By Nick Powell
From the end of January to the beginning of March, in anticipation of my 20th birthday and acceptance that professional sport is well and truly beyond me, I’m looking back through my 20 years to find the sporting memories that have had the biggest impact on me.
For this article I look back to 2010 and a series of scandals that rocked the footballing world and gave me a suspicion on sporting governing bodies which has stayed with me ever since.
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2010: Hating FIFA
Sat on the coach on my year six leavers' trip to France, French Radio was giving us updates on Germany vs England at the 2010 FIFA World Cup via one of our teachers, Mr Webber.
England had been really poor. They had started well against the USA but 'the Robert Green moment' had led to a disappointing draw, they had been completely lifeless against Algeria and had scraped through after pipping Slovenia, all in spite of the press labelling their group:
England
Algeria
Slovenia
Yanks
It led to a last sixteen draw against Germany, rather than Ghana, as England somehow failed to top their group. It was set to be a huge challenge, and the chants of Shout (the unofficial England World Cup song by Dizzee Rascal and James Corden), were slowly fading on board the coach as the Germany goals went in.
Rob Green's reaction to the error told you everything you needed to know about how he felt
When news that Matthew Upson had headed us back into it came through there was a real feeling of excitement, and then...
"England 2, Germany 2!", Mr Webber bellowed down the bus
Our bus of 36 kids roared into life. It was the first time England had scored 2 goals in the tournament. They'd doubled their tally from the group stage in a matter of minutes.
Except they hadn't.
"Sorry, still England 1 Germany 2."
Brilliant.
The incident in question was Frank Lampard's equalising goal which was not award despite being a yard over the line.
The rant that followed from Mark Lawrenson was widely mocked, but it truly captured the English feeling around the incident, and Sepp Blatter.
"What is it that Fifa don't want? Technology. Thanks very much Sepp Blatter, I hope he's here and I hope he's squirming in his seat."
That, from someone who played for the Republic of Ireland. Indeed Blatter was there, but filmed laughing minutes later.
Having vehemently opposed technology, the disgustingly corrupt Blatter was probably delighted with the goal that saw England, the one nation that had the courage to question his integrity, go out.
And let's make one thing clear. Who cares if England were rubbish up to that point? They had shown incredibly guts to draw level and had Germany completely rattled.
The BBC pundits, in their post match analysis, were much quicker to criticise England than defend them, and repeatedly said the ghost goal "didn't paper over the cracks", but I still find that hard to agree with.
England were so so poor. But momentum in sport is an extraordinary thing. I've seen Roger Federer has twice been beaten at Wimbledon after being two sets to love up and cruising, I've seen (live) Harlequins fight back from 27 points down in 20 minutes, months after the Lampard moment, Arsenal threw away a 4-0 lead (which they had got in 25 minutes) to draw with Newcastle.
Germany's two second half goals came from the fact England had thrown all their men forward (too many if you ask me), and nobody knows what would have happened if it was level at the break.
The German press revelled in the revenge of 1966 but that goal had been 50:50, how the Uruguayan referee on that fateful day in Bloemfontein hadn't seen the goal, when everyone in the ground had, or at least, Neuer's reaction, was staggering.
But that was not even close to being the thing that really worked me up about FIFA in the year 2010.
How much for the World Cup?
Skip forward a few months, and English heads were in hands once again. Russia had denied us the opportunity to host the 2018 World Cup, and though we'd pulled out of the 2022 process, that had been awarded to Qatar.
If you watch Blatter awarding them, you can see in his eyes he realises he's really f***ed up. He's seemed to realise in that moment he wasn't going to get away with it, and thank God he didn't.
The other thing that is really striking about the footage is the crowd reaction, as they can barely muster respectful applause.
It wasn't shocking though. It was what we'd come to expect. South Africa and Brazil had hosted the previous two tournaments, and they could barely afford it. The 2002 tournament had been hosted by South Korea, who had clearly bribed their way to the semi-final (watch any video of their games against Spain and Italy on Youtube, it was 180 minutes of cheating).
It taught me to have a suspicion of FIFA, which will never go away. What sums it up perfectly is the fact that Qatar still haven't been stripped of the right to host the tournament, despite the fact there is now clear evidence that they bribed officials.
That suspicion has extended across more sporting governing bodies. How the ICC (International Cricket Council) will do anything to protect their original, commonwealth "full-members", how World Rugby will do anything that generates money over growing the game, how the RFU and Premiership Rugby want to make rugby the elitist closed shop it once was once again.
I rarely ever harbour feelings of hatred for individuals, but Sepp Blatter is one individual who I truly despise. But perhaps that's just because he is just one of so many clueless people at the top of sport who have seemingly tried to kill various games through a series of dreadful mistakes, and my hatred should be split amongst them evenly.
Either way, if I ever make a career out of this, it will be my life's goal to expose the poisonous corruption, lame bureaucracy and elitism that runs through sport's governing bodies.
And that's all because of FIFA and 2010.
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