Money makes the ball go rounder

By Paul Flower on Jun 25, 10 10:20 AM

The World Cup comes around every four years; you can't imagine the planning and preparation that go into making it happen, even if you know a little about such things. It is the showpiece event for world football, watched by billions all over the globe.

Given these minor details is it in any way conceivable that the governing bodies would do something ridiculous to ruin the tournament? That they would change something so fundamental that it would render the world's greatest players redundant? These are the questions we have to ask ourselves when considering what they've done to the ball.

In the first few games it was all about the ball, it's too light, too round, it swerves too much, etc. Do we believe that FIFA would sanction a new ball if it proved to be so radically different from 'traditional' balls that it had an effect on games and results? The answer is, unfortunately, of course they would if they were getting enough money to do so.

If you think that modern football is about anything other than money you're clearly insane. Long gone seem to be the days when footballers cared about pride, or their team, the fans or their countrymen, it's all about the wedge. This is not to say they don't react to criticism (witness Rooney's pitiful performance and subsequent whining at being booed), but at the end of the day it's just another game and another pay-cheque.

Yet for all this there have been some interesting results and some unfancied teams dumping the legendary and predictable sides out of the tournament. It'd be lovely and romantic to think that this is largely due to their national pride being greater than ours, but it's more likely to be that their players know they're on the world stage and hence have a very visible way of advertising themselves to richer teams and leagues.

Yeah, it's cynical but no more so than Algeria fielding 8 French-born players or the 2 Polish-born stars of the current German team, you'd think these guys had never had access to a history book; or maybe they're willing to waive years of historical pride and resentment in order to play for the better team, the bigger wage.

As for England, well we all think we could do a better job than the manager - we all think we could pick a better, more coherent team. Possibly Steve McLaren and all of his predecessors thought the same. This said there seems to be a stubborn streak in Fabio that forces him to only pick what he thinks has proved to be successful for the national side.

How else could you explain players being picked to represent England who can't even get into their premiership teams? In some cases (Sean Wright-Phillips for example) they're being kept out of the premiership by other Englishmen who didn't make the squad. The idea of form seems to go out of the window - it only seems to matter if it's been done in an England shirt. Consequently Heskey, who doesn't score anywhere at anytime, still gets picked ahead of Bent, who has a decent premiership scoring record.

Still we cheer them on and this Sunday we'll do the same, however futile it appears and however much we resent the fact that the game has changed so much that it's only the money that really matters