Let's all pray for Barry

Posted on 26/05/2010

Gareth Barry’s scan proved inconclusive, leading Fabio Capello to hand him extra time to prove his fitness for the World Cup. And the Daily Mirror’s Oliver Holt feels it is astounding that the injury has not been given the importance as the Beckham and Rooney metatarsals of previous tournaments.

There is one question that needs to be asked above all others in the aftermath of England's game against Mexico on Monday night. Why aren't we praying for Gareth Barry's ankle?

Somehow we don't seem as devoted to it as we were to the Rooney metatarsal and, before that, the Beckham foot. There haven't been any life-size cut-outs of the Barry ankle in the newspapers yet. Uri Geller hasn't popped up on GMTV calling on the nation to unleash its healing powers on Barry's damaged ligaments. There wasn't a squadron of news helicopters flying above Barry's car on the way to the hospital where he had his tests yesterday. There weren't batteries of television cameras to film him coming out of the hospital, like there were when Rooney was passed fit before the 2006 World Cup. We didn't know the name of the hospital. We didn't have a detailed breakdown of the tests he was doing.

Because Barry's ankle is as important to England's World Cup hopes this summer as Rooney's metatarsal in 2006 and Beckham's foot in 2002.

Barry might not have the same charisma as Beckham or Rooney or appear in quite as many commercials. He might not be capable of producing a game-changing moment of brilliance like Rooney. Or of bending in a last-minute winner from a free-kick like Beckham. There's nothing spectacular about Barry.

But England's defensive vulnerability against Mexico on Monday night proved what we already knew: without Barry, Fabio Capello's England side is not the same.

The freewheeling must stop

Michel Platini’s vision to bring financial stability to the game takes a step forward on Thursday when Uefa's "financial fair play" rules are introduced. A host of Premier League clubs will need to cut their cloth to meet the criteria to enable them to play in European competition and David Conn warns in the Guardian that “freewheeling culture” will have to come to an end.

At Uefa's pine and glass headquarters on the banks of Lake Geneva tomorrow, European football's governing body will enshrine a rule designed to wrestle football's financial frenzy into some saner shape. The product of almost three years work since Uefa's president, Michel Platini, expressed alarm at the "danger to football" of debt, overspending and "rampant commercialism", Uefa's executive committee will approve the "financial fair play" regulations.

Its principle, after so many years of the football public here being told there is no alternative to the game being a toy of the free market, is heartbreakingly simple. From 2012-13, just two years' time, clubs who wish to play in European competitions must not spend more than they earn. That, in a nutshell, is it.

Ratification of the rule tomorrow will conclude a remarkable journey for an idea, developed from Platini's something-must-be-done cri de coeur to detailed regulations requiring most clubs to change completely their freewheeling behaviour. The Premier League fought for owners still to be allowed to subsidise players wages, but was overruled and will fall into line. Since the global financial crisis bit and Portsmouth's hideous £122.8m insolvency, several of the league's own clubs have recognised they must try to rein in overspending, and the league has introduced its own measures aimed at better financial regulation. Rather than rail against Uefa, the Premier League will seek to help its clubs try to break even.

That acceptance represents a journey, too, for Richard Scudamore, the Premier League's chief executive, who in September 2007 dismissed Platini's complaints about "rampant commercialism" as "not much above the view of people in the corner of the pub".

Platini laughed then, stressing how comfortable he is talking to fans in a pub. The Uefa president, a former playing great and France national coach, learned much about football's significance in a bar in Joeuf, the mining town of his birth, where his father organised the local club from which his son embarked on a meteoric career. For Platini, the heart of the game remains the one he absorbed in that smoky French bar.

Uefa's achievement is to have translated its president's gut instinct into a workable rule. The genesis of "financial fair play" followed a visit to the US in February 2008 by three Uefa executives, Andrea Traverso, now head of club licensing, Gianni Infantino, the current general secretary, and William Gaillard, Platini's special adviser. They examined the NFL, NBA, Major League Soccer and other US sports, to understand how rules including salary-capping have kept clubs roughly equal and financially healthy, and the competitions so commercially successful.

They concluded that salary caps would be difficult to introduce here due to European free market rules, but financial stability was a vital step towards a healthier game. Once clubs are living within their means, Uefa and the national competitions can look at how to share money more evenly, so that the richest clubs' dominance is not further entrenched.

Until then, although every Platini utterance has been painted by some as anti-Premier League rhetoric, the English top flight should have an advantage, because it makes the most money, from expensive Sky TV subscriptions and match tickets, and the newly minted £1.2bn three-year overseas TV deals.

Platini and his team have shown true leadership, cutting through the flannel that nothing can be done, achieving Europe-wide agreement for an actual rule to help restore football to balance. The rule's introduction will reinforce powerfully here the howling need for a strong, independent-minded Football Association to be a governing body, rather than, since the exits of Lord Triesman and Ian Watmore, the sad vacuum we currently have.

Game ripe for corruption

There are fresh revelations about match fixing in County cricket and former England captain Michael Vaughan tells the Telegraph that the situation leaves itself open to manipulation.

Match-fixing in county cricket is a real threat and this news could be just the tip of the iceberg. By speaking out I hope this player will shame others – and I am sure more players have been approached – into also going public.

In the past players have laughed off such approaches, but now they must reveal the danger the game is facing. Its credibility is at stake. Our game is ripe for corruption. That was always going to be the case as soon as county cricket was beamed abroad, which increased its exposure. From that moment on huge sums were being wagered on county matches. You cannot blame the ECB for cashing in on an overseas broadcast, but this is the unwanted side effect.