by Sean O'Conor - Most popular for December 2010
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Jonathan Spector must have dreamed of scoring for Manchester United, so yesterday was probably the
next best thing.Spec has had a frustrating 2010, failing to find playing time at the World Cup
while being stuck with superglue to the West Ham bench as the Thames Irons languish at the foot of
the table.
Not long to go now before we know the hosts for World Cups 2018 & 2022.I've been concentrating so
much on the European fist-fight for 2018, forgive me if I haven't studied the following one
in-depth; it seems harder to pin down all the 22 Executive Committee voters' intentions for 2022 as
it is for 2018, but I have a feeling the US' superb bid has the edge over the Spanish-Qatari pact,
It has been a sobering time since FIFA's Executive Committee binned our bids. Often it is better
not to react at once to things that make you emotional, but as the mist clears from Thursday's
decision in Zurich, it is clear the sport's governing body needs reform.Russia had some case - it
might be a 'mafia state' according to the Wikileaks cables but has a long soccer heritage and is an
important
*Too little, too late - We now learn Switzerland's sports minister had ordered an investigation
into "corruption in sport" a month before the controversial World Cup hosting decisions. "It is
clear that Switzerland is obliged to do something," Ueli Maurer announced in response to the
growing allegations of FIFA wrongdoings, which led to the suspension of two Ex.
I disagree - Our FIFA Vice-President & CONCACAF boss is the most decent and honorable man in the
history of world soccer: He provides us with World Cup tickets at no personal cost to himself and
has promised us all World Cup votes, in 2026 - he just accidentally mis-laid some last week.Here's
our Jack, after getting stuck in traffic, bringing hope to Haiti (skip to 6:25), and here's a
reminder of
Spare a thought for Australia, whose ambitious bid, ticking all the right FIFA boxes for 'legacy'
and 'new lands', came in dead last for 2022 with only one vote, even worse than England's 2018
shipwreck. They had been expecting six in the first round.Soccer is Oz could have done with a World
Cup as it is still considered an immigrant sport by many fans of the longer-established Aussie
Rules and
* World Player of the Year Lionel Messi will "never play for Real Madrid", according to his dad
Jorge, who looks almost younger than his son."Barcelona is the ideology of football around the
world, not just in Spain," he told Marca.Is this the same F.C.Barcelona who having flaunted their
commercial-free jerseys and support of Unicef for years because they are 'més que un club' (more
than a
*On the last day in 2010 for most European leagues, there were slim pickings here with the heavy
snow canceling many matches; Ipswich's 3-0 win over Leicester in the Championship was straight out
of the playground, with blue lines and an orange ball, fiery Roy Keane versus ice-cool Sven-Goran
Eriksson and the 'ghost-goal' referee Stuart Atwell stopping the game twice before continuing, in
