Diouf earns applause

Following on from my previous blog about Arsenal captain William Gallas, and after further research, Bolton Wanderers footballer El-Hadji Diouf also deserves applause for his aims over the past two months to help raise money for charity.

The Dioufy Foundation aims to help people in the Sengalese striker's childhood home, Dakar, and in his current home city, Bolton and will hold a series of fundraising concerts, friendly matches and dinners to help raise funds for hospitals and new sports facilities. It's more great news for football to see a player who, like Gallas, has reached the top level of the game and neither let the wages go to his head or forget his roots.

I feel at this point that I must verify that I do not think it is a footballer's obligation to help charities and similar causes. It is obviously not their fault that they are paid such high wages and they should not be punished for this like criminals are with community service. They also need sufficient money to cover the fact that football is a sport where most retire at around the age of 35. However, many are overpaid even taking that into consideration. I also cannot help thinking that there is something morally wrong with someone earning such a huge amount of money to do something they enjoy each week not to help those in poverty or donate just a little to charity.

(Picture from: www.football.co.uk)

A map produced in UCLan's digital newsroom workshop

Here is a map that I produced on the digital newsroom module of my journalism course at UCLan. It is an exercise to practise mapping news and, on this map, the news is from Preston, Lancashire. The links appear very large so you may need to use the arrow signs to find the minimize tool.


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Sport and entertainment join for one worthy cause

Sport and entertainment joined forces last week as it was revealed that Premiership footballer William Gallas and, star of the BBC's leading soap opera, Eastenders' Kara Tointon will team up to promote the Sport Relief campaign.

Gallas, who captains Premiership Arsenal, is in the latter stage of his career at 30-years-old, but he insisted last month that he does not feel his age: "I feel like I'm 20-years-old sometimes because the atmosphere is so great", he said at the launch of Sport Relief.

Arsenal's rock in defence has certainly been encouraging to the young players at Arsenal and urging them to do well this season. Now he is encouraging people to get involved with Sport Relief, an initiative which harnesses the power and passion of sport to raise money to help people living really tough lives...in the UK and around the world.

He said: “You don’t have to love sport as much as me to join in with the fun of Sport Relief. You can get involved in lots of ways, by doing something active, or a sports quiz, or just by wearing a pair of Sport Relief socks. The important thing is the money you raise will be spent by Sport Relief to transform lives in the UK and across the world’s poorest countries."

In a sport which currently seems to be ruled by money and a Premier League full to the brim with overpaid players, Gallas is an inspiration to other players in the game.

I hope that other high-paid players follow in Gallas's foot steps and, even if not participating actively, simply contributed some of their money to causes such as this. Money which many in the game would not notice if it fell out of their pocket, but money that would make a great difference to others.

The big-hearted 'Gallas attitude' is what football needs to adopt if it is going to achieve its much-craved global recognition, not the gluttonous 'game 39' attitude, which I have previously blogged about. The Premier League's Chief Executive Richard Scudamore may learn a thing or two from Gallas. But sadly, I doubt the Premier League will take this path, as it does not get the money-hungry businessmen behind the top clubs any money, does it? A big shame.

(Picture from Sport Relief)

Digital Newsroom work at UCLan

As part of my Digital Newsroom module, I have learnt how to make a video slideshow usuing Windows Moviemaker. I have posted it below. It shows the images that can be seen by a person walking from Avenham Park to the University of Central Lancashire via the main street of shops in Preston, Lancashire.

Enjoy!

Sporting bodies strive to strengthen fight against match-fixing

The BBC revealed today that Sporting bodies want a share of betting profits to help fight match-fixing, most notably in cricket, tennis and football.

It is no surprise that these bodies want to strengthen their fight. These three sports have all faced either allegations of or action against match-fixing in the last three years.

Cricket has had its share of match-fixing inquiries in the last year, surrounding the death of Bob Woolmer. More recently, tennis has been thrust into the match-fixing limelight over allegations that player, Nickolay Davydenko, has fixed some of his games. Paul Dunstone explained. The International Tennis Federation have defended these allegations though, writes Douglas Robson for US Today.

Match-fixing has not been common talk in English football since 1997, when Bruce Grobbelaar, Hans Segers and John Fashanu were acquitted of match-fixing allegations, and in 1999, when four men were jailed for three years each for their parts in an Asian betting syndicate, purposefully causing floodlight failures in the West Ham versus Crystal Palace and Wimbledon versus Arsenal games of that season.

But the majority of the most recent match-fixing scandals in football have been in Italy, where clubs Lazio, Juventus, AC Milan and Fiorentina were all punished in 2006 for match-fixing, and the year before, Genoa and Venezia were punished in a similar scandal leading to Genoa's promotion.

What is a surprise to me is that there has been no investigation to my knowledge into Italy's World Cup 2006 win. They had a couple of very narrow victories in their run to the final, most notably beating Australia with a last minute Totti penalty which replays show should never have been given.

Today, UEFA have defended further investigations into match-fixing over the qualifiers for Euro 2008. What is worrying is that a lot of the match-fixing allegations are in Europe, the most prominent being the one in Italy. Worrying because, with the increasing influence of foreign businessmen who care more for money than football in England, how long will it be before there is a Premiership match-fixing scandal?

The FA Cup is still magic, despite last year's dull final.

The FA Cup quarter-final draw was made earlier today and this is what it looked like:

Sheffield United or Middlesbrough v Cardiff City
Manchester United v Portsmouth
Bristol Rovers v West Brom
Barnsley v Chelsea

It is a disappointment that a Manchester United and Chelsea quarter-final cup tie has been avoided, increasing the chance further of them meeting in the final yet again. A repeat of a dull-as-dishwater final which the two Premiership giants produced last year would be a real anticlimax to a competition that has been once again full of the magic moments that have become synonymous with it.

Conference South side Havant and Waterlooville's cup exploits gripped the nation's imagination as they beat League One Swansea and took the lead twice at Premiership Liverpool's Anfield before losing 5-2, contrary to the view that the FA Cup has lost its magic. Perhaps this is something to do with the dismissal of its prestige and importance in English football by some of the top division's foreign managers. Liverpool manager, Rafa Benitez, a manager under a lot of pressure at the moment, did not see his side's tie last weekend as important enough to field a full strength side and duly paid the price, Barnsley's Brian Howard taking the glory, in the most magical of cup fashions, in the last minute.

Even though the FA Cup has lost its importance in the eyes of some of the league's top managers, this does not mean it has lost its magic. Although not intended, and not taking anything away from a great Barnsley performance, Benitez's team selection was a prominent factor behind how Barnsley managed to knock Liverpool out.

This 'there is no magic left in the cup' argument is either complete bilge or has been going over my head for a few seasons now. In 1997, Hednesford Town reached the fourth round; the same season Chesterfield took Middlesbrough to a replay in a semi-final; in 2001, Wycombe Wanderers knocked out then Premiership side Leicester City before losing to Liverpool 2-1 in the semis; the same year that Wycombe knocked out then Division One Wimbledon 8-7 on penalties and then Division One Tranmere beat then Premiership Southampton 4-3 from 3-0 down on the same night.

So, the claims of no magic in the cup are a mystery to me.

Let's hope the final will be between teams other than those in the top four this year, maybe between West Brom and Cardiff City instead of a repeat of last year's stalemate between two sides from a breed of Premiership teams that do not value the Cup as much as they should.

(Picture by: Bounder)

Scudamore's game 39 plans spark worldwide criticism

The football world has been divided these last 10 days by the Premiership's controversial plans for 'game 39', that every Premier League team plays an extra domestic game in one of a number of chosen other countries.

The Premier League's Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore's (pictured on the right) plan is that each of the Premiership's teams competes in one game per season abroad. But it has been deeply unpopular in the eyes of English football fans everywhere and leaders of foreign countries.

Scudamore's plans apply to domestic games, which is where the first problem in his proposal orginates. Surely 'domestic games' should be played domestically. European matches are when games should be abroad and that is how it should stay.

Scudamore said: I've been working hard for years with the big clubs to reconcile their ambitions with the smaller clubs. That's what this is all about." But is it really? It certainly is a plan that is hard to see the positive effects in, unless you are one of the rich businessmen behind the team's in the top flight. For men like West Ham's non-executive chairman Eggert Magnusson, this is a chance to sell more merchandise and get more support.

But what about the clubs below the Premiership, the smaller sides with less money? There is already a huge financial gap between the Premier League and the Football League, evident from promoted Derby's spending of just over £8 million on six players last Summer, yet they have still struggled in the top division this season. This included Robert Earnshaw, Claude Davis and Andy Todd, arguably good players, but for less than that between 1991 and 1992, they could have signed Peter Schmeichel, Alan Shearer and Eric Cantona, certainly fantastic players.

And what about even further down the league? With many lower league sides in a lot of debt already, there is no positives in Scudamore's plan for them and they are being more and more priced out of competing by chairmen that can steam roller their side to the top by pumping a seemingly endless cash supply into them. And there is seemingly nothing some of them will not do for profit, even if that means moving the club from its fanbase to a more profitable area.

Just ask Womble on Tour, who knows what it is like for football's money-men to ignore the fans. He was a Wimbledon fan until chairman Peter Winkelman moved the club to Milton Keynes, ignoring its history and fans and re-named it the MK Dons, a franchising move that lost it many supporters and, like Womble on Tour, they went to support a new side, AFC Wimbledon, who they felt was starting from where they think any football side should start, from the bottom of the league.

He says in his blog:

"The Premier League long since stopped caring about the supporters and arguably
about the integrity of the game. What they're interested in is profit. That's
fine in most businesses, but in football fascination with money alone is a
dangerous thing. You risk destroying the nature of the game and with it, its
long term well-being. Football is already endangered in this country. Young fans
are priced out of going to games which means they'll never get into the habit of
watching their team. Years down the line that's going to have a potentially
disastrous effect on attendances. Now here's another scheme that isolates
football from its followers. It simply mustn't happen."

Like the MK D0ns situations, English football fans are being ignored while their clubs are franchised. Like the MK Dons situation, the Premier League is not, as Birmingham co-owner David Gold says, "making history", but ignoring it.

If Scudamore believes that his plan will enhance English football's reputation abroad, he could not be more wrong. It has already had an adverse effect on England's bid to host the World Cup and the plans have already been rejected by the USA, Asia, and UEFA President Sepp Blatter, who has seen through Scudamore's plan for globalisation for what it really is, a plan to make the rich clubs richer.

Fifa will examine the Premier League's proposals at its executive committee meeting on 14 March.

The Dwain Chambers debate

The Dwain Chambers drug-taking debate has been one of the most controversial sports stories of the past week, dividing sports commentators and dividing athletics fans over whether Chambers should still be allowed to compete.

Dwain Chambers was banned from athletics in 2003 after taking performance-enhancing drugs and served his ban before going into American football in 2006. Because of this change in sports, he has been able to return to athletics, no longer monitored for drugs and therefore illegible to compete in the World Indoor Championships, having been selected.

But what should the stance be on this? LBC (London's Biggest Conversation) Radio presenter, James O'Brien, sums up the different sides of the argument. Should Dwain Chambers be stopped from competing in the World Indoor Championships and any athletics event altogether, or has he served his ban adequately and be allowed to carry on with a clean slate? O'Brien also discusses what the social consequences of the different courses of action available and whether throwing the book at a drugs offender has any positive effect in attempting to rehabilitate them.

O'Brien is quite right to investigate the social consequences of the action taken against Chambers because drug-taking is, first and foremost, a criminal offence. O'Brien's questions whether the full rehabilitation of an athlete like Chambers is the "holy grail of all matters to do with criminal offences in Britain at the moment", and I would say it is. First of all, it is hypocritical for anyone to criticise a person for drug-taking and not to give them credit for rehabilitating. What incentive to rehabilitate does this give to anybody. Secondly, Chambers' ban is comparable with a jail sentence. What I think jail sentences are for is to prepare somebody who is a danger of society to be released back into society without being a danger, so in my eyes, Chambers has the right attitude now and should have his slate wiped clean.

Tanni Grey-Thompson, the woman charged with UK Athletics’ anti-doping review, is certain of her view and believes the book should be well and truly thrown at Chambers. She told Setanta sports: "My view is that an athlete who takes a banned substance should be banned for life and not be able to run for their country again". But my question to her is, 'what about a reformed athlete who has shown remorse for their actions?'. Chambers certainly has done this.

And Chambers could be worse. Compare him with Floyd Landis, the American cyclist who claimed victory in the Tour De France only to test positive for unusually high levels of male testosterone later. Landis later denied cheating.

Perhaps some people do not trust that Chambers really is remorseful about his actions. Either way, it is fair to give him the chance to show that remorse further and would be foolish for the authorities not to keep their options open. Chambers knows he is walking a disciplinary tightrope in the future, so let's give him that chance to prove to himself and Great Britain that he can knuckle down and bring home a gold medal without the illegal substances.

A look at...The Independent

Taking a change from the norm for me today, I picked up a copy of The Independent. Despite its editor being Simon Kelner, a graduate from the same course as me (Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire) and its uniquely eye-catching front pages, I don't usually feel inclined to buy it. This actually surprises me about myself because I do often wish I could read a broadsheet that is less unwieldy than The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, which The Independent certainly is, the first broadsheet to move to a tabloid size.

But during reading it today, that is not the only feature of The Independent that strayed from a traditional broadsheet style. What caught my eye was on page 18, a five-minute interview with TV presenter, Tim Lovejoy (formerly of Sky's SoccerAM), which featured simply 12 listed questions and answers. This surprised me. It led me to think: "Does this really satisfy the newspaper's broadsheet audience?". And my conclusion was "no".

A feature such as this is good for those in the newspaper's audience who would like some lighter reading than usual broadsheet writing, but these people would surely choose a tabloid newspaper for that instead. Therefore, this particular feature serves little purpose in a broadsheet. In my opinion, this feature would not feature in a tabloid newspaper either, unless urgent filling of space was required, what I think its main purpose really is in The Independent.It is more characteristic of a magazine.

Just a small point now, but it surprises me nonetheless. Richard Morgan received a by-line for this interview. For five minutes of interviewing, I wouldn't have expected the newspaper to bother putting a by-line on this feature.