World Cup Corner

Sepp Blatter, the head of world football’s governing body FIFA, believes future World Cup finals should not be decided by penalties and said changes could be in place for the showpiece tournament in South Africa in four years. At a Swiss Chamber of Commerce event in Zurich Blatter told Reuters:

We have four years or so, so I think we have time. Maybe to replay the match if it’s the final, you can’t do that through the tournament because of lack of time. Maybe to take players away and play golden goal. When it comes to the World Cup final it is passion, and when it goes to extra time it is a drama. But when it comes to penalty kicks it is a tragedy. Football is a team sport and penalties is not a team, it is the individual.

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Most fans want Becks back in the England team. In a recent poll, nearly three quarters, 71% of England fans, want to see former skipper David Beckham back in the national team and 54% think they can do better than Steve McLaren.

The survey was made between 1047 players of LMA Manager 2007, a new football management video game.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter will visit South Africa to urge lawmakers to speed up building work for the 2010 World Cup. Blatter will meet South African President Thabo Mbeki and make an appeal to the country’s parliament to explain them the value of the World Cup and to fire up the organising committee, because it’s the last moment to start building five stadiums.

For the moment they have plans, money, and decisions, but I have yet to see the pickaxes and spades needed to start the work.

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Did you know you can watch UEFA Champions League online via ESPN? For $9.95 per game ESPN will stream every single game in this year’s Champions League on the Internet.

The downside is that the online streams are only available to users in the United States and Latin America.

According to a study for sponsors Mastercard this season’s UEFA Champions League winner could earn up to 100 million euros on top of prize money and tournament gate receipts. Increased sponsorship, extra television revenue, higher attendances and inflated player values look set to swell the victorious club’s coffers long after they lift the trophy in Athens on May 23.

The 100 million euros figure does not include cash awarded to the winners by UEFA. The European governing body says the successful club could receive as much as 40 million euros in prize money, including television revenue but not gate receipts.

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EA unveiled the future of football with FIFA 07 for Xbox 360. Two years in development, the new engine is the single largest investment EA has ever made in the football business. The dynamic new engine will transform the way players and the ball move, play and feel. A physics-based and data-driven technology unlocks ultra realistic player motion and delivers complete responsiveness due to its ability to branch animations and the real-time calculation of real human bio-mechanics.

Get ready for the first real next-gen soccer experience. FIFA Soccer 07 on Xbox 360 will deliver athletes that move as fluidly, as realistically and as intuitively as athletes in real life.

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Croatia trio Bosko Balaban, Ivica Olic and Dario Srna have been expelled from their Euro 2008 qualifying squad and fined ($5,232 each) after leaving the team’s training camp to go partying in a nightclub. They were kicked out of the squad by manager Slaven Bilic after discovering the players were not in their camp in Slovenia.

Although we will now be short of seven players, we are travelling to Moscow without these three.

The same problems had Sweden’s coach Lars Lagerback who has sent home three players from the squad to face Liechtenstein. Striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, defender Olof Mellberg and midfielder Christian Wilhelmsson have all been asked to leave the training camp in Gothenburg, where the team are preparing for this week’s Euro 2008 qualifier, after staying out late on Sunday evening.

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On Wednesday comes the FIFA World Cup final rematch between France and Italy. The French will clearly have a score to settle at the Stade de France, scene of their own World Cup triumph in 1998, when they face Italy’s world champions just two months after their disappointing contest in Berlin.

France will go into the game after a convincing 3-0 victory in Georgia on Saturday when Italy, by contrast, need to pick themselves up after a surprise 1-1 draw with Lithuania in Naples.

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Don’t forget about the 52 teams that are after the Henri Delaunay trophy. After three games last month, EURO 2008 qualifying gets up to full speed on Saturday and Wednesday.

For the first time since the expansion to a 16 team finals in 1996, there will be no play offs. All 50 teams in the seven groups will try to finish in the top two to join hosts Switzerland and Austria in the finals.

Former West Germany defender Juergen Kohler has turned down an offer to coach Ivory Coast because of his wife’s concerns for safety in the contry. Vice president Lambert Feh Kesse was very disappointed with Kohler’s decision:

At the last minute we were informed there were difficulties within the German coach’s family which prevented him from coming, security reasons which had been raised by his wife. We’re disappointed, we have to say, because we have gone through all the negotiations. Everything was agreed. A draft had been written and it remained only to sign it with a view to drawing up a proper contract.

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