Britain now has a heavyweight fighting its corner in the fight over a cornerman!

Insidethegames can reveal that Sir Craig Reedie, one of the prime architects of London's succcessful 2012 Olympics bid, and a member of the International Olympic Committee's executive board, has donned the gloves on behalf of the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE) in the battle to overturn the ruling revived recently by global governing body AIBA which bars national coaches like Team GB's Robert McCracken from working with boxers during the Olympics and world amateur championships because of their association with the professional game.

Reedie has already had informal discussions with AIBA and is meeting their president, Dr C K Wu, a fellow IOC member, in Lausanne next week for further talks.

The former British Olympic Association (BOA) chairman tells me: "After talking with Richard Caborn [President of the ABAE] I made an appeal to the people I know within AIBA that whatever else they did, they should try to avoid penalising boxers in respect of London 2012 and on balance I think I was reasonably successful in that.

"I understand that Sam Ramsamy, of South Africa, who is also a friend of Richard's, has also spoken to them on the the ABAE's behalf.

"But we need to tread carefully here. I know C K Wu well as I am on AIBA' advisory board at the IOC and my impression is that he is a wise person who would not be vindictive.

"I did ask the secretary general, Ho Kim, why this rule has suddenly been rediscovered and he said that it has actually been there for some time.

"My understanding is that there are coaches associated with professional boxing working with amateur boxers in other countries as well as Britain.

"From my experience of international sports federations, the best way to deal with this situation is with reasoned argument.

"The ABAE should be saying that this rule has been dormant for years and has been applied against a perfectly innocent coach and that they are aware of comparable situations in other countries where this has not happened and perhaps the decision should be reconsidered. I think that is the approach that is probably best at this stage.

"I spoke to C K Wu at SportAccord in London [where the ban was announced at a small media gathering and reported first on insidethegames] and to Ho Kim on two or three occasions and have kept both Richard and Derek Mapp [GB Boxing chairman] in the picture.

"I would propose a quiet and logical approach. I am seeing C K next week in Lausanne and will have another word with him there and suggest that they could be running into a bit of difficulty here."

Current BOA chairman Colin Moynihan, a former boxing Blue at Oxford, who ironically was himself once suspended by the ABA for sparring with pros, is also quietly pitching in on Britain's behalf.

However the ABAE say they have yet to hear formally from AIBA about the ban and that chairman Keith Walters is still awaiting a response to his request for an urgent meeting with them to discuss the issue.

McCracken, who has achieved considerable success since taking over as Team GB's head coach and performance director, also trains WBC super-middleweight champion Carl Froch among others, and will be in the "Cobra's" corner when he defends his title against veteran American Glen Johnson in the Super Six Series in Atlantic City next month.


English-educated Taiwanese billionaire Dr Wu, who was a principal constructional figure behind the development of Milton Keynes, is a powerful leader who seems to have higher ambitions within the IOC and a sensible result of the dispute surely would be a good move for him diplomatically.

He has already had his pound of flesh over the ridiculously inept and ill-advised attempt by then ABAE chief executive Paul King to topple him, with King's own abdication.

I understand AIBA also want King banned from all involvement in international amateur boxing.

The ABAE, along with a dozen other allegedly recalcitrant national bodies, have been fined for what were considered irregularities in their dealings with AIBA. Surely that should be an end to the matter.

However amateur boxing's stormy waters have now been further muddied by the news that the world's leading professional trainer, American Freddie Roach, has been recruited to prepare the United States team for the London Games.

Roach, who has the world's supreme fighter, the magnificent Filipino Manny Pacquiao. and Britain's WBA light-welter champ Amir Khan in his stable at his renowned Wild Card gym in Hollywood, will coach American hopefuls there and at the US Olympic Training Centre in Colorado Springs.

US amateur boxing is in the doldrums and its recent Olympic record is appalling, culminating in only one medal, a bronze, in Beijing.

Yet this was a nation which, alongside Cuba, used to clean up. But the halcyon days of Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Leonard and De La Hoya running Olympic rings rounds the rest of the world are long gone. The US hasn't had an Olympic super-heavyweight champion since Tyrell Biggs in 1984.

That Roach, boxing's greatest guru since Angelo Dundee, has been hired to try and recapture those former glories is understandable. But he is a pro who works with pros, just like McCracken.

When I asked the AIBA how they felt about that situation I was told it was presumed okay, the ban only applying to them working in the corner during AIBA tournaments.

How daft is that? It is tantamount to allowing a master baker to create a cake and then bar him from putting the icing ion it.

As things stand it is boxing's equivalent of a Mourinho-like touchline ban for McCracken, who has done nothing – except his job.

And what if the US Amateur Boxing Association decide they want Roach in the corner in London? Would AIBA pick a fight with one of their most important constituent bodies, as they have the ABAE? A good question. One that would certainly be an interesting test case for the CAS (Court for Arbitration in Sport).

I find it astounding that Dr Wu who claims to be progressive, something he emphasises in his pro-friendly WBA series, with its prize money, no headguards or vests, pro-based judging and scoring approach, has seen fit to exhume such an archaic rule.

If he really does have the best interests of boxers at heart, and I am sure he has, should he not consider it wise to have the best possible expertise on hand to supervise them in what is the toughest and most dangerous Olympic sport of all?

And if that expertise happens to have been weaned in professional boxing, so what?

It is illogical. This is the 21st century, one in which the entire Olympics is virtually professional.

What AIBA should be doing is actually taking a more professional approach to make the Olympic tournament more attractive to TV audiences, as is happening with WSB.

The current Olympic scoring system, for instance, is a joke. You can have a boxer who lands one punch in the first round, runs for the rest of the bout and gets the verdict. With this system Ali and co might never have got their medals.

I happen to think that under Dr Wu, the AIBA have become one of the better - and certainly less corrupt - governing bodies in world sport

But having covered professional and amateur boxing for half-a-century I believe they are seriously out of touch on the issue by either forcing valued coaches like McCracken to abandon their professional links if they want to minister to their men, or not to be there at all when it really matters.

Let's hope they are professional enough themselves to realise this. Otherwise they are in danger of boxing themselves into a corner.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

So London 2012 has finally unveiled their pricing structure for 2012 Paralympic tickets and things look; well... surprisingly cheap!

The key stats: more than 95 per cent of the tickets will be priced at £50 ($82) or under, with 75 per cent going for no more than £20 ($33) and 50 per available at £10 ($16) or less.

Factor in that a London Travelcard is included within the price of a ticket for the day of the event and the word bargain springs to mind.

The pricing structure appears to be in stark contrast to that at Olympic Games where is costs up to £750 ($1,228) for a seat in the Olympic Stadium and the night of the men's 100 metre final and an eye watering £2,012 ($3,294) for a good spot in stands as the Opening Ceremony takes place.

As well as the criticism over Olympic ticket prices, the fact that money is taken from accounts before applicants know which events they have secured has come under fire.

Applicants were originally told to make sure they had enough money in their accounts from May 10 to June 10 but organisers now say people will not be billed until next Monday at the earliest while they carry out ballots for oversubscribed events.

There is unlikely to be nearly as much trouble or criticism when it comes to purchasing a Paralympic ticket but one is entitle to raise an eyebrow about why it is apparently so cheap to go to the London 2012 Paralympics when it is so expensive for an Olympic ticket.

Simple answer is that the Paralympics have not yet reached the same popularity level as the Olympics and therefore cannot yet command the same ticket prices.

It is down to supply and demand.

This is not to suggest that Paralympic sport is less entertaining than Olympic sport.

On the contrary, I was far more entertained as a spectator watching wheelchair racing star Dave Weir storm to gold at the QEII Stadium in the IPC World Athletics Championships in Christchurch in January than I was watching sprinter Mark Lewis take silver at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at the Delhi 2010 Commonwealth Games.

This is only to suggest that the general public in the UK know far more about Olympic sport than they do Paralympic sport at present.

Olympic names like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and Sir Chris Hoy are house-hold.

Outside Oscar Pistorius (pictured) – who is probably better known as the "Blade-Runner" – not many of your friends could give you a list of top Paralympians.


This however, is where London 2012's Paralympic ticket strategy may be a masterstroke.

Let's just think about it realistically.

More than 20 million ticket applications have been made for 6.6 million Olympic tickets.

Basic mathematics shows a few people out there are going to be disappointed in their ambition to get a ticket.

They want to be a part of this amazing, once-in-a-generation festival of sport in London and to sit in the venues that the world's elite have graced.

So they spot tickets going on sale for the Paralympic Games.

They realise that they are in the same world class venues used at the Olympics and better still, they realise that the tickets are rather cheap.

So as sport fans, they sign up for them.

They head along to the Games and immediately realise exactly what Paralympic sport is all about. Speed, aggression, passion, intensity and the same unbelievable skill level as seen in able-bodied elite sport.

In return, London 2012 gets full stadiums which mean better atmospheres and ultimately a better overall spectacle. No one likes to see empty seats at any sporting occasion and this may well be negated by the low price for Paralympic Games tickets.

London 2012 chief executive Paul Deighton has already stated that he is confident that all Paralympic Games tickets will sell out with people wanting to feel part of the 2012 experience.

In addition, London 2012 has funds to raise with £30 million ($49 million) needed to be generated from Paralympic ticket sales.

They could have attempted to do this though selling a few hugely expensive tickets but instead, they have gone for the much more understandable strategy of selling the majority, if not all, at a low price.

There are also a number of highly attractive schemes in place - such as day passes which will enable ticketholders to see a range of sports taking place over a day - and plans to get local schools to attend as the Games are after all taking place in term-time from August 29 until September 9, 2012.

Ticket applications from the public will be accepted between September 9-30, 2011 and my advice would be to sign up.

Don't question the price or even the fact that it covers your travel; just go along.

Then sit back and enjoy!

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames

In these cynical days, we often bemoan the status of "modern sport". We speak in hushed tones of these elusive beasts called "modern sportsmen and women". We express our dismay about the way things have changed and how "in my day they used to ride public transport to the matches with the fans!"

Well, if you're pining for the good old days of sport, when athletes were accessible and earned less than you did, then look no further than your very own Great Britain men's indoor volleyball team.

After spending eight months separately plying our trade across the globe for various clubs, the summer international season is upon us. Individually we have endured many hardships, from months of Siberian like weather in the far east of Poland to the slightly less perilous conditions of Tenerife in Spain. Members of the team have endured injury, illness and instant unemployment when a club went bust.

We have left friends, family and loved ones behind. We have had to make our best attempts at languages from your standard romance languages of Western Europe to the far more challenging tongues of Finland and Turkey. Many of us have had to try our best to receive technical and tactical instructions from coaching staff who didn't share even a word of a common language, and the majority of us have embarked upon journeys as difficult as this knowing we could have made more money driving a minicab at home. It has been said that there is "no success without hardship", in which case we are in line for a boatload of success soon!

I would personally like to invite everyone to join us for our 2011 summer international season as we continue to promote the sport of volleyball here in the UK. We have a fantastic summer of volleyball lined up with some truly world class competition to test ourselves against with an eye on the Olympic volleyball tournament due to take place at Earl's Court in 2012.

Once again we will be entering the yearly European League competition and have been placed in a group alongside Belgium, Slovenia and Croatia. With previous wins against Croatia and a couple of close matches against Belgium three years ago - we have improved immeasurably since - it should prove to be a very competitive group in which we have a real chance to surprise some people. A top place finish in the group would garner us a ticket to the final four of the competition in Slovakia for the first time and would let the volleyball world know that we are for real and do not just plan to turn up at Earl's Court and take photos and collect autographs. This competition consists of home and away weekend fixtures over six weeks with two weekends planned in Sheffield and matches versus Belgium at the K2 sports centre in Crawley.

When the European League concludes, we have been fortunate to be selected to participate in the Olympic test event at Earl's Court at the end of July. This event will be run by LOCOG and promises to be a fantastic opportunity to not only get our first taste of what might be in the 2012 event proper, but also to play a series of friendly matches against some of the best teams from around the world that we might not normally face. Discussions are ongoing as to how many spectators Earl's Court can handle for this test as it will not be fully converted to the 2012 standards until just before the Games commence next summer. So watch this space! I encourage everyone to check with www.britishvolleyball.org for updates on all of our volleyball teams and for how you can be a part of the action.

We will be concluding our summer programme with a three-week overseas tour, the first two of which will be in Mexico. Our head coach Harry Brokking has designed the schedule to try and simulate the length of the Olympic tournament and to train the players to remain focussed and on task in what could be described as a suffocating environment. Last summer we went to Egypt and the Middle East, and despite injuries and suspected food poisoning, we managed arguably our best result to date with a win over then 13th in the world Egypt. We are looking forward to a similarly challenging trip to the Americas this year.

With the Olympics growing larger on the horizon by the day, a cynic might say that these are false tribulations regurgitated here to garner sympathy and support for our "pampered" prospective Olympians. Rather, behind these little glimpses of what it's really like for a British volleyball player, I aim to illustrate just how normal and everyday people are doing amazing things in the name of Britain and volleyball in our country.

As volleyball is not yet a "mainstream" sport in the UK, it isn't just about Olympic dreams for most of our guys. I would be lying to you if I said I've always dreamed of Olympic volleyball for Great Britain. It simply wasn't an option growing up. We aim to change that. We are not in this for money, in fact, most of us are in debt! Many of us simply want to prove that we too can play this most beautiful, powerful and athletic of sports whilst wearing a Union Jack on our shirts and singing our anthem. We are just normal people. Come join us this summer.

Andy Pink is Britain's vice-captain

British Volleyball is represented by www.davidwelchmanagement.com

Press conferences held on the eve of sporting events tend towards the anodyne - unless, of course, you get the likes of Jose Mourinho or Sir Alex Ferguson laying their snares for officials or rival managers, wily as poachers.

No such subterfuge was in evidence here in Doha, where the media event heralding the opening IAAF Samsung Diamond League meeting of the season tomorrow involved a batch of game, if vague, athletes, and officials including the IAAF President Lamine Diack and his counterpart within Qatar athletics, Abdullah Al Zaini.

As such, the event offered a glimpse of the difficulties involved in trying to organise sporting events in an increasingly busy and disparate environment.

The latest version of an athletics grand prix, now officially broadened to include the United States, Asia and the Arab world, was inaugurated last year, and it proved broadly successful, not least because of the eruptions of excitement that are always possible in sport.

Who would have predicted, for instance, that 21-year-old Kenyan Silas Kiplagat would mark his first major 1500 metres, at the Monaco Diamond League, by running it in 3min 29.27sec, putting himself in the all-time top 10?

Who would have predicted - before the season started, at least - that Tyson Gay would beat Usain Bolt over 100 metres, as he did at the Stockholm Diamond League?

And who could have foreseen the intensity of struggle down the home straight of the Bislett Stadium as world indoor 800m champion Abubaker Kaki, teeth bared with effort, tried all he knew to pass the gazelle-like Kenyan David Rudisha, who was to end the season as world record holder, only to find the task narrowly beyond him?

If you bring athletes together often enough, these things will happen. But the best efforts of meeting organisers to ensure that the best turn up to face the best are so often fraught by the same old circumstances.

Athletes don't always fancy facing each other. And athletes get injured – as we saw this week when the projected re-run of last year's Oslo Diamond League epic between Kaki and Rudisha came to grief because of two, thankfully, minor injuries.


Kaki's coach, Jama Aden, assured me today that his runner had suffered an untimely cramp in training, and that he only needed to back off for a few days to be back on track for the season. "He is going really, really well," Aden added.

The athletics world looks forward to the next meeting between these two contrasting talents – although it doesn't now look like happening soon.

Is this a bad thing? Well, yes and no.

While the absence of an Olympics or a World Championship last year meant the Diamond League had an untrammelled season to itself, the dynamic this year, with the Worlds in Daegu looming up in August, is very different.

"It will be more difficult this year," Diack said, adding that it would not be realistic, for instance, to foresee to see three or four meetings between Gay and Bolt. 

"Don't expect that," he added. "That could diminish the value of the World Championships. Maybe they will meet just once before then. We will see."

The fit between a series of one-day meetings and major championships will always be an awkward one, not least because the aspirations involved are different.

For instance, Allyson Felix went all out for a unique Diamond League double last season, over 200 and 400 metres, and achieved it. This year she is boxing clever, and - quite sensibly - shying away from committing herself to the same process.

World Championships and Olympics dominate considerations for any serious elite performer, and quite rightly so. Athletics is an individual sport, and while a series of sparkling rivalries exhibited throughout the summer would delight meeting organisers and spectators alike, there will not be such a bonanza in prospect.

It's a difficult balancing act, however, as the sport needs to promote itself over the course of each year if it is to keep interest and expectation high ahead of its blue riband events.

Pierre Weiss, the IAAF general secretary, announced that the organisers of the Zurich Diamond League meeting which falls on September 8, just four days after the World Championships, had already chartered a dedicated flight to transport more than 100 elite athletes straight over to Switzerland to recuperate and prepare.

There has been an additional local difficulty with the impending Diamond League season-opener, however - namely a clash with the long-established meeting in Kingston, Jamaica the following day, which the IAAF has just upgraded to the status of a World Challenge event.

"Not good," admitted Weiss. "Next year we hope not to have this issue," commented Diack.

It will, doubtless, be sorted forthwith. But the continuing tension between athletes' ambitions and the need to promote the sport is not such an easy thing to fix.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames and is in Doha covering the opening Diamond League meeting of the new season

Sir Henry Cooper never made his mark as an Olympian – he boxed for Britain at light-heayweight in the 1952 Helsinki Games but was eliminated in the early rounds- yet if ever a boxer – indeed any sporting figure - exemplified the true spirit of Corinthianism it was 'Our 'Enry.

His sudden death this week, two days short of his 77th birthday, brought genuine sadness to a multitude of fans and friends.

I feel a personal loss because it was on the likes of him, and his era, that I was weaned in journalism.

Henry represented a different age, an age when guts meant as much as glory and ambition outweighed avarice.

The tributes that have poured in for boxing's first and only knight, not least from his most illustrious adversary Muhammad Ali, are well merited.

He was never a world champion but Henry surely was the last of the Gentlemen Gladiators.

I last interviewed him shortly before his 75th birthday. For the first time in 48 years it was one he was to be celebrating without his beloved Albina, the Italian-born wife who had similarly died of a heart attack at their home in Kent just under a year before.

Henry admitted: "I soldier on but it's left a big void in my life. I'll never get over it. I've shed tears every day since. I just can't help myself. I think about her all the time. She was my rock, my inspiration. I suppose I'm coping ok, but you never do really, do you?"

Not that Cooper's life was empty. He saw his two sons and two grandchildren most days and remained one of Britain's most in-demand sports figures.

The diary that the delightful Albina, whom he met when she was a 17-year-old waitress in her uncle's Soho restaurant, kept so meticulously was crammed with after-dinner speaking engagements and had rarely shown a blank date since he finished fighting following a still-debated loss as a 37-year-old to Joe Bugner.

It is 40 years since Cooper last slung his famous left hook, 11 since 'Our 'Enry' became Sir Henry.

Since then a succession of British heavyweights have been and gone, the good, the bad and the plug-ugly. But none, with the possible exception of Frank Bruno, not even Lennox Lewis, have touched Henry's hem in terms of public endearment.

Henry Cooper was a name in every British household in the sixties, and remains up there with Sir Bobby Charlton as probably the most loved and revered of our sporting idols.

Henry always talked a good fight, though mainly of yesteryear. "It's a different game now," he said in that interview.

"They get millions. A Premiership footballer earns more in a week than I did for twice fighting Ali. I was 20 years too early.

"I boxed in an era where there were some great fighters, now you can count them on one hand. There were twenty young heavyweights in the country when me and George [his twin brother who fought as Jim] were boxing. Now there's about three or four."

The subsequent death of his beloved brother from a muscle-wasting disease also hit Cooper harder than any punch, and these past few months saw his health and usual gusto in rapid decline.


He remained an icon not just because of 'Enry's 'Ammer, which so famously put the then Cassius Clay on his pants only for him to be saved by the bell in the spring of 1963. If Cooper had clouted him 10 seconds earlier it might have changed boxing history.

He will always be remembered for his two fights with Ali, both of which ended with lacerations to his vulnerable eyebrows. Whenever we encountered Ali he always spoke with affection and respect of Cooper.

"Say hello to my friend Henry for me," he'd ask us while rubbing his jaw. "He hit me so hard he jarred my kinfolk in Africa."

"Yeah, he was a real card," said Cooper, "You had to laugh at some of his antics but blimey, was he fast."

Cooper himself was hardly a heavyweight - certainly not in terms of today's tonnage. The second time he fought Ali, 45 years ago this month, he unofficially weighed well under 13st.

He was bang in the button when he remarked: "The heavyweight division is the worst it has ever been. Look at America, they have got no-one. The big guys can earn good money discus throwing or shot putting. So why get a punch on the nose? I look at things today and I think 'Gawd blimey - what's 'appened to the game?'

"I know I sound a right old misery, but counter-punching is a dying art and all those ring walks drive me nuts. I've even seen them bring in fighters on Harley Davidsons and magic carpets, and some of them take 40 minutes to get into the ring. Bleedin' hell, when I was fighting, if you took five minutes to get there, you'd get a slow handclap."

Although it was years since his own sweet smell of success and the great smell of Brut, people still stopped him and asked if he was still splashing it all over with Kevin Keegan.

It was easy to appreciate the enduring affection for Cooper. He embraced modesty, dignity and an unswerving naturalness alien to most of today's untouchable sporting mega-rich.

It is sad to realise that he is no longer in there punching, 'ammer and tongue.

However, one of his contemporaries still is. Terry Downes, almost as popular as Cooper in his heyday, is 75 on Monday (May 9), which makes him Britain's oldest surviving world champion.

As with Henry, I have a special affection for the "Crashing, Bashing Dashing." Paddington Express, as he was billed. He was the first world boxing champion I ever interviewed as a cub reporter and his was the firsty world title fight, against the Boston fireman Paul Pender, I covered in America exactly 50 years ago.

Downes was the first Briton to hold the world middleweight title since Randolph Turpin and he also fought Turpin's legendary foe, Sugar Ray Robinson.

He was among the most courageous and certainly the most honest fighters I have ever known, and like Cooper almost Corinthian in attitude.

When someone congratulated him on beating an over-the-hill. forty-plus Robinson he retorted: "I didn't beat Sugar Ray. I beat his ghost."

But his most memorable quip came earlier in his 44-bout career, after only his third fight.

Fresh from serving in the US Marines, and tipped as a rising star, Downes was pitted against an unknown Liverpool-based Nigerian, Dick Tiger, brought in as an easy touch for the up-and coming Cockney kid.


The Ricky Hatton of his day without the booze, bingeing and snorting, Downes was floored, cut and stopped in six rounds by Tiger (pictured left), who, as did Downes (right) himself, went on to win the world middleweight title. In a sombre dressing-room there was much embarrassed feet-shuffling before Downes was gently asked: "Who do you want to fight next?"

"The f****r who made that match," he famously growled.

After his retirement Downes was for many years a regular at boxing shows, big and small, preferring to sit at the back of the hall rather than ringside, from where he could be heard yelling words that weren't always of encouragement.

He didn't suffer fighting fools gladly, and in his stentorian monotone he fruitily let boxers know he thought they were "bleedin' useless" if they weren't pleasing the crowd.

Only once was he ever verbally-counter-punched. A rather foppish over-the top MC, a part-time actor, was taking a long time introducing celebrities. "And now a big hand for the wonderful, the marvellous, the one and only..."

From the back Downes roared: "Get on with it, you old poof!"

The MC sniffed: "Not so much of the old, Mr Downes"

Downes is much quieter these days, living in Hertfordshire, with his wife of 53 years, Barbara (all his four children went to public school and one of his eight grandchildren is at Oxford University).

He has beaten bladder cancer and like Cooper has never been touched by any semblance of sleaze or scandal.

Yet while Henry had his knighthood, Downes hasn't even got a modest MBE, unlike nearly all other world or Olympic boxing champions. Time that was rectified.

Actually Cooper and Downes had much in common. Both were immensely likeable Londoners who fought with their hearts as well as their hands and both bled buckets of blood – Cooper from his eyebrows and Downes mainly from his roller-coaster nose which he dubbed 'my perishin' 'ooter.'

In fact his autobiography was titled "My Bleeding Business".

The sort of  seven-stitches cut which controversially ended Irishman Paul McCloskey's world title challenge against Amir Khan last month would have been dismissed by Messrs Cooper and Downes as a mere shaving nick.

Two kindred spirits of the ring. We mourn Our 'Enry. We salute Our Tel.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire

Watching with millions as Americans jammed the streets and grounds near the White House in an incredible outpouring of emotion and celebration in the hours after the news of the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan broke, I was moved.

As the scene shifted to Times Square and Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan and the thousands gathered there, including relatives of the 3,000 victims, and firefighters and first responders who were there on September 11, 2001, I was reminded of the raw emotions and a miscalculation of the mood of the nation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the 48 hours before the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City

On February 8, 2002, three billion people around the world watched as a tattered American flag retrieved from the rubble of the World Trade Centre was carried into the Olympic Games Opening ceremony at Rice-Eccles Stadium by eight United States athletes and three New York City Port Authority police officers ahead of the 211-member United States Olympic team and delegation

The threadbare flag was borne to the base of the stage where the President of the United States, the President of the IOC, and the President of the Salt Lake Olympic Organising Committee awaited.

As the National Anthem of the United States, the host nation, was played, a new, and whole flag was raised, but the statement had been made, the reflection of a nation answered superbly. How that flag got there and how the scene unfolded in the first place is a tale worth telling even now, as Americans look back on the attack and history. Sometime in October, 2001, maybe a month after the attacks on New York, the Pentagon and a thwarted attempt in Pennsylvania, there was a meeting staged by the United States Olympic Committee where the subject was first raised about creating some event around the Games in Salt Lake City on the world's largest stage to honour the memory of the fallen, and to remember the largest attack in history against America on our soil.

Greg Harney, my colleague who then was the USOC's managing director of International Games Preparation, opened the subject and Rob Stull, a two-time Olympic modern pentathlete and fencer, came up with the suggestion that the USOC might attempt to find and bring the World Trade Centre flag to Salt Lake City. The flag, recovered at Ground Zero, was in the hands of the Port Authority and was being displayed at the World Series in New York - and later at the Super Bowl and 37 memorials for Port Authority officers killed in the attacks.

Harney, a veteran of every Olympics since 1984 and close to Olympic athletes, knew who to call right away. That call went to USOC Government Relations Director Steve Bull in Washington, a ten-year staffer who once had been a special assistant to President Richard Nixon and a man who knew which buttons to push.

Bull called the Port Authority offices in New York and ultimately was connected with Sergeant Tony Scanella, who was in charge of the flag and its appearances. Bull told Scanella that the USOC and US athletes wanted him to bring the revered flag to Salt Lake City for a role to be determined, and that all expenses would be covered. As the weeks passed Scanella got the approval to bring the flag to the Games, and that's when things really became complicated.

During those times, Harney, Bull and senior USOC staffers like me would often set in motion programmes and initiatives designed to assist Olympic athletes and promote the mission of the USOC without full disclosure or approval from the volunteer leadership, which tended to be a bureaucratic minefield where good intentions could be derailed by politics. When Harney presented the full programme we had fashioned to the IOC on site in Salt Lake during the week ahead of the Opening Ceremony, it set off a major controversy.

Greg had asked me what I felt earlier about the idea of having the flag carried into the ceremonies by five athletes and one official, who happened to be me, at the rear of our delegation as it entered the stadium last as the host nation's team. Greg had suggested that I think about being involved because I was retiring after the Games and ending my association that began with the 1980 Games in Lake Placid.

I was thrilled with the overall plan and how Americans would approve, but when Harney presented the idea to the IOC that week, it was rejected as being "too political." The IOC cited rules that prohibited athletes from political displays during the march of the nations and that it would be inappropriate, but that the flag could be raised at the Ceremony.

"Every country in the IOC has issues," said American IOC member and Olympic rowing medalist Anita DeFrantz. "As Americans, we have to understand it's a world event and also that we are a guest, even though we are the host nation. This way, with the flag being raised, we serve both goals."

On February 5, three days before the Opening, the USOC leadership, President Sandy Baldwin and chief executive Lloyd Ward, quickly agreed, as did Salt Lake Organising Committee President Mitt Romney, the three wanting no collision with the IOC on the eve of the Games. I told Bull and Harney at the time that it would take just hours before a national firestorm would erupt over the decision, led by the media, which was attuned to the national mood.

The flag arrived the next day at the Salt Lake airport. The IOC ruling was an historical miscalculation, and history was made in the next 24 hours, particularly after an enraged Scanella got fellow Port Authority officer Curt Kellinger, who had also journeyed to the Games with the flag, to call conservative radio talk show host Sean Hannity and tell him about the rejection of the original idea. Hannity spoke on-line with Kellinger, and thousands of Hannity's listeners were outraged.

They began to call IOC headquarters in Lausanne - Hannity helpfully supplied the number - and internet columnist Matt Drudge picked up the story and posted it. I was a guest on MSNBC with host Alan Keyes on the issue, and callers were angry and outraged. "Whose sensibilities are they trying to protect? The terrorists?" said Steven Push of the Families of September 11 organisation.

The story exploded rapidly among the worldwide media already on site at the Games, and after a late evening emergency meeting called by the IOC, we were informed that we could carry the flag with us into the Ceremonies. IOC President Jacques Rogge emerged from the meeting with Baldwin and other USOC officials to tell the world, "We are in the United States of America, we are guests of the United States of America and the ceremony for the flag will be an homage to the flag of the United States of America. It is no departure from what is normally the Olympic programme. We see absolutely no problem. On the contrary, we understand the deep emotion of the American public, but also other nations that have suffered casualties."


We met and picked eight athletes to carry the tattered, 12-by-8-foot flag ahead of our delegation. I withdrew for obvious reasons, it would have seemed like a stunt to be part of the march by then after the media storm. Selected to carry the flag were Kristina Sabasteanski, a biathlete in the US Army; Lea Ann Parsley, a skeleton athlete and firefighter in Ohio; Stacy Liapis, a curler whose boyfriend was a firefighter; Todd Eldredge, a three-time Olympian in figure skating; Angela Ruggiero, a hockey player and close friend of teammate Kathleen Kauth, who lost her father in the World Trade Centre attacks; Mark Grimmette, a three-time Olympian in luge; Chris Klug, a snowboarder with a liver transplant; and Derek Parra, a speed skater.

The eight athletes were accompanied by three Port Authority policemen - Scanella, Officer Frank Accardi and Kellinger. An honour guard of NYPD officers and NYC firefighters was also on hand. When the flag was borne by the athletes and New York officers into the stadium, it was one of the most emotional moments in our nation's history, and Americans wept. And we had prevailed.

From February, 2003 through July 8, 2005, I worked as the senior communications counselor for NYC2012, the group leading New York City's bid for the 2012 Games. Our offices were located at One Liberty Plaza in Lower Manhattan, and from my window on the 34th floor in my space, I could look directly down to Ground Zero and the site where the Twin Towers had stood. Over time, the area slowly returned to life, stores reopened, buildings were demolished and some new construction began. I would occasionally grab a beer at one of several pubs where firefighters gathered after their shifts. Everywhere were hundreds of pictures of missing victims posted on walls with notes and letters that were filled with grief.

New York lost in the IOC vote in 2005 on a hot July 7 day in Singapore, and London got the Games. The next morning, 56 people were killed in terrorist bombings in London. The next day, I took the #4 subway downtown to my offices to clean out my few things and go home to Colorado. My last look out my office window was not again below to Ground Zero, but outward to the nearby water and to the Statue of Liberty. I remembered that last night around 2am, turned off the television, and slept.

Mike Moran was the chief spokesman for the United States Olympic Committee for a quarter century, through thirteen Games, from Lake Placid to Salt Lake City. He joined the USOC in 1978 as it left New York City for Colorado Springs. He was the Senior Communications Counselor for NYC2012, New York City's Olympic bid group from 2003-2005 and is now a media consultant

When Sepp Blatter opened the envelope on December 2, 2010 to reveal that tiny Qatar had just won the right to stage the FIFA 2022 World Cup, the general feeling around the globe was of shock and bemusement.

Insults were hurled at FIFA, particularly Qatari-born Executive Board member Mohamed Bin Hammam, for allowing the biggest footballing event on the planet to go to a location hidden away in the Middle East.

It was alleged that Qatar's multitude of dollars, earned from its abundant gas and oil, along with FIFA's corruption bought the World Cup to the country.

Worse than that, we were told that drinking alcohol in Qatar was a serious crime, that fans displaying any sign of public intimacy are beaten on site before being locked up in jail and that the heat is so intense that you could fry an egg on the pavement.

Well it is hot in Qatar, but I quickly realised during my stay here that every other myth stated above is completely unfounded.

Qatar admittedly has a fair few dollars at its disposal and no one except the participants really knows what went on between the 22-man FIFA Executive Board members when they voted at the end of last year.

But to Qatar's credit, a lot of their money appears to have been used to create an unbelievable capital city that must be seen to be believed.

I arrived in Doha late at night and found myself standing in a beautifully clean and air-conditioned international terminal.

The terminal is incidentally adjacent to the brand new international airport which will be opened in around seven months and allow over 50 million people a year to pass through.

It was not long before I was taken to the city centre which is full of glittering skyscrapers, outrageously luxurious hotels and fascinating statues that appear to defy gravity.

Considering that alcohol is supposedly illegal in Qatar, I was rather surprised to find myself at a bar on my first night in the city and seated outside on a comfortable deck chair.

At night, the temperature in the country could not be more pleasant.

I found out the next day that it doesn't even matter how hot the country gets during sports events because in Doha, where money is no object, the revolutionary air-cooling technology simply comes into play.

The air-cooling technology was invented during the country's bid to stage the 2022 World Cup and can reduce the heat in a stadium down to 10 degrees regardless to temperature outside.

This technology is being made environmentally friendly and during the World Cup, will also be used at fan zones and at training venues.

It does not need to be used in any of the building in Doha because air-conditioning permanently runs in all of them.

It would be misleading to say that the heat at midday isn't uncomfortable or that there are pubs on every street corner because there are not.

But I ask having been here; why not give the World Cup to a country that can counter any environmental problem thrown at them and a country that is building at such a rate that by 2022, this city will be a futuristic utopia that those from foreign countries believed they would never see?

It is true that there is currently a limited amount to do in Doha, but Qatar is developing and developing fast.

Give it ten years and Doha could well make London look boring and out-dated.

Perhaps the most outstanding feature I saw during my stay in Qatar was the Doha Aspire Sports City complex which boasts the magnificent 50,000 capacity Khalifa International Stadium; a venue set to host a number of 2022 World Cup matches including a semi-final.


The stadium itself is perhaps the clearest example of the difference between Doha and my beloved home city of London.

The comparison starts because both London and Doha are bidding for the 2017 World Athletics Championships - London with the Olympic Stadium in Stratford and Doha through the Khalifa International Stadium.

Both venues are looking to stage athletics and football together but that is where the similarities end.

London's Olympic Stadium has attracted controversy from the moment the first batch of concrete for the stadium foundations was laid.

The huge row over who would get the stadium was long and bitter and it was perhaps telling to see that Tottenham, who lost out to West Ham in their bid to move into the venue, claim that athletics and football don't go together.

Fans, they said, will be too far away from the action and their plan for the stadium involved ripping up the athletics track that London promised the International Olympic Committee (IOC) they would keep.

Meanwhile in Doha, the not so difficult Khalifa Stadium problem will be solved by simply installing expensive retractable seating to allow the stands to slide forward for football matches and backwards for athletics meets.

In Doha, impossible is nothing.

So here were have a city doing the apparently unimaginable with a click of a finger.

So why shouldn't this country that will be able to build magnificent stadiums and create an outstanding legacy for sport in Qatar be able to host a World Cup?

Why shouldn't they be considered exceptionally serious candidates for the 2017 Athletics World Championships?

And when the imminent Doha bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games comes in either 2020 or 2024, why wouldn't you put your money firmly on Qatar?

Listen to false reports and you may disagree but any IOC Evaluation Committee that actually visits the place in person will very quickly be won over just as the FIFA Inspection Committee were.

So when that Olympic bid does come, I think I know who the next IOC President will pull out of the envelope.

After all, when you can air condition any stadium and create retractable seating at the drop of a hat, there isn't a lot that can stop you.

Tom Degun is a reporter for insidethegames who has been covering the 9th World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Doha

It would have been hard for the candidates in FIFA's Presidential election to avoid the subject of World Cup vote reform.

And in fairness to Joseph Blatter, his latest proposals came as a direct response to an interviewer's question.

Nonetheless, several points need to be made about the FIFA President's "positive solution" for preventing a repetition of the "uncomfortable experience I had here in Zurich on 2 December".

Point Number One is that, no matter how fresh the, er, imperfections of the 2018/2022 host selection process may be in our minds, this is in no way a burning issue.

Barring the unexpected, the next World Cup host - for 2026 - will not be chosen until 2018.

That leaves seven whole years for a calm, rational analysis of what needs to be done.

If ill-thought-out reforms are enacted in haste as a result of this election, it will be the next FIFA President but one who reaps the whirlwind.

That ought to give food for thought to Michel Platini, to name but one possible FIFA supremo for the 2015-19 Presidential term.

Point Number Two is that it is by no means automatic that simply expanding the electorate from the 24 members of FIFA's Executive Committee to its 208 national associations will make any meaningful difference to the process's underlying dynamics.

To give one example: it has been reported that CONCACAF, the Confederation for Caribbean, North and Central American nations, will vote as a bloc in this Presidential election, as it appears to have done in the contests for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts.

If it adopted the same tactic in a Congress-wide election for the 2026 World Cup host, 35 out of 208 votes would be heading in the same direction.

That's actually a marginally BIGGER proportion than the three out of 22 ExCo votes CONCACAF accounted for at the time of the 2018-22 votes.

For an election process to be beyond reproach, the mindset of those wielding the votes is far more important than procedural niceties.

If, come 2018, each member of the electorate casts his - or her - vote in good faith for the country he - or she - genuinely believes would put on the best 2026 World Cup, or at least for the host that would have the most positive impact on the sport's future development, then the process will be sound – irrespective of whether it is the ExCo, the Congress, or some hybrid body voting.


Yes, it is probably legitimate for voters to bear in mind – as a secondary consideration – which host country would bring the most significant knock-on benefit for their national association.

But if the question of what most benefits the voter himself becomes part of the equation in any way, shape or form, then the outcome becomes dubious.

It is this question of making sure the electorate approaches each vote in the right spirit that makes it so important, in my view, for FIFA to mimic the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in a way that Blatter didn't specifically mention.

At present, ExCo members whose countries bid for the right to stage a World Cup retain their votes, even though it is simply inconceivable that they would not back their own horse.

To me, this sends out all the wrong signals and should be discontinued at once, whether the voting forum remains the ExCo or is switched to the Congress or another body.

IOC members, of course, are excluded from voting while any city from their country of origin remains in the running.

This leads onto Point Number Three, which is that the IOC and the FIFA Congress are not, absolutely like-for-like bodies.

The IOC is not simply an assembly of national Olympic associations with each member-country having one vote.

It is a body composed of individuals who have attained some degree of prominence in the Olympic world and who have been voted into the club by existing IOC members.

Many members, indeed, are not appointed primarily to represent their national Olympic associations.

Some, including Blatter, are there as a result of being head of an Olympic sport.

Others represent some other interest group, such as athletes.

This helps to explain why you can have several IOC members of the same nationality, just as many countries have no IOC member at all.

Finally, Point Number Four is that if you deem a particular process the best way of deciding where your flagship tournament is played, then surely you should adopt the same methodology for determining the host of your other competitions.

FIFA has so many of these nowadays that it could find itself needing to summon three or four Congresses a year.

I can understand, in short, why it is tempting to try to clothe FIFA in the IOC's - relatively new-found - cloak of respectability.

But if that's what it takes to manufacture a more satisfactory host-selection process, I believe I have an even better idea than that floated by the FIFA President: why not go the whole hog and let the IOC decide where the World Cup is played?

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938

David Cameron may be bold enough to bomb Colonel Gaddafi but has he got the bottle to take on his own country's football lobby?

I raise the question because of growing concern that the same back-stabbing cabal which did for Kate Hoey as Labour's Sports Minister ten years ago apparently has it in for present Tory incumbent Hugh Robertson.

There is no doubt that the long knives are out for the minister, who has had the temerity to similarly deliver a few timely home – and away - truths about the running of a game which clearly considers itself  beyond either reform or reproach

It was the ear-blowing campaign orchestrated by a clique of football's so-called power-brokers from the Premier League and Football Association which led to Hoey being replaced, because the then Prime Minister Tony Blair was shamefully persuaded, via his influential henchman Alastair Campbell, that she was not sufficiently 'on message' with the game's interests.

Hoey was politically out-manoeuvred but the hope is that former army officer Robertson has the armoury to resist the insidious sniping, and that Cameron, whom he prominently supported for the party leadership, will kick the whispering lobbyists into touch.

We heard the prickly bigwigs are less than enamoured that Robertson has told it as it is - that football needs to be better governed and is the worst run of all major sports in this country.

He has called the governance arrangements around the FA "a disgrace" and says the body is "stuck in a time warp." His call for radical reform, with Government regulation as a last resort, has clearly rattled the football hierarchy, and pressure is being put on Robertson's immediate boss, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, and ultimately the prime minister, to bring him to heel.

Robertson must be backed and encouraged to stick to his guns, not least by a PM who claims to believe in plain speaking.

Although I have never voted Tory in my life, I happen to like Robertson and think he is doing a decent job within the obvious limitations of the role.

Not only is he a genuine and knowledgeable sports fan but like Hoey he strives to be a minister for all sports, and not just football.

And there's the rub.

It seems he is now fighting to keep his place in Cameron's team because he has told those who run football to raise their game. And they simply don't like it up 'em.

They are bleating to whoever will listen in the media at Westminster that Robertson "isn't a football man" and doesn't have the game's interests at heart, which simply isn't true.

What is true is that English football administrators have shown themselves to be as inept off the field when it matters as the national team has been on it.

Their respective attempts at winning World Cups for this country are woeful.

Of course we are repeatedly and smugly told that the Premier League is the best in the world.

But would that be so without foreign aid? The massive infusion of overseas money and talent via owners, managers and players? Or, indeed, without the bankrolling by Rupert Murdoch via BSkyB?


Robertson (pictured above left with Sir Geoff Hurst) is right. Football needs to be shaken up from top to bottom but the small-minded businessmen and blazers who appoint themselves to high office seem incapable of doing it, and shun the assistance of professionals who have been there and done it.

It is time the surreptitious ear-bending ceased and they actually opened their own ears to what Robertson has been saying. Not least his evidence this week to the now-concluded parliamentary inquiry (the establishment of which football clearly resented).

These were his words: "Every one of the FA directors is white, male and middle-aged. There is no-one who has played the game to a reasonable level and no women or anyone from the ethnic communities. No change is no option."

He added: "This is not a fight I wanted but things are sufficiently bad to do something about it and it is not going to be pleasant. There is going to be an awful lot of backbitng."

How prescient. And how brave the words in these days of mealy-mouthed politics.

I happen to think that 48-year-old Robertson is more in tune with grass roots sport, surely where it really matters, than some of his predecessors. And certainly not as self-important.

While the pampered denizens of world sport were swanning off in their luxury limos or hired Thames launches to the swish gala dinner at the O2 from the SportAccord convention recently, we caught up with him legging it to Waterloo to take the Jubilee Line.

The same day he had been knocked by some for meeting with Britain's canoeists rather than observe the dragging-on proceedings at that parliamentary inquiry into football.

There are certainly Coalition figures who covet Robertson's job, especially with Olympic year approaching, and are more than willing to put the boot in on behalf of the footy whingers.

But when Cameron is next nudged to get his minister, who happens to be a Chelsea fan, more "on message" – or if not get rid of him - he should repeat his advice to that po-faced heckler on the Opposition front bench this week: "Calm down dear." And let Robertson continue blowing the whistle before it is too late.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire

So the so-called "6 month" rule is going to CAS.

There had been rumours of developments in the offing and on Wednesday it emerged that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) had agreed to ask the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport for a "definitive ruling" on the matter.

The regulation in question, which went into force just before the Beijing 2008 Olympics, states that any athlete sanctioned with a suspension of more than six months for an anti-doping violation is banned from the next Olympics following expiry of the suspension.

The immediate impact of the move is likely to be to raise the hopes of high-profile athletes such as swimmer Jessica Hardy and sprinter LaShawn Merritt, the reigning Olympic men's 400 metres champion, that they will be able to compete - and boost the US medal count - at London 2012.

Hardy was suspended for a year and missed the Beijing Games after a positive test at the US trials.

Merritt received a 21-month suspension last year after testing positive for a banned substance found in a male enhancement product.

The initiative provides further evidence that the US is re-learning the art of working effectively in Olympic circles after the disaster of Chicago's failed 2016 Olympic bid.

From a UK perspective, it could also spell the beginning of the end for the British Olympic Association's hardline stance on the issue, whereby drugs cheats face a lifetime ban from the Games.

If CAS ruled against the IOC regulation on the grounds that it constituted an additional penalty for doping over and above what the World Anti-Doping Code provides, it would leave the BOA position looking vulnerable to challenge.

After all, how much more of an additional penalty is a lifetime ban?

It is therefore conceivable that this week's move might also open the door for the likes of British sprinter Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar (pictured) to compete at London 2012.


Of course, it is possible, equally, that CAS may reinforce the IOC's stance by backing the existing regulation.

I would argue that the interests of natural justice would best be served by modifying the rule, but not throwing it out altogether.

A tweak in the wording to state that suspended athletes would miss the next edition of the Games if they had not already missed one while serving their time would ensure that everyone was treated equally.

At present, the severity of the penalty might depend on what time in the Olympic cycle a positive test occurred.

For example, Hardy faces missing a second consecutive Summer Games over a one-year penalty, which appears to me disproportionate.

One might also ask whether the present situation could have been avoided by having the rule included in the World Anti-Doping Code the last time it was revised.

That could well be a point to consider for the future.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938

Is Sir Clive Woodward about to defect from the British Olympic Association and scrum down again with his erstwhile chums at Twickers?

Just a couple of month ago the BOA chairman Lord Moynihan was  emphatic that Woodward would be staying put at the organisation's director of sport, such was the rugby man's conversion to Olympism.

"Clive has the Olympic bug and wants to focus fully on helping achieve British success in 2012," he assured us.

But now, according to the News of the World – and we must assume there has been no tapping of phone lines between Sir Clive and rugby's HQ - that may no longer be the case.

Indeed, it would seem that England's World Cup-winning coach is being so heavily courted for the about-to-be created post of elite director of rugby by the new regime in charge of the game that current manager Martin Johnson feels his own position insecure.

Woodward himself is making no comment - but one from Moynihan last night doesn't exactly suggest that his earlier confidence remains totally intact.

"We have an outstanding management team at the BOA and it is no surprise they are in demand," he said. "Clive is doing a great job in the run-up to the Olympic Games and will, I hope, stay with us. Reports about him returning to a role with the RFU are purely speculative."

Hmm. I wonder. Could it be that Sir Clive, who quit the RFU after differences with then chief executive Francis Baron seven years ago, is having belated withdrawal symptoms for the sport that is in his blood.

How strong is the temptation to return with his good friend John Steele, the personable former chief executive of UK Sport and one-time Northampton coach, now running the show?

Steele, who has implemented sweeping changes at Twickenham is a great Woodward fan, and may well be making him an offer he will find hard to refuse.

One also wonders whether Sir Clive now feels less than comfortable at the BOA following the embarrassing shenanigans surrounding the now resolved unseemly spat with London 2012. Although this did not involve him it is believed to have caused him some concern.

Woodward has always said he would not return to rugby and that if anything, once his BOA stint was completed after 2012, he might have a serious shot at football management, a game he briefly flirted with at Southampton.

However a salary of around half a million a year and assurance of a totallv free hand might well persuade him otherwise.

His BOA role, said to be worth £300,000 a year, has always been a controversial issue, UK Sport initially claiming it duplicated that of their own performance director Peter Keen.

Woodward weathered that particular storm but cannot have been enamoured that plans to expand his responsibilities at the BOA have had to be curtailed for economic reasons.

It was also expected that, with his high profile and media savvy, he would be the BOA's Chef de Mission both at the last Winter Games and in 2012. But instead incoming chief executive Andy Hunt, relatively inexperienced in top level sports administration, has donned the chef's hat with Woodward simply riding shotgun as a deputy.

There have also been critics within the BOA's constituent bodies. "He is certainly a prestigious name to have on board but what exactly does he do?" was a question posed by one leading administrator.

Yet there is do doubt that Woodward has been an effective mentor to a number of competitors, notably in contact sports. who speak highly of his motivational qualities – qualities which made him such an outstanding rugby coach.


There is also the thought that any return as England's rugby supremo might create as many problems as it solves.

For it is likely Woodward would insist on being in overall charge of team selection, with the authority to hire and fire coaching staff, something which Johnson, who was his captain in that World Cup triumph, would firmly resist.

Indeed, it is reported that before taking the England manager's job in 2008, Johnson consulted Woodward – who advised him against suggesting he should gain experience at club level first.

Additionally, there is the problem of his fractious relationship former elite director of rugby Rob Andrew, moved to operations director to make way for a Woodward-style figure in Steele's radical reshuffle. The pair have clashed in the past.

Whether these issues are resolvable could be the key to 55-year-old Woodward's decision, one which doubtless he will be mulling over alongside his wife Jayne in their Westminster Abbey pew during Friday's Royal Wedding where they are VIP guests.

If Woodward does pick up the oval ball again the biggest loser surely will be Moynihan, who staked a great deal, not least financially, when appointing him almost five years ago.

Of course Woodward's substantial salary would be a timely saving for the cash-strapped BOA at this stage of the game, but the question is whether they can really afford to lose him.

Whatever happens, Woodward will work out his game plan carefully. He was never one to get his Twickers in a twist.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire

The race for the FIFA Presidency is turning out to be as dull as those for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups were fascinating.

The incumbent, Joseph Blatter, is thus far adopting the wholly predictable strategy of emphasising the value of continuity in an unstable world while detailing the torrents of cash that have rained down on planet football over his 13-year tenure – and critically, he says, will continue to do so.

This leaves the way wide open for a candidate for change.

This, though, is a role that the challenger, Mohamed Bin Hammam, would find it tough to play even if he wanted to.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) President has, after all, had a seat in FIFA's inner sanctum, the Executive Committee (ExCo), for even longer than Blatter has been President.

If you don't accept this analysis, then ask yourself in what ways you think the FIFA High Command would behave significantly differently under a Bin Hammam Presidency.

See what I mean?

Admittedly, Bin Hammam has proposed changes to FIFA's top decision-making bodies, advocating ExCo's expansion from 24 to 41 members and its relabelling as the FIFA Board.

He also wants to establish a FIFA Executive Office, bracketing the Presidents of world football's six continental confederations with the FIFA President.

But this seems designed, at least in part, to win the backing of confederation presidents who, in my opinion, already wield quite enough influence over FIFA affairs.

I fail to see how it would make FIFA better run.

Where are the suggestions that could really make a difference?

A proposal, say, to sweep away the absurdly antiquated mechanism by which the laws of the game can be changed, which is making a laughing stock of football's leaders for their failure to adopt new technology to determine if a goal has been scored.

Or to conduct an in-depth probe of FIFA's corporate governance as part of a serious attempt to address the questions that seem permanently to hover over the way the governing body takes its decisions.

These, of course, resurfaced most dramatically in last year's battle to win the right to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

But as a citizen of Qatar, the tiny but immensely wealthy state that won the 2022 contest, it would be particularly difficult for Bin Hammam to question this process.

This, though, is not to say Bin Hammam cannot win.


Indeed, while constructing a more interesting election platform would win the Qatari many friends among those of us paid to observe and chronicle the contest, I doubt it would win him many actual votes.

Nine years ago, after all, African football leader Issa Hayatou waged an extremely interesting campaign to usurp Blatter's crown.

But it was also a losing campaign.

As Bin Hammam looks to have realised, probably his best chance of springing an upset is to grab a share of the credit for the Goal development project, while persuading the national associations which will determine the winner that he can come up with even more resources than his veteran opponent if given the chance in the next four years.

I don't think it is a coincidence that the blog currently in pride of place on his website –www.mohamedbinhammam.com – states: "I don't think it is boastful of me to lay claim to turning the FIFA Goal Project into the huge success it has become since Mr Blatter gave me the task of chairing the Goal Bureau."

Nor is it surprising that, as I write this, the Qatari's latest publicity thrust focuses on future spending, specifically doubling to $500,000 (£302,000) the annual amount given by FIFA to each federation and raising the maximum per project under Goal from $400,000 (£242,000) to $1 million (£605,000).

Blatter wrote recently of providing "$1 billion (£605 million) for football development in the next four years", while underlining how he "initiated and implemented the very successful Goal Programme", along with a string of other initiatives.

Another month of this sort of stuff would constitute pretty thin gruel for us election-watchers.

But both men are probably adopting the most rational strategy for them – and neither will care a jot about boring the world if his tactics produce the right result.

And there, for me, is the rub.

The electorate in this election does not consist of the galumphing park players, like I used to be, who turn up week in, week out to play this great game, whatever the weather; nor the "XYZ 'til I die" club supporters, nor even the coaches and referees who devote hours of their time to the sport, often with precious little in return.

The electorate is the 208 national member associations.

I can only speak with confidence about England, but if the views of these associations in other countries are as out of kilter with those who actually practice the game as I strongly suspect they are here, then you can begin to see why this strikes me as a pretty pale version of democracy.

Yes it would be complex to allow anyone who can prove they are a card-carrying member of a football club, of any level, anywhere in the world, a direct say in the election of the FIFA President both by voting for and – crucially – nominating their preferred candidates.

But it would be a glorious experiment.

And - while it would be absurd to suggest that this most genuinely global of all sports is in any way at crisis-point – it may be necessary if football's grandees are to be reconnected with its grass roots.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938

As Britain's modern pentathletes get into their stride in the World Cup series, the man who has masterminded the team's fortunes since 1998, Performance Director Jan Bartu, is coming to terms with the controversial introduction of lasers for the shooting element, although he believes it will cause a radical shift in the balance of the overall event.

Modern pentathlon has endured numerous changes since being introduced to the Olympics at the 1912 Stockholm Games, including reduction from a four or five day event into a one-day event in 1996.

But the gap between the 2008 Beijing Games and the forthcoming Olympics in London has seen not one but two further changes in this traditional sport. In 2009, the final shooting and running elements were combined, and last year the sport's world governing body, the Union International de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) decided, amidst considerable confusion, to replace air pistols with lasers in time for the London 2012 Games, with this year's World Cup series marking the innovation's international debut.

Bartu believes the practice which has evolved in competition over the last couple of years, where athletes who excel at the run/shoot discipline have relied on making up huge amounts of ground in the closing stages, will no longer work because the laser shooting takes significantly less time and it will be harder to gain ground on opponents during this stage.

"The top athletes will hit their five targets in, let's say, 12 15, 16 seconds," Bartu said as he supervised final preparations at the sport's University of Bath base for the second World Cup event in Italy. "It's almost 15, 20 seconds less than before. That's a 50 per cent reduction of time spent on the range.

"You actually get a competition much closer. And there won't be massive changes with athletes coming from way back up to the top in the run/shoot phase, as it happened with the combined event in the beginning, when you would see athletes coming through to the top of the field from 18 or 20th place.

"Top athletes can transfer their shooting skills into a much faster rhythm, so they are actually speeding up, and so the whole field will be 20 seconds shooting. Before it was 20 seconds up to a minute, but I don't think this is going to be the case now.

"Because you need to position yourself near the top of the field. You can't believe that an excellent combined event will get you through. You have got to be there with the top athletes, head to head. You need to be up there after three events if you want to win a medal. I have no hard core evidence to what I am saying, but that's my thinking."

And that effect, Bartu believes, will ripple back through the competition, with increasing emphasis now needing to be laid on the technical disciplines of fencing and equestrianism.

"It somehow slipped from the radar of many coaches, especially the equestrian phase," he said. "You would think 'OK, I get through this, and I'm great in the combined event, so I can knock 30, 40 seconds from the other people's times, I will move up no matter what. But now you can't expect to be clawing it back from way back."

Although Bartu was dismayed by the confused introduction of the laser shooting, he was relieved at the way in which British pentathletes coped with the change at the opening World Cup in Palm Springs at the end of February.

"We didn't actually practise with the laser," he said. "We didn't have any equipment before Palm Springs, like many others.

"So the athletes went out there almost shooting blind. What came back to me was a complete surprise in a positive way. They adapted to it so quickly. And obviously I feel much more optimistic now.

"But was I nervous? Absolutely. I didn't know what to expect. It could have gone either way. But it makes them stronger now, because if we have done this before proper training, what will we do when we actually get to practise with it?"


For a man who has managed the British team effort meticulously for 13 years, such hasty changes were challenging to say the least.

"It's a classic top-down decision," he said. "It's an ideal which has been politically justified. I don't want to go into the international governing body politics because it is unexplainable.

"We have been constantly reminded: 'trust us, trust us, this is the way forward for the sport. Here we come, 21st century, it will get us into the consciousness of all the IOC people and it has the potential to secure modern pentathlon in the Olympics beyond 2016.'

"But I changed my mind, I'm telling you. In the beginning I could not associate myself with it, it was understandable, because I have spent all my life in this sport, I come from a really classic upbringing, shooting with the full automatic rapid gun. Going to air pistol was difficult, and now going to this, it's like taking something away from you.

"But I have to be realistic. If this is going to work it really can make a massive difference and I can see now the point for actually doing it so fast. Because we said that this is it, we go with it, we embrace it, we have to make it work.

"And as a British pentathlete, and one of the strongest nations in the sport, running Olympic qualifiers this year, running Olympic Games next year, is an obligation.

"I can see now the bigger picture. Worldwide, if it works and we make it work in the Games, as we will, no doubt, who knows what the future holds? Maybe even for shooting disciplines?"

Combine shoot and run? OK. Oh, and shooting with lasers? Check.

With the best will in the world, modern pentathletes must be wondering what is coming up next. A combining of the equestrian and fencing elements perhaps, to create televisually rewarding combat scenes for the younger viewer?

Sam Weale, who has hopes of using his experience of the 2008 Beijing Games to reach the podium four years on, has clearly had his own imaginative thoughts on the topic, which he was happy to share as he sat in the busy café within the sports complex at the University of Bath, British Pentathlon's HQ.

"Perhaps we could be running around shooting at each other next, like laser quest," he suggested with a grin. "Where does it end?"

Like most of his peers, Weale, who is aiming for one of the two London 2012 spots for the men's team, is working hard to take the changes aboard, although he believes the latest innovation in the shooting has been unduly hasty.

"It's been introduced very quickly - too quickly," he says. "To be honest it's not too fair on the athletes having two changes in an Olympic period.

"You've got to accept it and get on with it. But it's just amateur in a way to introduce laser shooting at the first World Cup of the season – and the guns were given to people a day before competition. I mean that's just embarrassing. That was an Olympic qualifying competition. And it is a bit of a risk to introduce new technology into a sport which hasn't been tested.

"You'd think they can't make too many more changes, but you never know. They have to go with the times I guess.

It's a very traditional sport, so I suppose if this latest change does make it more accessible to people then, fantastic. But first of all they need to reduce the cost of the guns, because at the moment it's costing €500 (£440/$728) for the adaption of the guns and they will cost you €800-1,000 (£705/$1,165-£882/$1,456) in the first place. And the target will cost you €200 (£176/$291).

"Whereas you can go down to your local gun shop and pick up a gun for £100 ($165) and a target for 5p ($0.08) or something and a box of pellets for £2 ($3).

"So in total that's costing you a lot of money, and that's costing your federation down the road, and you have to go along with this. The poorer nations have probably been struggling with this. Is that making it more accessible to everyone? I don't know...

"They tried to use the environmental argument and say it's saving lead, but I'm not too sure on that one either. How many pentathletes are there in the world and how many tons of lead will this end up saving?"

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames

The media impact of sport is such that today, sport is much more than the game itself. With substantial investment from political actors, its diplomatic impact and its geopolitical repercussions can be monumental.

At the end of last month, close to a billion people witnessed the desire  for reconciliation expressed by India and Pakistan on a playing field. The cricket World Cup is one of the most eagerly awaited, highly followed and most celebrated sports events on the Indian sub-continent.

The semi-final match between the two countries provided the opportunity for a historic meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan.

They went to the field ahead of the game, then after the eight-hour competition they had dinner together and made press statements calling people to take this opportunity to consolidate the rapprochement and consider a "permanent reconciliation".

The strong symbolic significance of the event is due to the political context in which it took place, linked to tensions arising from the Mumbai bombings of 2008. Lately, however, the fact that the two capitals have been abandoned by Washington has led them to reconsider bilateral relationship-building. Using this high-profile event, which was the focus of world media, is confirmation of the plan to forge closer relations, and lets us hope that the message conveyed at the highest political level will also spread through the ranks.

Like cricket diplomacy, we have seen ping-pong diplomacy between China and the United States since the 70's, and football diplomacy, recently illustrated by meetings between Turkey and Armenia during the qualifying matches for the World Cup 2010. Sports diplomacy covers all sports in all regions of the world. It is an expression of "soft power" to facilitate rapprochement between two countries that are opposed. Sport, like culture, heritage and business, is a vehicle for this "soft power", a tool for influence and persuasion which States are increasingly using to improve their relations.

The unparalleled visibility of sport and its impact on people makes it a perfect pretext for diffusing political messages. This symbolic gesture by the two countries publicly confirmed the reconciliation that has been planned for some time. The match was thus used as a sounding board for shared political intentions. Only tangible progress will enable us to assess the real reach of the event; however, by this display, the two ministers firmly committed to their responsibilities before public opinion in their own countries and those around the world.

But let's not delude ourselves by imagining that we can wave a magic wand that will solve the conflict between India and Pakistan. Sport is one diplomatic tool among many others; it is not sufficient in itself to achieve a political revolution. This needs to be done through many other areas.

So, retrospectively this event will only be meaningful if it helps to build sustainable bridges between the two communities. Cricket diplomacy is not new, and up until now its long-term effects have not been clearly visible once the event is out of the spotlight. Back in 2005, in a context just as delicate, Pervez Musharraf visited the Indian capital for a similar meeting between the two countries, which was also described as historic.

We hope that this time the political momentum is sustainable and we will closely follow the consequences of this high-level diplomatic rapprochement. But diplomacy has its own autonomous logic, and it is often not enough to remove deep-rooted bitterness and violence at the heart of communities. Peace "at the grassroots level" is at least as important as at the top elite level. So to consolidate this political goodwill expressed through sport, we must consider this event as the starting point for a pragmatic initiative that consists of using sport as a tool for reconciliation on a local level in trans-border regions and areas of tension.


Who should take advantage of this opportunity? Politicians of course; but also and above all the sports movement, which can be essential stimulus for peace-building and peace-promotion activities in the context of its work to spread the practice of sport. Sports institutions and associations have an existing operational capacity which enables them to extend political processes.

We have to grasp the signal sent by political authorities to assess what sport can do on a community level. It will mean involving the powerful force that the international federations constitute; by associating with local intermediaries and collaborating with national institutions from two countries, federations can envisage synergetic programs for action.

No, sport will not definitively stop tensions, but on its own level it can bring understanding between hostile communities, particularly in the Kashmir border region. Cricket is the number one sport on both sides of the border; furthermore it's an ideal choice because it imparts the values of fair play taught by British gentlemen at the time of the Indian Empire. These intrinsic qualities make cricket a vehicle for propagating values beyond the sporting context.

Athletes, who are impartial and respected figures, must also get involved in this process. In the eyes of the people, they are essential actors who have the ability to transmit daily messages of peace and respect at the community level. Some sports champions have not hesitated to take initiatives that deserve to be congratulated: for example two tennis players, one from India and the other from Pakistan, one Hindu the other Muslim, who rallied support from the international sports community by teaming up for Wimbledon and the last US Tennis Open to launch a media campaign to encourage understanding between their two countries. Their combat deserves to be encouraged to intensify the hope that today seems to be emerging in the Indian subcontinent.

Sports diplomacy is a tool that may turn out to be short-term. It requires actors from the world of sport to take responsibility.

Joel Bouzou is the founder and President of "Peace and Sport, L'Organisation pour la Paix par le Sport". An elite modern pentathlete, Bouzou competed in four Olympic Games, including winning a bronze medal at Los Angeles in 1984. He won the World Championship in 1987 and was later secretary general of the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM). To find out more about Peace and Sport click here.