Welcome to the 15th edition of Row Z, our weekly column on The Athletic shining a light on the bonkers side of the game.
From clubs to managers, players to organisations, every Friday we’ll bring you the absurdities, the greed, the contradictions, the preposterousness and the oddities of the game we all love…
The 2034 World Cup will be held in Saudi Arabia, hurrah!
Great news for Saudi, great news for football, great news for the world. As sports minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal said during a video for the winning bid: “We are opening up to the world and, most importantly, creating a better way of life for everyone in the country.” Lovely sentiments that we would all echo here at Row Z. Those stadiums sure do look shiny.
The bidding process, as FIFA itself said, centred on transparency, integrity and a commitment to human rights. It was a pretty exciting process, too — right up until the moment Gianni Infantino opened the envelope on Wednesday afternoon (yes, they still did this), no one knew who would win.
Anyway, it really is fantastic news for football fans all over the world. And as the Saudis themselves say: “Everyone is welcome.”
Actually, hang on a sec, same-sex sexual activity is illegal and punishable by death, so maybe check the Ts & Cs first before booking those flights?
And, hmm, to be fair, if you’re a woman you should probably know that this is a country where women need to have a male guardian to make decisions on their behalf. Nothing big though, just things like whether they can marry, get divorced or look after their own children, minor stuff like that.
Oh and wait, silly us, maybe don’t post anything on social media in favour of women while you’re there, what with University of Leeds PhD student and mother-of-two Salma al-Shehab currently in prison for 27 years (and then banned from travelling for another 27 years) for tweeting in support of women’s rights.
Anyway, forget about all that, the Saudi World Cup bid was the highest rated in the history of FIFA! Despite several stadiums and a host city not even existing yet. Amazing. The certificate for that can sit nicely alongside Saudi having its biggest-ever year for executions in 2024, with 306 recorded by Saudi human rights organisation ALQST. And still a couple of weeks to go!
Honestly, though, we’re probably just being overly sceptical, FIFA knows all about this kind of stuff and it gave Saudi a medium rating for human rights. There really is nothing to see here.
Although, wait a minute, in the interests of transparency, we should probably point out that in 2021 the UK Government listed 31 priority countries where there were particular concerns around human rights. Did Saudi Arabia make the list? You bet they did! Alongside North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, South Sudan and Libya.
Fancy a trip to Pyongyang for the final in 2038, anyone? Give the people what they want, Gianni.
It’s been another eventful week at Manchester United with the shock departure of one of the top sporting directors in the world.
That was how Sir Jim Ratcliffe described Dan Ashworth in February, but by December, Ashworth was only good enough to be made unemployed.
Cost-cutting measures implemented by Ratcliffe and INEOS, including making 250 staff redundant, ordering people to trudge into offices rather than work from home and cutting Christmas bonuses are all proving to be worthwhile to the cause.
United spent around £2.5million ($3.2m) to lure Ashworth from Newcastle. Oh, and let’s not forget they paid £10.4million last month to sack Erik ten Hag and his coaching staff, before spending another £11million Sporting for Ruben Amorim and six coaching staff. That’s £24million on hires and fires, even before we know of any fees needed to dispense with Ashworth.
Ashworth has left his role at Manchester United (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
All of which makes the relative peanuts United will make from charging £66 for tickets for kids and old people at Old Trafford seem a tad pointless. United were still trying to shift tickets the day before Saturday’s defeat against Nottingham Forest. Still, Jim knows what he’s doing, right?
He partly justified the price rises last week by saying: “I don’t think it makes sense for a Manchester United ticket to cost less than a ticket to see Fulham.”
Interesting theory. One of those clubs is in the top half of the Premier League, playing attractive, attacking football. One of those clubs is based in a posh part of west London. And one of those clubs is building a rooftop swimming pool as part of its state-of-the-art new stand.
The other club is 13th and has a leaky roof.
A leaky roof is pretty bad but at least it hasn’t caved in and almost dropped on someone’s head yet.
That’s just a Sunderland thing.
— Taylor (@Taylor_S1997) December 10, 2024
Southampton have announced that technology firm Garmin will sponsor the club for the rest of the season.
Garmin’s name will be on the back of Southampton’s shirts, although not in the Premier League because you can’t change sponsors midway through a season.
Instead, they will sponsor the shirts for the remainder of Southampton’s Carabao Cup campaign.
Who have Southampton got in the quarters next week? Oh, Liverpool at home. Heading for collector’s item status already.
Talking of Southampton, their beleaguered manager Russell Martin continues to do his best impression of David Brent from The Office.
“Every manager has some form of belief – but the ones who are criticised are the ones who are a little different from the norm.
“If we all believed in the same thing it would be boring, but less open to criticism.”
Russell Martin, basically just a chilled-out entertainer.
Southampton manager Russell Martin (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
A fellow under-fire Premier League manager who is definitely not chilled out is Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Gary O’Neil.
O’Neil revealed recently that he has an addiction to drinking tea. OK, he didn’t use the word addiction, but he did concede that he drinks not one, not two, not three, not four, but 20 cups of tea a day. Twenty!
No wonder O’Neil has such a permanently pained expression on his face whenever the camera cuts to him during a match – the guy is absolutely dying for a p***.
And finally, one from last week in case you missed it… Jose Mourinho grabbing his coach by the hood to stop him from celebrating so they can chat tactics.
Jose Mourinho’ya bakın Zeki Murat Göle’yi şapkasından çekip Mert Mülder’e taktikleri anlat demiş😂 pic.twitter.com/Mi4c8ZfDEf
— Saraçoğlu Sports (@SaracogluSports) December 2, 2024
Never change, Jose.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
