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Showing posts from June 1, 2013

If it wasn't for my local dog-fighting league, I don't know how I'd get my fix of clean, competitive sport - Des Kelly

0 shares 13 View comments Please note, in this week’s newspaper there are a few references to actual sport. If you look carefully you will find them. Should you wish to read genuine sporting information I advise you to confine yourself to these sections and skip quickly through the rest. The coverage is often dominated by organised crime, drug use, match-fixing, illegal gambling, issues of medical confidentiality, unprofessional conduct, questionable business practice, spitting and associated incidents of anti-social behaviour, which all bubbles away in a stinking, unholy stew of corruption. If it wasn’t for my local dog-fighting league, I don’t know how I’d get my fix of clean,  competitive sport? Shocking: Europol announced this week that a Champions League match in England, reported to be Liverpool v Debrecen, was one of hundreds of football games to be fixed  

Des Kelly: Swansea could lose Michael Laudrup, but Huw Jenkins should cope

0 shares 11 View comments Running a football club is like building a house in a hurricane. Put one wall up and the roof blows off. Fit a new door and the television flies through the window. It's almost impossible to make plans. People in the game talk of establishing foundations and 'long-term objectives', but we live in a world afflicted by attention deficit disorder, a world where the phrase 'long term' refers to a time span somewhere between the career of an X Factor winner and the life of a mayfly. Players and managers come and go with dizzying regularity, but a few not only set out their masterplan but also cling to it with a grim determination even when crucial parts are being swept away by the wind. Charismatic: Swansea manager Michael Laudrup could be persuaded to leave the Libert Stadium     More from Des Kelly...

Des Kelly: Rafa Benitez rant - let's see if John Terry can do any better

0 shares 26 View comments Chelsea supporters can boo as loudly as they like on Saturday — they’ve paid their money after all. But the first thing to say is that pretty much everything Rafa Benitez said was right. He was undermined at Chelsea from day one by the bizarre decision to invite him to take charge, only to chop his legs away with the title of Interim Manager. Benitez said it was a ‘massive mistake’. So did we all. Speaking out: Benitez caused a storm on Wednesday night when he gave his take on the goings on at Chelsea     More from Des Kelly...   DES KELLY: Well, nothing lasts forever... it's been a blast! Sportsmail's brilliant columnist bows out after almost a decade at the top 31/05/13   Des Kelly: When it came to the most important tick of his career clock, S

Gareth Bale is a diver... stop the excuses! Why only call Luis Suarez a cheat? - DES KELLY

0 shares 173 View comments The moment the supremely accomplished British footballer Gareth Bale falls over an imaginary leg during a match, it sparks outbreaks of copycat behaviour right across the land. Not on our football pitches, but in the nation's television studios and press boxes as pundits trip over themselves, too, in a desperate hunt to find excuses for the player’s behaviour. Rather than condemn Bale as  a cheat and a diver, every euphemism in the lexicon of Footballspeak is dutifully offered up in an attempt to excuse his deeds. Falling down (again): Gareth Bale was booked for this dive against Inter Milan on Thursday night     More from Des Kelly...   DES KELLY: Well, nothing lasts forever... it's been a blast! Sportsmail's brilliant columnist bows out after almost a decade at the top

Premier League clubs doomed in Europe, until next time - DES KELLY

0 shares 48 View comments English football is in crisis. Just look at the failure of this nation’s clubs in the Champions League. The statistics are damning. They show that no Premier League side has won the competition in a dismal run of failure stretching back to… er, what is it now? Oh, yes — 10 whole months. No club from this country has been crowned champions of Europe since last May. What a shocking indictment that is. Some will try to gloss over this demise by pointing out there hasn’t been a final since last May. But failure is failure. We can only shake our heads and wonder where that long-lost golden age of 43 weeks ago has gone to. Those heady days when we were still unable to leave the front door unlocked, a pint of beer was about the same price as it is now and we had complete faith in our game. When did it all change? Not so bad: It is just 10 months since Chelsea were crowned kings of Europe