David Beckham takes up his role as global ambassador for China

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Football is gaining ground in China and now David Beckham has become the global ambassador for China in order to help manage the country’s image and reputation at the big game. The Chinese Super League is the name of the national team and it has recently been under a lot of scrutiny as players have left the team to join other brands instead. Didier Drogba is one high profile player who left, plus the group has suffered from a scandal about match fixing recently which certainly does not help its case.

At 37 years old, Beckham will help the team while still maintaining his day job playing for St-Germain in Paris. In a recent press event, he said that this was an important role for him, and that this was time for the country to help shape Chinese football in history. In this new role, he will help China set matches up and promote the team to children and others. He also says that there are a lot of potential football fans in China which need to discovery the sport with proper marketing efforts.

The Chinese team has had a hard time getting into matches recently, with Ivory Coast recently removing the China position in their matches for Turkish teams instead, a controversial move that China contested.

The recent player departures also did not help the team which may now be struggling to be able to participate in 2013 matches starting this month. Corruption has also been alleged in the Chinese Super League with many officials being banned by Fifa. Needless to say, Beckham may have his work cut out for him

Torres has a smile on his face after scoring his 4th goal of the season

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Fernando Torres likely woke up in a good mood this week after scoring his fourth goal of the season while playing in the Chelsea and Wolves match. The final score of the match came out at 6-0, but it turns out that this may not have been enough for his club.

While he may be floating high, it appears that Chelsea is not yet sure about him as they are getting ready to place a very hefty £45m bid on Radamel Falcao. The news that the team is looking for another strong striker is likely not the news that Torres would have wanted.

Chelsea of course knows that Falcao would be a heck of a striker as the 26 year old really showed off his skills during the Super Cup final of last month. He was able to score a 4-1 victory over Madrid putting in a show worth paying top dollar for.

In addition, while playing in Atletico he was able to score a total of 36 goals in only 49 different appearances last season. After this grand season Chelsea has their eye on the Colombian with goals to transfer him over by the close of January.

Steven Gerrard tries to rally the fans for the 2014 World Cup

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Despite a poor showing in recent international tournaments, Steven Gerrard is still convinced that England can lift the 2014 World Cup. The Liverpool and England stalwart has appealed to the football nation to keep faith, and has said that miracles do happen, and you should never stop believing in football.

The next step in Roy Hodgson’s road to Brazil is a stop off in Chisinau to play Moldova in the Group H qualifier. A team from Europe has never won any of the 7 World Cup finals that have been held in North, South or Central America, but Gerrard believes this will inspire England and not deter them.

He said in an interview that he is realistic and honest when he speaks and while England are not one of the current favourites for 2014, that shouldn’t mean that they stop believing or working hard to improve themselves and learn from the mistakes they have made in previous tournaments. He added that the team had time to improve and grow over the next 2 years, with a combination of experienced and new players.

The team have been training at the Zimbru Stadium, where the earlier fears regarding the playing surface unfortunately proved to be founded. The ground, that has a 10,500 capacity, has an uneven pitch with rather longer grass than is suitable for football, even though the local federation had claimed it would be cut. Hodgson also has to deal with losing 3 players he had selected for both this game and the home qualifier against the Ukraine on Tuesday.

The last manager of England who lost the first qualifying game of a World Cup campaign was back in 2000, when Kevin Keegan saw his side go down to old adversaries Germany. Hodgson has spoken out about his reluctance to jettison the likes of Gerrard and Lampard simply because of the public wanting a change, and he said it is very possible that they will both be in the starting line up.

Hodgson contradicts himself over John Terry

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Roy Hodgson, the manager of England’s national football team, seemed to contradict himself recently in his views that football fans and players should be more Olympian in their outlook, then following that by saying that John Terry should be let off lightly after his abuse of Anton Ferdinand.

Hodgson was impressed with the way in which the Team GB athletes conducted themselves and said that the atmosphere they performed in gave mainstream sports, including football, food for thought. He saw London 2012 as a wake-up call that the hatred and abuse suffered by footballers is not necessary.

There was little abuse suffered by the Olympic athletes. It was reported that Hodgson believes the Olympic athletes set a new benchmark which should be adopted in football and other major team sports which expect to be under the spotlight.

He went on to reflect on the tribalism which is often on show during football matches and said that the public who watched the Community Day were very different to that which were in Olympic Stadium. Following his statements about how players and fans should be more Olympian he said that he hoped John Terry would be cleared of his racial abuse charge by the FA so that he would be able to play for England, thus trampling over his noble sentiments.

During July’s court case Terry was found not guilty of the charge that he racially abused Anton Ferdinand from QPR. He now faces a charge from the Football Association after he was caught on camera launching expletives and insults at Ferdinand during the game. This is something that the likes of Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah have never been accused of

More comparisons made between the Olympics and professional football

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Critics say that football, with its millionaire players and age restrictions, does not sit well with the ideals of the Olympic Games. Also being criticised is the fact that the World Cup was so much bigger than the Olympic tournament.

However FIFA, the governing body of world football, have issued positive figures claiming that after the men’s quarter finals had been played, 1,230,818 spectators would have watched the 28 matches.

The average attendance at the matches has been 43,958, which is higher than at Beijing’s Olympics and only slightly behind Los Angeles’ average of 44,488. Huge crowds are expected at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Old Trafford in Manchester and Wembley Stadium in London which will increase the average – also the funds which go to the organisers of the London Games

The women’s tournament has so far attracted an attendance of 480,206, with four more matches (Coventry, Old Trafford and two at Wembley) to go. Tuesday’s Wembley match between Team GB and Brazil enjoyed an attendance of 70,584 – a new high for a women’s match in Britain.

Sepp Blatter, FIFA president and member of the IOC is said to be delighted Britain’s response to football’s relationship with the Games. He added that the stadiums are wonderful and he feels privileged to be here.

Brazil’s 1994 manager, Carlos Alberto Parreira, (manager when Brazil won the 1994 World Cup final) who is on FIFA’S Technical Delegation for the Olympics, concurs with the view. He says that there has been a fantastic spirit of fair play and fabulous stadiums. He went on to say that all the facilities have been tremendous; with players enjoying them they will never forget their visit.

Mr Parreira says that football should definitely remain an Olympic sport, when 81,000 spectators watched Mexico v Senegal.