Friendly matches - conditioned selections and commercial considerations

What are the real meanings of staging friendly matches these days?

In most cases it is a question of money for national associations, possibly decreed through sponsor and TV contracts.

FIFA dictates that the national ruling bodies must reserve a number of dates for friendlies and that clubs must release their players on five occasions other than those reserved for competitive commitments.

Obviously, one understands that these five occasions to mean as useful opportunities for national team coaches to practise their tactical build-up. That rarely happens, however, because there are far too many business factors that control this beautiful game.

Before leaving his £600,000 job as Chief Executive of the English FA and take over as boss of the Royal Mail, netting £1m in pay and perks, Adam Crozier was accused that he had made the England team a brand.

The radical administrator, who was also responsible for hiring Sven-Goran Eriksson as England boss, knew so well that three lions form a logo that sells. After all, he was a former director of Saatchi and Saatchi, and rightly decided that nothing much is done in football these days without having an eye on the cash register.

Very few of the high number of friendlies that were staged recently served any real purpose other than commercial.

Europe's richest clubs, forming G14, have complained to FIFA that while they pay millions to their players, their respective national associations are more interested in using these same players for business ventures through friendlies.

They are not pleased to have their best players exposed to injuries and fatigue. The club vs country tug-of-war has now put so much pressure on the rope that it must surely snap.

Clubs also use every affordable date to feature in exhibition matches that pay. Clear examples are the tours of Milan and Juve in the Middle East during Yuletide while Real Madrid have just finalised four matches in China and Japan which assures them of $13.5m.

Surely Brazil did not travel to China so that re-appointed manager Carlos Alberto Parreira could judge his team. They played merely for $1.25m!

Similarly the matches S. Korea-Brazil and Japan-Argentina, played last November, were 'business friendlies'. The South American players, who are engaged with European clubs, had to travel 18,000kms and spend 34 hours flying. Some even ended up sitting on the bench so that the respective national associations fill up their coffers while the players complain that they have still to receive their bonuses of two years ago!

Comical

It will be foolish to discard the comical aspects connected with friendly encounters. The Italians, with tens of thousands registered players, had to pick a Tandil-born Argentine for the match against Portugal.

Mauro German Camoranesi became the 16th Argentine to don the Italian jersey, but the first in more than 40 years; the last being Humberto Maschio who took part in the 1962 World Cup staged in Chile.

Camoranesi's great grandfather hailed from Potenza Picena before emigrating to Argentina in 1891.

Against Kazakhstan Malta also fielded three players who were not born in Malta. But then our team mentor discarded our only two foreign-based full-time professionals because for the end-of-year trip to Mallorca they did a 'Tottivieritis'.

Camoranesi, Bogdanovic, Nwoko, and Vella are not the only players to have dual citizenship and two passports. There were 46 players in the 2002 World Cup playing for a country other than their place of birth.

This confirms my belief that the playing of national anthems prior to kick-off is merely a waste of precious time. Incidentally, the Malta-Kazakhstan match will certainly not classify as commercially successful with the poor attendance figures!

And talking about friendly matches one cannot miss the Upton Park farce. The £3.5m-a-year Swedish manager, once again, brought in 11 subs for the second half.

It seems that Eriksson, in trying to accommodate a number of managers, must dish out international caps as if they are meaningless.

To quote the 59-capped Jimmy Greaves... "caps are scattered around like confetti these days and to no particular end".

One queries England's status as a world football power with only five wins in their last 17 matches as Eriksson brought in 52 players in less than two years.

Clubs vs country row? Clubs win. This is a fact and is the sad truth.

No one should detract the merits that the well-organised, and disciplined Aussies deserve.

Like Chievo, they play a simple and very efficient type of game without any flash and certainly no flurry even under pressure.

Reviewing such matches one is bound to conclude that loyal fans are being conned. Unfortunately, most of the time they are not bothered by the horrendous attitude of those who have transformed a most beautiful game into a money spinning industry.