Search: 'Brazil'

You couldn't avoid seeing the endless plugs for sponsors but, wonders Barney Ronay, did they make you buy anything?

This was surely the most energetically sponsored World Cup yet. Certainly, there was something different about the corporate presence. FIFA and your local TV channel may have long since run out of easy ways to up the logo content. But somehow it was all just a bit more insistent. The pitch perimeter advertising was standardised at this World Cup, with – you’d imagine – each step closer to the holy grail of the halfway line eagerly auctioned off. Close your eyes and you can still picture them all. Hyundai, Toshiba, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola (in Brazil colours). Something called Avaya. At most grounds the advertising boards themselves had either been extended to cover the first couple of rows of seats or framed by a lemon tarpaulin to give them that extra grab factor. These ads were super-sized – bigger and, unless there’s something drastically wrong with the contrast on my television, brighter, too. 

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You've got to laugh. Well, probably not. Cameron Carter reviews the World Cup shows that did for comedy

After the initial frenzy of World Cup-related programming in May, terrestrial television apologetically dropped everything except coverage and highlights once the tournament began. The one exception was Rio Ferdinand’s World Cup Wind-ups, notable only for the host’s immoderate laughter at “stunts” such as David Beckham being made slightly late by a bogus chauffeur, and the fact that Ferdinand resembled the female saxophonist from The Muppet Show in his heightened state of elation.

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Music and football get on about as well as the couples that appear on Trisha and, as Taylor Parkes found out, this year's World Cup songs show nothing has changed. Worst of all, England's two 1966 final goalscorers put one in their own net this time

Despite FIFA’s worst efforts, the World Cup remains a commercial free-for-all – professional flagmakers, at least, will drink to that. In the case of World Cup records, this has created a (relative) meritocracy, in the sense that which song is “official” and which isn’t matters not a jot. Who remembers Boom, Anastacia’s official “anthem” of the 2002 World Cup? Or Ricky Martin’s France 98 classic The Cup of Life? England fans have often been unimpressed by officially sanctioned musical product, the exceptions being World In Motion and Three Lions, often choosing homespun rubbish such as Vindaloo or Three Lions retreads over branded nightmares from the Spice Girls, Simply Red or Ant & Dec. Perhaps the FA have just given up, since offering the contract for this year’s England song to never-popular misery-guts Embrace looks very much like a joke. Although, after hearing The World at our Feet, no one’s smiling.

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Brazil are everyone's second team, we are told. Well, after watching Nike's latest advert, Barney Ronay suddenly feels a lot less goodwill towards a corporate steamroller masquerading as the people's champions

What kind of person could possibly have a problem with the “beautiful game”? The good old joga bonita, with its smiling children, Brazilian superstars, tippety-tappety freestyle moves and remixed samba rhythms. Not to mention an entire range of polyester sportswear and accompanying DVD and soundtrack album. What kind of fiend, what kind of monster, could possibly feel a sense of queasiness at being told by the World Footballer of the Year, a man with a “brand value” of €47 million per annum, that we all need to stop being such corporate dupes and get with the kids on the street who are keeping it real? OK, Ronaldinho, I give in. I’ll take a gross of cap-sleeved soccer shirts and a dozen pairs of Air Zoom 90 boots. Just, please, no more back-flicks.

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Cameron Carter explains that although we all know and love the FA Cup, John Motson can always be on hand to remind us of this

Spring is a time when wet-nosed lambs and weak young sitcoms stumble into the world. Yet May began and ended with the spectacle of grey-faced middle-aged footballers in sluggish pursuit of the charity pound. On May 1, the Marina Dalglish charity match on Sky One featured most of the Liverpool and Everton teams who contested the 1986 FA Cup final. Now, most charity events involve the entertainment operating at about 30 per cent below par, but these people were really trying. They just couldn’t do it any more. An injured Gary Lineker turned up briefly to kick off, like a vicar at a fete with another parish to get to, after which the 90 minutes crawled by in a pageant of zonal marking, square balls and limping, quickly regretted runs off the ball. Fortunately, a goal was scored just before the end – at least a yard offside, but hotly undisputed as its annulment would have meant extra time and, presumably, a slowing of the pace.

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