Sportsocracy - 9th Edition - The UEFA Cup final and the dawn of new hooliganism

The UEFA Cup final is definitely a highly regarded trophy in European football. It is a trophy which has had some of the most entertaining finals in history and its legacy still lives on today.

Flashback - Wednesday 14th of May, it is pushing towards the kick off time of 7.45pm and the stage is set.

The City Of Manchester Stadium is the venue and the two teams are ready to battle. Russian 2007 league champions, Zenit St Petersburg faced off against a very defensive, 4-5-1 playing Rangers side who in previous rounds had disposed of European giants such as Werder Bremen, Sporting Lisbon after failing to stay in the Champions League.

Zenit on the other hand started off their UEFA Cup campaign way back on the 16th of August 2007 in the 2nd qualifying round against Slovakian outfit Zlaté Moravce with a dominant two leg thriller with a 5-0 win.

Then in October a 4-1 win over two legs against Belgians Standard Liege led to Zenit qualifying to play in the group stages pitting their wits against England’s top 5 side Everton, Germans Nuremburg, Dutch side AZ Alkmaar and Greek team Larissa.

Little did Zenit know at this time that they would be gracing the UEFA cup final in the following May.

The stages past and both sides made their way and battled through team after team falling in their wake and finally the semi-finals came.

Zenit St Petersburg had to face German stalwarts in Bayern Munich a team full of superstars of world football, such as Franck Ribery, Luca Toni, Miroslav Klose, Ze Roberto and Oliver Kahn.

Zenits top names include captain, Anatoliy Tymoschuk, a Ukranian midfielder with an established reputation in the game from his international World Cup and European championship qualification exploits, he has also had successful spells at Ukranian clubs Volyn Lutsk and Shakhtar Donetsk.

The main man for Zenit, the man who could take a game by the scruff of the neck and the man who Zenit fans pinned their UEFA Cup final winning hopes on, was Andrei Arshavin.

Playmaker and creator, Russian internationalist Arshavin is a Zenit lad through and through playing over 214 matches and accomplishing 47 goals to boot, he has never played in another professional side and shows a loyalty like no other to his club Zenit St Petersburg.

The 26 year old midfielder is a model professional and is the integral cog to manager Dick Advocaat’s team ethic and tactics.

Zenit disposed of Bayern Munich in the semi finals with a shocking 5-1 aggregate win. Zenit top scorer Pavel Pogrebnyak grabbed 2 goals but a yellow card stopped him from taking part in the UEFA Cup final.

Pavel Pogrebnyak was Zenits hero that night, the night Zenit fans will never forget; he laid the foundations for Zenit’s path to the final and took Bayerns top class defenders to the "cleaners".

Zenit had now made the UEFA Cup final after disposing of Villareal, Marseille, Bayer Leverkusen and now Bayern Munich.

Rangers semi final was a different story. They had to face solid opponents in Fiorentina who had disposed Helsingborgs, Tottenham Hotspur and PSV Eindhoven.

Rangers had faced quality teams in previous rounds such as Werder Bremen and Sporting Lisbon but they had not faced the passion that oozed from Italian football.

Rangers knew they had a tough task ahead of them and knew that Fiorentina had the guile and firepower in the tank to cause any team in Europe Problems.

Rangers had rookie keeper Neil Alexander in the goals against Fiorentina but in front of him he had defenders Carlos Cuellar and aged 39 year old David Weir who had both been integral to Rangers campaign.

Rangers had in retrospect defended their way passed every round nicking singular goals or notching up quick doubles to get them by.

Fiorentina had looked comfortable in every round except against Spurs when they had to overcome a penalty shootout which they did but in the next round a 3-1 two leg thrashing of PSV Eindhoven showed what they where all about.

Rangers played Fiorentina and defended their way over two legs to a semi-final penalty shoot out victory, for the record this was one of three penalty shoot outs won by Rangers this season. All what faced them in the final was a well rounded, confident side in Zenit St Petersburg.
The final went ahead, both teams walked out at the city of manchester stadium to a packed stadium.

The Aftermath - Thursday 14th of May, morning 8 am.

The realization of the night before hit the back pages, Zenit crowned UEFA Cup champions with pundits and sportswriters labeling it the Arshavin final, as Andrei Arshavin took Rangers apart for both Zenits two winning goals.

To my surprise the UEFA Cup was also front page news. The stories surrounding the UEFA Cup final crept onto the front pages, shock horror scenes of riots involving Rangers fans assaulting police and stewards.

Screenshots of CCTV footage also appeared in newspapers, and then I switched my attention to the television. News channels had proper action of the riots with key moments including a police man being mobbed by gang of hooligans and being punched and stamped on viciously by the gang.

The gang of hooligans acting like hyenas preying on police and stewards giving good fans and British football a terrible name once again. Their reasons for rioting : - Big Screens went off due to a technical glitch and this obviously made some fans un-easy, so un-easy to the fact they had to lash out.

Most fans, as the CCTV footage showed, of which where already alcohol fuelled due to the celebratory nature of the day, which newscasts showed earlier, turned the day sour. The day was spoiled, and in no way was a glitched big screen a reason for rioting and acts of un-lawful hooligan like behaviour.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/r/rangers/7404660.stm for more information regarding the aftermath of the Manchester riots.

I questioned myself after seeing these violent and shocking images, is this a new dawn of hooliganism? A dawn in which ticketless fans turn up to locations expecting big screen treatment, and cheap booze which leads on to the smallest of things starting riots.

I think this process needs taking back to the drawing board. Ideas will go back and forth but I can never see this new wave of hooliganism being stopped in any other ways than having the appropriate amount of police on the streets.

All I can say is I hope the Austria and Switzerland police forces do not have to deal with as hostile fans at Euro 2008 as we witnessed in the aftermath of the UEFA Cup final in Manchester.

SPORTSOCRACY - 1st Edition - Transfer Window

~ SPORTSOCRACY ~

Welcome, this blog has been created as a nest for the freedom of speech alongside the continuous ongoing world of sport.

Well what the hell is Sportsocracy? a word which was devised by myself and it is a hybrid of two obvious words : -

Sport - An individual or group competitive activity involving physical exertion or skill, governed by rules, and sometimes engaged in professionally.

Democracy - The right to a form of government in which power is invested in the people as a whole, usually exercised on their behalf by elected representatives. Includes freedom of speech.
(Definitions from Encarta online)

Add the two together - Sport + Democracy = Sportsocracy - and created is a world in which we can talk about sport in any manner we please. Freedom of speech with the spoken words of sport.

First topic of discussion - The football transfer window

With the January transfer window due to open in a matter of hours, and football being more money driven than it has ever been before, is it time a new process could be put in place similar to that of the NBA basketball draft system where the worse off teams get the first choices of a selection of draft players who make themselves/or their club makes them available to the transfer draft, also accounted could be swap deals.

For example - John Smiths* contract has ended with Whatever FC, he is now a free agent therefore that would make him out of contract and available for the draft system. This could apply to players who are in contract but want to leave the club they are at so the rules could be changed so a player can buy himself out of his contract after reasonable discussion with his club and therefore his name could then be put in the draft as per a conclusion of the discussion with the clubs hierarchy. (* John Smith is not a real player and is used for example purposes only)

This system could work but it would cut out transfer fees, meaning players wages could rise again and cut out agents when discussing overall transfer fees, which would mean they would push the players wage demands alot higher so the agents still get a cutback which will still be a profit.

For example right now as it stands - If John Smith moves to Real Madrid for 20 million euros/ pounds (or the currency of your choice), he is then subjected to all the usual scenarios club tour before hand, medical etc then a contract is discussed and john smith gets ££££'s per week, possibly above £50,000 a week for a top professional and pushing the £100,000 barrier then he is released to the hungry hounds for questioning as he is unveiled as the next big thing. His old club reaps nearly the entirety of the transfer fee and sits on a pretty pot of close to 20 million quid; obviously the agents involved take a cut also.

Not a bad days profit for his old club, especially if he cost sweet FA and came through the youth system. A positive for his old club yes, they have an instant margin above other clubs as cash in football breaks or makes you. The more cash you have as a club the more doors open for you to buy the better players and offer substantially large wages and bonuses. If you are a freshly promoted side up to the top division in your country, who spends little to gain profit, barriers are already in your way you cannot offer the higher wages or bonus's but you can offer top flight football and a possible below top division level average salary, but that’s were the book shuts unless a player really wants to come to your club, for example Roy Keane’s ambition to finish his playing career at Celtic, loyalty comes into consideration.

The draft could be the next step for football, it could save football and make it ever more interesting, well its got to be better than Platini wanting to rule out the slide tackle, he should be focussing his eyes on simulation (diving) and the introduction of goal line referees/ goal line technology whatever the preference with an added look over the current offside rule to improve it. For example post-draft if it happened - If Manchester United win the English Premier League title in 2009, the following season the 3 clubs coming up from the championship get first choice on the draft of players and the top gets the last pick. The draft system favours the underdogs and in the long run this could make football more appealing to the masses and giving teams a better chance and more of a competitive edge.

Its simple if your fed up of the same old top 3 or 4 clubs every season finishing in the top 3 or 4 places, the draft system could be very appealing. Another example is the SPL (Scottish premier league) - It has been dominated over the past few decades by Celtic and Rangers, this year Scottish football has come to the forefront with Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen still being in European competitions going into the new year, as well as the national team playing some absolute brilliant football possibly down to the inclusion of the ruling that three Scottish under 21 players have to be included in all league starting line ups. This has brought to the forefront some brilliant exuberant talent, Scott Brown (Celtic), Charlie Adam (Rangers), Alan Hutton (Rangers), Christophe Berra (Hearts), Zander Diamond (Aberdeen), Steven Fletcher (Hibernian). This even though this is a good formula for the Scottish international game, on a league level it is still Celtic and Rangers who are dominating the league, the draft system would be perfect for Scottish football.

The draft system definitely has its positives and its negatives, but its the money spinners in football who will not want this to happen. If FIFA chose this system to go worldwide you could imagine the possible mutiny of some of the bigger clubs. In this case the possible worst case scenario for FIFA could happen, the G14 clubs (no its not that Simon Cowell managed quartet, it is all of Europe’s top clubs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G14) could formulate their own Master League, a super league consisting of nearly all of Europe’s major clubs, that is possibly the most important negative argument against the "Draft system".

Any comments will be gladly appreciated.