Olympic football matches fail to excite fans as 1m tickets remain unsold

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The take-up for the Olympic football tournament has been so negative that half a million tickets are to be withdrawn from sale. Organisers admitted that with only a week before the start of the Games many matches outside London will have empty seats. Tickets at Cardiff and Glasgow have been particularly difficult to sell.

The surprise announcement came only one day after the captain of the men’s team, Ryan Giggs, enthused about being part of the event and said he hoped there would be lots of supporters. The matches that involve the British team have sold well, however games in the other venues around the country are struggling to attract a crowd.

With a million football tickets left unsold, Locog, the London organising committee, took the decision to halve the number remaining and close off parts of the stadiums. In Cardiff, the 74,500-capacity Millennium Stadium is expected to have its top tier closed for most matches apart from when Britain’s men play Uruguay. Locog still faces a race against time to sell the 450,000 that remain available – around 200,000 of those are returns from National Olympic Committees.

Locog insists it is “delighted” with sales for the football competition, saying that with 1.6 million already sold that is more than at Euro 2012. They also point out sales of women’s matches far outweighs anything previously seen in this country. For Hope Powell’s side’s first game in Cardiff against New Zealand on Wednesday – two days before the opening ceremony – 37,000 fans are expected. The women’s English cup final at the Emirates drew around 5,000 this season.

Sales in Glasgow, which will host eight games at Hampden Park, are believed to have been particularly sluggish, with around 80,000 of the 250,000 originally put on sale gone. Spain against Japan is the pick of the games in Glasgow – Egypt against Belarus is somewhat less attractive. Adult tickets for matches cost between £20 and £40.

It is in Glasgow that the greatest number of tickets – some 50,000 – has been distributed free to schools and youth groups through the Ticketshare scheme. In all, 200,000 tickets across all Olympic sports have been given out in this manner. Ticketshare is funded via sales of hospitality tickets and packages for the Games – so allowing organisers to give them out for free.

Pearce’s decision to leave Beckham out of the Olympic squad shocks everyone

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Harry Redknapp, the recently sacked manager of Spurs, has said that Stuart Pearce’s decision to leave David Beckham out of his GB Olympic squad had effectively made him kiss goodbye to the possibility of ever getting a knighthood. He also praised Pearce, however, for being brave enough to go against the majority of football fans and chose the squad that he wanted.

Redknapp, speaking to The Sun, said that undoubtedly Pearce will have upset some in high places who would have loved to see Beckham in the squad, and he himself was sad and surprised he hadn’t been picked. Redknapp added that Pearce could kiss a knighthood goodbye, but credit had to be given for his bravery as he was the manager and should be free to choose who he wants.

Beckham had spoken of his hopes that he would be included in the squad as one of the 3 over-age players each team is allowed, and he was widely expected to be picked by those inside and outside of football. He made it as far as the extended list of possibles, but revealed yesterday that he had not made the final cut, and the 3 places are understood to have gone to Craig Bellamy, Micah Richards and Ryan Giggs.

Danny Mills, the former England defender who was a teammate of Beckham’s in the World Cup of 2002, has hit out at the decision of Pearce and claims that the former boss of Manchester City has, in the past, struggled with big players and while everyone around the world knows ‘Brand Beckham’ he is still one of the finest footballers and can still cut it.

Beckham was a key player in drumming up support for the bid London put in to stage the games back in 2005, and it looks likely that the chairman of London 2012, Sebastian Coe, will now offer him a role in the Olympics.

 

Blackburn start their Championship campaign with Steve Kean at the helm

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At the start of the new championship season Blackburn Rovers will have a manager in the shape of Steve Kean. Shebby Singh, the club’s new global advisor, announced that an agreement has been made with Kean.

Rovers were relegated in May, following 11 years in the Premiership. Supporters have been putting increasing pressure on club owners Venky’s and Keane himself since Sam Allardyce was replaced in December 2010 be the Scot. The 44-year-old flew to India at the end of last season for talks with Venky’s, and it appears he will be trying to lead Blackburn back to Premiership football in the first year.

Mr Singh who is a former Malaysian international, and has been working as a football pundit recently in Asia, was appointed by Blackburn Rovers Football Club at the start of the week.

Although he reportedly called for Kean to be sacked in a Singapore paper (New Paper), he now appears to support the Scot. In the newspaper column he said that Steve Keane was not the man to lead the club back to the Premiership. He has stated that when the article was written, he was looking at him critically as a sports pundit, not as a work colleague.

Mr Sing goes on to explain that they need to talk about certain aspects for an extremely long time. He feels that there were a lot of areas which weren’t looked into in the last season. In particular He mentioned tactically naïve, lightweight teams, players past their prime, team members who were played out of position and unhappy players.

He said they weren’t going to wallow in self-pity, but quickly move on. Mr Singh agrees he has been critical and in his new role as global adviser his views need to be more constructive.

 

More European football fans than expected make the trip the Euro 2012

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Many thousands of fans from across Europe have travelled to the European Championships. Fans from crisis-hit countries, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain have left behind the huge spending cuts, chronic unemployment and widespread disenchantment of their home countries for a few weeks.

Fans are putting their trust in their teams, where they can no longer put it in their banks are politicians. A local government worker from Spain made the journey to Poland to support his country’s team, saying he just had to be there.

The Spanish team, who won four years ago, is amongst the favourites to win the European title. Julio travelled with a budget airline and is staying for five days on a campsite in Gdansk, northern Poland. Julio, from Caceres, like most fans, is pleased that the cost of living is cheaper in the Ukraine and Poland.

In 2007 UEFA voted for the Eastern European countries, who are neighbours, to jointly host the four-yearly tournament. The finals four years ago were held in Austria and Switzerland, which are very expensive, and the 2010 World Cup took place in South Africa, very expensive for Europeans to travel to.

The official areas where the supporters can follow the matches on giant screens are called fan zones. A beer in one of these fan zones will cost about half as much as it would have in a fan zone in Austria at the 2008 tournament.

Spain’s economic situation is absolutely dire, with the resources of the ordinary working Spaniard steadily dwindling. Unemployment is very high and unfortunately so is the cost of living. Many have made huge sacrifices to be able to attend the matches, and save long and hard. For many it is national pride that they are supporting.

 

Gary Neville rules out a repeat of the WAG problems of the 2006 World Cup

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Gary Neville, a coach with the English football team, has said that there won’t be any repeat of the WAG problems that occurred during the World Cup in Germany back in 2006. Many families of footballers have also chosen to stay away from Poland and Ukraine because they fear that there might be some instances of racism.

In 2014 the competition is going to be held in Brazil and it is more likely that the WAG issue is going to re-occur then when the families of the footballers will probably want to go with them. Mr Neville has assured people that the chaotic scenes of the past are not going to occur again and the families of the footballers are not going to overshadow the footballers themselves.

Mr Neville has commented, “When we go abroad for a competition it is important that we don’t disturb the players too much, and that they have conditions that are similar to what they would experience at home. Between matches in the UK, footballers do not go out into the countryside, but they live in the city. This is why when we travel abroad, we choose to find accommodation in the city centre. This maintenance of normality is a way to ensure that the players perform at their best.”

This is Mr Neville’s first appearance as a football coach which is a great leap of faith when you consider the importance of the upcoming matches. Although he was a successful player, it is unknown about whether he is going to be able to translate that into coaching brilliance. Roy Hodgson chose Mr Neville as the coach after he was impressed by the various observations that he made while appearing as a pundit on Sky television.

Many people have been considering that the fact he was a television pundit might be a problem as he made comments about several of the players who he is now trying to work with. About this he commented, “Sure, I’ve highlighted mistakes, but I’ve always been honest and I think the players know this.”