Problems for Euro 2020

Forever in football the view on the horizon has as much attention paid to it as the event currently occurring; “sure Manchester City won the Premier League this season, but what are they doing to consolidate their position at the top of the tree?”  commentators ask.

It’s one of the ways to maintain the crucial interest of the masses in the sport, by keeping the narrative going and thus keeping the revenue flowing to clubs, the media, governing bodies and all the key players in the industry.

Thus, we have the situation whereby UEFA’s biggest party of them all, Euro 2012, is fast approaching but the planning for the finals of the competition in 2020 has already had its first deadline come and go.

Midnight this morning was the point at which expressions of interest to host the competition had to be submitted to UEFA and so it came to pass that UEFA has three bids on their metaphorical table (or huge literal table) to ponder over these bids being from Turkey, a ‘Celtic’ option consisting of Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland and Georgia, the latter two bids submitted right on the deadline.

So, there are three options for the right to host the 16^th European Championships for UEFA to explore, scrutinise and eventually make a decision on in late 2013 or early 2014. All good news then?

Well, no.

Each bid has a huge, gaping problem with it that makes the worries over the state of the stadiums in Poland and Ukraine for this year’s tournament seem rather small-fry by comparison.

On paper, the Turkish bid is the strongest as it has the infrastructure (in terms of stadiums already built), a passionate fan base for the sport and it also missed out on hosting Euro 2016 to France by a single vote which shows its capabilities to host a tournament of this magnitude are acknowledged and respected in UEFA HQ .

However, two rather large problems severely cripple the Turkish bid. Firstly, there is the ongoing situation regarding corruption in their FA and match-fixing in Turkish football, a situation so severe that UEFA supremo Michel Platini has waded into the situation threatening to ban the country from European competition.

Secondly, Istanbul has also submitted a bid to host the 2020 Olympics. The rules of the International Olympic Committee prevent a country hosting a major sporting tournament in the same year as an Olympics if a city in that country is hosting the Games. The Turkish government is thought to favour the Olympics should a choice have to be made due to the subsequent commercial boost and reasons of realpolitik. The announcement of the Olympics host city is expected in September 2013 with UEFA’s decision following three or four months later.

The ‘Celtic’ bid is a strong one with the countries having a large number of appropriately-sized stadiums built and in use already, not too much geographical distance between the host countries for visiting teams and fans and a strong infrastructure of airports, railway stations and hotels in cities such as Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dublin for example. However, a three-country bid is particularly unprecedented (and a successful one completely unprecedented) and would cause difficulty when it comes to automatic qualification for host countries.

Lastly, the Georgia bid is the most underwhelming of the lot. UEFA criteria dictates that host nations must have two stadiums of 50,000+ capacity, three of 40,000+ and four of 30,000+. Georgia currently has one stadium with more than 30,000+ (Dinamo Tbilisi’s 57,000-seater) with a 30,000 seater expected to be completed by 30,000. Even in a country dealing moderately well with global economic downturn (more on which later), the ability to construct at least eight new stadiums must be doubted and, after the problems in Ukraine over stadium construction, UEFA may be unwilling to commit to East Europe again, despite its desire to branch the game out.

Clearly, UEFA are in possession of three bids that have as many problems as they do advantages. For some context, Euro 2016 had four bids at this stage, Euro 2012 had five initial bids submitted and Euro 2008 had six. Some of these bids had equally acute flaws as the current crop but that’s not the point; variety produces strength.

The problem, as this article by Keir Radnedge of World Soccer magazine eloquently explains, is very much of UEFA’s own making. To get more finals matches (and therefore more income), UEFA upped the numbers of teams in the finals from 16 to 24 as of Euro 2016 which subsequently requires more host cities and stadia to be provided.

All well and good when global and national economies are booming and states can afford the expenditure but that is far from the case in the current climate. Indeed, doubts have already been expressed over France’s ability juggle an adequate amount of host cities which, combined with the absurdly early deadline for interest in hosting to be announced by UEFA, has produced three severely flawed candidates. The large list of countries who ultimately decided not to bid really does tell its own story.

Clearly, it is still very early in the process which would allow UEFA to re-open the bid submission procedure and hope for an economic upturn to rustle up some more interest and a concrete bid or two but, not for the first time, European football’s governing body has shot itself in the foot.

This post appeared over at www.footballfriendsonline.com/blogs/

American Reunion (American Pie Reunion)- 15- 8 out of 10

It’s back! Unless you count the three spin-offs that were made to earn some dollar off of the trademark name (which we really shouldn’t count and, if you do, feel free to leave now).

Yes, nine years after Jim and Michelle’s wedding, the American Pie gang are back in an attempt to try to wrestle back the teen gross-out comedy style of film and steer the stale, overworked genre in a fresh, different direction.

Basically, what American Reunion (or American Pie Reunion depending on where you’re reading this from) is trying to do is what the original American Pie did 13 years ago and reboot the coming of age film which the original did which, judging by the lookalike films that it spawned, was good news for a few years and then very, very bad news after that.

The original American Pie was a coming of age film about teenagers leaving high school and trying to lose their V-plates, American Reunion Pie remains a coming of age story but at a different time in life; the time in life when all those high school dreams about one’s future have been replaced by the monotony and problems of adult life but the joy and happiness that remains.

From tackling growing up and all that entails, the film showcases the issues of the next stage of a person’s life; children, partners, work monotony, sexual monotony, the nagging annoyance that it could have been better and trying to keep things “the way they were”; problems everyone will face in life.

The chemistry between the five male leads in the original film made it a charming success and this element remains in place, thankfully, to keep the film ticking along when sometimes it feels a little flat. The outrageousness of Stifler, the cringey Jim, the understated wit of Finch, Kevin the everyman and Oz’s earnestness works as well now as it did then and their relaxed, easy bonhomie makes up for a lack of real, stand-out belly laugh moments. In a way, that’s how it should be as the boys (and girls) mature and their style of humour would change as in real life.

Which is not to say that the trademark gross-out scenes have departed what with a gratuitous knob on show here and some pooping going on there as well as some leather bedroom attire that goes badly wrong, as you might expect.

But what makes the focus on this different style of coming of age film is thecontrast with the original problems of the main characters which the film provides vividly by also featuring a group of 18-year-olds (centred around Jim’s neighbour) and their growing up problems.

I’m a sucker for films with some personal connection to myself, hence why the Harry Potter films are always a must watch. American Pie Reunion has this element as, for my generation, it was probably the first 15-rated film you had seen that you didn’t want your parents knowing you had seen. Much like Reunion itself, it brings back memories of a nostalgic time where things were better (read different) to what your life is like now, releasing some nostalgia-heavy emotions to temper one’s view.

All in all, whilst the film itself lacks a wealth of laugh-out-loud moments, the original elements that made the series a success remain which is good as, after nine years, it could easily have lost these elements. It’s sweet and silly, a bit of gross-out action and leaves with you a feel good smile on your face with a very tight and humorous ending as well as a desire to see the original three films once again and regressing. If it wasn’t from the American Pie lineage of films, it wouldn’t receive as high a mark out of ten but this film reviewing lark is all subjective so there.

Thoughts from yesterday's Max Clifford talk

Yesterday afternoon, I made the trip down to my old university to attend a talk given by Max Clifford to the current crop of journalism students. Thankfully, alumni were also invited otherwise this blog post would never have happened and what a crying shame that would have been.

The talk consisted of an opening speech of around 45 minutes in which Clifford gave the spiel about how he got into PR, where he started, a large amount of amusing anecdotes about people he’s worked for and with and so on. I think his favoured line about Colonel Sanders, chickens and trust issues got an airing at this point. This was followed by a Q&A session that lasted around 45 minutes that consisted largely of either questions about his clients or slightly harder questions about the nature of his work and influence on the press.

First things first, I cannot praise the man enough to taking time out of what I imagine is a very busy schedule to speak to a group of students (the evidence that he has a very busy schedule was clear by the fact he was on his mobile straight after leaving the room). Furthermore, as well as speech and Q&A, he stuck around to answer individual questions afterwards for an extended period of time. Give that man some more praise.

Secondly, like all self-made men (women to but “self-made people” doesn’t have the same slight alliteration to it that I so thoroughly get a kick off of), I have nothing but an inordinate amount of respect for him; he recognised himself that there was an element of ‘right place, right time’ about parts of his career but you have to be there and ready to take advantage of those times and, if you can do that, you have every right to do whatever you like when you’ve made it.

Thirdly, parts of his speech, his anecdotes and his answers to questions from the floor were interesting, intriguing, appalling (with regard to taste) and entertaining. The way he runs his business was revealing, his stories about some of his clients (kept anonymous largely) were very amusing and his views on the Leveson inquiry, phone-hacking and the effect of a famous footballer’s retirement and the stories about his sexuality that may come out then and how that will effect homophobia in the sport were all very libellous but all very interesting.

However, despite all this, throughout the 90-minutes or so, one could not help but think it was something of a performance designed to dazzle and leave you a bit star-struck. Naturally, as a PR man, he has the instinct, skills and experience to suppress information that he wants to suppress leaving you wanting a little bit more.

When questions from the floor came about the nature of the celebrity/media nexus and how the press can be free and fair given the influence of people like himself, he had a habit of side-stepping the issue, throwing in an anecdote and moving on. His skill at this has been honed on more difficult opponents than student journalists, as can be seen in the Louis Theroux documentary on him. He always seemed one step ahead of the game and able to give you a glimpse of some genuinely shocking information but yanking it away from your grasp. As you’d expect from someone in his ‘racket’ of course.

In a Q&A session it’s a lot easier to do this as there is the lurking sense not to dwell on a point as a questioner and engage in a debate as other audience members would also like to participate and time is limited.

As a journalist, he would be an absolute dream to interview as he has some very forthright views on issues (such as News International, phone hacking and Leveson) and the benefit of a one-on-one session would be advantageous to get more telling answers than he seemed to give yesterday by placing more pressure .

However, the likelihood of myself ever getting into that kind of situation is probably rather slim so yesterday was a much appreciated insight.

All in all, I did not know what to expect of Clifford before the talk. On reflection, I found him engaging, funny, interesting, a little pervy old man-ish, generous with his time, a master of the PR art and equally adept at leaving you wanting that little bit more. Oh to be able to open up his head and have a root around inside.