When we’re kids running around in the park like lunatics with a ball at our feet, we naturally dream of becoming a great player.

Depending on the period, our particular place, and sometimes who we support, we magic ourselves into the body of a true ‘great’ by allowing ourselves to become totally subsumed into their identity.

We did this with the power of the great player’s name. As we ran out onto the grass – or the schoolyard – we informed our mates who we are going to be when the game starts. Back in the 1950s, when I was a kid, it was ‘I’ll be Tom Finney’; someone would chime back, ‘I’ll be Stanley Matthews’; ‘I’m Stan Mortensen’, and off we’d go.

It was usually a striker or goalscoring midfielder we chose to be, of course. Nobody (except the Italian lad) chose to be a great defender. This tradition in England goes right back to the very beginnings of Association Football when, in 1872, the first national team to represent England (against the Scots in the first international match ever) lined up in a most peculiar tactical shape: it was a 1 – 1 – 8 formation: one defender; one midfielder….. and eight strikers!

The English chaps (for ‘chaps’ they were; almost entirely from public school backgrounds) didn’t fancy being ‘defenders’. In quite a few of the older, school versions of the game, the defenders were the ‘fags’ (the younger boys who served the ‘prefects’). Who wants to be a ‘fag’?

But at Liverpool FC these days, there is one defender that every Red fan has admired for years; not because he’s a supremely ‘great player’ but because he is a very good one with the greatest ‘heart’ for the team you can hope to find.

Carragher may not be the cleverest passer or the quickest defender in the world but who cares? He may not be one of those defenders that gets half a dozen goals a season from corners (indeed, Carragher hasn’t scored for years; out of his 735 games for Liverpool, he’s only scored five: he’s a goal every 135 games man).

But he leaves everything on the pitch, and in my city that too is to be greatly admired. If you want to see what belief and sheer willpower can do, watch closely his Champions League winning performance in Istanbul after half time. He gives it all.

In so many ways, Carragher is the REAL role model that inspires us all; and the living confirmation that, for those who love LFC, what you give to the game and to your team is as good a measure of a man as any other. And if you’re a local boy (even an Evertonian) and you play for one club all your professional life; that’s almost as good as it gets.

That’s why he’s a true ‘great’ and has been recognised as such by one of the simplest, yet cleverest songs the Kop has ever produced:

‘We all dream of a team of Carraghers,

A team of Carraghers, a team of Carraghers,

Number 1: Carragher; number 2: Carragher: number 3 Carragher……

There is simply no higher compliment we can pay.

Dr Rogan Taylor is the Director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool. He is also a writer and broadcaster, with five football books and numerous radio and TV contributions. He has acted as a special adviser to The FA, The Premier League and Premier League Clubs.

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Football.

I was watching with the usual amusement last week’s ‘Have I Got News For You?’ when the panel ruthlessly took the proverbial out of the UKIP member who was snapped at home on his couch making the stiff-armed, Nazi salute. He had later explained that he was reaching his hand up in a vain attempt to stop his friend taking the pic.

Then a few days later I saw the Fenerbahce fan pictured on tip toes with another stiff right arm, this time clutching a banana in his fist and waiving it in the general direction of Didier Drogba and Emanuel Eboue, playing for the visiting team, Galatasaray, who had just claimed their record 19th league title.

The Fenerbahce fan phoned in to a TV station after the match and, whilst refusing to give his name, explained that he was just about to eat the offending fruit when he suddenly found himself inexorably drawn into a jeering session against the (white) Galatasaray goalkeeper, Fernando Muslera. Racism? Not me, Guv.

This wasn’t by any means the only example this season of racism amongst some of the Galatasaray fans. They go in for monkey chants too, and wearing plastic bags which feature the brand name of a local biscuit: ‘NEGRO’.

Then, a couple of days later, Fifa boss, Sepp Blatter, goes off on one about the pathetic fine imposed on Roma because of blatantly racist behaviour by some of the Club’s fans at the match against AC Milan in the San Siro last weekend. The interview went out on Fifa’s own website, as Blatter expressed his incredulity at the mere €50,000 fine levied by the Disciplinary Committee of the Italian Federation.

‘I think lessons have not been learned,’ said Blatter. ‘It is incredible that we had such incidents especially in the Italian Serie A in the San Siro between AC Milan and Roma, a very important match. The referee had to stop the match for a few minutes in order to bring back calm.’

But there wasn’t a mention of Fenerbahce or the history of racism and the legendary corruption that exists in the Turkish game. Isn’t the Fenerbahce-Galatasaray game also ‘an important match’? How come the Italians get it in the neck but the Turks get ignored?

Blatter clearly doesn’t read his own emails otherwise he’d know better. I guess some poor sod has to wade their way through them all deleting (if my email account is anything to go by) the hundreds of bitter complaints from Galatasaray fans about what happened, before Blatter ever gets to them. Is Turkey not so ‘important’ as Italy?

The reality is that Turkish football is in deep trouble and the latest unsavoury incident at the Fenerbahce-Galatasaray match is, unfortunately, the least of it. The game is thoroughly infected with scandals; bribery and corruption which go largely unpunished, and even laws are changed to protect the guilty. Why isn’t Fifa (and Uefa for that matter) fully engaged with trying to sort it out?

Is Turkey ‘barley’ or something?

Dr Rogan Taylor is the Director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool. He is also a writer and broadcaster, with five football books and numerous radio and TV contributions. He has acted as a special adviser to The FA, The Premier League and Premier League Clubs.

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Football.

Each and every World Cup in unique, albeit not infrequently the same nation emerges with the most glowing smile across its sporting face: Brazil or Italy or Germany most notably.

But organising each event holds its own challenges for FIFA just as coverage strategies vary for the media while logistics and costs alter for the fans.

This, for example, is what makes Brazil 2014 so intriguing: no-one knows quite what this next adventure into the football festivity unknown will bring.

Hindsight is different. A historical narrative ties Uruguay 1930 through an intercontinental line of dots to South Africa 2010 with a myriad of angles and perspectives on each tournament inbetween.

The memories of Pele and Franz Beckenbauer and Sir Bobby Charlton and Diego Maradona are similar and different.

Similarly, the wider social, cultural and economic themes of this journey around the world from South America and back again. These, rather than the familiar “did-it-really-cross-the-line?” pitch issues, were the subject of a symposium organised at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich.

Stefan Rinke from Berlin sketched the wider significance of Uruguay as inaugural host in 1930; Marco Impiglia from Rome described how Mussolini’s distaste for football was transformed by the realisation of how he might use (and abuse) the 1934 hosting opportunity; and Paul Dietschy from Paris provided the context of the 1938 French finals in a world which was falling apart again.

Raanan Rein from Tel-Aviv examined the international protest movement against the junta in Argentina in 1978 and whether it was a success or a failure or fell somewhere inbetween while Bernardo Borges from Rio de Janeiro recalled the 1950 creation of Maracana on the Ancient Horse Racing venue and the legacy of that cataclysmic defeat.

Right now, of course, many Brazilian fans are not sure whether they team will even reach the final next year never mind win, when and if they progress that far (which, to be fair, they probably will).

Twice the World Cup has been staged in Mexico so Keith and Clare Brewster from Newcastle placed the finals of both 1970 and 1986 in the disaster-strewn shadows cast by the 1968 student massacre and the 1985 earthquake.

The risk of academia is always reading past events into a revisionist narrative dictated by our own present lives and technological powers.

Still someone needs to do it, somewhere and somehow, because the great sports events offer a caricature of modern social history and development.

Not only the World Cup, of course, but also the Olympic Games.

Now there’s a thought: FIFA and the IOC should unite their forces and repeat and expand the exercise – one day’s session in Zurich, the next in Lausanne.

If sport can be a force for good then it should be maximised and beamed across the internet as well.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
ROGAN TAYLOR: FIFA’S NEW MOTTO –‘CUT AND RUN’
ROGAN TAYLOR: JACK WON’T BE BACK

Keir Radnedge is one of the foremost observers of international soccer. He has reported at every World Cup since 1966 and is a regular contributor to TV, radio, newspapers and magazines worldwide. He is editor of KeirRadnedge.com and is chairman of the Football Commission of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS). Visit www.KeirRadnedge.com for further information. Follow him on Twitter for more sports industry updates.

If there is anyone on earth who represents almost everything that’s been rotten about FIFA for the last quarter of a century, it’s surely Trinidad’s Jack Warner; the one-time boss of CONCACAF, and the longest serving member of the FIFA Executive Committee in modern times.

The recent publication of a Report into financial skulduggery– called for by the CONCACAF Congress a year ago – has revealed a level of graft and corruption on an almost heroic scale, with Jack Warner at its heart.

There have always been rumours and speculation of course but nothing concrete ever emerged (and nothing was done within FIFA to derail the gravy-train). It was in a way, plain obvious for all to see but the way the world’s governing body of football works – and the power it has even over democratically elected governments and a free media – made sure that nobody could lay a finger on Warner.

It reminds me of the way the now disgraced Jimmy Saville got away with his particular corruption for decades. He just did it virtually in the open; banking on the fact that he served so many other interests that no one would reveal his sordid game. He got away with it too, his whole life.

Warner was deeply implicated in the ‘cash-for-votes’ scandal that toppled Bin Hammam and his bid for the presidency; Jack bailed out via a strategic resignation before the FIFA ethics committee could formally inquire into his governance of CONCACAF.

The new Report revealed that the $25million FIFA-granted Centre of Excellence built in Trinidad was constructed on land ultimately owned by Jack Warner – and therefore it belonged directly to him! Naturally, CONCACAF had assumed it an asset which belonged to the Federation.

Then there was the $15million or so Warner paid himself by way of salary, and the alleged concealment of millions of dollars of tax liabilities in the US, reportedly in cahoots with that other fine symbol of FIFA’s farcical nature , the CONCACAF Gen. Sec. Chuck Warner (a character so nutty as to be almost comical). You couldn’t invent it better.

The list goes on. But what it reveals most importantly is that beneath the umbrella of FIFA (a body which does much good work and contains many good, honest folk no doubt), a legion of scams and outright criminality was allowed to live and flourish for decades, under Blatter’s watch (and under his previous boss, Jao Havelange). And the thing is: most of it was largely common knowledge.

Despite resigning from FIFA under the darkest cloud and shame, Warner still managed to retain another source of power and influence: he was Minister of National Security in the government of Trinidad (I kid you not). Even after the ethics Report was published last week, he was still brushing off any suggestions that he should step down from his ministerial role.

But fate finally caught up with him this week when – just as he had with FIFA – he resigned from government in an attempt to pre-empt further inquiries. He’s highly skilled at cutting his losses.

But all isn’t well in the West Indies yet. The disgraced boss of the Jamaica FA, Captain Horace Burrell (banned for 6 months after the ‘cash-for-votes’ affair) has been appointed as CONCACAF’s new head of legal & finance, as well as chair/vice chair of nearly a dozen Federation committees.

The Warner era, however, is over. Jack may never be back but his ghost will haunt football’s corridors of power, and his reign will never be forgotten. According to one report this week, he was “arguably the most discredited senior figure in the history of football politics”.

….and that’s going some!

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
KEIR RADNEDGE: WHAT MAKES RIO 2014 SO INTRIGUING
ROGAN TAYLOR: FIFA’S NEW MOTTO –‘CUT AND RUN’

Dr Rogan Taylor is the Director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool. He is also a writer and broadcaster, with five football books and numerous radio and TV contributions. He has acted as a special adviser to The FA, The Premier League and Premier League Clubs.

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Football.

Back in 1994, when the USA World Cup was on, I once tried to start a fight in a New York hotel bar. (It’s a long story….). I was trying to rile the few genial guys who were sitting on stools sipping beer in the late afternoon by saying outrageous things about American sports.

At the end of one long tirade, I finished off with; “And as for baseball…. Well, it’s effectively watching fat blokes in pyjamas playing rounders – a game for girls. And it’s sooooo boring it makes cricket look exciting. Nothing happens, for hours on end. No wonder you have to stuff yourself with burgers and assorted crap to alleviate an overwhelming sense of ennui at the meaninglessness of life.”

Amazingly, I didn’t get my lights punched out (which would have been thoroughly deserved); the bar guys just laughed at my temerity; slapped me on the back and bought me a beer. That’s how much they loved the game; there was nothing I could say to even slightly dent their enthusiasm.

Looking at the TV rights values for Major league Baseball (MLB) these days, I can see (some twenty years later) that the true value of their utter devotion to the game is being expressed in some fairly spectacular numbers. It also speaks of the way major sports rights are increasing in value in the most spectacular way.

Of course, until the Premier League came along, the sports media rights money in the US was far and away the biggest in the world.

It was a rich, mature TV marketplace, and basketball, baseball & the Big Daddy of them all, grid iron football, drew what seemed to us in Europe almost unbelievable piles of dosh from the broadcasters.

But the new numbers for baseball really do make you gulp. The deals concluded late last year, which cover broadcast rights for what we might think an unusually lengthy seven years (2014 – 2021) are amazing. First, the national (NBL) broadcast rights went to Fox Sports Media Group for $12.4billion (divided equally between all the league franchises). Then ESPN weighed in with a further $5.6billion for a piece of the NBL action.

But these deals don’t contain much by way of complete ‘exclusivity’ because the complex rights market in the US also trades in ‘regional’ and other rights…. In addition to that NBL money, a team like the LA Dodgers did a ‘local’ deal with Time Warner recently worth between $7-8 billion (spread over two decades).

The combined total of all broadcast rights for baseball is almost impossible to calculate because of the undisclosed amounts of some deals, and the byzantine complications involving national broadcasters; ‘local’ guys and of course cable networks. The sexy teams can sell their games over & over again to different buyers. In the end, the entire sum could amount to well over $30billion all told.

It’s one hell of a price to pay to watch fat men in pyjamas playing rounders.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
THE MANAGER MAGAZINE: MICHAEL LAUDRUP INTERVIEW
ROGAN TAYLOR: MAGGIE THATCHER – BALL SNATCHER
KEIR RADNEDGE: SECURITY AT RIO 2014

Dr Rogan Taylor is the Director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool. He is also a writer and broadcaster, with five football books and numerous radio and TV contributions. He has acted as a special adviser to The FA, The Premier League and Premier League Clubs.

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Football.

They lit bonfires in parts of Britain when news of the death of Margaret Thatcher went out. Some people literally danced on her metaphoric grave. Expressions of genuine anger no doubt – but tasteless and pointless in my view.

But what really stuck in this football fan’s craw were – amongst all the coverage of her legacy – the recent assertions by some Tory MPs of praise for her implementation of the Taylor Report and the birth of the Premier League.

Talk about ‘re-writing history’. The reality is (and was) that Mrs T. despised football, and saw it as an anachronism – another leftover rust-bucket industry that needed closing down, along with coal mining and the rest. As the Guardian’s David Lacey reported, at a meeting with her in Downing Street, she asked him straight: ‘Can we run football without any fans in the stadium? Paid for by TV and commercial interests?’

I know the truth because I was there at the time. After accidentally launching the Football Supporters Association by writing a piece about the Heysel Disaster, in 1985, I became Chairman of this first national organisation which individual footie fans could join to represent their interests and campaign for change.

Within a couple of years, I found myself being paid by the FA, the FL and Wembley Stadium Ltd to lead a campaign against the legislation with which Mrs Thatcher proposed to effectively suffocate the game. It was called the ‘Football Spectators Bill’ (though everyone called the ‘ID Card Bill’) and it started its journey through Parliament in the summer of 1988.

I was in Parliament (as an observer I might add) for virtually every legislative stage of the Bill’s progress. It started in the House of Lords and bounced back forth between Lords and Commons for the next ten months. The Bill required every football fan to buy a computer readable ‘Membership’ card – and every football club to install computer-controlled turnstiles to control entry. It wasn’t about ‘membership’, of course; it was all about excluding people.

Virtually every MP of all the major parties opposed the Bill, except a very small coterie of Mrs T’s ‘kitchen cabinet’ which included the then Sports Minister, Colin Moynihan (a former Olympic Cox for the British rowing team, once memorably described in Parliament as “small but imperfectly informed”). No football organisation wanted it: from the refs to the players, to the fans and the clubs. It made no difference

But very few Tory MPs had the bottle to openly oppose Mrs Thatcher, and the Bill was ground through the various Houses over the following months and into the spring of 1989. Then, just as it was completing its course and become an Act of Parliament, ninety six Liverpool fans died at Hillsborough and Lord Justice Taylor was appointed to produce a major Report on the game.

Taylor rubbished the idea of compulsory ‘membership’ cards and computer operated turnstiles as a recipe for another disaster like Hillsborough – large numbers of fans outside who can’t get in and police forced to take ill-considered decisions about what to do.

Given the impact of the disaster, even Mrs T. couldn’t take Taylor on, and the ID Card provisions of the Football Spectators Act were quietly forgotten and finally repealed (equally quietly) in 2006.

As for the birth of the Premier League, that had its origins in Heysel, four years earlier, when the so called ‘big six’ clubs of the day – having lost entry into any European competition for five years – got together within a few months of the disaster to work out how they could keep more of the TV income amongst themselves.

It wasn’t Mrs Thatcher who changed football – for good or ill – it was two terrible events which cost the lives of one hundred and thirty five football fans.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
THE MANAGER MAGAZINE: MICHAEL LAUDRUP INTERVIEW
KEIR RADNEDGE: SECURITY AT RIO 2014
ROGAN TAYLOR: THE MERRY-GO-ROUNDERS

Dr Rogan Taylor is the Director of the Football Industry Group at the University of Liverpool. He is also a writer and broadcaster, with five football books and numerous radio and TV contributions. He has acted as a special adviser to The FA, The Premier League and Premier League Clubs.

The views of our regular columnists are independent, and as such do not represent those of Leaders in Football.

A clearly defined and well-communicated philosophy can inspire, motivate and guide an organisation in the right direction. In this Exclusive Interview from the LMA’s The Manager magazine, we speak to Michael Laudrup, Manager of Swansea City, who shares his experience of football ethos in Europe and the invigorating challenges of the very British way.

You had a distinguished playing career with some of the world’s top clubs. When did your decide to use that experience in management?

I never thought I would do. I was still playing until the age of 34 and when I retired I was tired, mentally and physically. When you play for big clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus there’s pressure to be tactically and mentally sharp in every match you play. For 10 months after I retired I spent time watching football and doing TV work.

Then, in 2000, my former team-mate and Ajax manager Morten Olsen was appointed as head coach of the Danish national team and asked me to become his assistant manager. I decided to see if I liked the role. I did and two years later I was appointed manager of Brondby, which was the biggest club in Denmark at the time.

It was a good place for me to start, because I’d played for the club in the past and understood its ethos and the expectations on me. I was there for four years before moving on to manage at Spanish sides Getafe and Real Mallorca.

How does the role of head coach in Europe differ from that of a manager in the Barclays Premier League?

There are head coaches in Spain who are heavily involved in decision-making and have a lot of influence, such as Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid and former Barcelona head coach Pep Guardiola. In general, however, head coaches in Europe are more like trainers. You might be asked what type of player you need, but it tends to be the club’s sporting director or owner who has most influence.

One of my former coaching colleagues in Spain summed up the situation when he said, “He buys the players, I train them,” it’s as simple as that. Managers in the Barclays Premier League have a much greater say about whether a player is signed.

There is also a different mentality in British football and the manager has not only more influence but also a wider range of responsibilities. This is how it should be, because if things aren’t going well it’s the manager who gets sacked.

Who have been your mentors as a manager? Who has inspired you?

Because I’ve played for such big teams, I’ve experienced some great coaches. However, Johan Cruyff, Giovanni Trapattoni and Sepp Piontek stand out. For very different reasons they had a major impact on me during crucial points in my career – as a player with Barcelona, Juventus and the Danish national side and then once I became a manager.

All three had quite different qualities that I admired and that I wanted to acquire as well as those that I knew wouldn’t work for me. When I find myself in a new situation as a manager, I’ll often recall how those managers dealt with it.

How would you describe yourself as a leader? what type of relationship do you foster with your players?

I think how you are perceived by the people that you work with is very important. I say to my players that I am their manager – not a policeman or their father – and try to give them a certain amount of freedom. If they make mistakes, I deal with it accordingly, but I treat them as adults not children.

Having said that, it’s important to remember that, however much he might be getting paid, an 18-year-old player is still young and may be less mature than another who is 32 and married with children. While there are some rules that apply to everybody, you have to observe and handle each person as an individual.

Has your philosophy as a manager been influenced by your time playing for the European clubs?

Football is interesting because there are many ways to do things and many ways to succeed. If there was a single winning formula then everyone would take it. Managers are all different and we each believe in our own way of doing things.

Countries also tend to have their own distinct football philosophies, which I saw as a player in Italy and Spain. In the Barclays Premier League, meanwhile, there is a wide variation of styles and philosophies on show; some teams are very physical and direct while others are more offensive. It makes it more of a challenge for a manager, because you can encounter a different style of play at each game.

Swansea has a well-defined philosophy of attractive, passing football. How fundamental has that been to its success?

Swansea has made its philosophy very clear. It has decided to do things a certain way, to be consistent in that, and to take it into account when appointing managers. It purposefully seeks out managers and players who share its philosophy.

Some observers may play that down, saying it’s just common sense, but I’ve seen many clubs, including some big sides, who haven’t maintained that consistency of approach. It is expensive to keep changing in that way and not helpful for the fans.

I don’t, however, believe it is the manager or the players that determine an organisation’s philosophy; it has to come from the top.

Did Swansea make their ethos and vision clear to you right from the start?

Yes, and I had about a week after speaking with them to make my decision. I used that week to learn as much as possible about the club to make an informed judgement. Often as a player or a manager you have only a day or so and I’ve had a bad experience in the past because of that. Perhaps if I’d had a few more days to do some research I’d have made a different choice.

How important is it for a club’s philosophy to permeate right down to the youth side?

Very important. At Barcelona, the philosophy is all about the touch and what they do with the ball rather than a particular system of play. Nobody, including me, can see what system they play because the players are so good and can all interchange positions. But everyone at Barcelona knows how they have to touch the ball and the runs they need to make. I imagine that if you watch the club’s 12 to 14-year-old players they train in a very similar way to the first team.

At Ajax, they have been playing the same 4-3-3 system since the 1970s, in the days of Johan Cruyff. Every team in the club has to play this way. I recall my last season as a player there in 1997-98, when Morten Olsen was head coach. We were doing fantastically well; top of the league and 10 or 11 points clear of PSV in second.

But for one fixture all three of our wingers were injured, so Morten decided that we would need to play 4-4-2. We won the game, but the next day there were reports in the press saying “Disaster…how can Ajax play 4-4-2?” It was as though we’d committed a major offence.

I don’t believe you should be quite so rigid in your philosophy, but it does need to permeate the whole club, through the system of player progression. If there is a clear club philosophy, the young players coming through know the basics they need to progress.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
ROGAN TAYLOR: MAGGIE THATCHER – BALL SNATCHER
KEIR RADNEDGE: SECURITY AT RIO 2014
ROGAN TAYLOR: THE MERRY-GO-ROUNDERS

Michael Laudrup is Manager of Swansea City and was interviewed for the latest edition of the League Managers Association’s (LMA) magazine, The Manager. The full online edition is available here The Manager Issue 15.

One of the great frustrations for Danny Jordaan, in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, was that South Africa’s organising boss was forever being assailed by critical questions about security.

The European media, in particular, always held safety of fans and tourists as a No1 concern and Jordaan and his organising colleagues were never allowed to forget it.

Security has not been the media’s priority fear for Brazil’s hosting of this year’s Confederations Cup, next year’s World Cup and Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 Olympic Games.

The Main concern has been the need for FIFA and the IOC to administer a repeated “kick up the backside” – to quote Jerome Valcke’s immortal phrase – over the stuttering state of preparations.

Until now.

Security had remained a secondary issue because, after all, if Brazil proved incapable of hosting sport’s crown jewels then every other issue fell away.

Now, past the point of no return on all three, security has shot to the top of the agenda.

Lingering concern has always existed over whether sports tourists could be insulated, in their event bubble, from criminality whether low-level violence on the street or an overflow from the favelas.

A first alarm bell rang when Brazil’s military police clashed with players of Argentinian club Tigre in Sao Paulo in the final of the Copa Sudamericana (Europe League equivalent) back in December. The second leg was abandoned at half-time – with the hosts declared the winners – after visiting players and coaches complained they had been threatened at half-time by gun-toting police.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said expressions of international outrage should serve as a warning to Brazil’s security authorities and Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo insisted that “the government will take all necessary measures to guarantee safety and security.”

“This was,” he added, “a one-off incident which had to do with the bad feeling which arises occasionally in matches between South American teams.”

Yet another such “one-off incident” occurred earlier this week and in yet another World Cup host city, Belo Horizonte: Atletico Mineiro’s 5-2 victory over Arsenal of Argentina exploded into fighting between visiting players and the Brazilian military police on the pitch at the final whistle.

Reuters reported that “Brazilian police, who have a reputation of taking to the pitch at the slightest hint of trouble, were quick to use force to control angry Arsenal players who had confronted the match officials at the final whistle, including pointing guns at them.”

But the incidents at these two games are far less concerning than other issues inbetween.

The military police is an issue in itself. Calls have grown in urgency for the disbanding of a force whose ethos has been described as a hangover from the years of military dictatorship. At the end of last month eight military police officers were arrested over the execution-style murder of two youths in the Bras suburb of Sao Paulo.

AAP reported: “[Sao Paulo] has seen a surge in violent crime in recent years, and police frequently have been accused of excessive use of force.”

Amnesty International has long fretted about the means by which the Brazilian authorities will retake control of the favelas. That concern was enhanced by the manner (tear gas, etc) of last month’s forced eviction of several dozen indigenous squatters from the crumbling old Indian museum complex next to the Maracana stadium.

Only a week earlier the commander of one of the specific ‘police pacification’ [UPP] units in the northern zone of Rio was jailed for six years for accepting $15,000-a-week ‘protection money’ from a notorious drugs trafficker.

Hitting the international headlines, above all, was the abduction and gang-rape of an American student on a public transport minibus heading downtown out of Copacabana. Her French French boyfriend was handcuffed, hit over the head with a crowbar and forced to watch the six-hour ordeal.

The attackers took turns behind the wheel on a drive out to Niteroi where they went on a spending spree with the foreigners’ credit cards. Once they spent out, the attackers drove the pair back to Rio and forced the woman to fetch another credit card. The two were ultimately dumped near the city of Itabori, some 50km from Rio.

Of course robbery, violence and rape are crimes common to every country. What happened that night in Rio was no different, sadly, to the trauma undergone by other luckless victims of similar, simultaneous outrages elsewhere around the world.

But, as Danny Jordaan will know from South Africa 2010, when the focus of the world is on you, any and every incident assumes international proportions.

Belatedly maybe, but Brazil’s authorities should understand that the safety and security spotlight will be relentless from now until the Closing Ceremony of the Olympics in 2016 . . . assuming they have a stadium capable of hosting it.

THIS WEEK’S ARTICLES:
THE MANAGER MAGAZINE: MICHAEL LAUDRUP INTERVIEW
ROGAN TAYLOR: MAGGIE THATCHER – BALL SNATCHER
ROGAN TAYLOR: THE MERRY-GO-ROUNDERS

Keir Radnedge is one of the foremost observers of international soccer. He has reported at every World Cup since 1966 and is a regular contributor to TV, radio, newspapers and magazines worldwide. He is editor of KeirRadnedge.com and is chairman of the Football Commission of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS). Visit www.KeirRadnedge.com for further information. Follow him on Twitter for more sports industry updates.