Matt Scott – Inside World Football

Matt Scott: £50m footballers are two a penny – but we have been there before

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 09:21:25 +0000

“We must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow.” Dwight D Eisenhower

As the Supreme Commander of the allies’ war effort in the European theatre during World War Two who went on to become president, ‘Ike’ knew a bit about budgets. He was fortunate as the 34th President of the US to lead the world’s biggest economy during rampant boom time,

Matt Scott: ‘Bung’ revelations are just grist to the media mill, not cause for regulation

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:20:19 +0000

“The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” John Stuart Mill

Greed, egotism, immorality and corruption. These are the vices of which some of the highest-profile figures in English football have been accused as a result of the Daily Telegraph’s undercover exposé of the game. Quite rightly, people ask how can a nation such as ours,

The latest Greek affair shows how Infantino and Theodoridis are not Knights in shining armour

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:28:10 +0000

“Politics, these days, is no occupation for an educated man, a man of character. Ignorance and total lousiness are better.” Aristophanes, The Knights

There was of course no football 2,400 years ago when Aristophanes was writing his plays, and still less a FIFA or UEFA. But were the Old Comedian to be as popular a satirist now as he was then, he might be expected to use the same words to describe the people who have been governing our game for us as he used to describe the polis of ancient Athens.

Matt Scott: UEFA’s oversight on Olympiacos has opened dangerous ground

Paul Nicholson — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 10:50:52 +0000

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Juvenal, Satires

“Who watches the watchmen?” This question, first posed by classical writers thousands of years ago, is perhaps one we would do well to ask ourselves now, as civil liberties hard won in the second millennium are gradually eroded in the third.

Still, this is a column about football, and it pains me to say that there is cause to ask the same question of our game today.

Matt Scott: Infantino has not got UEFA’s house in order. So why let him into FIFA House?

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:17:40 +0000

“Birds of a feather flock together.” Aesop

When Sepp Blatter gave an interview to the Tass news agency recently it made headlines everywhere. The Football Association chairman, Greg Dyke, even took what Blatter had said to the British parliament. The widespread outrage arose from Blatter’s claim that he had intended to stitch up the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding in favour of the US and Russian World Cups.

Matt Scott: FIFA’S tangled web looks like a snare from which there is no escape

Paul Nicholson — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 10:46:37 +0000

“O what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!” Sir Walter Scott, Marmion

Sir Walter Scott’s Lord Marmion was a much dislikeable character. Having taken a nun for his mistress Marmion confected a tale of treason to have a man exiled so that he could make a play for his betrothed. Upon doing so he discarded the nun to her fate, which was to be bricked up alive in her convent cell for breaking her vows.

Matt Scott: Is FIFA immoral? If so the Swiss will soon wind it up

Paul Nicholson — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 12:45:46 +0000

“We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our body, which is doomed to decay… from the external world which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless force of destruction, and finally from our relations with other men.” Sigmund Freud

Nothing lasts forever, that much is clear. But the destruction that is in any case inevitable can be hastened by factors not always beyond our control. Freud was writing about the course of civilisation at large when he penned the words above but they apply in equal measure to FIFA right now.

Matt Scott: Bolton have lost their power. It won’t be long before the lights go out

Paul Nicholson — Sat, 21 Nov 2015 20:10:09 +0000

“I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor.” Arthur Conan Doyle

Electricity is a wonderful, life-giving force. The defibrillator whose high-voltage pulse revives the dead from cardiac arrest; the electrical storm that destroys forest deadwood to give way to new growth beneath; the power that animates a television. It illuminates the floodlights that give us night football and, figuratively, it gives us the best of those nights when the atmosphere is electric.

Matt Scott: The blessings of St Mary’s are no miracle

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 13:45:56 +0000

“For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” Mary’s Song, Luke 1:48, King James Bible

The meteoric rise of Southampton has been lauded by many as one of the truly great football achievements of our times. As recently as 2011, the 32,505-seat St Mary’s Stadium was home to a club in League One, England’s third tier.

There followed successive automatic promotions,

Matt Scott: Klopp teams work hard. But rigour alone can never attain high virtue

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 00:53:22 +0000

“Pacience is an heigh vertu, certeyn, For it venquysseth… Thyneges that rigour sholde nevere atteyne.” Geoffrey Chaucer, the Franklin’s Tale

The Franklin was the 20th of Chaucer’s pilgrims to give his tale and, like so many of his fellow travellers en route to Canterbury, he gave forth on the secrets of success in love. Thus did England’s earliest literary great teach us a lesson about the virtues of patience.

Matt Scott: Think Platini’s been taking bribes? It’s time to assess the facts

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:34:44 +0000

Everyone knows that putting living things in a vacuum is not to be advised. Apparently the tongue dries up and becomes covered in ice as consciousness is lost. Expulsion of digestive gases causes unpleasant things to happen with bodily fluids. The entire body then swells like a balloon and eventually the subject suffers fatal cardiac arrest. It is very nasty indeed.

If a reputation comes under attack and it is left alone in an information vacuum,

Matt Scott: Home comforts are stifling for Englishmen’s football ambitions

Paul Nicholson — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 03:22:18 +0000

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” Jane Austen, Emma

Jane Austen’s fourth novel was published on Christmas Day in 1815 the Vienna peace accord had brought the Napoleonic wars to a close. With it began a century-long era of British commercial dominance through an empire whose roots had already begun to take hold with territories in Newfoundland, the Caribbean, west and South Africa, India and Australia.

Matt Scott: Why the embers of past court battles could be fanned into a fire engulfing Blatter

Paul Nicholson — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 03:13:07 +0000

“Il n’y a pas le feu au lac” – “The lake’s not on fire.” Swiss saying

If the famous Lake Geneva is not painting the sky with flames – and, quite obviously, it never has nor will – it’s said to be difficult to rouse a Swiss to any sense of urgency. Other French-speaking nations believe that in the land of the cuckoo clock and precision watches, time moves slowly.

Matt Scott: Liverpool lose out in football’s arms race. Don’t blame Rodgers

Paul Nicholson — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 21:56:24 +0000

“We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.” John F Kennedy

Strategy for both the Eastern bloc and the NATO allies during the Cold War was simple: arm yourselves to the teeth until the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction guaranteed neither side would be stupid enough to go to war.

Matt Scott: Wolves’ Morgan has done well on house that Sir Jack built

Paul Nicholson — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 10:36:11 +0000

“Si monumentum requiris circumspice [If you seek his monument, look around]” Christopher Wren, epitaph on Wren’s tomb

Ever since the Great Fire of London devastated its capital, Great Britain and its inhabitants have had an obsession with architecture. It is a nation that has spawned many Great Builders, such that naming only Wren, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Sir Joseph Bazalgette or Sir George Gilbert Scott is to commit a gross injustice to the others who came before and after them.

Matt Scott: Debts are no longer a taxing issue for the big clubs

Paul Nicholson — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 07:07:34 +0000

“If you owe your bank a hundred pounds, you have a problem. But if you owe a million, it has.” John Maynard Keynes

Like him or loathe him – and he splits opinion as surely as Marmite – John Maynard Keynes was one of history’s greatest minds. His writing has formed the basis of the modern economic system. (Although what he taught has been treated as a piecemeal buffet from which to pick and choose according to political expediency,