John Terry Sacked As England Captain

I'm going to keep this extremely short, but John Terry lost the England captaincy today. It's probably down the back of the sofa along with his sense of decency and his inability to not be a prat.

Ghana Will Be Spying On You

The Ghana Football Association have announced that they will have coaches monitoring the other teams in their group ahead of the 2010 World Cup Finals.

Quite why this is a big news story, I don't know, as I always presumed that all teams did this.

So why am I even mentioning it, you ask yourself? Well, because of this choice line from the president of the Ghana Football Association, Kwasi Nyantakyi, who said, and I quote:

"At the last World Cup in Germany, we employed the services of three scouts [to monitor the tactics of other teams in their World Cup group] and the benefits were enormous."

So, let's take a quick look at the 'enormous' benefits Ghana received from this at the 2006 World Cup.

A 2-0 loss to Italy; a 2-0 loss to the Czech Republic and, oh yes, a hard fought 2-1 victory over a severely underperforming USA.

Result: knocked out in the group stages.

Personally, I'm looking forward to similar 'enormous benefits' at South Africa 2010.

Nigeria Look For A New Coach...But Forget To Sack Their Old One

Having finished third in the African Cup of Nations, the Nigeria Football Federation obviously felt that Shaibu Amodu was not the man to lead the nation to success at the 2010 World Cup.

Here's a nameless NFF to say exactly that.

"Amodu will not be the man to take Nigeria to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa," he said.

A meeting of top Nigerian football officials in Luanda has sealed Amodu's fate. They have even spoken to Egypt coach Hassan Shetata about taking over the position.

Here's what Shetata had to say, when speaking on Egyptian TV programme, Modern Sport :

“It will be a great honour for me to work in the World Cup, but the Egyptian FA will have the final word on whether I could work with Nigeria on a temporary basis.”

The one thing the Nigerian Football Federation seem to have forgotten is to actually sack Amodu. Oops.

It's probably best if you actually fire the one manager before you try to hire his replacement. Just a thought.

Will You Please Welcome....This Week's Idiots

Ah, what joy. Today, we can highlight a couple of instances of idiocy at a level that, frankly, beggars belief.

Firstly, CAF have chosen to ban Togo from the next two African Cup of Nations tournaments for, presumably, disrespecting the competition by having some of their players shot and staff killed. How dare Togo withdraw from a competition for such a trivial reason as coming under terrorist attack.

Secondly, John Terry, England captain. Really, I could just follow the tiresome tabloid moral high ground approach about morality, but I think sleeping with your friend and team-mate's girlfriend speaks for itself. The word 'scumbag' springs to mind.

Nevertheless, this isn't necessarily a reason to strip Terry of the England captaincy. However, the lack of respect from the rest of squad, the fact that the man can't be trusted, the sheer arrogance of the guy - these are reasons for Fabio Capello to find a new captain.