FIFA over the Top?

The biggest news of the week, albeit on a negative note is Nigel De Jong's sliding tackle on Newcastle midfielder Hatem Ben Arfa's standing left leg in City's 2-1 Premier League victory on Sunday. Ben Arfa now requires surgery and Newcastle are stroking the FA  to punish the Dutchman whose coach backed him as a good professional and national coach, Bert van Marwijk has dropped him out of  his squad for the Euro 2012 qualifiers against Moldova and Sweden this week.

Nigeria qualified for the South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup being coached by a local coach. They were playing good football, well, that is why they qualified anyway. The Nigeria Football Association replaced the good local with a bad foreign coach who made the team play rubbish. They were an embarrassment to Africa and their nationals. The government could not deal with the bitter taste of events in their mouths and rightly suspended the team from competing for 2 years.

FIFA threatened to endorse the decision by banning the Nigerian football indefinitely. The government must have been happy with that FIFA decision but surprisingly, the politicians developed cold feet and reneged on the threat which they actually withdrew. I am not sure why. Nigeria played really badly during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. With that kind of unfootballness of the national association both suspension should be enforced and not run concurrently.

FIFA made very sensible decision, only they were to eager to poke their nose. They should have let the government's ban run and then enforce theirs, and that is exactly what the country and many other African states need. Sanity must prevail so people can take the game seriously. FIFA's bans will usually run until the political interference is over. Well, they try to be hard while being soft and that is exactly what we get. These guys must get a working game plan.

Let's get back to the game. Kevin Davies of Bolton Wanderers is one of the most consistent strikers that I truly love. His injury bug is a major drawback for this workaholic. His English squad call up is well overdue and it is good that he will be rewarded. But is he going to baby sit youngsters that Jack Wilshire and Theo Walcott and David Johnson or he will actually represent?