Cod Almighty | Article

by Martin Handsley

16 December 2003

On Monday afternoon I was privileged - if that's the right word - to witness the FIFA World Player of the Year gala here in Basel. For one day only, instead of the Swiss press raving about all things FC Basel (rather like the UK press and Man Utd), we had the world's sporting press scrabbling about recording the momentous events of the day.

Momentous? The cynics among us would question the need for a FIFA player of the year, especially as there are plenty of other yearly footballing gongs to be had. But I wasn't going to turn down an afternoon away from my desk, nor the chance to swig glasses of free FIFA fizz. So after hopping onto the number 16 tram I made it in good time to Messe Halle 1 to take in the proceedings.

My only previous experience of this kind of thing was attending Town's Player of the Year awards, and in fact when I entered the hall I thought I was back in the Winter Gardens as FIFA had decided to deck out the place in black and white stripes. All it needed was Tim Harvey on the mic and a gang of Town fans supping beer in the corner and we'd have been there.

The two hosts, an American girl and Swiss boy, attempted to generate a modicum of interest among the throng - which was mostly made up of journalists and FIFA bigwigs - without too much success. The manic applause between items was created by either a massive unseen audience on the sidelines or a hidden applause machine.

First up was the FIFA Fair Play award, which, strangely, went to "the fans of Celtic", and guess what - there was a "fan of Celtic" up on the podium to receive the award. Now I'm a little confused here. Did the fans of Celtic back four manage to receive fewer yellow cards than England or Brazil or France? Did the fans of Celtic manage to play a season without getting anybody sent off? Did the fans of Celtic manage to give away fewer penalties than anyone else?

Never having seen the fans of Celtic play, I couldn't really make head nor tail of what was going on. Apparently they received the award for travelling to last year's UEFA Cup final in Seville, watching their team lose, and leaving the place without smashing it up. OK, so England would probably struggle here, but did it really deserve a gong?

By the way, after being advised to attend the gig in smart business attire (that's what it said on my ticket), the "fan of Celtic" managed to get away with untucked polo shirt and chinos. Was he being ironic? Oh for the power of celebrity.

The gala continued with a couple of awards with strange titles. The FIFA Best Mover 2003 award went to Bahrain. We were told what the Best Mover award was, but the description was so convoluted that I've now forgotten. All I know is that for some reason it involved Coca-Cola. [I think it's for the highest rise up that stupid world rankings thing FIFA does. Either that or Des Hamilton should have won it - Ed.]

The grandly named FIFA Presidential Award went to the "the Iraqi football community". Once again FIFA had nailed some political colours to a mast and as a supposedly non-political organisation got itself involved in world affairs. I could go on here, but won't. The famously bald Pierluigi Collina presented this award, and in the only non-cynical moment of the evening the captain of the Iraq national side exclaimed (via an interpreter) that he would remember this moment for the rest of his life. Well, it left my eyes shining anyway!

The gala/TV special continued with the presenters continually looking into the wrong camera and the producers getting in the way of us in the audience frantically waving and pointing to the correct camera.

The next award saw the 1995 winner of the World Player award, George Weah, presenting the FIFA Women's World Player of the Year. Both Birgit Prinz and Hanna Ljungberg attended, but Mia Hamm was, in the words of Sepp Blatter, "on her first or second honeymoon." Ahem.

Big George also managed to balls up this presentation by mistaking third place for first place. So Hanna Ljungberg, looking a little shocked, went up to pick up the winner's award, only to be handed the bronze trophy. Oh dear.

It is only now, dear reader, that I can let you into a little secret. Cod Almighty's Si Wilson and I had tried to bring a little excitement into this website [are you saying Cod Almighty is boring?! - miffed Ed.] by bringing to our readers what we thought would be a world exclusive. Our plan, hatched after several glasses of beer in Leeds and bier here in Basel, saw me texting the results of the awards to Si, with the plan being for Si to exlusively publish these results on Cod Almighty. Our plan came crashing down on our heads, as the BBC scooped us by publishing the results before I'd even sat down to watch the event. Damn them! We'll get them back somehow eh Si?

Just before the final event we had a musical interlude, DJ Bobo, and the asinine Chihuahua. Oh how I laughed. Nessun Dorma this wasn't. Then it all made absolute sense. The Swiss don't have that many famous faces, and DJ Bobo is apparently Swiss. He even had the cheek to tell Zidane and Henry that Switzerland would easily beat them in next year's European Championships. We'll see.

Now onto the main event. Thierry Henry, Ronaldo (does he have a first name?) and Zinedine Zidane loped up to the podium, looking very uncomfortable in ill-fitting suits, to find out who would become the Player of the Year (but, as we already know, they already knew!).

The top three players in the world?

Sepp announced that, due to problems at some airport or other, whoever was supposed to present the award hadn't made it, and so the honours fell to Birgit Prinz [I thought that was a song by The Fall - Ed.]. So with muttered instructions from Blatter, Miss (or is it Mrs) Prinz finally unveiled the winner - Zidane - to half-hearted applause from the audience, but ecstatic applause from somewhere else.

The show ended with Sepp enthusing about how football could change the world, calculating that a billion people are directly involved in football. A mental picture of him working this out on a bier mat somehow fits perfectly.

Later we had the Match against Poverty. Ronaldo and Friends vs Zidane and Friends. Some very big names played in the match at FC Basel's St Jakob stadium. I won't bore you with details of the game, as there really wasn't a game. In 90 minutes of football there wasn't a free kick for foul play, so you can imagine what a passionate game this was. St David of Madrid played - well, jogged around the pitch - for 45 minutes, but as there was no chance of a foul, there was no way his team would be awarded a free kick just outside the penalty area. Since his talents weren't going to be needed, he was subbed at half time.

Some of my heroes of football were all on the same pitch at the same time. The names just trip off the tongue... Emerson, Overmars, Petit, Figo, Totti, Ronaldo and Vieri all played in Ronaldo's team, and Zidane had Rivaldo, Beckham, Baggio, Kluivert and Raul to spice up his XI. Pity they weren't allowed to play!

I guess it doesn't matter. Ronaldo and Friends won the game 4-3 and a cheque for nearly half a million quid was handed over to the UN Development Programme. This money was raised not only from the game but from the Basel Stadt canton and local businesses.

It's difficult to find any significance in what I saw yesterday at the gala and the match for the game of football I know as a Grimsby supporters. There's not much going on to keep us Town fans happy, though if you're reading this, Grovesie, the odd win really helps. Our finances are perilous and with declining attendences our club will always struggle. Somehow our club is keeping its head above water, but the question we fans are asking is "for how long?"

To actually witness what happens higher up the footballing ladder depresses you even more. Let us hope that the world governing bodies and national associations somehow create rules that help the little clubs, because without us, where will the next Zinedine Zidane come from?