UEFA’s decision to banish mild-mannered coach Joachim Loew from the touchline for Thursday’s quarter-final against Portugal is being put down to anti-German feeling by a lot of people here, a suspicion fanned by the angry response from German FA bosses.

It’s not the first time Germany have been hit with what neutral observers (I’d like to consider myself one of those) might view as a rather harsh penalty just before a critical match.

It recalled the suspension of Torsten Frings on the eve of the World Cup semi-final against Italy two years ago, for his relatively minor role in a post-match scuffle with
Argentina players. Germans also remember that they had to do without Michael Ballack for the World Cup final in 2002, although that was a more straightforward decision.

Is it a general dislike of Germans? Are there influential people that don’t want to see the country that has won three European Championships (1972, 1980 and 1996) and three World Cups (1954, 1974, 1990) succeed again?

Bierhoff was quick to dismiss such an idea at an eve-of-match press conference in Basel but he was annoyed in the extreme.

“These are isolated cases,” he said. “I don’t think there is a special story going on here. But in this case perhaps a fine would have been sufficient.”

Loew said after the incident that he had just been coming to the aid of Josef Hickersberger, who was also sent off, in urging the fourth official to allow the Austrian freedom to roam in the technical area at pitchside. Loew has no history of criticising referees and he quickly shook hands with Hickersberger as they walked together towards the stands. Loew’s arguments thus seem entirely plausible.

To stunned Germans, it feels like an innocent bystander got whacked around for trying to help. It seems like Loew first got arrested and has now been convicted for being a Good Samaritan.

Erik Kirschbaum, Berlin

PHOTO: Joachim Loew carries a goal during a training session in Tenero, June 17, 2008. REUTERS/Alex Grimm

Football is a simple game so why do UEFA make the Euro 2008 groups so complicated?

The criteria for determining the rankings of teams who finish level on points are mindboggling.

Head to heads, mini-leagues of three teams, UEFA coefficents, fair play, drawing lots and even penalties after 90 minutes are all there. Plain old simple goal difference among every team in the group is only halfway down the list in terms of priority.

Goal difference among all teams is used in most domestic leagues in the world and fans all understand it.

So why is it less important than head-to-head records in big tournaments?

Why should Romania be penalised if they concede fewer goals against Group C winners Netherlands than Italy and France did? 

Just because they didn’t score a goal against France, they will go out if they lose to the Dutch on Tuesday and Italy grab a scoring draw with the French. 

Penalties to separate tied teams in the last group matches is a fun innovation when goal difference can’t help. Otherwise goal difference from all group matches is the fairest and easiest method.

I hope Michel Platini is reading.

PHOTO: Adrian Mutu gestures during a Romania training session, St Gallen, June 14, 2008. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s plans to limit the number of foreign players in a team, otherwise known as the “6+5″ rule, received overwhelming backing at FIFA’s congress in Sydney on Friday.

His plans, which would see clubs allowed to field a maximum of five foreign players, are contradictory to European Union laws and Brussels has already warned of legal action against any country which allows this rule to be implemented. Many national associations, leagues and clubs also say the plan is unfair and unworkable.

Blatter is forging ahead with the idea “for the good of the game” and says he has the backing of the fans.
    
But does he? Would such a rule make it fairer for smaller clubs? Or would it lead to, say, Manchester United and Chelsea buying all the best English players, or Real Madrid cherry-picking Spanish players for reasons of nationality rather than ability?

UEFA says its ”home-grown player” rule — which has the backing of Brussels — is a “more balanced” approach.

Under this rule, clubs would have to have in their squads at least eight locally trained players, defined as players who have spent three years with that club or a club in the same association between the age of 15 and 21, without any nationality conditions. 

UEFA says this will make clubs invest more in local talent and give any youngsters coming from Africa or Latin America better training and education.

Mike Collett writes in his analysis at our soccer website that Blatter’s plan is laudable but unworkable, while there’s another thoughtful piece over at Soccerlens. 

Elsewhere, Chris at Gooner Talk calls the idea ludicrous, Soccer Guru carries the headline “Sepp Blatter destroys Premiership” and there are far less polite comments around the Web.

What do you think? Is this merely a romantic idea that hasn’t a snowball’s chance in a world of soccer dominated by money? If it does go through, would it really benefit the game? Give us your thoughts in the comments.

PHOTO: FIFA President Sepp Blatter listens to a delegate on day two of the 58th FIFA congress in Sydney May 30, 2008. REUTERS/Will Burgess

Sonia Oxley blogged here last week on whether we might see a repeat of the violence which marred the UEFA Cup final last week at the Champions League final in Moscow.

UEFA officials say they don’t expect any trouble, and certainly no retaliatory attacks on Manchester United or Chelsea fans but last week’s rioting on the streets of Manchester and stabbing of a Russian fan raises wider questions about who is to blame, and whether violence can ever be completely kicked out of soccer.

UEFA says it can’t solve the problems without the help of the police and local authorities. The clubs say they cannot be held accountable for the behaviour of all their fans. Politicians say it is a deeper sociological problem. But still the violence goes on.

After AC Milan’s victory over Liverpool in Athens, European soccer’s governing body has stepped up its security measures, notably introducing new modern turnstiles, specialised staff training and more cooperation with local police.

But the common denominator between Athens and Manchester was ticketing. UEFA says it has done just about everything to curb forged tickets or to stop tickets getting into the wrong hands.

But officials say, if the violence continues, they may be forced to introduce biometric entry via fingerprint or eye scan in the future. Has soccer really come to this?

PHOTO: Russian interior servicemen sit in trucks with a soccer poster in the background as they get ready to provide security measures in central Moscow, May 20, 2008.  REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov

Manchester City fans have always had a good line in terrace songs and their latest offering is “Hey Thaksin, Leave Our Sven Alone” to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”.      

They may still be singing about Eriksson in Europe next season, if Richard Dunne’s final day red card in the 8-1 humiliation at Middlesbrough doesn’t scupper an unlikely route into the UEFA Cup via the wacky Fair Play League.  

City are a less than angelic fifth in the Premier League’s Fair Play stats but the teams above them will all be in Europe anyway. To make matters worse, the system is not even as simple as red and yellow cards or fouls committed. At least that criteria would be black and white.

Instead, Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers, who finished higher than City, have missed out on the UEFA Cup because they did not tick enough boxes for things like “respect towards opponents” and “positive play”.

City’s hapless defenders would receive glowing references from Middlesbrough’s forwards on the first point.      

Positive play? Well, they definitely can’t be accused of playing for a 0-0….so more credit there then.      

Maybe football should scrap the three points for a win system and just have two teams of show ponies prancing about the pitch while a panel of judges marks them for artistic merit and choreography…It would make more sense than the Fair Play charts.

Martyn Herman, London

With Manchester United and Chelsea fans scrambling frantically for match tickets, flights, hotel rooms and visas for the Champions League final in Moscow, should UEFA now rethink the way it awards its showpiece event?      

Many senior UEFA officials have admitted the violence which marred last year’s final between AC Milan and Liverpool in Athens was caused in some way by the fact the stadium was “not fit for purpose”. In other words it was an Olympic Stadium and not a true soccer stadium.      

This prompted UEFA chief Michel Platini last September to change some of the parameters from 2009, such as moving the final to a Saturday and increasing the minumum capacity to 60,000.      

Platini said he wanted to bring the final closer to the fans, in particular families. But how many families will travel to Moscow, even if they can afford to?      

Many officials, supporters and members of the media believe it is time for a further rethink on how the venue is selected and say the system must be more flexible.      

Some officials close to Platini have told me that the former France international himself favours awarding the final closer to the time, rather than the current system whereby the host is chosen two to three years in advance.

Would it not make more sense to host this year’s final at Wembley rather than forcing thousands of English fans with tickets to travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of pounds?      

The political difficulties between Moscow and London could add to the problem but the governing body says its hands are tied and the venue cannot be changed.      

With the possibility of further finals featuring teams from the same country becoming more likely, maybe UEFA should merely draw up a shortlist of stadiums capable of holding European soccer’s top game and pick the venue at the quarter-final or semi-final stage?       

Wouldn’t this make life more easier for everyone — UEFA, the clubs, the players and most of all the supporters?

Darren Ennis, Brussels

PHOTO: A general view of Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium, which will host the Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea later this month. May 2 REUTERS/Mikhail Voskresenskiy

Bizarre as it sounds, UEFA announced last week it was publishing a dictionary.

Teaming up with German reference book publishers Langenscheidt, European soccer’s governing body has produced a dictionary with around 2,000 “official” football terms, handily translated into English, French and German.

You can’t help but imagine some wonderful uses for this important academic work.

Today’s jet-set millionaire coaches will surely grab a copy as they seek to make their multi-national squads understand the latest training ground routine. England coach Fabio Capello and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich will meanwhile be delighted to know that Italian and Russian editions are planned should the first edition prove a success.

Cynicism aside, however, a quick flick through the pages suggests the dictionary might not be such a daft idea. UEFA acknowledge the book is aimed primarily at the sport’s administrators with entries covering areas such as security and stadium terminology, descriptions of sporting equipment, medical terms and phrases commonly used in sports management.

But there is plenty of material that regular fans might want to take a look at. UEFA’s head of languages suggested to me that long-suffering wives of football fans might want to sneakily purchase a copy if they want to impress their husbands during Euro 2008. I reckon some of the entries might justify those husbands taking a furtive look themselves though, particularly those armchair experts who like to claim a greater knowledge of the sport’s intricacies than they truly possess.

There are official answers for those who don’t want to admit that they still don’t understand the new offside rule, or when a free kick should be direct or indirect. Some concise definitions of tactical formations are also useful for fans who might know what a 4-2-3-1 looks like but not when it should be used.

According to the dictionary, 4-2-3-1 is a “relatively defensive formation using a back four, two holding midfielders to screen the defence but also to initiate attacks, three attacking midfielders and one forward”. A 5-3-2 on the other hand is a “defensive system of play… which is heavily reliant on two wing backs occasionally providing width for the team when attacking.”

Overall I would say it is not a bad addition to a football fan’s bookshelf, although UEFA seems to be scraping the barrel for material at times.

If a second edition is ever published UEFA might want to ask if we really need definitions for ‘kicking with the outside of the foot’ (which amazingly means “striking the ball with the edge of the foot”) or ‘replacement of a defective ball’ (”exchange of a ball that bursts or is no longer suitable for play during the course of the match”).

Mark Ledsom, Berne

PHOTO: A Euro 2008 assistant referee attends a workshop near Zurich in preparation for the upcoming tournament, April 17 REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Flying elbows, mass punch-ups, mouthy players, shirt-tuggers and divers will be the main focus for referees when Euro 2008 kicks off in June.

UEFA handed a six-point list of instructions on Thursday to the 12 referees officiating at the tournament in Switzerland and Austria.

Referees will crack down on players who hold or push opponents during free kicks or corners. Mass confrontations between players will be dealt with by issuing a yellow card to at least one player from each team. When it comes to dissent, officials have been told they can accept “a spontaneous expression of frustration from players” but anything more than that will warrant a sanction.

UEFA will also use video evidence to punish divers and cheats who succeed in fooling the referee at Euro 2008, having trialled the idea in the Champions League.

The emphasis on shirt-tugging and the use of elbows also follows a crackdown in the Champions League, so UEFA argues the players have been warned.

At Thursday’s get-together in Zurich the match officials said they were ready to strictly apply the guidelines. Asked if he was prepared to award a penalty for a shirt tug in the first five minutes of the tournament’s opening match, one referee said he would be quite happy to award five penalties if necessary.

Is UEFA right in calling for greater respect for and stricter adherence to the rules or will a flurry of red cards and penalties ruin the tournament? Would you rather see a crackdown in other areas such as time-wasting?