Football's fate worse than death: stupidity

Relegation from the English Premier League is costly, we get it*. It’s therefore to be avoided – especially when you have spent (or are spending) a ton of money to get to your current elevated perch of seventeenth-best club in the nation.

For Chris Hughton, manager of Norwich City, apparently it’s more than that – it’s “a matter of life and death”. He’s been told that by his CEO at the Canaries, David McNally, so it must be true. Should his club fall into the relegation zone, his position becomes forfeit and the club will spuriously employ someone(s) else in an attempt to stop losing both matches and eventually money.

Norwich City fans have every right to be a “fine” with McNally’s statement. Death is not nice, even in a sporting sense. It would be a horrible thing to see the Canaries wink out of existence altogether. On the other hand, relegation merely would be a fiscal encumbrance (and would presumably lead to the knock-on departures of key players Gary Hooper, Leroy Fer and Wes Hoolahan).

There’s a difference between “death” and financially disadvantaged – even Paris Hilton manages to distinguish between the two.

Even though Norwich City are a club that don’t feature a Sugar Daddy, as a Premiership team they are privileged to receive a wonderful income as a result of their past successes in League One and the Championship. For a CEO to advertise the loss of those revenues as a tragedy akin to death is insensitive, arrant nonsense.

Taking death at its most simplest definition, McNally's comments are shown in an extremely poor light by the deaths of migrants working on Qatari stadia for the entertainment of football fans and fatuous glorification of the hosts.

In a sporting sense, comparing a season or two (or ten) outside the Premiership to ceasing to exist is … unnerving. It’s also an undeserved rebuke to the fans of Wimbledon, Darlington, Chester City or any club unfortunate enough to have folded during the Premiership’s money-hungry existence.

Philosophers don't come more unlikely than Arnold Judas Rimmer. Red Dwarf's cowardly antagonist was, however, on occasion wont to wax poetic and deep. In the final moments of the last episode of Season Six, he conjured up one of these moments stating "Better dead than smeg". With his greedy insensitivity, David McNally has apparently made the opposite choice.

* It’s both remarkable and extremely funny that an article on English football is posted under “highbrow sports”.

Graphic: English Premier League promotion survival rates, 2013-14

(c) Balanced Sports

The graphic above details the prospects of each team that has been promoted to the English Premiership since its institution in 1992-93. Blue indicates the number of years spent in the top flight after a club's initial promotion, green the number of years after a consequent promotion and red indicates a year spent outside the top division.

2022 World Cup meaningless amidst further deaths

Milo and Otis redefined the whole feline/canine relationship movie. At least to a child, it did. It featured a beautiful ginger kitten and his buddy, a Pug, heading off on an incredible journey. It was one of the most successful kid’s movies of 1986 and had even the most grizzled, Star-Wars-obsessed seven-year-olds transfixed by its simple beauty.

Until we found out that that adorable ginger kitten was probably at least 20 adorable ginger kittens that just happened to look the same. Numerous reports have the animal cruelty budget on the project far exceeding the monies devoted to Dudley Moore’s voiceovers; those of us who experienced wholesome joy on first viewing now cleanse ourselves occasionally with scouring pads at once innocent memories.

via en.wikipedia.org

Two recent news reports over the past week have thrown yet further doubt over the qualifications of Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup. The first, filed last week, has FIFA “seriously considering” moving football’s flagship event from the successful bidder due to concerns about possible human rights violations inflicted upon Nepalese workers involved in the construction of the tournament’s stadia.

This was followed on Tuesday by The Guardian reporting that over 500 Indian workers had died in Qatar since 2012. While totals are of course vague, this suggests that nearly 1000 underprivileged migrant workers have been effectively sacrificed in the past two years to construct state-of-the-art arenas for a country that boasts the world’s highest per-capita income.

The Indian consulate have confirmed that 717 Indian nationals have died in Qatar since the World Cup was awarded to the Gulf nation in December 2010, with some estimates of the death toll before 2022 stretching north of 4000. In the article by the Guardian, the Qatari Labor and Social affairs ministry were quoted as “clarifying” the numbers.

Precisely what that clarification involves is still to be determined.

Even yesterday, FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter has suggested that Qatar’s host status is not under threat.

It’s time for football fans to say that the 2022 World Cup has no place in football. While it’s logical to assume that not all of these fatalities relate to World Cup construction, part of the tournament’s mission is to advance FIFA’s mission, which is to “develop the game, touch the world, build a better future”*.

FIFA’s better future obviously doesn’t extend to the families of the deceased workers.

On FIFA’s website, Joseph S. Blatter personally signs off on a phrase that should doom the Qatar World Cup, but seemingly hasn’t: “We see it as our duty to take on the social responsibility that comes hand in hand with our position at the helm of the world’s most loved sport”. That a member state works employees in such conditions as the Guardian and other sources describe so as to run a sanctioned tournament is comment enough on how seriously FIFA take their own mission statement.

Football fans must announce loudly to FIFA that they care more about the thousand-plus unfortunate workers – and the many more that continue to work under harsh Qatari conditions – than they do about watching an event tarnished by blood of this magnitude. In selling the event to Qatar, FIFA have embraced a nation whose ethic on immigrant rights is not only outdated, it does not reflect that of much of the world and deserves only the loudest and most strident condemnation.

Given FIFA’s (and Qatar’s) governance, the only way to effect change is to ignore the Cup. This might be a hardship, but a necessary one that protests the blind eye that the game’s governing body has turned to the plight of immigrant workers in FIFA’s tiniest powerhouse nation. As a football populace, we can’t ignore those deaths either and the responsibility rests with us to become agents of change – and the only way we can catalyse this is making ourselves heard, and by refusing to invest financially or ethically in a broken and self-centered institution.

It asks much of football fans to boycott a World Cup, but there are more important matters at stake than pride in a national sporting ability.

*(FIFA also suggests on its homepage that it stands for “authenticity, unity, performance and integrity. Make of this what you will).

How much has Mitchell Johnson carried Australia?

This post isn't so much an answer to the question above, but a graphical comparison of how Mitchell Johnson - once so maligned, so fragile - and his fellow bowlers have stacked up over his six-Test run of supreme dominance.

Times past, the presence of a dominant bowler led to unnerved batsmen taking unwise risks against good quality flingers from the other end - it's a phenomenon noted as early as Bill Lawry's immortal tome, Run Digger when the fearsome pace and questionable action Charlie Griffith had the Australians touring the Windies in 1964-65 take risks against Wes Hall.

The alternate sees one bowler collecting on the fine work of a group - while still requiring much of the bowler, extra pressure exerted by his teammates plays on batsmen's minds and creates more wicket-taking opportunities. For examples of this, see the West Indian attacks of the 1980s and almost any Australian attack from 1993 to 2007.

This Australian attack isn't necessarily one to be feared (they had a bowling strength of 28.58 for the second innings at Centurion, a good-but-not-great score), but they do their job. It turns out they're really good at doing a job.

Just how good has Mitchell Johnson been?

That good.

Not only has Johnson lowered all the three key bowling stats since his last Test bow in last year's ill-fated tour to India, but he has (mostly) done so by an astonishing margin. For a player with 50 Tests' experience to lower his bowling average by a full 11% and Strike Rate by 10% is, well, almost unprecedented.

Markus Rosenberg donates big to charity: precedent or perception?

When we think about footballers and money, it’s usually because the most interesting ones make a lot of it. Like, a lot lot. And the more I think about what footballers have to go through what with the tabloids, existential uncertainty and with respect to the overall revenue sharing picture, the more I think at least a portion of this is justified.

You rarely hear about the philanthropic works of footballers, or at least they are rarely highlighted when compared to the frequency of “pay me more to show me respect” stories. Sometimes, even, stories of athletes and their charitable interests sound downright shady. The most high-profile examples of laudable footballing charities include Craig Bellamy’s academy in Sierra Leone and almost the entire Football League’s involvement in the Kick It Out program.

Sweden striker Markus Rosenberg made a wonderful gesture today by donated his Midlands’ home furnishings to a local charity upon mutually leaving West Bromwich Albion. The charity, Sue Ryder, provides care for those who suffer from debilitating and terminal illnesses. It doesn’t matter if this gesture was a caring gift or a player just wanting to get out of town in a hurry, those who come out of this the best are seriously ill people who need help because of the circumstances they face.

In any case, congratulations, Markus Rosenberg and thank you. Good luck in Sweden.

We often criticize players for self interest in what is supposed to be a team game. But that team game requires a player to highlight his own performance in order to attract financial rewards or perks, a situation easily mistaken for narcissism. Football stars have long been unfairly perceived as heroes but as stories of excess overtake those of community contribution that view has become embedded with real life grit – many are now more can’t-look-away antiheroes than Supermen.

Fans get our information from sources that suit us and take into account that information’s credibility, brevity and spin. Even though newspapers and the internet can publish in colour now, the shorter-format written word can’t help but be more monochromatic. The result is the perception that all footballers are indolent, uneducated egotists who are often very good at making us happy.

Part of this is very much down to the altered view of reality that is created by the locker room. In England this most often manifests in examples of luxuriant spending perceived as far more newsworthy by info-peddlers than community projects that are brought about by high wages. It’s possible that players giving the inside of their house to charity doesn’t happen very often. But, it’s just as possible that it does and we just don’t know about it. Taking cues from TV and cinema, the press assumes we like our heroes dirty.

There is space in the world for clean cut figures to idolize in the sports arena. This act by Markus Rosenberg is a generous (but not heroic – Jason McCartney, that’s a sporting hero) one and hopefully one that starts a trend towards footballers monetarily contributing back to the communities that earn them such attention.

Luis Suarez, cultivator of chaos

Luis Suarez just can’t be stopped.

Despite claims to being the Premiership’s best player last season, the Liverpool forward has been nothing short of astonishing during 2013-14. A year ago he was creative – generating 5.7 shots per game – but perhaps a little profligate despite returns of 20 goals in 33 matches.

While his shot attempts have dipped slightly to 5.4/game, those attempts now realize 1.2 goals per contest.  Aided by a more embedded and threatening supporting cast, Luis Suarez is now more dangerous than during his prior lone wolf role. As you can see in the chart below, he is actually perhaps the devastating forward in Europe this term.

Alongside a similar sizeable increase from compatriot Daniel Sturridge (from 16% to 26%) and a very settled Liverpool lineup – this newfound ability to capitalize on chances created has been crucial to Liverpool’s rise from shot-happy Europa League entrant to title contenders.

Plus/minus: Aston Villa, Cardiff City, Manchester United, Southampton & Tottenham Hotspur - 11th February 2014

Aston Villa (GD: -9)

Player	G	Min	GS	GA	+/-	Scored/90	Conc/90
Guzan	25	2250	27	36	-9	1.080	1.440
Westwood	22	1973	22	33	-11	1.004	1.505
Delph	22	1923	25	29	-4	1.170	1.357
Clark	22	1845	25	30	-5	1.220	1.463
Weimann	24	1746	22	26	-4	1.134	1.340
Bacuna	23	1707	21	26	-5	1.107	1.371
Benteke	20	1638	19	28	-9	1.044	1.538
Vlaar	19	1635	23	22	1	1.266	1.211
Agbonlahor	19	1572	16	24	-8	0.916	1.374
El Ahmadi	21	1502	19	28	-9	1.138	1.678
Baker	18	1394	14	23	-9	0.904	1.485
Luna	17	1381	15	18	-3	0.978	1.173
Lowton	16	1266	17	22	-5	1.209	1.564
Kozak	14	781	10	9	1	1.152	1.037
Tonev	15	553	5	6	-1	0.814	0.976
Sylla	9	462	5	7	-2	0.974	1.364
Albrighton	9	364	2	7	-5	0.495	1.731
Bertrand	4	335	7	9	-2	1.881	2.418
Herd	2	171	1	4	-3	0.526	2.105
Okore	3	167	1	3	-2	0.539	1.617
Holt	4	146	1	1	0	0.616	0.616
Bowery	5	63	0	2	-2	0.000	2.857
Helenius	3	49	0	1	-1	0.000	1.837
Bennett	1	16	0	0	0	0.000	0.000