SONGS AND STORIES: EURO 2012'S HIT-AND-MISS-LIST

A sure sign that a major tournament is approaching is when official team songs, and those from various artists which are less than official, start springing up all over the place. It should be pointed out that the official team song is a dying breed; rather, there is an increasing trend for national football associations to "sanction" a song as its official ditty for a particular tournament. There is always a huge variety of styles, of course, not to mention a huge variation in quality. Here is a list of some of the best - and worst - from this time around. Judge for yourself which is which, and be warned, you might not like what you hear..

Poland's official Euro 2012 song, "Koko Euro Spoko" ("Koko Euro OK"; the word "koko" is apparently not used as a slang word for cocaine in Poland, as was claimed in various articles, but in this case refers to the singers' home village of Kocudza), is sung by a group of eight women, aged between 33 and 82 years old, who call themselves Jarzebiny and hail from the south of the country, singing all the while dressed in traditional Polish garb. The song is based on a traditional Polish tune, and has apparently been used by a Polish pharmaceutical company in one of its adverts, taking advantage that traditional music is not covered under Polish copyright law.

Remixes of the song, which was chosen after a SMS poll, organised at the beginning of May by the Polish FA and various media organisations such as the state TV company TVP1, abound on the internet. Like it or not, you may well be hearing plenty of it during Euro 2012 - the song will be played as the Polish team walks on to the pitch before each game at the tournament - and the chorus is infernally catchy as well.

Germany's official song, "Für Nichts Auf Dieser Welt" ("For Nothing In This World"), was recorded by Roger Cicero, a Berlin-born jazz musician who was the German entry at the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest, and is featured on Cicero's latest album, "In Diesem Moment" ("At This Moment"). According to the German general team-manager, Oliver Bierhoff, the music resembles how the Nationalmannschaft plays, using "creativity, enthusiasm and boundless energy - these are the qualities that the team shows on the pitch, exactly like Roger Cicero and his band on stage." Judge for yourself:
http://www.em2012-infos.de/offizieller-em2012-song-von-roger-cicero-fuer-nichts-auf-dieser-welt/

The Football Association of Ireland, meanwhile, always, always produce a team song for a major championship, from the sublime "Put 'Em Under Pressure" from Italia '90 to the slightly less than memorable "Here Come The Good Times" from the 2002 World Cup. Plenty more songs are released by artistes (again, of varying quality) aiming to cash in on the excitement around a major tournament. This time round, the Boys In Green, together with The Dubliners, The Coronas, Bressie and Damien Dempsey, have recorded a song entitled "The Rocky Road To Poland."

The song, sung to the melody of the old folk-song "The Rocky Road To Dublin," comes with the lyrics chosen from the submissions of thousands of listeners to Ray D'Arcy's (remember him from, for example, the "The Christmas No. 1" hit, performed together with Zig & Zag?) programme on Today FM. This effort is, to be frank, a bit bland, but it is a football song, so lyrical perfection and an original score are not always to be expected. It's also for charity, so that is at least one good reason to buy the CD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5aZjE15Ye0

Many artists try and put their work forward as being the "official" song of their particular country's association, and, just to reiterate, many an Irish artist has attempted to do the same. One song which in no way pretends to gain official recognition by the FAI is "We All Get Nil Together" by Il Trapps. Nothing wrong with a bit of humour/irony (or is that realism?), and when added to a decent melody, you end up with that thing of rarity: a real football song of rare quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpvZnWsvuUk
 
Meanwhile, Russia's official song, "This Is Our Game, features an orchestra, half-a-dozen kids, a septugenarian on the piano and three vocalists, Alexei Goman, Alexandr Marshall and Alexandr F. Sklar, and is what one could call a typically Russian song with a jaunty air which resembles a reworked version of any Latin American national anthem you like. Not only that, it has a catchy chorus (music-wise, of course), so, if you, dear reader, are anything like your correspondent, you will be humming it before you know it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuV0ZczFX-k

The Danish team were treated to a modest little bit of flash-mobbing, organised by Danske Opbakning (Danish Support) before they set off for Poland a couple of days ago, a supporters' group sponsored (at least) by one of Denmark's leading banks. The Landsholdet appear in the video - but do not sing, though Liverpool's Daniel Agger gets to show off his tattoos - for their official Euro 2012 effort, "Vi Vandt I Dag" ("We Won Today"), which was penned and performed by fellow countrymen Nik & Jay. The song is still hovering around the lower reaches of the Danish Top 20, having reached as high as number 5.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bijAZDGIb0

There was no song contest in Denmark to decide which song would be put forward as the official song of the Dansk Boldspil Union (DBU), though the DR television station programme Aftenshowet has organised a competition for the best unofficial song (the first two songs at least are available to view on the internet via good old YouTube) to compliment Nik & Jay's piece, and should you decide to improve your Danish, here's the link to the competition:

http://www.dr.dk/DR1/Aftenshowet/Artikler/2012/06/07150259.htm


England's official song, "Unbelievable!" is sung by ex-footballer Chris Kamara, with backing from Joe Public Utd, and the backdrop to the video looks like it was shot at an England Defence League meeting in a local pub in the depths of Kent. Apart from that, the song, a decent effort in itself, was recently officially "endorsed" by the FA, and was released in aid of the Marie Curie Cancer Care charity. Needless to say, there was a stampede of songs from artists claiming to have written the official number, but it was the song sung by Kamara, who - along with the new Liverpool manager, Brendan Rogers - climbed Kilimanjaro last year in aid of the MCCC charity, which won the FA's backing last month.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBs-VjRfiWg

Several members of the Spanish squad, who you will no doubt recognise so there's no need to name them here, took part in the video for the team's official song, and added a little bit of, erm, backing vocals as well. The song in question is "Showtime 2.0" from Estopa, and was released in conjunction with the RFEF (Real Federación Española de Fútbol) and the AFE (Asociación de Fútbolistas Españoles), the Spanish players' union. Monies raised by sales of the song will go towards several projects using football as a tool to help (re-)integrate those living on the margins of Spanish society, and it's a pretty good little number to boot.

http://www.heraldo.es/noticias/suplementos/eurocopa_2012/2012/06/04/estopa_estrena_showtime_cancion_oficial_apoyo_seleccion_190426_1161026.html

Holland does not have an official song this time round as such, but one which is being touted as such and features the national squad is actually an advert for a Dutch supermarket chain. The song, "Geef Oranje Vleugels" ("Give Oranje Wings"), sung to a familiar melody by Wouter Kroes and Ernst Daniël Smid, with a contribution from rapper Yes-R, and which features a large slice of Bert van Marwijk's team together with a cast of thousands in the advert,/video - delete according to preference - is probably the first semi-semi-official (for want of a better description) football song for a national team which features the word "shit." Now there's a word which would probably describe this song down to a tee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=3oIq9ktJrY4&NR=1

Speaking of which, Wilfred Genee and Johan Derksen (accompanied by several Dutch pop "legends"), who now present the football chat-show Voetbal International on the Dutch commercial television station RTL7, have also released an album for Euro 2012 called "De Helden Van Oranje" ("The Heroes Of Oranje"). To get an idea of how the album sounds, have a go at one of the songs featured on same, "Nederland Is Helemaal Oranje" ("Holland Is Totally Oranje"). At least Dirksen, a former footballer, had the honesty to say that he despised the type of music they were singing; anyone who has ever been to anywhere outside Amsterdam on a Friday night will instantly know what he meant and, if they have any sense, dive for cover as soon as they hear this particular number..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAp55BMuq2M&feature=related

There is also, by the way, an official UEFA song for Euro 2012, and it follows in the wake of efforts by artists such as Shakira, Dario G, Toni Braxton and E-Type down the years for football tournaments from 1996 on. "Endless Summer" by German artiste Oceana was selected by UEFA. Reviews of the song have been mixed, but it is infinitely more preferable than the efforts of the more internationally-acclaimed artistes mentioned earlier in this paragraph. In light of the recent rumbles about racism in Poland and Ukraine, "Let your love shine all around" might not be such an apt one-liner to take from the song, however.. Even so, the 30-year-old's song is probably the best number to have been chosen as a tournament's official song since Nelly Furtado's "Força" was chosen as the sound of Euro 2004.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EVhiBGvVFc&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=SPDC32FB9663A668A7

If you feel up to it, dear reader, you should be able to get through the above little musical meander between a couple of games in the group stages, safe in the knowledge that it represents only a tiny fraction of songs released by has-beens, never-weres, never-will-bes and those looking for a way into the "big time", all in "honour" of Euro 2012. Whether you like it or not, you will be hearing a lot more of "Endless Summer" during the tournament..and, who knows, maybe even a little bit of "Koko Euro OK" from time to time as well. It may also be a springboard to success for Oceana, who has enjoyed only moderate success in her musical career thus far. Have a listen to all of the above - if you dare - and enjoy the football..
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Those fine websites Thee Bleacher Report and 101 Great Goals are in part responsible for the musical carnage that this article will create.
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FOOTBALL BLOGGING AWARDS 2012: In an act of unapologetic, not to mention unashamed, self-promotion, Pat's Football Blog has nominated itself in the Male category of this year's Football Blogging awards, which will take place in Manchester in July.

To vote via Facebook, kindly go to the Football Blogging Awards page. To vote via Twitter, tweet to @TheFBAs, with your username and #Male (category). There are several categories, and it's up to you who you vote for, of course, but a vote for Pat's Football Blog will always be very welcome. After all, it isn't your everyday blog..

For more information on the awards, please go to:

www.footballbloggingawards.co.uk/

2012 VIVA WORLD CUP FIXTURE-LIST

The first half of June 2012 sees the start of a number of international tournaments; the 2012 OFC Nations Cup, held in Honiara, capital city of the Solomon Islands, has already reached half-way through the group matches, while the 2012 European Championship begins on 8/6/12. The Euros will, understandably, attract most of the media attention; however, alongside Euro 2012 and the OFC Nations Cup, another international competition is about to start - the 2012 Viva World Cup.

Many readers of this blog may know nothing about the competition or the organisation running the event - the NF-Board (New Federation Board), which was founded in Brussels in 2003, and its principal aim was to provide an opportunity for those nations, regions and communities which found themselves outside the jurisdiction of FIFA to compete against each other, both in friendlies and international competition. At the moment, 31 organisations are either full, associate or provisional members of the NF-Board.

The 2012 version of the Viva World Cup will be the fifth such tournament in the competition's history, and will take place in the Iraqi-controlled region of Kurdistan, running from 4/6/12-9/6/12. Nine teams will take part in total, and some of them will not appear very familiar to mainstream football fans. There will be a new name appearing on the trophy at the end of the tournament, as the winners of the four previous tournaments, Sápmi (representing the Sami people of Lapland) and Padania (a region in Italy) will not be competing due to various reasons.

Group A sees the hosts take on the Western Sahara and Occitania, which represents almost the whole of southern France, plus slithers of Italy and Spain, where the ancient Occitan language (better known in English as Langue d'Oc) is spoken. Most of the Western Saharan team has been drawn from within refugee camps in Algeria and in areas of the former Spanish colony which are not under Moroccan control (Morocco invaded the area in the late 1970s and had taken over most of the region by 1987), but held by the Polisario movement, which advocates an independent Western Sahara. Kurdistan, meanwhile, are expected to do well in their first VIVA World Cup.

One team which will not be totally alien to those following world football is Zanzibar, and they, like Kurdistan and Western Sahara, will be making their début in the competition. Zanzibar, of course, has long competed in the CECAFA (East and Central African Championship), quite often with distinction, until 2005, when the Zanzibar FA, founded in 1926, was removed from the CAF in 2005, only for it to be granted associate membership some time later. However, while Zanzibar's clubs can compete in African club competitions, the national team is unable to participate in FIFA-sanctioned tournaments, hence their membership of the NF-Board. They are to be found in Group B along with the ancient Swiss region of Raetia, and Tamil Eelam from north-eastern Sri Lanka.

Group C sees Northern Cyprus, the French region of Provence, and another team drawn from refugees, Darfur United, pit their wits against each other. Darfur United's players are all based in refugee camps in the east of neighbouring Chad, and the team was created late last year by i-ACT, an American aid organisation. Sixteen players make up the Darfuri squad, and the Darfur United website described the team as, well, more than a team: "Not only is Darfur United a team, it is also a movement – a movement to bring hope, inspiration, and joy to the displaced people of Darfur..When news of the project reached the camps, one representative said 'Now we are a part of the world.'"

Northern Cyprus, meanwhile, has had its own football governing body since 1955, but this has been more or less isolated from the outside world since the Turkish army's invasion in 1974. Turkish clubs played Northern Cypriot clubs in the early years of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, but this stopped after FIFA started handing out fines to TFF member clubs who travelled to Northern Cyprus (a country recognised only by Turkey) in the late 1980s.

The tournament will take place in and around the city of Erbil, home to over a million people and the Franso Hariri Stadium (also known as the Erbil International Stadium), which holds around 28000 people and is the second largest stadium in Iraq. It, and stadiums in Sulaymaniyah and the town of Pirmam, will be hosting matches during the tournament.

The group winners and the best-placed runner-up will go forward to the semi-finals, while the other teams will play in a series of classification matches and play-offs.

Please see below the fixture-list for the 2012 Viva World Cup. (Kindly note that there will also be a friendly match between a NF-Board Selection and an unknown team, which, your correspondent assumes, will be the team which finishes last in the competition and thus will not be taking part in the classification round. However, this may not actually be the case, and all will hopefully be explained in an article to follow at the end of the tournament.)

GROUP A

4/6/12 20:00 Kurdistan : Western Sahara (Erbil)
5/6/12 17:00 Western Sahara : Occitania (Pirmam)
6/6/12 17:00 Occitania : Kurdistan (Sulaymaniyah)

GROUP B

4/6/12 22:00 Zanzibar : Raetia (Erbil)
5/6/12 20:30 Raetia : Tamil Eelam (Erbil)
6/6/12 21:30 Tamil Eelam : Zanzibar (Erbil)

GROUP C

4/6/12 00:00 Northern Cyprus : Darfur United (Erbil)
5/6/12 22:30 Darfur : Provence (Erbil)
6/6/12 23:30 Provence : Northern Cyprus (Erbil)

CLASSIFICATION MATCHES

7/6/12 18:30 (Venue TBA)
7/6/12 20:30 (Venue TBA)
8/6/12 10:30 9th-place team (??) : NF-Board Selection (Venue TBA)
8/6/12 17:00 (Venue TBA)

SEMI-FINALS

8/6/12 21:30 (Venue and semi-final draw TBA)
8/6/12 23:30 (Venue and semi-final draw TBA)

SEVENTH-PLACE PLAY-OFF

9/6/12 10:00 (Venue TBA)

FIFTH-PLACE PLAY-OFF

9/6/12 11:00 (Venue TBA)

THIRD-PLACE PLAY-OFF

9/6/12 16:00 Loser SF1 : Loser SF2 (Erbil)

FINAL

9/6/12 18:00 Winner SF1 : Winner SF2 (Erbil)

VENUES

Franso Hariri Stadium, Erbil (28000)
Sulaymaniyah Stadium, Sulaymaniyah (15000)
Ararat Club Stadium, Pirmam (capacity N/K)

VIVA WORLD CUP: PREVIOUS WINNERS

2006 Sápmi
2008 Padania
2009 Padania
2010 Padania
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: The fixture-list was as taken from the VIVA World Cup website (stadium locations were researched by the author, so any errors are my responsibility!): 
http://www.vivaworldcup2012.com/

Thanks and appreciation go to Oswaldo Ugarte, Pablo Aro Geraldes and an anonymous representative of the Seleccion Occitana de Fotbòl.
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FOOTBALL BLOGGING AWARDS 2012: In an act of unapologetic, not to mention unashamed, self-promotion, Pat's Football Blog has nominated itself in the Male category of this year's Football Blogging awards, which will take place in Manchester in July.

To vote via Facebook, kindly go to the Football Blogging Awards page. To vote via Twitter, tweet to @TheFBAs, with your username and #Male (category). There are several categories, and it's up to you who you vote for, of course, but a vote for Pat's Football Blog will always be very welcome. After all, it isn't your everyday blog..

2012 OFC NATIONS CUP FIXTURE-LIST

The vast majority of the footballing world's attention is firmly fixed on the upcoming Euro 2012 tournament, but in one small (and largely ignored) corner of the globe, that is an irrelevance, for the time being, at least. In Oceania, the 2012 OFC Nations Cup will be held in the Solomon Islands from 1/6/12/10/6/12, and the tournament also doubles as the second round of OFC qualification for the 2014 World Cup, featuring the continent's top seven national sides plus the winner of the first round of matches, Samoa.

The OFC Nations Cup was due to take place in Fiji, but - allegedly , according to the Fiji.live website - due to an ongoing dispute between OFC general secretary Tai Nicholas and the Fijian authorities, the Fijian football authorities lost the right to host the tournament. The OFC, meanwhile, gave a more succinct reasoning for their decision: "The OFC Nations Cup was originally scheduled to be held in Fiji but the 2012 OFC Events Calendar went under review at the end of last year during which a number of factors were considered for all tournaments, including participation, logistics, finance and other matters."

The 2012 OFC Nations Cup tournament then opened up to bidding from OFC member nations, and two of them - New Caledonia, hosts of last year's Pacific Games, and the Solomon Islands - submitted bids. The right to host the tournament was awarded to the Solomon Islands at the end of March, and all matches will take place at the Lawson Tama stadium in the capital, Honiara. The stadium has a capacity of some 25000 people and is one of the largest in Oceania.

Group B is perhaps the most fascinating of the two and featuring three of Oceania's heavyweights - Fiji, red-hot favourites New Zealand, and the hosts Solomon Islands - and Papua New Guinea, who might just prove to be a handful. New Caledonia are expected to dominate proceedings in Group A, but Vanuatu and a resurgent Tahiti side might have something to say about that. Samoa, meanwhile, are expected to be the group's whipping-boys, but as their near-neighbours American Samoa showed during the first round of qualification, football is full of surprises.  

Please see below the fixture-list for the 2012 OFC Nations Cup. All kick-off times are local.

GROUP A

New Caledonia, Samoa, Tahiti, New Caledonia

1/6/12 12:00 Samoa : Tahiti
1/6/12 15:00 Vanuatu : New Caledonia
3/6/12 12:00 Vanuatu : Samoa
3/6/12 15:00 Tahiti : New Caledonia
5/6/12 12:00 New Caledonia : Samoa
5/6/12 Tahiti : Vanuatu

GROUP B

Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands

2/6/12 12:00 Fiji : New Zealand
2/6/12 15:00 Solomon Islands : Papua New Guinea
4/6/12 12:00 Papua New Guinea : New Zealand
4/6/12 15:00 Fiji : Solomon Islands
6/6/12 12:00 Papua New Guinea : Fiji
6/6/12 15:00 New Zealand : Solomon Islands

SEMI-FINALS

8/6/12 11:00 Winner Gp A : Runner-up Gp B (SF1)
8/6/12 15:00 Winner Gp B : Runner-up Gp A (SF2)

THIRD-PLACE FINAL

10/6/12 11:00 Loser SF1 : Loser SF2

FINAL

10/6/12 15:00 Winner SF1 : Winner SF2

VENUE (for all matches): Lawson Tama Stadium, HONIARA
CAPACITY: 25000
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many thanks, as always, to the OFC for the ability to publish the fixture-list. To find out much, much more on football in Oceania, kindly visit www.oceaniafootball.com and be enthralled!

The Fiji.live website, meanwhile, can be found under www.fijilive.com
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FOOTBALL BLOGGING AWARDS 2012: In an act of unapologetic, not to mention unashamed, self-promotion, Pat's Football Blog has nominated itself in the Male category of this year's Football Blogging awards, which will take place in Manchester in July.

To vote via Facebook, kindly go to the Football Blogging Awards page. To vote via Twitter, tweet to @TheFBAs, with your username and #Male (category). There are several categories, and it's up to you who you vote for, of course, but a vote for Pat's Football Blog will always be very welcome. After all, it isn't your everyday blog..
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HELP BILLY WALK APPEAL: The Help Billy Appeal, ongoing since last year, aims to raise enough money to enable a young 3-year-old boy, Billy Douglas, who comes from a village just outside Belfast and who suffers from spastic diaplegia, to undergo an urgent and potentially life-changing operation. Should you wish to know more, Billy's plight has been highlighted in a recent entry here on Pat's Football Blog: http://patmcguinness.blogspot.com/2012/04/theres-appeal-in-box-help-billy-walk.html

Or, of course, for those who might want to bypass the article and go straight to goal, the appeal's website address is:www.helpbillywalkappeal.co.uk

Sponsors are currently being sought for post-operation physiotherapy for Billy - now there's an opportunity for all you business types out there to spread the word about your company's wares! Enterprise or no, if you can donate, please do so. If not, kindly post either link on your Facebook page (if you have one) and share, or tweet. Many thanks. An update will be posted here shortly.

UKRAINE: PRICEY HOTELS, BOYCOTTS AND TYMOSHENKO

The choice of UEFA to award the Euro 2012 tournament to Poland and Ukraine raised many eyebrows when it was made in 2007, mainly because of the comparatively undeveloped infrastructures of both countries, even though both countries were making significant economic progress at the time, and Ukraine was still basking somewhat in the glow of the 2004 Orange Revolution, which was spearheaded by the duo who would become president and prime minister - Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko.

While both countries have made strides to try and put things right in time for the tournament, which kicks off in less than 3 weeks' time, it would seem that, in one area at least, Ukraine has been going backwards, and that has made a large section of the European body politic a rather less than happy bunch of people.

The area in question is, of course, human rights, and, more specifically, those of ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in October last year on charges of abuse of office whilst in office. Many observers have claimed that the charges against Tymoshenko were fabricated by the current president, Viktor Yanukovitch, to remove her from the Ukrainian political arena until after the next presidential election, which is due to take place in 2015, and, in the more immediate future, local elections which are scheduled for this October.

The charges came about as a result of an oil and gas pricing agreement signed in 2009 by Timoshenko, whilst in the office of Ukrainian Prime Minister, and her Russian counterpart; over the weekend, Yanukovitch's government issued a statement claiming that Ukraine was over 6 billion Euros worse off as a result of signing the agreement.

Since her incarceration in August 2011, two months before she was sentenced, Tymoshenko has, it has been claimed, undergone various forms of physical and verbal abuse, and was refused permission to go to Germany for an operation on her back. She was interned in a prison in Kharkiv, several hundred kilometres east of the Ukrainian capital, at the end of last year, and, last month, was moved to a hospital against her will. She then began a 20-day hunger-strike in protest at her treatment, which ended on 9/5/12.

What allegedly precipitated Tymoshenko's hunger-strike were beatings she received from prison guards, who, according to a report on CNN, wrapped her in a bedsheet and repeatedly punched her in the stomach. Photos of her seriously-bruised abdomen and arms have been circulated on the internet.

Yanukovitch ordered that Tymoshenko be operated upon by Ukrainian doctors, but she refused. Eventually, permission was granted for a German doctor to operate on the 51 year-old, but only after intense political pressure from western European leaders, and, at the time of writing, this has commenced. The Ukrainian city of Yalta, situated on the southern coast of the Crimea, was due to host a summit of 18 central and eastern European countries just under a fortnight ago. However, Yanukovitch was stood up by the other 17 leaders invited to take part, and, as everybody knows, it's no fun sitting at a table on your own.

There are apparently at least 10 separate investigations under way which are seking to implicate Tymoshenko in some way or other, ranging from bribery, tax-evasion and using ambulances during her unsuccessful 2010 presidential campaign, to involvement in the murder of an Ukrainian businessman and politician and his wife in 1996. Towards the end of last month, the German government announced that their delegation would be boycotting the final of Euro 2012 if things did not improve regarding Tymoshenko, a woman many believe should not be in prison in the first place.

There were murmurings of political discontent from across Europe concerning Tymoshenko's treatment, and a lot of criticism originated from Ukraine's co-hosts, Poland, though those from the 15 football associations from outside Ukraine whose teams will be taking part in Euro 2012 and are scheduled to play their group matches there are not planning to cancel their hotel reservations just yet. However, EU preident Herman van Rompuy and European Commission president José Manuel Barroso have declined their invitations to the tournament, as have governmental representatives from Austria and Belgium. German chancellor Angela Merkel, meanwhile, was also considering staying away, as was the country's minister of sport.

Philipp Lahm, Germany captain, in an interview published in German newspaper Der Spiegel, stated that he did not appear to see his own "views of democratic fundamental rights, human rights, personal freedom or press freedom to be reflected in the present political situation in Ukraine." Yanukovitch, meanwhile, remains unmoved by all the criticism. Most football fans from outide Ukraine don't really seem to care, either. They just want to see some football.

They are also, however, going to have pay an arm and a leg should they wish to stay over in Ukraine. A recent article on the BBC News alleged that prices for a hotel-room have, in many cases, increased ten-fold and that a bog-standard room booked in a hotel in Kiev will cost some 350 Euros.

Well, Pat's Football blog carried out a totally non-scientific and random survey of a few hotels and hostels in and around Kiev and Donetsk, and the results, using the nights of 18/5/12 and 11/6/12 as examples, confirm the claims posted by the BBC, to some extent, at least. Four hotels (double-room) and a hostel in Kiev were looked at (on 17/5/12), using the Booking.com website, as well as two hotels in Donetsk. Prices are in Euros.

ADLER (KIEV): 18/5/12 - 45; 11/6/12 - 165
AGAT (DONETSK): 18/5/12 - 49; 11/6/12 - 587
AUTOGRAPH (KIEV): 18/5/12 - 173; 11/6/12 - 414
BONBON (DONETSK): 18/5/12 - 68; 11/6/12 - 763
HOSTEL KIEV CITY CENTRE (KIEV): 18/5/12 - 12; 11/6/12 - 117
RIVIERA BOUTIQUE (KIEV): 18/5/12 - 248; 11/6/12 - 1971
UKRAINE (KIEV); 18/5/12 - 109; 11/6/12 - 287

It probably will not have escaped your attention that no hotels have been listed for night of the final, due to held in Kiev on 1/7/12. This is in part due to the fact that most hotels have already posted the "Sold Out" signs outside; there are some (still reasonably-priced) hostel beds available. If you fancy shelling out a couple of thousand Euros for an apartment for the night instead, though, go right ahead.

UEFA president Michel Platini has been on the record as having described Ukrainian hotel proprietors as "bandits and crooks", though one can be sure that they will not be having any sleepless nights over Platini's criticism.

Another sector of the Ukrainian population who are rubbing their hands in anticipation of a bumper Euro 2012 consists of what one could call corrupt sectors of the local police force, who are not afraid of "requesting" a few Euros, dollars or whatever from passers-by. Apparently, when confronted by corrupt members of the Ukrainian police force (and this is not to say that all Ukrainian police officers are corrupt) whilst on the street who request that a fine be paid, one is recommended to ask for an "Angliski protocol" (an English-language statement). Never mind arbitrary stop and search, to hear people talk you would think that there was an "arbitrary stop and fine" policy in the Ukrainian police.

Ukrainian police have reportedly added the Taser-gun to their arsenal in recent times and aren't afraid to use it. Donetsk police used them against supporters during disturbances at a league game in Donetsk, according to claims made by a local supporter's group in an article published on the Reuters website this week. Bribery, assaulting remand prisoners and using excessive methods to quell disturbances all add up to painting a bleak picture of the Ukrainian police force.

Max Tucker, Amnesty International's campaigner on Ukraine, said this recently: "As things stand, fans visiting Euro 2012 are under threat from a criminal police force....Without an institution that will hold officers accountable Ukrainian police will continue to beat and torture as they please. And in all the cases the media doesn’t hear about, they will get away with it."

All of this does not paint a very favourable picture of Ukraine, though, as with everything, there are two sides to every story, and, as always, the truth will lie somewhere in the middle. One cannot say whether Yulia Tymoshenko will be released any time soon, or even before the 2015 presidential election, but campaigners are not giving up hope. Hotel prices for the duration of Euro 2012 do not appear to be coming down. So much for the promise made by the Ukrainian government that the problem of crazy, rip-off room-rates would be tackled swiftly and firmly. As for the police, they have been instructed by the national government to take a more softly-softly approach towards foreign visitors; how softly-softly it will all turn out to be remains to be seen. As for the Ukrainian people, they are, in general, surely no better nor worse than anyone else.

And then, there's the threat of a boycott of Euro 2012 in the Ukraine from the great and good of western European politics. That may well come to pass, but, again, Yanukovitch will not be too bothered by this. Russian president Vladimir Putin has thrown his tuppence-worth into the mix as well, telling the Russian news-agency Novosti that: "In absolutely every case, you can't mix politics, business and other issues with sport." 

If UEFA were suddenly to turn round and take the Ukrainian half of the tournament away and give it, say, to Germany, there would be ructions. It is, it has to be said, a most unlikely scenario..but what if it actually happened? Well, there would be a huge problem of the financial kind for travel insurers, airlines, hotel chains, not to mention UEFA itself..and, more importantly, those fans afected by the tournament's re-location.. No, that's not going to happen, in spite of the best efforts of some European politicians, who would perhaps be better advised to leave any boycotts and protests to the fans.

Boycotts never seem to work; look at the 1980 and 1984 versions of the Olympic Games. Apart from Platini's airing of his opinions on Ukrainian hotel owners, UEFA have remained silent on current affairs in the Ukraine. Perhaps those participating in the Euros should keep schtum on what is happening in the Ukraine; it doesn't mean, however, that those of us who will be watching the tournament, whether we are viewing it in the country's stadia or on TV, should necessarily stand by with muzzled mouths.

One could look at what is happening in the Ukraine and view it as a test-case with regard to what is still to come, starting with the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the lack of rights for the indigenous American Indian population - not forgetting the raging poverty in, and the environmental destruction of, many parts of the country. Then, you have the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the human rights situation there, together with a culture of endemic racism and homophobia within football, and a seemingly dictatorial political system (with a cult of personality centred round president Vladimir Putin at its core) and a lack of press freedom without.

Finishing off an unwanted hat-trick is the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, with the country's statutory discrimination against LGBTs and non-Muslims, not to mention that FIFA stands to gain financially from all three tournaments. All of these scenarions, with all due respect to Yulia Tymoshenko and all others who may be well have been wrongfully imprisoned and wrongfully ill-treated, make Ukraine look like a comparative paradise, and that's just for visiting supporters. It's all very worrying, and it makes FIFA look as though it's only after what financial gain it can get from what it termed as football's "new frontiers" when they were chosen to host the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. That, however, is another story for another day..

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HELP BILLY WALK APPEAL: The Help Billy Appeal, ongoing since last year, aims to raise enough money to enable a young 3-year-old boy, Billy Douglas, who comes from a village just outside Belfast and who suffers from spastic diaplegia, to undergo an urgent and potentially life-changing operation. Should you wish to know more, Billy's plight has been highlighted in a recent entry here on Pat's Football Blog: http://patmcguinness.blogspot.com/2012/04/theres-appeal-in-box-help-billy-walk.html

Or, of course, for those who might want to bypass the article and go straight to goal, the appeal's website address is:www.helpbillywalkappeal.co.uk

If you can donate, please do so. If not, kindly post either link on your Facebook page if you have one and share, or tweet. Many thanks. An update will be posted here shortly.
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FOOTBALL BLOGGING AWARDS 2012: In an act of unapologetic, not to mention unashamed, self-promotion, Pat's Football Blog has nominated itself in the Male category of this year's Football Blogging awards, which will take place in Manchester in July.
To vote via Facebook, kindly go to the Football Blogging Awards page. To vote via Twitter, tweet to @TheFBAs, with your username and #Male (category). There are several categories, and it's up to you who you vote for, of course, but a vote for Pat's Football Blog will always be very welcome. After all, it isn't your everyday blog..

OLYMPIQUE LYON - CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE

No French men's club has won the Champions League since its inception (and Olympique Marseille remain the only French team to have won the competition in either of its guises, only for UEFA to later strip them of the title following a match-fixing scandal), but the Olympique Lyonnais women's team showed their male counterparts how it's done by winning the Women's Champions League for the second time in a row in Munich on 17/5/12.

In the final, played before an estimated attendance of more than 50000 at the Olympiastadion, OL (officially known as Olympique Lyonnais Féminin) were up against three-time winners of the WCL's predecessor, the UEFA Women's Cup, German side 1.FFC Frankfurt. This was FFC Frankfurt's fifth final, having won the competition in 2002 - the year of its inception - 2005 and 2008. They lost the 2004 version. Olympique, meanwhile, were appearing in their third final in a row, having lost in 2010 to another German team, Turbine Potsdam, before defeating them on penalties at Craven Cottage last year.

This year's final was the first football match to be held at the Olympiastadion since both Munich clubs, Bayern and 1860, moved out and relocated to the newly-built Allianz Arena in 2005. Many football fans hold the opinion that the Olympiastadion was somewhat devoid of athmosphere, though there was no sign of that on Thursday last.

Both squads featured a smattering of players who had taken part in last year's Women's World Cup; OL's Wendie Renard, Corine Franco, Eugénie Le Sommer, Louisa Necib, Sabrina Viguier, captain Sonia Bompastor and substitutes Céline Deville and Laura Georges were all included in the French squad, while team-mates Lotta Schelin (Sweden) and Japan's Ami Otaki also featured at the tournament, which was held in Germany. Otaki was in the team which won the women's World Cup in nail-biting circumstances alongside one of her opponents on Thursday night, Saki Kumagai.

FFC Frankfurt were also well-represented at the last WWC, with current squad members Melanie Behringer, captain Sandra Smisek, Saskia Bartusiak and Kerstin Garefrekes all involved for Germany. (Injured team captain Nadine Angerer was ever-present in goal, while fellow absentee Ali Krieger also took part for the United States.) Sara Thunebro and Jessica Landström, meanwhile, were part of the Swedish team which finished third.

An impressive line-up of personalities, allied with Olympique Lyon's record in the competition of 7 wins and 1 draw, 37 goals scored and just 1 against (not to mention having won the Coupe de France the Sunday before the final - how's that for a confidence boost?), and a FFC Frankfurt side hungry to return to the top of the European tree, boded well for an exciting game of football, one worthy of a continental final. However, as so often happens, it didn't quite turn out that way, though there was plenty of industry and skill enough to be seen.

Early pressure from Frankfurt almost saw Bompastor slice a corner into her own net in the fifth minute, while Sarah Bouhaddi in the Olympique goal looked nervy on a couple of occasions. A penalty claim by Olympique for a handball by FFC's American full-back Gina Lewandowski was waved away by Swedish referee Jenny Palmqvist, though she did point to the spot in the 15th minute.

Olympique's speedy Costa Rican left-winger Shirley Cruz Traña was already proving to be a thorn in the side of the German side, and she was alert to Behringer dawdling on the ball, won it and then got hauled down from behind by her opponent, leaving Palmqvist no option but to award a penalty, which Eugénie Le Sommer converted in style, curling the spot-kick deftly past Desirée Schumann in the Frankfurt goal.

Schumann's evening was not to get much better; ten minutes after the goal, she flapped at a Renard header from a Bompastor free-kick, missed and was no doubt relieved to see the ball bounce of the post and to eventual safety. However, she was culpable for Olympique's second goal, which arrived in the 28th minute. 

A long ball meant for OL's Louisa Necib was intercepted by Schumann who headed it clear only to see her clearance fall to Camille Abily, who deftly lofted it over the stranded goalkeeper from 30 yards and into the empty net.

From then on in it was a case of chasing shadows for FFC, though Bangerter, who had earlier sent a lob just wide of the goal and was trying to make up for the mistake which led to OL's earlier penalty, missed a golden opportunity to bring her side back into the reckoning just before half-time when she was put through in a one-on-one with Bouhaddi, but shot straight at the goalkeeper, who saved with her legs.  

The second-half saw several chances for Olympique come and go, with Schelin, who was looking sharp, getting behind the defence but her shot was well saved by Schumann, who saved a header from the Swede not long after. Le Sommer was guilty of blazing a volley high and wide when clear, and Abily came off second-best in a one-on-one with Schumann, who, apart from the mistake which led to OL's second goal, was having a good game and ably dealing with allcomers.

Abily almost made the game safe with ten minutes to go when she knocked her free-kick, taken from distance, off the top of the Frankfurt crossbar with Schumann scrambling. The French side took their foot off the pedal somewhat in the latter stages, and FFC tried to take advantage, but Bartusiak's back-header just into injury-time was saved in a less than comfortable fashion by Bouhaddi. Garrefrekes, who, along with the hapless Behringer, was probably the pick of the bunch for Frankfurt, missed the chance to net a late, late consolation goal when she slipped just as she was about to slot the ball home, and instead sent it skidding a yard past the Lyonnais' goal.

There was hardly time for Bouhaddi to take the goal-kick before Palmqvist, who had had an extremely good and trouble-free game, blew for time and the Olympique Lyon staff converged on the pitch to form a happy, bouncing melée while their FFC Frankfurt opponents slumped to the ground one by one, crestfallen, with many in tears.

Olympique were certainly worthy winners, but the match was a scrappy one at times, and not very many players actually stood out. FFC's early pressure didn't pay off, and they didn't really take the game by the scruff of the neck as many observers thought they would have done. Cruz impressed for Olympique, as did Bompastor, Schelin and Renard; Garefrekes and Behringer stood out for Frankfurt.

Olympique Lyon now join Swedish side Umeå IK as being the only two teams in the history of the Women's UEFA Cup/UEFA Women's Champions League how retain the trophy, the team from the northern reaches of Sweden wining it in 2003 and 2004. Can OL go one better than Umeå, who were runners-up in 2002, 2007 and 2008 but now appear to be as far away from their golden era as before it began, and go on to dominate European women's club competition for the forseeable future, or will their star eventually burn itself out? And what of FFC Frankfurt, who are outside the top two in the Bundesliga and have but a slim chance of qualifying for next season's competition? What does the future hold for them? Who can say?

Certainly, the immediate future appears rosy for the French side, with a cup double now under their belts, a hatful of international players in the squad, and the resources of the men's section also at their disposal. It would be a brave man - or woman - who would bet against them being there or thereabouts once again at the business end of next season.

MATCH STATS

OLYMPIQUE LYONNAIS

26 Sarah BOUHADDI, 3 Wendie RENARD, 6 Amandine HENRY, 8 Lotta SCHELIN (22 Ami OTAKI, 88), 9 Eugénie LE SOMMER (14 ROSANA, 65), 10 Louisa NECIB (21 Lara DICKENMANN), 11 Shirley CRUZ TRAÑA, 17 Corine FRANCO, 18 Sonia BOMPASTOR, 20 Sabrina VIGUIER, 23 Camille ABILY

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES

1 Céline DEVILLE, 4 Makan TRAORÉ, 5 Laura GEORGES, 15 Aurélie KACI

1.FFC FRANKFURT

26 Desirée SCHUMANN, 2 Gina LEWANDOWSKI, 4 Saki KUMAGAI, 5 Sara THUNEBRO, 7 Melanie BEHRINGER, 10 Dzsenifer MAROZSÁN, 12 Meike WEBER (23 Ria PERCIVAL, 61), 15 Svenja HUTH (21 Ana Maria CRNOGORCEVIC), 18 Kerstin GAREFREKES, 25 Saskia BARTUSIAK, 28 Sandra SMISEK (11 Jessica LANDSTRÖM, 83)

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES

30 Anne-Kathrine KREMER, 6 Silvana CHOJNOWSKI, 20 Jasmin HERBERT

REFEREE: Jenny PALMQVIST (SWE)
LINESWOMEN: Helen KARO (SWE), Anna NYSTRÖM (SWE)
FOURTH OFFICIAL: Sara PERSSON (SWE)

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HELP BILLY WALK APPEAL: The Help Billy Appeal, ongoing since last year, aims to raise enough money to enable a young 3-year-old boy, Billy Douglas, who comes from a village just outside Belfast and who suffers from spastic diaplegia, to undergo an urgent and potentially life-changing operation. Should you wish to know more, Billy's plight has been highlighted in a recent entry here on Pat's Football Blog:http://patmcguinness.blogspot.com/2012/04/theres-appeal-in-box-help-billy-walk.html

Or, of course, for those who might want to bypass the article and go straight to goal, the appeal's website address is:www.helpbillywalkappeal.co.uk

If you can donate, please do so. If not, kindly post either link on your Facebook page if you have one and share, or tweet. Many thanks.
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FOOTBALL BLOGGING AWARDS 2012: In an act of unapologetic, not to mention unashamed, self-promotion, Pat's Football Blog has nominated itself in the Male category of this year's Football Blogging awards., which will take place in Manchester in July. 

To vote via Facebook, kindly go to the Football Blogging Awards page. To vote via Twitter, tweet to @TheFBAs, with username (@PatsFballBlog, for instance!) and #Male (category). There are several categories, and it's up to you who you vote for, of course, but a vote for Pat's Football Blog would always be very welcome! 

DO WE FOOTBALL FANS HAVE THE CLUBS AND MEDIA WE DESERVE?

Since the earliest days of professional football, football clubs have been run as businesses, to ostensibly operate on profits earned from gate money gathered up on a Saturday afternoon. Then came an increased interest in the game from the media outlets of the day, which has continued and indeed snowballed in recent times. Clubs, meanwhile, moved from gate money being their only source of income to augmenting it with refreshments, operating coaches, brakes, special trains (not to mention charter flights and so on), and then came merchandise and membership of an official supporters' club.

Now, we have match-day packages, paying for tickets via credit-cards, priority lists for tickets, subscriptions to club TV channels and much, much more, all costing an arm and a leg. The media, meanwhile, has moved on down the ages from providing match reports to player profiles and - in the gutter press, for the most part - salacious details on the off-field activities of many a player, past and present.

Football clubs and the media have been gaily tra-la-laing down the football trail together for a long time now, recognising that they both need each other to survive. Any newspaper which contains football content will sell more copies than those without. Television stations do their damnest to spice up any football coverage. Clubs will bend over backwards to assist any journalist who gives them good press. Everybody wins. Apart from the supporters.

Ticket prices have rocketed over the past 20 years or so, especially in England's Premier League, pricing out many lifelong supporters in the process. With the advent of purchase of tickets via credit-card with, quite often, a requirement to join a priority ticket list, going to a football match (while wearing your brand new, overpriced replica shirt) at the highest levels of the game has become a leisure activity which only the most affluent can now regularly afford to do. Clubs pay inflated transfer-fees for ridiculously over-paid (and, more than occasionally, over-rated) players, and the supporters inevitably pay the price..literally.

The tabloids (now more commonly referred to as "red tops"), meanwhile, ensures that football features heavily on both the front and back pages, and even the "quality" press is not always immune. In the UK during the early 1990s, the then fledgling BSkyB organisation quickly realised that football was their big cash-cow in waiting, and with their multiple Sky Sports channels, snazzy graphics and segments with backing rock/dance music, moved in in front of the BBC and ITV television networks to snap up the television rights for the Premier League. 

So, since then, to watch live English league football on TV entails shelling out hundreds of pounds for the privilege. This is, of course, not exclusively an English/British phenomenon. Witness Silvio Berlusconi's Mediolanum organisation's domination of the Italian media. Canal+ in France (and Turkey, amongst other countries), Premiere in Germany, Eredivisie Live in Holland and a cast of dozens of other sports channels from all over Europe - and we are only focusing on Europe here - have also assumed positions of dominance in their domestic televisual markets at the expense of the terrestrial stations.

Football on television has reached saturation point, and the quality of the overall package on offer (football included) is, at best, variable. For example, the Beeb's football output merely imitates Sky Sports in many ways, and, like that of their non-terrestrial counterpart, is often vacuous. For instance, take a look at their Saturday afternoon Football Focus programme. It almost always starts off with the aforementioned segment detailing the programme's content, to the background of the inevitable pop music. Before every story that the programme covers, it's a case of "more of the same", with a couple of quotes thrown in.

Get rid of the nonsense, that's what I say; scrap the slow-motion goal-scoring arty action stuff and the dodgy hip-hop/R&B accompaniment and instead include another report. The BBC are not the only guilty party - every television station which thinks that it's worth its salt is equally culpable - not by any means, but they are quite possibly the worst of the lot when it tries to "sex" up its coverage. I don't want to watch previews for snooker tournaments during a football programme, either. Forget the graphics and the (over-used) "punditry"; let's have some football and proper football-related content.

The newspapers, meanwhile, like their televisual counterparts, regularly jump on any bandwagon passing by. What say you over goal-line technology, for instance? This topic will be covered here shortly, but it has been more than somewhat overdone. When lineswoman Sian Massey (correctly) kept her flag down just before Liverpool scored at Wolves a couple of years ago, it became a big "media moment." Various television programmes focused immense amounts of time on the decision, and on the girl herself. Sky Sports' "experts" Andy Gray and Richard Keys talked themselves out of a job after comments they made about Massey and Birmingham City chief executive Karren Brady were picked up on microphone. (Gray and Keys eventually got what they deserved - a show on the TalkSport radio station.)

The Daily Mail, meanwhile, obtained personal photographs and what not from what they called a "friend" of Massey's. Some friend, you might say. The opinions of respondents to the "article" seemed to veer from the point of view that she was doing a good job to those which had the girl down as a wanton hussy. It feels as though very time a marginal decision/goal-line technology/video technology is discussed on television, images of Sian Massey and the "Wolves : Liverpool controversy that wasn't" are bound to appear. All of this said - and says - more about Gray, Keys, those they left behind on television, sections of the printed media and some of their readership than it does about Sian Massey..who is doing a very good job indeed.

Then, there was the "racism" controversy featuring Liverpool's Luis Suárez and his Manchester United counterpart Patrice Evra. Everybody knows the story by now, and everybody knows the outcome. However, the media did not come up smelling of roses. The Daily Mirror, for instance, ran with the back-page headline of "Racist", referring, of course, to Suárez; a headline which could be regarded as inciteful, not to mention libellous.

Hacks from other newspapers, joined in what quickly became little better than a witch-hunt against the Uruguayan, and forums all over the place became meeting-places for the anonymous to basically write whatever they wanted about the man, safe in the knowledge that they could get away with objectionable comments about a man they did not know. A number also did the same with regard to Evra, and much of the abuse heaped upon both men was undoubtedly fuelled by the media. The Sun ran a somewhat inaccurate report of the day its correspondent met Suárez's gran.

This blog, like every other blog, has a statistical section which is for the blogger's eyes only. Some days ago, someone trawling through Google typed in the following: "Is Patrice Evra gay?" and ended up reading this blog. Evra is not gay, apparently, but does it really matter? According to a great many people involved in the game to whatever degree, the answer is, unfortunately, yes. The media have been half-hearted at best in their treatment of homosexuality in the game, which is a subject which shall (hopefully) be dealt with here in some detail at a later date.

The ex-England international Graeme Le Saux could probably say a lot about how he was harassed and abused by team-mates, opposition and supporters alike when rumours persisted that he was gay. The rumours, if one believes the legend, all started because someone spotted Le Saux carrying a copy of The Guardian while he was on holiday. Le Saux was an abrasive, yet intelligent player and is a highly articulate man, by all accounts, yet, because someone started a baseless rumour, it got to the stage where he felt (in his own words) "physically sick" at the thought of going into training.

Every so often, the BBC, amongst others, will show an article or even a programme dealing with the subject of homophobia, but the media's handling of the subject never appears convincing. As for the clubs, well, one can only say that if they were at all serious about making football a genuinely all-inclusive sport, they would have done something worthwhile by now apart from signing a charter to which most of them are merely paying lip-service.

Now on to more recent developments, such as the near-tragedy that befell Patrice Muamba, and the tragedies that befell Gary Speed and Piermario Morosini, not to mention the unfortunate Stillian Petrov and the disaster that wiped out several of the Etoile Filante team in November. Who, you might well ask? Well, eight people travelling in the team's entourage were killed when the team-bus crashed and fell down a ravine on the way to a league game in Togo. News of the crash was reported for a brief few hours (and at no great depth) on CNN and the BBC until news of Gary Speed's death began to filter in less than a day later.

From then on in, it was wall-to-wall coverage everywhere of the Welsh manager's death. No more mention of the hapless Togolaises on TV, only a few paragraphs in the newspapers were deemed sufficient. The Sun "newspaper" couldn't even get a report on the tragedy done to a decent standard; someone in their office Googled an Etoile Filante badge and pasted it above the article. Unfortunately, the badge didn't belong to the team from Lomé, capital of Benin, but to the team of the same name from the capital of neighbouring Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou. Shoddy, but that's News International/News Corporation for you..

The British (indeed, global) footballing community came out in force to show their support for Speed's family, and this was good for dozens of hours and thousands of pages of coverage. However, it seemed that some media organisations, not to mention players with various messages of support on T-shirts, clubs and sets of supporters, were trying to outdo each other with fawning gestures of grief that, to put not too fine a point on it, oft bordered on the crass.  

One remembers seeing Sheffield United shirts hanging outside Bramall Lane with the message "Speed - SUFC Legend" written on them. Now, Speed was a popular man, both on and off the pitch, with a seemingly ceaseless amount of both talent and determination, but to describe him as a Blades legend after spending around a season playing for and a couple more managing the Steel City team was a bit much. And that was only a couple of supporters. The hyperbole reached astronomical levels elsewhere.

Speed himself has been, is, and will continue to be, missed, most of all by his family and friends. However, the week following his death evolved - or should that be regressed? - into nothing more than a tawdry spectacle thanks to TV, newspapers and those indulging in the anti-social media. The Togo disaster - and let's face it, it was a disaster: for a club, for a country, but, more importantly, for at least eight sets of families and friends - was quickly forgotten about, as much for the fact that it happened in a small African country as much as it happened the day before Speed's tragic death. On to the next tragedy/atrocity/disaster. Such is the nature of modern-day life, alas.

Patrice Muamba's horrors were captured on film for all to see (and remain visible for voyeurs of every shape and size, thanks in no small part to YouTube), and the media fairly whipped up a frenzy over the young Bolton Wanderers player's state of health. Supporters immediately started converging on Bolton's Reebok Stadium..and began laying scarves, flowers and all sorts of paraphenalia outside. This went on after Gary Speed's death; Muamba was - and, happily, is - still very much part of this world, but everything that comprised yet another nauseating media-led spectacle (in comparison to the dignity and compassion shown by Bolton and Owen Coyle, the club's manager) made me think about adulation and grief.

When faced with situations such as Muamba's or Speed's, how much of any grief expressed is genuine and felt from within, instead of being imposed on us by the media, and our own urge to be seen to be doing something better than everyone else? Chris Hayes, author of the Forfar 4 East Fife 5 blog, recently wrote a marvellous piece entitled "The art of grieving without grieving." He got it absolutely spot-on, and here's the link to his blog:

http://www.forfar4eastfife5.blogspot.com/

Out of all the tragedies and near-tragedies which have occurred recently, the on-field death of Livorno's Piermarlo Morosini is perhaps the most tragic of all. Morosini, 25, was on loan at the Serie B side from Udinese and died during a league match a couple of weeks ago. To say he had had a difficult life was an understatement. His two older siblings were disabled and they were all left orphaned by the time Morosini was 17. He battled on and eventually represented Italy at Under-21 level. Sadly, misery returned last year when his older brother committed suicide.

Livorno and Piermarlo Morosini's parent club, Udinese, showed much class when the former announced that they were opening a fund to care for his older sister, retiring his number 25 shirt and re-naming one of the stadium's stands in his honour, while the latter have stated their intention to look after her. The FICG directed that a minute's silence be held before the start of the next round of matches taking place in every level of Italian football.

A much different, a much more dignified, scenario than Manchester United's minute's silence for Morosini before their home game with Aston Villa. What was the difference between that and arranging a minute's silence for the victims of the Etoile Filante bus-crash, for example? (Does anybody at Old Trafford have a connection with Morosini?) Have clubs - and the media - decided that they have become the arbiters of where, when and which football fans should pay their respects? And fans laying flowers, shirts and other Patrice Muamba-related stuff outside the Reebok? That, I am sorry to say, was much too over-the-top. Why not just send flowers to the hospital or a card at the club's reception-desk? What next? The call to prayer across Twitter for a player suffering from an ingrowing toe-nail?

In the intervening months between the tragedy in Togo and Mulamba's distress, have some clubs and the media decided that a minute's silence for every single football-related death signalled in the anti-social media has become a requirement of the pre-match routine, along with the tediously stage-managed "handshakes all round" thingy? Sadness and sympathy for Muamba, Petrov, Speed, Morosini and his sister, and those of Etoile Filante who are lost to us, but grief? How the media handles these situations, and how the rest of us react, has all become too intrusive, yet too impersonal.

It would also appear that the English press has become enamoured with Scottish football. What else could be the conclusion after, er, Celtic manager Neil Lennon receiving death-threats (and much else) in the post, a set-to between he and Rangers manager Ally McCoist followed by a fracas with a Hearts supporter, and now the hoo-hah over the 'Gers' financial troubles? Just being facetious, of course, but, then, you knew that anyway; the English sporting press wouldn't normally go near Scottish football with a barge-pole. Oh, yes; Kilmarnock beat Celtic in this season's Scottish League Cup Final at Hampden Park..but most of the coverage relating to the final shown on national news programmes across British television centred round the most unfortunate and untimely death, just after the final-whistle, of the father of Killie midfielder Liam Kelly.

Back to McCoist again, and his opposition of the recent transfer embargo and fine imposed on his club by the SFA has been noted, as has his somewhat coloured opinion that Celtic and Rangers should be treated differently than other clubs playing in the Scottish League system. He did say that he could "understand fans up and down the country, who don't support the Old Firm, saying that [what he said] is rubbish." Believe it, Ally, not only Scottish non-Old Firm supporters are saying the same thing..

There was a protest march by Rangers fans on Hampden last week, while the Rangers Fans Fighting Fund , perhaps driven on by elements within the club itself, issued a statement announcing that it would take "appropriate action" against clubs who voted to impose still harsher penalties on the Ibrox club. Sounds like a boycott of all the smaller SPL clubs by the Rangers support is being called for; the bullies are trying to take over the SFA classroom and they do not intend to compromise. ("Hello, hello, we are the Bully-boys..") There was no sign of dissent from the Rangers board, McCoist or the club's fan-base when Gretna were put into administration, docked ten points, fined and relegated to the Scottish Third Division in 2008, just before the tiny provincial club folded, was there?

Rangers Football Club is a member club of the Scottish Football Association, and are aware of the rules and regulations of the governing organisation. Regardless of who was responsible for not settling the tax-bill and other expenses at his club (surely more people than just the chief executive were culpable), for McCoist to indulge in some blatant psychological warfare when he said that he did not blame the SFA for taking the decisions they did, but saying that the SFA's rulings could kill the club was an opportune moment for yours truly to indulge in some head-shaking.

What was good enough for Gretna (and also for Livingston, by the way - yes, they were in the First Division at the time) should also be good enough for Rangers and that section of their support who think that a little bullying will go a long way. Suck it up, folks. Then again, Rangers could apply once more for membership of the Football League in England (they would surely have to start at the bottom and work their way up)..

We haven't even touched on corruption in FIFA and elsewhere (Italy, the Caribbean Football Union and more), the assertion that the Chumpions' League is the be-all and end-all of club football - closely followed by the Premier League - rampant bigotry, racism and sexism in the game and among its supporters in various parts of the world, the smaller clubs and associations constantly being trampled upon by their richer and larger counterparts, the inept organisation of the game in many countries..

It all paints a rather gloomy and depressing picture of the world game, and deservedly so. And, we football fans put up with it all. Why? Because in spite of everything, we still love football, and because we love football, we let ourselves be taken for fools. We still allow ourselves to be fleeced by clubs, national associations and continental federations. We allow ourselves to be seduced and swayed by an often mendacious media and those within and without football who indulge in some good old knee-jerk reactions, and we take these opinions as gospel.

If fans could move a little away from blind loyalty and look at the bigger picture once in a while, one which involves the spectre of a game, a game having lost its soul eons ago and which is now on the edge of implosion, we could make a difference by just refusing to go along with it all. Or are we all just happy with things as they are, watching Football Lite? If that is the case, then we have the game, and the coverage of it, that we deserve.

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HELP BILLY WALK APPEAL: The Help Billy Appeal, ongoing since last year, aims to raise enough money to enable a young 3-year-old boy, Billy Douglas, who comes from a village just outside Belfast and who suffers from spastic diaplegia, to undergo an urgent and potentially life-changing operation. Should you wish to know more, Billy's plight has been highlighted in a recent entry here on Pat's Football Blog:
http://patmcguinness.blogspot.com/2012/04/theres-appeal-in-box-help-billy-walk.html

Or, of course, for those who might want to bypass the article and go straight to goal, the appeal's website address is:
www.helpbillywalkappeal.co.uk

If you can donate, please do so. If not, kindly post either link on your Facebook page if you have one and share, or tweet. Many thanks.

THEY DO PLAY FOOTBALL IN PALAU AFTER ALL, MATT

Out of the world's myriad of independent countries, only a few are not part of FIFA, and out of those, only three or four at most do not have an international football team of some description. Even fewer have no organised football at all. According to Matt, an acquaintance of your correspondent, the tiny Pacific nation of Palau is one such place. He called in to the homestead a few weeks ago whilst on the way to somewhere else, and we fell into conversation, during which he mentioned that he had just come back from a ten-day holiday in Palau, which he enjoyed immensely, and had spent no small amount of time diving among the tiny Pacific nation's coral-reefs.

When asked about the football scene in Palau, he merely shrugged his shoulders and said that the Palauans didn't play football, or, at least, he had heard nothing about the game being played locally. That came as no big surprise, to be fair, as Matt is no fan of what that icon of British broadcasting, Stuart Hall, calls "the beautiful game." However, the game is indeed played in Palau, but not entirely as per the FIFA rule-book. Before we go on to that, however, time for a quick geography lesson (not least for yours truly).

The Republic of Palau (Belau in the Palauan language), situated some 500 miles due east of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao and 2000 miles south of Japan, was the final Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands to achieve independence when it became a sovereign state in 1994. It, together with the Northern Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands and what are now the Federated States of Micronesia, was a United Nations trusteeship under American supervision from 1947 until independence.

Palau, an archipelago spread over thousands of square miles of the Pacific Ocean, consists of more than 250 islands covering a total land area of less than 180 square miles with a population of just under 21000 people, more than half of whom live on Koror Island.

Koror is also home to the Palau Football Association, which was formed in May 2002, and the PFA's first ten years in existence have not been without their fair share of problems; a local league was initiated in 2004, but it was discontinued in 2007. Charles Reklai Mitchell, a Palauan-American who grew up in the Californian city of San Diego and played college football for California State Northridge between 2000 and 2003, moved to Palau in 2007 and began working with the PFA early in 2008. He is now the association's president, and has overseen the return of an organised league in the archipelago, which is still only based on Koror and the neighbouring island of Malakal.

When Mitchell arrived in the islands, he found the PFA, and football in Palau in general, in a state of neglect. Only now, four years on, has he and a small band of fellow volunteers, been able to sufficiently resurrect organised football in the tiny republic to the extent that Koror's league has been revived and an inter-island youth tournament created.

He said: "It almost feels like we are starting from scratch..Football in Palau was around [when he arrived in 2008], but [there was] no-one to organize it properly." The league stopped after the 2006-07 due what Mitchell called "a lack of personnel."

"In Palau," Mitchell continued, "it is very difficult to find volunteers to organize a league. There is a handful of us wearing 3 hats, so to say. That league [2006-07] was mainly [staffed] with foreigners, which is not a bad thing, but my mentality was to develop the youth for the future in order to have higher quality local players. The league went on for years and we haven't gotten anywhere [near] international play. It's better to have strong roots or the whole thing will collapse. Without consistent development, gaps begin to form and weaken the influence of football within the community."

This season, there are five teams competing in the PFA Spring League, which only lasts a matter of weeks. It began on 11/3/12, and this season's participants are Team Bangladesh - who won the last national league championship, played in 2007, and who are also the only team from that era to take part in this year's competition; they could justifiably be called the current league champions - Belau Kanu Club, Biib Strykers, Kramers FC, and, last but not least, Taj.

Judging by their names, some of the teams who participated in previous incarnations (and the current version) of the PFA League seem to have comprised at least partly of migrant workers: Mount Everest Nepal, Taj and Team Bangladesh to name but three; a throwback to Mitchell's earlier comments. The teams competing this season have all been sponsored by local businesses; Taj, for example, is the name of a local restaurant, while Kramers FC is sponsored by a café based on Malakal.

What sets adult football in Palau apart from that played in most of the rest of the world is that teams are 9-a-side, and comprise of both men and women. The country, or Koror, at any rate, has just 57 registered players: 53 men and 4 women. Each team plays each other once, with matches lasting 60 minutes instead of the regulation 90, and the top four teams then move on to the classic semi-final and final format.

Team Bangladesh finished top of the 5-team "regular" season this time round, winning all of their games in the process. They were drawn against Biib Strykers in the semi-finals, with second-placed Taj taking on Kramers FC in the other semi. (Belau Kanu Club finished bottom of the group and pointless.) Team Bangladesh disposed of the Strykers in some style, winning by 6 goals to 1, thanks in part to a Malakai Bitu hat-trick, is second of the campaign.

In the other semi, which proved to be even more of a high-scoring affair, Taj defeated Kramers FC 8:4 with Futa and Toni Ililau scoring hat-tricks for Taj; Futa registered his treble in the first 10 minutes, and that after Kramers FC had opened the scoring through Tabet Kano in the first minute. The result of the final between Taj and Team Bangladesh, played on 22/4/12 was a 2:1 win for the "current" league champions, though the match details were not to hand at the time of writing.

That takes care of the present, but what of the future of the game in Palau? Mitchell reckons that the future of the game in the islands definitely belongs to today's youth. There is a national sports tournament, the Belau Games, which takes place every two years, and football was included in the set-up for the first time in 2011. The tiny republic is divided into 16 states, with 10 of them, including Melekeok, which houses the nation's capital, Ngerulmud, situated on the largest island in the republic, Babeldaob. Four states (Airai, Koror, Ngardmau and the eventual winners, Ngeremlengui) sent representative football teams, though there were problems even here, according to the PFA president.

"The Belau Games in 2011 for all sports were open to adults. [Having said that], there are not enough Palauan adults who play football," he said. "I put an age limit of 14 and under to cater to the youth build-up for years to come. In 2013, the soccer event will have no age limits since most of the kids in the program now will be around 16 years of age. In June of this year, the youth games will be conducted, which [will feature teams of age] 18 & under. We will hold two competitions with the age groups being 14-18 and 10-13 years of age."

The Palau Football Association also organise after-school "camps" for local children of primary-school age at the PCC Track & Field (also referred to as the Palau National Track & Field), the country's national stadium, and the PFA estimated that more than 100 schoolchildren have already taken part so far this year.

Meanwhile, the PFA are also looking to expand senior football further, at least on Koror. The 5 clubs taking part in the association's Spring League are, as mentioned earlier, all sponsored by private businesses, and the PFA are looking for locals to come together and organise clubs which are not financed by private companies. Biib Strykers are also planning to develop the nation's first proper youth team later this year. According to Mitchell, the format of the PFA's Autumn League - or, failing that, future editions of PFA league championships - may well change as the number of clubs increases.

"We will be conducting another adult league in the fall which will be longer. Depending on the number of registered teams, every team will play each other twice before moving on. There is a possibility in the play-offs we might adopt the UEFA ruling on "legs". That will something to really consider. We hope to begin the fall (autumn) season in October."

Mitchell also mentioned that the PFA are looking further ahead, and further afield. "In 2014 the Micronesian Games are held in Pohnpei [in the Federated States of Micronesia] and I hope they offer football as an event. It will give a chance to have all islanders watch and play football."

Not only that, but the PFA joining a continental confederation should not be ruled out, and, according to the PFA president, this may happen sooner rather than later, though he remains realistic.

"In order to apply for FIFA, I believe we need to join an international federation first. We have been exchanging emails with the Guam Football Association. GFA president Richard Lai recently said he will mention our interest in joining the EAFF[East Asian Football Federation], AFC at a meeting in Shanghai.

"There are pros and cons with everything, but the EAFF is a better choice. The chance to conduct friendlies with various nations would be logistically easier than trying to send a team to Papua New Guinea, Samoa, etc. The competition is strong in the AFC and [participation in major tournaments is unrealistic at this time] because we are just getting our footing and will be thrown into the deep end. At this point we will go with whatever federation that is willing to accept our application, but leaning towards EAFF."

Membership of the EAFF might well be a better option for the PFA; travelling costs would certainly add up to a lot less than were they to join the OFC (Oceania Football Confederation). For instance, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are, in comparison to Samoa, a hop, skip and jump away from Palau. The Philippines, too, are a lot closer than most of the OFC member nations.

And, when your budget is as limited as that of the Palau Football Association, every penny counts; according to the PFA website, the association's annual income (garnered mostly thanks to the kindness of others) averages out at around just US$800 per annum, while annual expenditure is put at some US$500. Of course, with such a tiny population, an equally small budget, not to mention an apathy for the game among large sections of the country's adult population - American team sports such as baseball and basketball are still the most popular in the archipelago - expansion is difficult, Mitchell added.

"I would say our biggest needs are coaching and refereeing qualification courses along with the strengthening of our adminstration. It's very hard to do [any of this] without a budget. It would be nice to have a certified instructor on island to conduct courses for all interested volunteers. Eventually the PFA will need to provide coaches and referees that hold the credentials that will allow them to perform their duties at an international level."

He concluded by saying: "I think football in Palau is another great team sport to create productive people for the community. I don't expect Palau to win a World Cup, but there is potential for kids to possibly get scholarships for school. There is a lot of natural talent, its just a matter of constantly working with them. The biggest problem here is our population. It is really low and kids here do not concentrate on one sport. It is hard to keep a kid interested in a sport if there is no incentive such as travelling to other islands for youth tourneys."

Palau, then, although hampered as it is by having a small population, many of whom are apathetic towards football, and the distances between it and even its closest neighbours, has a football association staffed by volunteers who, although inexperienced, are determined to see it grow and improve. The PFA may well be taking baby steps at the moment and finding their feet - in Charles Mitchell's own words: "This is the first time I have organized a league and with that I have learned what to improve on" - but every tiny step forward is a sign of progress.

Membership of FIFA, or even the EAFF, may well be a long way off, but it is heartening to see Palau's local governing football body look at things in a sensible manner. In fact, the world's biggest clubs and federations could learn a few lessons from what the Palau Football Association are doing, and how they are doing it with about as much money as what would keep Cristiano Ronaldo in football boots for a couple of months. It augurs well for the future of football in the small republic..and going to a game at the PCC Track & Field might give Matt something else to do with his Sunday afternoon the next time he's in the area.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: Many thanks to Charles Mitchell for his kindness, patience, co-operation and permission to glean information from the Palau Football Association website:

http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=2-1609-0-0-0&sID=14442

Other information was taken from the RSSSF website:

http://www.rsssf.com/results-aso.html

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HELP BILLY WALK APPEAL: The Help Billy Appeal, ongoing since last year, aims to raise enough money to enable a young 3-year-old boy, Billy Douglas, who comes from a village just outside Belfast and who suffers from spastic diaplegia, to undergo an urgent and potentially life-changing operation. Should you wish to know more, Billy's plight has been highlighted in a recent entry here on Pat's Football Blog:

http://patmcguinness.blogspot.com/2012/04/theres-appeal-in-box-help-billy-walk.html

Or, of course, for those who might want to bypass the article and go straight to goal, the appeal's website address is:

www.helpbillywalkappeal.co.uk

If you can donate, please do so. If not, kindly post either link on your Facebook page if you have one and share, or tweet. Many thanks.