Sporting heroes are so important to our children as role models. In many young lives, a soccer player is pretty much all they can relate to. When they read that their hero allegedly cheats on his pregnant wife by sleeping with women for money, does it not just break your heart? The excuses that are always trotted out are embarrassing and morally pathetic. These are young men with alot of money. They’re open to a huge amount of temptation – and oh yeah, they’re only human – the best moral cop out going. OK, lets
take a few more degrees around the moral compass on this. Wayne Rooney is a married man with a young child. He is also an insensitive, emotional traitor who sees no problem in paying a woman for sex. Not even a second thought.

I love football for everything that it can do – inspire, draw people together and for great players to become wonderful role models. My four children all know who the good guys are. And it most definitely does not include the seedy, tawdry and utterly revolting Wayne Rooney. Yep, he’s potentially a great player – but you know what? I don’t really care. He’s the worst role model I would ever want to talk to my kids about. The hubris of Rooney, Terry, Ashley Cole et al is just plain revolting. Please, let’s stop making excuses for these detestable men.

Do you ever find yourself questioning this capitalist culture in which we live? I hope so. Here’s some number crunching from the last few days.

Hundreds of thousands of ordinary Britons have managed to raise, to date, £29 Millions to help and support the flood relief in Pakistan. In the same week? Manchester City sign James Milner from Aston Villa for a reported £26 Millions. Time for a transfer and salary cap in worldwide football? You bet. Will it happen? Watch this space.

As the Premier League kicks off, Blackpool are dead certs for relegation. One man may prove the bookies wrong. He’s a maverick master of the one liner, a witty rent-a-quote – but often underestimated as a coach of quite some vision. Step up, Ian Holloway. He manages a tiny club with few resources. But his refreshing, positive approach to playing the game will mean that even if Blackpool do go straight back down, they’ll give us alot of fun football and play the game with a real sense of desire. I SO want Ian Holloway’s Blackpool to stay up this season.

Regular readers will know my thoughts about the vile freeloading dictatorship in North Korea. According to press reports, their World Cup players were subjected to a corruscating six hour `reprimand’ from 400 government stooges in Pyongyamg’s Great Palace, who berated them for `failing’ in South Africa. The dignified and internationally much-liked North Korean coach, Kim Jong-Hum has been expelled from the Workers Party of Korea and made to work as a labourer on a building site for `betraying’ the trust of The Great Leader. Come on FIFA! Kick North Korea out of world football now.

All hail new France manager Laurent Blanc for suspending the 23 players who so shamefully disgraced their country at 2010 South Africa. Blanc has refused to pick any of the pampered millionaires who put ego before country when they threw many toys out of the pram at the World Cup. Their behaviour was shameful, and thank goodness that a man of principle and probity has had the guts to say…I don’t need or want you spoilt, vastly over-paid children anymore. Go for it Lauren – bring through the kids and other good French players who care more about playing the game the best they can. The hubris of French players at the World Cup was utterly astonishing. Despicable. An arrogant slap in the face for football fans everywhere.

Can anyone help me here? Various press and media reports I’ve read over the last few days all suggest that FIFA has made a £2 billion pound profit from 2010 South Africa. I would love to know how much of this will be passed back to fund grassroots development of football around the world, particularly in Africa. I ask because I honestly don’t know what FIFA does with this immense amount of profit – does anybody have facts and figures? I am not pointing fingers or looking for conspiracy theories – I would genuinely just like to know how this money is put back into football around the world. Any answers out there?

It was a rare opportunity and novelty to watch North Korea play in 2010. Though a million miles away from the quality of every other team in the World Cup, it was a joy to watch their pluck and determination. But watching them play made me think of more important matters and it made my heart heavy. Is it right that FIFA should give credence and succour to vile, vicious totalitarian regimes like North Korea by allowing them to play in the World Cup? FIFA has an honourable track record – they were the first global sporting association to kick apartheid South Africa’s football team out of international sport. What else do they need to know about North Korea’s murderous Orwellian regime that deliberately forces its people into misery and starvation? If you want to know just how the fabulously rich hedonists who run North Korea utterly, cynically and cruelly oppress their own people and condemn them to indescribable lives of suffering and horror, do please, please buy Barbara Demick’s important new book, `Nothing To Envy: Real Lives in North Korea’. It’s the tragic story of a nation utterly enslaved, its people more destroyed and damaged than even anything apartheid could do. FIFA, please – kick this country out of the worldwide football family. Sports boycotts hit apartheid South Africa where it hurt. Give this vile regime a similar message.

Football is more than just a game for so many reasons. This is mine. I am Bradford born and am the fourth generation of my family to support Bradford City. We’re not a big club and apart from two maverick seasons we spent in the Premier during the 1990s, perpetual under-achievers and mediocre humdrum. But from as early as I can remember, they’ve been my team and always will be.

Between the ages of nine and thirteen, life in my family was difficult. My Dad – ex-pro wrestler and boxer, sergeant in the military police – descended into darkness, manic depression and a series of nervous breakdowns. Life for my Mum, my two brothers and myself became one of walking on eggshells, fearful and unsure about what the next day would bring. My Dad, locked into a helllhound trail of Valium and a cocktail of other inexpertedly recommended anti-depressants, dominated every breathing moment of our home like a great black dog. Much of my life between nine and thirteen, was spent under the covers. Hiding. Trying not to be there.

What kept me going was this pretty ordinary little lower league football club called Bradford City. My Uncle Albert took me to some games. My Great Uncle Billy would religiously give me match programmes and cuttings of match reports from Bradford’s evening newspaper, The Telegraph and Argus. One day, my Uncle Albert took me down to Bradford City’s ground, Valley Parade, to watch the players go in for training. As a nine-year-old, my hero was Bobby Ham – five foot six inches tall, thighs like tree trunks and City’s top scorer. I spotted him amongst the gaggle of players going into the ground. He wore a gold coloured bri-nylon roll neck sweater and tartan slacks and a haircut out of the army barber’s manual. I pushed my autograph book into his hand, he smiled, scribbled onto a page and then disappeared into the ground. I looked at what Bobby Ham had written, and it said `Get Lucky’ signed `Bobby Ham’. I gazed at this in awe. He knew. He knew about my awful life. And this was a message from my footballing hero. Get Lucky. I was just a kid, ready for any sign that my life could get better. In two sketchily written words, my hero had confirmed that there was hope.

The very latest FIFA world rankings throw up an interesting conondrum for African football. The 2nd highest ranked team are Ghana, who made it to the last eight in South Africa 2010, and stand at 23rd in the world. Third highest, Ivory Coast, ranked at 26, who went out in the group stages. Other African sides who went out in the group stages, are respectively ranked 30 (Nigeria); 33 (Algeria); 40 (Cameroon); and 66 (South Africa). So we’re missing something here. Who are the current top ranked African side in the world? A little clue. They didn’t make it to the World Cup. But currently, FIFA rank them as the 9th – yes, that’s 9th, above the likes of France and Italy. It’s Egypt – would why should this be? They didn’t even make it to the World Cup, albeit after ending up equal top of their qualifying group and then utterly unexpectedly losing a play off match 1-0 to Algeria. So how can they possibly be in the Top Ten of world football?

Because their record as a national team, stretching back over the last four or five years, is incredible. It was one of the biggest shocks of 2010 that Egypt didn’t make the finals. But dig beneath their international record, and it’s clear why Egypt are in the vanguard of African nations – and why I predict they will do great things over the next decade. Their Premier League is the best in Africa. Their two top sides Al-Ahly and El Zamalek share the Cairo Stadium and both regularly pull in 75,000 for home games, and contribute many of the players to the Egypt national side and all their Under 21 and youth sides, along with players from other top Egyptian Premier clubs like Ismaily, ENPPI, Haras El Hodood, Petrojet, El Masry, El Geish and Ghazl El-Mehalla. They all have great youth set ups and work hard on bringing through new young players.

I would love South Africa, Ghana and Ivory Coast particularly to climb up the FIFA rankings. But until they manage to achieve a league structure and youth development policy of such permanence and vision, then it will be, I reckon, Egypt who will be leading the way from the continent of Africa over the next few years.

England striker Emil Heskey today announced his retirement from international football. Good riddance, some will say – he only managed seven goals in 62 internationals. But ask Wayne Rooney – and Michael Owen before him – what they think of Heskey and they both give him a massive thumbs up. He was great at holding up the ball, linking play and bringing more natural goalscorers into the game. Ask anyone in football, and they will also tell you he is the perfect gentleman. Ask Leicester City fans what they think of Heskey – he put £500,000 of his own money into a consortium that a few years ago saved his home town club from extinction. Ask the fans of any of his former clubs about his unfailing politeness and eagerness to give of his time and energies. And for those who are not Emil Heskey fans, just for the record….he’s scored well over 100 league goals, won an FA Cup winners medal, two League Cup winners medal, a UEFA Cup winners medal and a UEFA Super Cup winners medal.

Enough England managers have rated Heskey to play him at two World Cups and two European Championships. And amazingly, he’s played for England over three decades, having made his debut against Hungary in April, 1999. If I was a pro footballer, I wouldn’t mind all those stats on my career record.

In announcing his retirement from international football, Heskey may well have jumped before he was pushed. But let’s not forget the quiet, unsung contributions that he made along the way in an England shirt. A gentleman of some dignity, and let’s face it, there aren’t too many of them currently in or around the England squad.