is what I wanted to say to the Goal.com community.

For the past few weeks in this space I have been wondering why there is such a lack of human decency and lack of care for the human condition within our damaged sport. I have largely been mocked and jeered about it and told to go and do something else. I am still weighing up my options on that.

This past week no matter where I looked I have seen things that have made me ask where is the decency in football.  Think I am making this up: look at the first 3 stories on Sky Sports between last Wednesday and Friday. Where is the care for and of our game, our human condition and where is our care of life and why can’t they co-exist?

In London this week the next England manager in all likelihood, is defending himself on charges of tax evasion and looking pretty guilty while losing his self-control.

Just down the street, the now former England captain was having a plea of not guilty entered for him to a charge of racial abuse from last October.

The FA Board met Friday and acted with “swift” and decisive action. They have acted with a reverse of the cowardice they displayed last week when allowing Chelsea and QPR to cancel pre-game handshakes, with the very same individual at the heart of the problem.  The FA Board took the issue out of Fabio Capello’s hands and said quite correctly but without prejudicing Terry in any way that the national team captain must be beyond reproach and John Terry can no longer captain the national side until this matter is resolved.

This decision, which was theirs to make, was the right call, but doesn’t go far enough. Terry should not be available for selection period until the entire matter is concluded.  Where is the logic in one but not the other? If the verdict is in his favor then reinstate him.  Heading to a major tournament this cannot be hanging over the England camp where opinion within the camp is divided and where Terry could end up playing next to the brother of the very man he is charged with racially abusing.

John Terry has now lost the England armband twice in his career, once would have been enough for me but twice should be the death knell of his international career. Both incidents have been for issues of character and nothing to do with his footballing ability although that surely has deteriorated as well. But one suspects that if he had any real character he would fall on his sword and let everyone off the hook. He is not the victim here try as he and Chelsea fans might make you think he is.

As a footnote Terry might want to look to his own club for what has happened so swiftly this week.

It was a letter from Ron Gourlay, Chelsea’s Managing Director that asked the court to delay the trial. In Chelsea’s letter they laughably claimed that they were still in the title race, and stated that with the Champions League resuming this month, fixture congestion made it too cumbersome to deal with this matter now. Who knew that it was their choice?

Additionally, the club was suggesting, although one cannot really believe that they were being serious when they did so, that they might be involved in the Champions League final in late May and thus Terry’s own testimony and that of any teammates would be hard to secure with such a busy schedule.  Of course it is also important to remember that these people play football, they are not seeking a cure for cancer and why the courts are bending over backwards is hard to fathom.

Next time you are due in court I hope you are given your choice of date when you can show up so it’s all not too inconvenient.

When I look at the footage of the Terry incident, you know, the footage where TV blurs out Terry’s mouth so we can’t lip-read what we know he actually says, it occurs to me that there should be need for only one witness. Jon Obi Mikel is right in front of Terry in every frame: would he not have heard every word? Has anyone thought to ask him.

Last week I asked the question what exactly were Liverpool fans booing Patrice Evra for at Anfield. It is only fair to ask the same question of Chelsea fans in the perpetual booing of Rio Ferdinand at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Ask yourself that question please.

The transfer window closed on Tuesday and it is nice to see that Djibril Cissee has returned to English football and for the third straight time he has scored for a different Premier League club on his debut.  When he got back to the locker room and checked his phone for what he believed would be messages of congratulations what did he see?  Several vile and disgusting racially abusive tweets from Lazio fans, the club he had just left for QPR. Just warms your heart doesn’t it!

And on Wednesday we wept.

As we started to see the scenes coming from Port Said we got confirmation of just how grizzly and awful things within this game currently are and how little has been learned down the years.

Seventy-nine people are said to be dead, 11 of them police and security forces after a riot when one of Egypt’s biggest teams Al-Alhy was surprisingly beaten 3-1 by lowly Al- Masry.

The Egyptian FA has been disbanded & the Egyptian Premier League is on full suspension and who can argue with those decisions.

It is beyond sad.  There are no words to describe the events. No words to describe the loss of life and there are certainly no words that are going to comfort the mothers and fathers husbands and wives and children of those not coming home.

And so with that in mind let us be clear and honest about a few things.

As you hear more and more reports of how the police, security forces and ambulance services are the only ones to blame for what happened ask yourself, haven’t we heard this before? I know I have: I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now.

I have no doubt that just like with Hillsborough in 1989 the end result of what happened in Port Said with these 79 deaths is that people will simply blame the police and ambulance services. But we have to have the courage to be perfectly honest.  They had nothing to do with it. This was simply down to people behaving appallingly and terrible consequences being the result of that appalling human behavior.

Lets call it what it was and not obfuscate the issue. It was not the police or the ambulance services throwing those flares, charging onto the field, trampling over others and beating people senseless. This was down to a group of people who wanted to cause trouble and they did so with devastating effect, using football as their shield. This is down to reckless human behavior not what certain human beings do for a living. This is on the fans, nobody else.

And consider this if you would: if you were an Egyptian policeman making 400 Egyptian pounds a month with a wife and kids is this really how you think you should be losing your life. I would have walked the other way. Madness is madness however you wrap it up.

Sorry but football and its thugs are not worth dying for.

Over the course of time I have been involved with football it has been said to me about American sports that they lack the passion and tribalism of world soccer. I have always thought that it had more to do with the vast distances teams travel, and fans would have to travel to follow their teams home and away in America. But in essence America has it right. Who needs this kind of passion and this kind of tribalism?

In American sports, which have every bit of the on-field drama, I don’t hear about riots, racism and lawlessness.

In America, sports are the toy department of life and as such they are enjoyed, watched and consumed with fervor, but that is where it ends.  Nobody is interested in getting his or her head beaten as a matter of course, over sport. And, when on the rare occasion it does happen, as in the case of the Giants fan beaten by two Dodgers fans the police take it seriously and investigate it as a serious crime.  In that example we see it for what it is: two individuals wanting to cause trouble and harm and doing so, and when they are caught they will go to prison. In American sports we blame those who need to be blamed, we don’t run from it.

If Lakers fans riot after an NBA title we don’t blame the police for the actions of the fans. If Vancouver (yes i Know Vancouver is in Canada) fans riot after losing the Stanley Cup we hold those rioting accountable not the police.

I have often heard parents say to children, and if you are a parent maybe you’ve said this, or thought it about your own kids: “I love you, but sometimes I don’t like you very much.” Well, that is how I currently feel about football.

I want stories of genius on the field to be the lead stories on our sports news every night not these revolting issues that speak to an awful lack of the human condition and decency, and I wish it would stop.

My word, even Lionel Messi missed a penalty this week. The world is upside down indeed!

I don’t ever remember being so excited for the Champions League to return next week as I am this year. Then hopefully we can maybe get back to talking about football, the game played on the pitch.  You have to suspect that this Saturday with Manchester United and Liverpool going at it once again, the football will be the last thing anyone talks about.

Have to agree with Wayne Rooney: in the Liverpool vs. Tottenham game both Suarez and Skertel should have seen red.

Until then…

While i was writing my latest column for Goal.com i started the piece by extolling the virtues of all the greats sports that I have been enjoying in recent weeks.

I talked about the 2 great NFL Conference Championship games the weekend before last that were directly preceded by Manchester City vs. Tottenham and Arsenal vs Manchester United.

How in mid-week last week we had had Liverpool vs. Manchester City and more importantly and by some distance Barcelona almost throwing away a 2-0 lead and a place in the Copa Del Rey Semi-Finals to Real Madrid.  This was the one game in the last 10 Clasicos that i had to honestly admit that Real Madrid were the better team and really should have been up 5-2 at half time and out of sight.

Those games were followed by The American Bowl in the FA Cup on Friday between Everton and Fulham with Tim Howard, Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey all on the same pitch in an FA Cup match. Landon providing both assists for Everton as the Toffees came from a Danny Murphy penalty down to eventually win and advance to the 5th round.

The weekend saw the finals of the Australian Open.  A beat down,  a first time Grand Slam champion and a new #1 on the women’s side and an epic final for the ages on the men’s side where it took Novak Djokovic 5 hours and 53 minutes to beat Rafal Nadal. Just amazing stuff and a war of attrition that this time, as well as the previous 6 finals went Djokovic’s way. It was so grueling that both Djokovic and Nadal needed chairs to get through the trophy ceremonies. Both Nadal, and Andy Murray who took Djokovic to 5 sets in the semi final have closed the gap and we as fans were rewarded with some amazing tennis and Nadal and Murray were, albeit in defeat buoyed by the fact that maybe they had closed the gap on the world’s #1.  But would you bet against Novak winning the Grand Slam and if he wins the French Open in June he will possess all four major championships just not in the same season.

Sadly some of what i wrote was edited out and so some of the context of the overall column was lost.

The problem for me is that once the football started on Saturday it all went downhill from there.

The FA in an act of such cowardice gave both Chelsea and QPR permission to not do the traditional and respectful handshakes before the game for fear that the QPR players would refuse to shake hands with John Terry over his race row with QPR defender Anton Ferdinand.

This was where the FA should have stood up and reined supreme and told each club they will shake hands just like in every other game out of respect for the game and competition and if they did not there would be suspensions and massive fines.  But no they laid down and rolled over and surrendered and in the process set such a poor precedent that when it crops up again they will have nobody to blame but themselves.

This is in no way an endorsement of the man, in fact quiet the opposite but the FA have allowed one man to become bigger than the game and the so called respect campaigns.

That was then followed by Liverpool getting up and at it again. First they booed a man from the opposition relentlessly for committing the major crime of reporting being racially abused by a member of the home team.  They compounded that by singing “there’s only one lying bastard” when Luis Suarez had admitted to saying exactly what the Liverpool fans are claiming that Evra was lying about.

So they booed him for 90 minutes and then their manager Kenny Dalglish who is becoming part of the decease in all this said it was fine all the while he had to know that what they were really booing him for was having reported racial abuse. Racial abuse that Liverpool are OK with and were not interested in acknowledging because it was going to cost them their best player for a certain  amount of games.

You had the genius who thought it was OK to try and do his best monkey impersonation aimed at Evra with full on hands under arm pits and jumping up and down to suggest that Evra was monkey.

But maybe worst still were the lies and rumors spread through social media by Liverpool fans that 3 Manchester United fans had been arrested for spitting on the Hillsborough Memorial.  This singular act of deceit provides even further evidence and insight into the depraved mind of a certain type of Liverpool fan (certainly not all) that i am trying to expose and will do so in as much more detail in my book. What they said was not true and it took a statement from Merseyside Police that it was indeed not true and false to its core and that no arrests had been made.

Now, this is a fan base who are reverentially protective of the loss of the 96 of their own who died at Hillsborough and who will do anything they think necessary to destroy anything or anybody who might think differently about what actually happened that fateful day in Sheffield in April 1989.  But they are not above or below using those 96 victims as a stick to beat people with. They will happily use Hillsborough to gain sympathy and if they have to lie about things well that is just what needs to be done. They as a fan base do more to discredit and disrespect those 96 innocents lives lost than anybody such as myself or a Kelvin MacKenzie or an Alex Beam or a Richard Keyes.  They shame themselves and show themselves to be the urchins that they are.

So into this week and what do we have on the football docket, and i do mean the docket.

If you want to know what is wrong with English football right now here is some thing to ponder.  England’s next manager (more than likely) is currently on trial for tax evasion and the current England captain has been given a trail date of July 9th, right after the Euros are over to answer a case that he racially abused Anton Ferdinand, the brother of Rio Ferdinand, the very man John Terry might have to partner as a central defending duo at those same Euros.

The FA must step in and tell Fabio Capello that the England captain must be beyond reproach and John Terry can not go to the Euros this summer not as captain and not even as a squad member. I have no time for innocent until proven guilty when i have seen what he did and he has admitted to calling Anton Ferdinand a “black cunt.” He admits saying it but says that he has been lost in translation and taken out of context…this i cannot wait to hear in court in July.  Yes it will mean stripping the same man of the England armband for a second time in his career and bringing down the curtain on his international career once and for all. Well so be it.

I agree that if he goes even just as a squad player he will turn the dressing room toxic and it really is time to start pushing people like John Terry out of the game. Wayne Bridge was maybe one thing but this on top of that is another strike on Terry and his character and this time he has to go. Chelsea have been equally as despicable in their full support for Terry as Liverpool have been in the Suarez case. Chelsea have been slightly quieter about it as they have had the benefit from the backlash that Liverpool received over the Suarez affair but it still changes little.

And of course yesterday in Egypt where after a full scale riot 79 football fans went to a football match and never got to go home. Many of those killed we are told were security officers and police and there is talk that it was all politically motivated, but some were crushed and trampled to death by the very people they were standing with at one time. 79 people died at a football match in 2012. What on earth is going on.

I have no doubt that just like with Hillsborough in 1989 the end result of what happened in Port Said with these 79 deaths is that people will ultimately revert to blaming the police and the ambulance services. But if we have the courage to be perfectly honest they had nothing to do with it and this was simply down to people behaving badly and terrible consequences being the result of that awful human behaviour.

Lets call it what it was and not obfuscate the issue. It was not the police or the ambulance people throwing those flares, charging onto the field and beating people senseless. This was down to a group of people who wanted to cause trouble and they did so and they did so with dire effect. This is down to human beings not what those human beings do for a living.

I am not saying this with any evidence but it seems that ever since Sepp Blatter said there was no racism in football there has been little else but racism in football.

Oh and I forget to mention that newly signed striker for QPR Djibril Cissse was racially abused by Lazio fans on twitter today in some of the vilest language and racial slurs.

Have you ever heard that expression that parents say to kids sometimes ‘i love you but sometimes i don’t like you very much.’  That is exactly how i feel about football at the moment. It is just leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I am despondent with what is going on, on and off the pitch and things seem to be getting worse not better, every day or week it is something else.

And Lionel Messi missed a penalty that would have given Barcelona a 2-1 lead over Valencia in the Copa Del Rey Semi final first leg.  As it is they will take a 1-1 draw home next week and hope to protect it and get to the final in May. The world is upside down.

In closing for this post. The book i was writing last year is up and running again. We had put it down for a while for reasons that will be obvious when you read it so look for a book called “iTerror” in the next few months. I have with the help of a good many seriously descent people looked into a lot of research about our subject matter plus what i went through at the hands of Liverpool fans and we are going to lay out our case very succinctly. It will show patterns of behavior not just singular random acts or coincidence as they might have you believe. We will also tell the story of how WSD/WFD and FFF came about, and also the demise in every possible way of Nick Geber as a person, a friend, a business partner, a human being and ultimately a common criminal and what he did to so thoroughly disgrace himself and why he will never darken my doorstep again.

It is going to dish the dirt from Fox to Sirius to ESPN but it will be the truthful dirt and should be a pretty good read when its finished which it most certainly is not at this point.

Until then…

No team was perfect and no team was pointless but Sunderland were almost perfect and QPR almost pointless.

Sunderland               10/12

Tottenham                  8/12

Everton                       7/12

Man City                     7/12

Arsenal                        7/12

Bolton                          7/12

Man United                 6/12

Newcastle                    6/12

Chelsea                         5/12

Liverpool                     5/12

Stoke City                    5/12

Norwich City               5/12

Swansea                       5/12

Fulham                         5/12

Aston Villa                   4/12

WBA                              4/12

Blackburn                     4/12

Wolves                          3/12

Wigan                            2/12

QPR                               1/12

Psychological edge to Manchester City heading into this FA Cup tie this weekend, they are at home, ahead in the league and last time the played their neighbors they beat them 6-1 on their own patch. A win by City on the weekend puts United’s season potentially in tatters with only the Europa League left on the table and it is only early January.

Martin O Neill showing why he is as good as they say and why Arsenal fans were saying earlier this season that if Wenger was going to go they wanted O’Neill to replace him.

And if Tottenham win their game in hand next week at home vs. Everton (the one postponed from the London riots in August) they will tie United on points and be just 3 from Manchester City. Let the 2nd half begin.

Until then.

There is no question that Luis Suarez is a fantastic football player. He was worth every penny of the £22.8 million that Liverpool spent to prize him from Ajax last year. There is no question that Uruguay are the champions of Copa America in large part to his amazing performances in Argentina this past summer. When everyone thought we were in for another Brazil v Argentina final up popped Luis Suarez and said not so fast and almost single handedly won the Copa America.

There is also no question that if there was an award simply for the best International Footballer of the Year it would surely go to Luis Suarez.  Sadly however that is where my praise for Luis Suarez ends.

There is just something off about him. His temperament has once again let him down and it has done so in this case where it is going to seriously hurt his club.

Today an INDEPENDENT commission of the Football Association of England handed him an 8 match ban and a £40,000 fine for racially abusing Patrice Evra of Manchester United.

The ban, and the fine have been met with outrage by Liverpool nation, both the club and its fans are up in arms and the statement that Liverpool issued today was one of the worst PR blunders I have ever read in my life. When all that needed to be said was that we are disappointed at the ruling and we will look at our options with Luis about appealing the ruling.  Instead they babbled on about the player and the club being a victim (yawn). If Luis Suarez can’t have ice cream how come Patrice Evra gets to have some?  And they generally look like a spoilt child who has simply not got its way. No surprise there, it has become the hallmark of this once great club.

And the abuse that Liverpool fans inflicted upon Evra in the days after this incident was a thing of disgrace and shame and fueled by its own racism. This not unlike those Liverpool fans who burned American flags outside Anfield to show their disgust for Hicks and Gillette in June of 2010.

The vitriol we hear from Liverpool fans in the wake of this decision is that of neanderthals. People who can not separate supporting a football team and what is decent, morale and right. People who have no decency and just chose to spew venom in any direction they can to justify their claims of being “the best football fans in the world.”  They miss the point so spectacularly that one wonders if they have ever seen a color other than red that Liverpool wear.

We complain ad nausea about Fabio Capello not being able to speak English well enough to be the manager of England. We allow a level of xenophobia to justify what we believe is correct to our culture.  So why is the same not demanded of the Luis Suarez’s of the world who chose to pretend to not understand or care about the culture of the country in which they make their living. It is a double standard and a disgusting one that is divided only by party lines.

Liverpool will no doubt appeal and should they lose the appeal i fervently hope that the ban is increased because it is what such an appeal would deserve.

Luis Suarez first really came to the football worlds attention when he deliberately handled the ball of the line in the quarter finals of the 2010 World Cup against Ghana. In that case it helped his team in the immediacy as Ghana missed the ensuing penalty and then Uruguay won the penalty shoot-out. However he would miss the semi final vs. Holland and that would be that.

Last year while playing for Ajax, Luis Suarez bit the shoulder/neck of Otman Bakkal of PSV Eindhoven  in what could only have been a sudden rush of blood to the head and where he became known as the “Cannibal of Ajax.” He was given a 2 match ban by Ajax which was then correctly increased to a 7 match ban by the Dutch FA and then shortly afterwards was transferred to Liverpool for the handsome sum mentioned above once Marco van Basten and the club had tired of his antics.

He has become an instant success at Liverpool, loved by the Kop and all Liverpool fans for his obvious commitment to the club and has scored plenty since arriving although he has been derided as a serial cheat and diver.

But in October when Liverpool entertained Manchester United at Anfield he was being marked by Patrice Evra and it now appears and he has been found guilty that on 10 occasions he racially abused Patrice Evra using a term that he claims is common place in his native Uruguay, a term that is neither racist or even offensive in his homeland. The thing is he does not play his football in his homeland he does so in England.

Firstly Luis Suarez has been playing his club football in Northern Europe for 5 years. One season with Groningen in Holland and then the following 4 years with Ajax also in Holland.  Holland is one of the most liberal nations in Europe and surely any racial terms used in the heat of battle would not be tolerated. So it is fair to say that Luis Suarez has known that this is not an approach that would be allowed or tolerated in Europe and possibly especially in England.

So in a game against Manchester United, Liverpool’s huge rivals and in the heat of battle he used this term to Patrice Evra not once, twice or thrice but 10 times…nobody is going to convince me that he did not mean it in the exact manner that the INDEPENDENT FA commission has interpreted it.

It is one thing to use this term to a little kid, with a smile on your face while you ruffle the kids hair…no this is a quite different circumstance. Luis Suarez is looking more Joey Barton to me than say Diego Forlan…someone who simply cannot control his emotions on a football pitch and now he will have 8 games to give it some thought.  And they are important games, including two Carling Cup semi-finals vs. Manchester City with a chance to get to Wembly in late February to pick up some silverware against either Cardiff or Crystal Palace. So in essence he has now hurt his team once again by his inability to control himself.

Liverpool as a club say they have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to racism, perhaps that is only meant to address the fans and does not include its own players nor the rampant anti-Semitism that i have personally experienced at the hands of this clubs fans.

Kenny Dalglish weighed in today to stir it all up a little bit more and get the natives even more restless than they already are, obviously by design.  He should be ashamed of himself and i hope his American owners tell him as such. I mean what would Lebron James think?

Dalglish is a fine man generally and i completely agreed with him when he recently said that the FA were hypocrites for appealing Wayne Rooney’s kick out during the England game vs. Montenegro. He was of course right in that moment because had that act happened in English football it would have been an automatic three match ban for violent behaviour and any frivolous appeal would have been met with even further punishment. But in the Suarez case he simply embarrasses himself and his club, he is just wrong plain and simply.  You either have a zero-tolerance policy for racism or you don’t…which one is it?

We as football fans have been begging for an association, a federation or a confederation or the world’s governing body to take a harsh stand when it comes to racism and now one has. We should applaud the FA for this not subject them to vile outbursts and derision as we are now seeing all over social media.

Liverpool fans have taken to social media and message boards as they typically do whenever anyone has the temerity to question them, to defend the indefensible and not for the first time. There is the premise being thrown about that the FA are doing this just give the finger to FIFA…what if they are, perhaps FIFA might get a grip of this situation. And while i am on the subject of FIFA nobody seemed to mind when the FA tried to show FIFA up with the ridiculous PoppyGate situation. Soemtimes you cannot have it all your own way.

There are serious problems in football and one of them is racism in all its forms. The FA have taken a stand and a serious stand  and are at the very least addressing with a degree of seriousness this scourge that exist in the game.  For once i wish we could take off the colors of the teams we support to apply what is in the general best interest of the game that we supposedly all love. To support what is morally and reprehensibly wrong serves nobodies best interest and certainly not the game overall.

If a Manchester United player had said some such similar things to Glen Johnson 10 times i suspect that Liverpool fans would be up in arms, screaming bloody murder and wanting their pint of blood for such a disgraceful act but when it is one of their own they can not see through the red haze. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds…this has not changed in some time and I doubt it will anytime soon.

Of course the player who should be most concerned about this ruling from the FA is John Terry. It is quite clear that in that game against QPR he called Anton Ferdinand a ‘black cunt’ and for that he is not only going to get done by the FA but by the police who have already sent the case to the Crown Prosecution Services.  When that is all said and done he will i hope lose the England and Chelsea armband and be given an even longer ban and fine than Luis Suarez.

The FA are going to have to do this, they are now very much being watched, they have laid down a marker and taken a stand and they best not disappoint. What is right and just for Luis Suarez better be just as equal and just for John Terry, England captain or not.

Until then.

I was having a mega Twitter session this morning and early afternoon while i watched the football and re-runs of my favorite new show “The Big Bang Theory”  (I think have a serious respect for Chuck Lorrie after the way he handled Charlie Sheen)and i tweeted that my most fervent wish for 2012 is that every single member of the House of Representatives and the 33% of the senators up for re-election get thrown out of in next Novembers election.

I was stunned to instantly lose 10 followers on Twitter.  Stunned not heart-broken. My heart is already broken from other matters in life and i am not sure that one heart can be broken twice at the same time…if it can then it is surely a pain that cannot be endured.

I was stunned to lose the 10 followers because my comment cut no party line. It was blanket, i see the games that are being played in DC yet again over the payroll tax and so i wondered why i would lose 10 followers so quickly.

Is it that civil discourse is simply an antiquity in our modern blogging, social media world. We write what WE think and have no patience or tolerance for what anyone else has to say. That is an exaggeration as i do have many fine discussions with people but i was stunned to find my followers number decreased rather rapidly by 10.

It troubles me greatly and when i ventured into why this might have happened someone said to me that people follow me for my football mind not my political mind.  On this point i was heart-broken.

I consider myself a reasonably well educated, well rounded, well thought out, yes opinionated to be sure at times person but i do not consider myself to be limited.

I like football…i think football has treated me poorly and I do not love it as i once did. But i love many things in life including but not limited to: my friends, some members of my family but certainly not all. I love test cricket with the same vigor that i once loved football. I love pop culture especially TV and i really love my bed. There is perhaps nowhere in the world that i love to be more than in my bed whether alone or not.  I love politics and i love music. At times i love people and i certainly love animals for the sheer innocence alone and so i was dumb-founded to hear from someone that perhaps i should limit my Twitter discussion simply to football.  I shall do no such thing.

This country is broken at the moment and i do not believe that the 7 Republican candidates have any clue how to fix it. To quote a line from the movie The American President they are interested in “ two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.” I do not believe President Obama knows how to help the country and i am damn sure that Harry Reid, John Bahner and Mitch McConnell have no ideas and have no interest. We have a leadership vacuum that is as big as big can be.

I am still disgusted by Mitch McConnell’s quote after last years mid-term elections where he stated “our top political priority should be to deny President Obama a second term” and that is a quote…and then there was wry smile from him. Their TOP POLITICAL PRIORITY…

This at a time when we have 8.8% unemployment, troops coming from Iraq and 150,000 still in Afghanistan. This at a time when 1 in 6 American’s go hungry, where people are denied the health care that nations that want to be considered great should provide. I am not looking for a welfare state but i am looking for a degree of fairness and there seems to be less and less of it in these United States.

President Obama has been weak of that there is no question but when confronted with what the GOPs “number one political priority” is can there be any doubt what he is up against it.

We have turned our elections into reality TV and we wonder why life then emulates reality TV. I have said this about football and all the things that hurt football that are never really addressed like racism, we get the game we deserve and we get the government and the country we deserve. We can do so much better but we simply chose not to because it is so much easier to sit back and watch those in the arena fall and make fools of themselves so we have something to blog and tweet about…and i am just as guilty.

What i find most reprehensible about Mitch McConnell’s comments is that i did for 4 years serve this nation in its armed services and i believe that there is little more important than country.  Yes family comes first but then it must be country and what McConnell clearly has suggested is that party trumps country and that to me is almost treasonous and for that man to be the Senate Minority Leader speaks volumes to me about where our country is.

You know i recently came back from 3 weeks in Israel and it is funny because when you tell people that you were in Israel they generally have the same question: “is it really dangerous there?” Funny thing about that is that when I was in Israel the people there would ask me the same question about America. These are the different prisms of life and we have got to come to grips with what is important in our world.

Yes, i am being  bit preachy here but hey is that not what a blog is meant for.

I am not a happy camper with almost every thing there is to be unhappy about. I see little reason for faith or hope and i honestly wonder what has happened to not only me but also to us.

In the coming weeks i will be blogging about what really happened with ESPN and also what is happening with my book about my experiences in football from Geber (with friends like him honestly nobody needs enemies) to Fox to Sirius and more…and some other projects I am hoping to work on. I had put all of this on hold due to ESPN but no need now. I do not see myself returning to broadcasting about football or anything else…i would much rather find roles behind the scenes.

I hope everyone has happy holidays: Hanukah starts on Tuesday, Christmas next Sunday and maybe Frank Castanza can tell us when Festivus is this year.

RIP Christopher Hitchins: a great mind and writer. Said what he felt and yes offended many…i am totally in touch with that…he will be missed.

Thanks for nothing Sevilla and that save Casillas made in the Sevilla game was the equal if not better than Gordon Banks save from Pele in the 1970 World Cup. Going to try and put links in but might be a bit challenged as to how so you can compare the two saves.

Banks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngE9RCAdWaE

Casillas: http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/incredible-iker-casillas-save-from-manu-real-madrid-sevilla/

Hopefully Barcelona will be crowned World Champions tomorrow: Visca Barca.

Going to go and walk the dog.

Until then.

1. Reckoner

2. Let Down

3. Street Spirit

4. Idioteque

5. The National Anthem

6. Fake Plastic Trees

7. Karma Police

8. How to Disappear Completely

9. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

10. Lucky/Paranoid Android/Exit Music.