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So England once again crash out of the World Cup too soon. This time with an abysmal performance in the Round of 16, a humiliating defeat losing 4-1 to Germany in Bloemfontein. It turns out this is England’s biggest ever loss in a World Cup finals.

This was supposed to be the “golden generation” so what went wrong?

Well just about everything.

Can anyone remember now the “root and branch” review that the Football Association put in place after the sacking of the last two failed managers, Sven Goran Erikkson, and Steve McLaren? I forget when exactly that was, and at this moment no longer care – the ‘when’ doesn’t matter. What matters is ‘why’ and ‘what’. Why were England so poor this World Cup? And what the hell happened with the  so called “root and branch review” ?

And now there are calls for Fabio Capello to resign. Well I understand it and agree with those calls, but it isn’t going to happen. Because the stupid FA offered him an extension to his contract before the World Cup, and it will take  around £10 million to buy him out of that contract. When Cappello says he needs to seek assurances that he has the confidence of the FA, this is what he means – he needs to know they will pay him off. And there is the root and the branch of the problem. This is money that should be invested in youth academy and developing college sports degrees (similar to the United States) not to pay off yet another overpaid overhyped failure of a manager.

And don’t even get me started on the Football Association? Why are most of the high ranking members of the FA non – football people? Have a look. They are almost all business people, more concerned with sponsorship deals and filling Wembley for pointless friendlies than they are for developing skills in youth and through the ranks of the league system. And the Premier League, so called best in the world – it burns the players out. It is time for a winter break, but the FA and the Premier League itself do not work in tandem for the good of the nations sports, it is all about the money.

FIFA is just as bad, but I don’t fathom the reasons for their incompetence quite so easily. Maybe I missed something, but surely it would be in their interests to have “fair play”? The goal that should have been but never was, Frank Lampards goal that crossed the goal line which would have been the 2-2 equaliser. So why does Sepp Blatter not want to introduce goal line technology which would be a simple way of eliminating  errors in major tournaments and competitions? He said last year that it was not feasible because of the inability to implement it in smaller competitions. Such hogwash! Players are punished retrospectively already if an offence is spotted by video cameras which would not happen in a League 2 match that was played without cameras so the argument does not stand!

Not that it would have made any difference to the result yesterday. England were caught on the counter attack too many times, too easily and made elementary errors. I don’t believe they aren’t good enough to have at least made the semi finals, but they just didn’t really turn up for this tournament. Also the fact they took the hard route by finishing 2nd in the group, the writing was on the wall, as it should be for £6m a year Cappello, but that would turn out to be a further waste of money. So I reckon we’ll be stuck with him. Root and branch reviews again, but they are meaningless words until the FA itself is reformed.

PS If Fabio Capello does get sacked, then England should appoint Roy Hodgson as manager.

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Kathryn Cann
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