A man runs an organisation and decides he needs to form a team to come up with a long-term master plan strategy. Does he: a) Build a team based on his knowledge and experience, that he thinks has teh best chance to deliver b) Build a team that will placate the PC lot from shouting discrimination, regardless of what each member might actually bring This Sports Minister is saying his commision should reflect the nation. So that means, that if a man in charge beleives he only needs a team of 4 to do a job, he can't have a team of 4, he has to factor a team of 100, which mirrors the % split of teh various groups in England. No wonder this country is rubbish at getting things done. Why on earth can't we just let the fella get on with it?
It grates a little bit but it was foolish for the FA to announce a panel without anyone black on it. The shot themselves in the foot because there's a number of black people involved in football that could add more to the commission than those selected but that's not very hard. There are kids in primary school who are better equiped to be on that panel. The FA's complete ignorance to the decline of our football over the years is to blame for the problem, look at France, Spain, Germany and Belgium and when they decided enough was enough(far earlier than us) they pumped money in and provided the facilities for even the youngest players. We made some half-assed attempt to get the number of qualified coaches up in England and making pitch sizes smaller with less players at youth level, which was totally missing the point. It's equivalent to sticking a Ferrari sticker on your VW to make it go faster. I like Dyke(snigger) but the commission wreaks of non-football men trying to tackle a football problem. The biggest flaw and discrimination in our panel is that we've got no one foreign(Gradi aside), can we really not trust anyone from the successful countries and those that turned their fortunes around to give us some good advice? The make up of the panel just feels like another example of FA box ticking.You can picture the list they printed off. Who needs to be represented on the panel: The FA(as many times as possible)? Check. National team? Check. Football League? Check. Club chaimen? Check. LMA? Check. PFA? Check. Ex-England player? Check. Ex-England player that was any good? Check. and then scribbled in pencil at the bottom High profile black guy? Check. It's utterly stupid. Hoddle and Hodgson are the only ones of value, the rest have either been in a position to change things for ages and done nothing or are totally unqualified. What on Earth does the League Managers Association have to do with the future of English football? Let alone representing them with Howard ****ing Wilkinson, the guy's a fool! Speaking of fools, Rio Ferdinand and "nice letter writer" Danny Mills are going to turn around English football are they? Bollocks they are. Sorry, I've gone off on a bit of a tangent
I really do agree with this. There are so many coaches fixating on small-sided games and ball-skills. This is true not only in England but also in many countries that perceive that they are losing ground in the football world. There is a complete lack of understanding here the way I see it. First, the trouble with small-sided games and ball-skills is that they do nothing for defensive skills or positional skills which together make up the vast majority of the game. Positioning, defense and movement off the ball are entirely different in 11 a side and in a small-sided format. Second, by making them the focus of training, we are leaving it even later to teach kids about real football. So I'm not saying that ball-skills and small-sided games don't help at all, but I think they are a complete red-herring when it comes to working out why we are falling behind other nations. Football is a game about decisions. The better your skills, the better your athleticism, the more options you have, and you can sometimes recover better from a wrong decision, but the key to making a good footballer (IMHO) is teaching them to make the right decisions quickly, instinctively.
Hoddle does not merit a place on any panel that is supposed to represent the 'norm'. Sure he could pick out a pass, but he is also a religious nutter with beliefs and views that merit a long stay in Broadmoor. I suggest they replace him with David Icke.
