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| Rio 2016: Olympic Football Returns. Posted: 02 Oct 2009 10:35 AM PDT
1. Rio …South America gets its first ever Olympic games. And this on the back of the 2014 World Cup which will be taking over Brazil*. I think it’s fair to say this should be enough to revive a dying sport: Olympic football. There have been numerous discussions of late debating the ways to turn Olympic football from an afterthought at worst and tinder for the club v country debate at best into a competition of relevance again. Some theorize it should be open to everyone, others think it should be kept strictly at an amateur level (which would lead to an Arsenal v Barcelona final). Others think it should be scrapped altogether, as the refusal of some clubs to release players causes the tournament’s legitimacy to come into question. This is a small part of the problem with the decline of Olympic football. The large part? No one seems to care. But now, Olympic football has hope. Why? Because it’s going to London in 2012, the birthplace of football and now Brazil four years later. Two absolutely football mad countries whose appeal lies in the stands as much as it does on the pitch. And simply because of that, people will care. Sure, the athletes are nice, but an international football tournament held in and around Rio? Who wouldn’t be over their heels by that? Four years after taking over Wembley? It’s no revelation that atmosphere can often make or break a tournament, and those are two footballing meccas. Players will want to Now if they can only figure out just who they want to send… *** In order to pass the friday, enjoy the Rio pitch:        |
Anybody who knows anything has been predicting Rio de Janeiro to win the 2016 summer Olympics bid, and today that | You are subscribed to email updates from World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010 To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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We all know that FIFA is world football’s governing body. But Sepp Blatter and co. don’t preside over all of international football. There’s a whole world of non-FIFA football out there, meaning football involving non-FIFA affiliated international teams.
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