'Tis the season

I am sick. Literally with a tropical invader in my bloodstream which has kept me yo-yoing between promotion and relegation for the past three weeks, an unwelcome souvenir from the World Cup in South Africa which unwrapped itself belatedly.

But sick of soccer too. The hangover from the big show has not yet worn off, and imbibing the diluted fizz of the Europa League this week in a halcyon daze was like Shaun Wright-Phillips for England in the summer, a poor substitute lacking any kick. Blackpool's winning debut then a trio of 6-0s in the Premier League have convinced me I am hallucinating from the virus.

I keep telling myself to follow the Bundesliga more, with some beer and sausage-filled match-trips. I have always enjoyed watching footy in Germany, an underrated destination in general. It seems wrong that Europe's most-attended and affordable league lags fourth in international interest behind the drunken cash-cows of the Premier League, La Liga and Serie A. Is it just a lack of stars?...Mesut Ozil has just left Werder Bremen for Real Madrid for a paltry sum, end of contract or no. Even when Germany last won the World Cup, in 1990, few took notice of its league afterwards, although to be fair Serie A reigned supreme at the time with the lion's share of Germany's top players.

Maybe it's a question of publicity, which the Copa Libertadores is still starved of outside Latin America, even when it ends spectacularly like it did this week.

Sepp Blatter is another suffering from the summer in South Africa. What else could be the reason behind his astounding admission to Focus magazine that the golden goal could return to the World Cup finals, with penalty shoot-outs replacing extra-time. I cast my mind back to every golden (and silver) goal between 1996 and 2004 and never did it fail to prematurely terminate a keenly-contested game. If more scoring is the desire, what can be done short of increasing the size of the goals or reducing the number of players? Maybe FIFA could achieve the latter by abolishing yellow cards so refs can flash red every time instead...er, yeah.

Blatter's presidency is up for re-election in 2011, with the Asian Confederation's Mohamed Bin Hammam or Chung Moon-Joon poised to mount a challenge, but the Swiss supremo looks safe for now. If he is not attempting to show he has still got it after all these years, is he trying to divert attention from his humiliating u-turn over goal-line technology or simply painfully aware South Africa was his baby ever since he first harvested African votes, and that 'his' World Cup had been planned to be a gourmet dinner but ended up with a dog's breakfast of a finale.

FIFA's inspection team have just left Russia and are in England before hitting the USA in advance of December's vote on the 2018 World Cup venue. I would not place too much store in their work. The 2006 technical report on England was from another planet as I recall while the real vote-winning is a political campaign played out behind closed doors.

As the only non-European bidder left in the race for 2018, the US, while holding few hopes of beating front-runners England and Russia (Spain & Portugal and Belgium & The Netherlands are also in the hat), is hoping to bag some friendship credits for the 2022 vote, which promises to be a more winnable fight against Australia, Qatar and recent hosts Japan and South Korea. China is gunning for 2026 so hoping another Asian nation (which includes Australia of course) fails to win 2022, which would push its own ambitions back another four years.

England's bid is not being helped by Prime Minister David Cameron choosing not to interrupt his vacation in hardly faraway Cornwall, Beckham being 'busy' and Prince William flying helicopters. So will this heartfelt effort from Robbie Williams swing the votes? No.



-Sean O'Conor, London