The Curious Case of the Lost Moral Compass - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Episode Four : A New Trial.....

In a time not so long ago, in a world departed from this reality....

A Man divided opinion of what was right and decent

A Man led a country; All its people, All casts,

All its hopes rested on his shoulders

His Name was John Terry.

The Arab Football Spring - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

The performances of the North African national football sides in 2011 have reflected the political actions of the Arab Spring.

The failure of Egypt, the champions of the past three tournaments, to qualify for the 2012 African Cup of Nations (ACN), alongside the absence of regional heavyweights Cameroon and Nigeria, has thrown the tournament wide open.

English Football Wages: 1984 to 2010 - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Football wages are a ridiculously easy target whether it's the high wages paid by Chelsea and then Manchester City, the astronomical wage bills of Barcelona and Real Madrid fueled by unequal TV deals or the retirement homes that front as football clubs in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, football wages have steadily increased in the last 20-25 years.

Just Play Football - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

If ever there is a time to push football it is when the dark nights draw in and the jackets go on. Push football? I know, we all watch it; comment; log on; and couch surf our way through hundreds of hours of football.

Hearts' Thrashing Shows Financial Fair Play Is Misdirected - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

When Tottenham stepped off the pitch at Tynecastle, having subjected a Hearts team who finished in 3rd place in the SPL last season and briefly looked to challenge the Old Firm duopoly the laments for the state of Scottish football were loud and numerous.

The next step for Financial Fair Play - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

It is fact that the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" in European football grows evermore larger. Last season in the English Premier League proved this adroitly when Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure reportedly earned more per week than the entire Blackpool squad.

Warner And Hammam: Guilty As Charged? - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

The BBC has obtained a document authored by the Carribean Football Union (CFU) detailing claims that Jack Warner had full knowledge of and participated in the distribution of cash bribes to members of the CFU at a special meeting promoting Mohamed Bin Hammam's Fifa presidential bid.

Match fixing investigation threatens to rock Turkish football - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

60 people have been detained as part of a major investigation into alleged fixing within Turkish football. The chairman of current champions Fenerbahce is part of those under arrest by the authorities in the Eastern European country.

Effects of the Financial Fair Play Regulations - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

On the 27th of May 2010, UEFA announced the approval of the Financial Fair Play(FFP) regulations. The aim of these regulations is to make the football clubs self sufficient. With the advent of these sanctions, every football club has to break even i.

Update: The FIFA Ethics Committee has opened proceedings against Jack Warner and Mohammed Bin Hammam over possible charges of bribery (official FIFA statement). The committee is due to meet (and most likely decide) on May 29th, just a couple of days before the June 1 elections date (and funnily enough, on a Sunday, right after the Champions League final).

I was recently interviewed for a Polish newspaper as part of a feature on FIFA ahead of the 1 June elections. The Q&A is below, but as part of the preamble it's important to point two things:

One, journalists and bloggers have very limited attention-spans, and seem incapable of stepping back looking at events in an historical context.

Arsenal used to be the self-proclaimed 'masters' of playing 'pretty football' until their English rivals forced them to seek balance and Barcelona usurped them on the pitch, with two Champions League titles and their players forming the core group of the Spain team that won Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup.

When Deloitte release their annual list of 'Richest Football Clubs', there's plenty of debate on English football's earning power, the individual TV deals negotiated by Real Madrid and Barcelona, Manchester United's position at the top of the Premier League food chain, insane amounts of debt in the game, and so on.

On the surface, the argument makes perfect sense football players, especially young football players should not be asked to play competitive football 11 months out of 12. By asking UEFA to mandate the national European FAs to only select players for one international tournament per season, the European Club Association (ECA) feels that they well prevent burnout / injuries in young prodigies, and thereby not only having them available at the start of each season but also prolonging their careers.

The Olympic Stadium decision will be announced this week, and the biggest question the legacy committee will be asking themselves is what bad things will Karren Brady have to say about them if they rule in favour of Tottenham?

She's conducted herself in a manner any unscrupulous politician in the world would be proud of latched on to one key piece of rhetoric (promises, legacy, equating Tottenham with 'shaming Britain') and subsequently ignored everything tangible about the Tottenham position.