Story by Colin Tung

Saturday, 5 December, 2009 – The 32 countries participating in next June’s FIFA World Cup were drawn into eight groups in Cape Town, South Africa.

Hosts South Africa were automatically drawn into Group A and they will meet Mexico in the opening game of the 2010 World Cup. Two-time winners Uruguay and 1998 champions France make up the rest of Group A.
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How many more matches must be sacrificed on the altar of the ‘spirit of the game?’ FIFA’s anachronistic logic in refusing the introduction of video replay technology or even sanctioning extra touchline officials in the name of preserving the ‘flow’ of the game is dangerously close to making football a global farce of a game.
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France qualified for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa on the back of a controversial William Gallas goal in extra time.

Thierry Henry deliberately handled the ball twice in the 103rd minute before prodding it to a waiting Gallas in the six-yard box. Gallas headed it past a stranded Shay Given to give the French an undeserved 2-1 aggregate victory after they had beaten the Ireland 1-0 in Dublin.
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No Cristiano Ronaldo at the World Cup in South Africa next year?

Never mind, FIFA will help.

Small nations are up in arms with the FIFA decision to seed teams for the playoffs last week. Giovanni Trapattoni, manager of the Republic of Ireland said it would be the “death of football” while his goalkeeper Shay Given calling it “totally unfair on the smaller nations.”
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Remember the days when sports fans only needed to pay less than $30 for their sports fix? That was, of course, back in 2006 when another $20 would get you all the matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Not bad eh? Oh how we wish for those days now!
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After booking a ticket to the 2010 World Cup this week, England’s new boss Fabio Capello has nipped England’s WAG woes in the bud by unabashedly issuing a “WAG restraint order” to limit the English footballers’ contact with their Wives And Girlfriends (WAG) in South Africa.

Whatever happened to ‘behind every successful man, is a woman’?

Perhaps the Italian maestro is going the distance to cover all grounds in securing his £5m reward for landing the 2010 World Cup for England, but it is at the same time revealing of what he deems is a banana skin in England’s quest for international success in recent years.
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Argentina went down 0-1 to Paraguay and are now in danger of missing their first World Cup since 1970.

I mean, what is a World Cup without Argentina? It’s like kaya toast without kaya.
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Mexico went 0-1 down after just 9 minutes at the Azteca Stadium but came back to beat the Americans 2-1 in World Cup qualifying.

This victory preserved their proud record of never losing at home to the Americans and have now won 23 times at home and drawn once against the Yanks.
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You got to hand it to the Dutch. 50,000 turned up to watch their national team in meaningless international friendly against England that ended in a 2-2 draw in Amsterdam. On a weekday too.

The point stands out because last night only 12,000 fans showed up to watch Singapore entertain China in another meaningless international friendly. And not all the 12,000 fans were Singaporeans because a sizeable number of Chinese were in attendance.

Getting back to the overpaid underachieving English, they currently lead their Group 6 World Cup qualifying group and should feature in South Africa unless Steve McLaren comes back suddenly to manage the team in place of Fabio Capello.

Even the English FA are not so stupid.

The action on field at the World Cup next year will be accompanied by another one involving three big teams: Puma, Nike and adidas.

Puma is the third-biggest sports manufacturer in the world and sponsors 11 African teams, among them Saudi Arabia and Cameroon. Nike is the number one in the world, followed by adidas.

The World Cup traditionally provides a boost to sales of national team jerseys.

The 2010 World Cup will be held in South Africa and Puma has seen its sales in Africa double every two years.