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Mike Rowbottom: Will Qatar's historic handball feats bring out new homegrown stars?

Qatar, hosts of the World Handball Championships which is moving towards a conclusion this weekend, are making history.

Handball history, that is, having reached the semi-finals which take place tomorrow by beating a German side which had reached the last eight with a 100 per cent record.

There was much genuine joy among the 15,000 who witnessed the latest triumph in the purpose-built Lusail Arena a little way up the coast from Doha.

It may have been that the noise was swelled by the celebrations of the 60 voluble, musical Spanish handball followers who were signed up by the Qatari organisers for the duration of the tournament on an all expenses-paid mission to cheer on the home team at max volume.

They apparently did the business even when Qatar were playing against their own nation. The way things are going, if Qatar overcome Poland and the defending champions can overcome Olympic champions France, they could be doing the same thing all over again in the final.

Qatar's band of mostly naturalised players celebrate their historic quarter-final win over Germany at the World Handball Championships in Lusail ©Getty Images

Qatar's coach, meanwhile, is the man who led Spain to that World Championship win two years ago, Valero Rivera, whose son, of the same name, is playing for Spain.

Looking down Qatar's World Championship roster of 16 players, ten of them were born in other countries and are competing as naturalised Qataris, mostly playing for Qatari clubs.

Of those ten, three were born in Montenegro, two in Bosnia, and there are single representatives born in Spain, Cuba, France, Egypt and Tunisia.

Broadly speaking, the "foreign" players are older, five of them being in their 30s, a couple in their late 30s.

The six Qatari-born players are mostly in their early 20s. The stats showed than none of them played anything other than a fleeting part at best in the latest win.

What do we think about this?

Saif Saaeed Shaheen, formerly Stephen Cherono of Kenya, was a controversial winner of the 3,000m steeplechase title at the 2003 IAAF World Championships in Paris for Qatar
©Getty Images

For some, this scenario will bring back discussions which swirled around track and field over a decade ago when Qatar - along with other Gulf states such as Bahrain - bought up a tranche of running talent, much of it Kenyan, with which to make a national statement.

At the 2003 International Association of Athletics World Championships, memorably, Kenya's Stephen Cherono, signed up by Qatar and given a new name of Saif Saaeed Shaheen, won the 3,000 metres steeplechase, beating - and ignoring - his elder brother Abraham, who was competing for his birth nation.

So unfamiliar had Cherono the younger been with his new identity upon arrival in Paris that he had had to refer to his new Qatari passport to remind himself.

There had already been rumours that Shaheen and his Kenyan compatriot Albert Chepkurui, who was also running for Qatar under the name of Ahmed Hassan Abdullah, had been offered $1 million to switch nationality.

After running in the Zurich Weltklasse meeting less than a week after becoming a Qatari citizen, Shaheen denied this figure, but admitted to reporters: "Qatar will pay $1000 a month, even after my retirement. In Kenya there is nothing like this. Qatar is a country with a lot of opportunities."

It seems many more have since come to this small, oil-rich state for similar sporting opportunities in the ensuing decade. Even FIFA and the IAAF, some have argued.

Money has talked, and continues to talk. It's obvious.

But if Qatar's joyous progress to the heights of handball, coming so soon after they have won the Asian Games title, fills many followers of that sport with feelings of emptiness or worse, it is perhaps worth considering some of the things which have subsequently happened within track and field for Qatar.

Shaheen was prevented by Kenya from running at the 2004 Olympics because, under International Olympic Committee rules, competitors changing allegiance had to wait for three years after being granted citizenship before they could compete in the Games for their new country, unless both countries agreed, in which case it was one year. Shortly afterwards, the IAAF amended their rules to be in line with this.

Mutaz Essa Barshim, born in Doha 23 years ago, and pictured with his 2013 World Championships silver medal in Moscow, has been a shining star in the high jump over the last two years, narrowly missing out on the IAAF World Athlete of the Year award in 2014
©Getty Images

What has happened since then is that a talented coach - Jama Aden - has worked as the senior coach within Qatar athletics and encouraged a small group of senior native Qataris and a cohort of younger ones towards international prominence.

It has to be said that one of the most promising younger athletes, Hamza Driouch, the 20-year-old who won the world junior 1500m title in 2012, is a naturalised Moroccan, having arrived in Qatar in 2010.

However, a shining star has emerged within Qatar track and field, a charming and talented young man born 23 years ago in Doha – Mutaz Essa Barshim, whose exploits in the high jump in the last couple of years have elevated him to the top of the sport.

Last year Barshim - who is coached by Stanisław "Stanley" Szczyrba- won the IAAF World Indoor title and played out a thrilling duel in the course of the summer season with the outdoor world champion, Bohdan Bondarenko of Ukraine, finishing the year with a clearance of 2.43 metres, a height only the longstanding world record holder Javier Sotomayor, has bettered.

Had France's Renaud Lavillenie not beaten Sergei Bubka's almost 21-year-old world pole vault record last year, Barshim would have been voted IAAF Athlete of the Year.

Qatar will be looking for its young nationals, such as Hadi Hamdoon (left), to benefit and build on their experience within its squad at the World Handball Championships ©Getty Images

The international band now assembled under the masterly guidance of Rivera is doubtless there in accordance with current rules. A number of the players have not represented their countries of birth for three years or more before being signed up by Qatar, either because they were have been deemed too old or have fallen out with their federations.

Meanwhile, for the six younger Qatari-born players, this Championship will be a hugely valuable experience, even if their impact on it is minimal.

However the next few days turn out for the Qatar handball team, what they need to happen in the longer term is for young talents such as 22-year-old Hadi Hamdoon, 23-year-old Kamaldin Mallash and 20-year-old Ameen Zakkar to start playing bigger and more regular parts in the national team operation.

To find a handball player who can reach the heights that Barshim has achieved in athletics would be like some kind of a miracle. But if it has happened once, it can happen again.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Daniel Etchells: Am I in Austria or Liechtenstein? The fact I'm asking is a telling sign

Speaking at the Opening Ceremony of the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) on Sunday (January 25), Peter Mennel, the Austrian Olympic Committee's (ÖOC) secretary general, proudly stated that the border between co-hosting nations Austria and Liechtenstein had "practically disappeared" since winning the bid process for the event at the 39th General Assembly of the European Olympic Committees in Belgrade more than four years ago.

"Most of you might not even be able to tell which country you are in and this is actually what we hoped for," added Mennel, head of the EYOF Executive Board, as he addressed the 5,000 spectators at the Montafon Nordic in Tschagguns.

Having spent close to four days here at the first-ever Olympic event to be co-hosted by two countries, I have to agree with him.

As the chief executive of the EYOF 2015, Philipp Groborsch, told my insidethegames colleague Mike Rowbottom just a few days ago, the unique border agreement between the two nations, which annuls the need for controls on EYOF accredited personnel, means they will "grow together into one" for the five-day duration of the Games.

The sense of unity has been strong wherever I've been, and no more so than in Schruns during the two medal ceremonies which have taken place thus far.

But this hasn't been achieved without its challenges.

Peter Mennel (right), the Austrian Olympic Committee's secretary general, celebrates the success of Austria's young athletes with Chef de Mission Christoph Sieber (left) ©ÖOCGEPA

The success, as Mennel explains, has been built on a solid relationship between the ÖOC and the Liechtenstein Olympic Committee, whose President is Leo Kranz.

"It's not an easy task to co-host because you have to have two leading people who can work very close and understand each other and trust each other," he told insidethegames.

"When two NOCs (National Olympic Committees) work together, you have different Governments, you have different legislations and laws, different tax laws, different mind-sets and dialects, and different approaches to things, but it worked out very well because we trust each other.

"We were very confident that things were being done in the right way and we were not too sceptical.

"It was very good working relationship between Leo Kranz and I - we worked together very intensely.

"We had to change the chief executive a year ago and everybody agreed to this.

"It was the right and best decision we made because Philipp does an excellent job."

Mennel, who is from the co-hosting state of Vorarlberg and still primarily based there, said he was "completely struck by emotion" upon hearing the news that local Alpine skier Pascal Fritz had claimed the boys' giant slalom gold medal on the opening day of the EYOF.

And watching him pump his fists in the air last night as Austria's Anna-Maria Schreder and Tamara Steiner received their respective gold and silver medals from the girls' biathlon six kilometres sprint, I was left in no doubt as to just how proud Mennel is to see the country's young athletes flourishing on home soil, and more specifically in the state where he grew up.

It's hardly surprising really, given that even beyond his upbringing, much of his life has evolved around Vorarlberg.

He was formerly the chief executive of the state's savings and loans bank Sparkasse, while his sister, Bernadette Mennel, is Vorarlberg's Sports Minister, who he says he works with "very well, on a very professional basis."

The success, as Mennel explains, has been built on a solid relationship between the ÖOC and the Liechtenstein Olympic Committee, whose President is Leo Kranz.

The success, as Mennel explains, has been built on a solid relationship between the ÖOC and the Liechtenstein Olympic Committee, whose President is Leo Kranz.

The Montafon Nordic in Tschagguns has played host to some brilliant ski jumping action ©ITG

Mennel insists that the level of contacts he has established in his previous career, coupled with his close ties to the Austrian Ski Federation and the International Ski Federation, has made his role within the EYOF much easier.

"Many, many people know me and so, if I make a phone call, perhaps sometimes things can happen which would not happen somewhere else," he said.

"They know me as being honest and they know that I work very precisely, so they can rely on my word.

"I don't need any contracts - we don't have to sign and have to send e-mails back and forth.

"I just make the call, tell them the way it is, and they know."

Mennel said the feedback from the NOCs regarding the organisation of the EYOF has been nothing but positive, and from a personal perspective, I have to say the Organising Committee has delivered what it promised at the seminar of the technical delegates and Chefs de Mission in October, which I was fortunate enough to attend.

There are very few reasons to suggest this positive outlook will change between now and Friday (January 30), when the Games come to a close, and it seems inevitable that the inaugural co-hosted Olympic event will go down as a great example for future joint bidders to follow.

Philipp Groborsch, the chief executive of EYOF 2015, says Austria and Liechtenstein have "grown together into one" for the duration of the Games ©ÖOC/GEPA

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will be looking on with particular interest after endorsing the idea of sharing future Olympic and Paralympic Games between cities and countries, through its recent Agenda 2020 reform process.

Although the EYOF is by no means on the same level as the Olympics in terms of its scale, the 2015 edition has certainly shown how two nations can work effectively in harmony to achieve a common goal.

There's no saying for sure that this harmony will be replicated between future joint hosts, but given the widely recognised need for change in the bidding landscape, the IOC surely has to accept that element of risk.

With this in mind, and another busy day of winter sport ahead, it's time for me to get out and about and soak up some more of the carnival atmosphere which I've experienced in recent days.

Many top-class athletes have started their journey at the EYOFs and perhaps one day, I'll see the names of some of the athletes here at a Winter Olympic Games.

It may even be at a co-hosted Winter Olympic Games.

Watch this space...

Daniel Etchells is a reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Alan Hubbard: Great weekend of FA Cup action but football remains in desperate need of a bit of soul searching

It has taken the FA Cup to rekindle the dying embers of my lost love affair with football. For the moment, anyway.

Like my insidethegames colleague Nick Butler, I was captivated by the ridiculously sublime weekend which saw the mighty not only fall but in the case of Premiership giants Chelsea and Manchester City being rumbled, tumbled and humbled at home by distinctly lesser mortals.

However, I doubt the restorative effect so desperately necessary for the game as a whole will be any more than temporary.

But let's be grateful for small mercies.

The world's oldest knock-out competition, now in its 144th year, has of late been derided as archaic, anachronistic and an irrelevance for the sport's elite now that the great gods of the Premier League and the Champions League dominate every kick.

Joyously the happenings of last Saturday in particular reminded us that football can be an unpredictable delight and not just an unapologetically ugly cash-cow.

Only one of the top six Premier League clubs were left with a guaranteed place in the next round, the managers of Tottenham Hotspur and Southampton dolefully following the shamefaced Jose Mourinho and Manuel Pellegrini down their own home tunnels after Manchester United had left their Cambridge entrance exam paper blank.

So it was indeed a crazy cup weekend before Arsenal and West Ham United, followed on Monday by Stoke City, restored some semblance of sanity - and Premier League pride - among the league's senior citizens.

But for a few hours the hideously pockmarked game had become a thing of beauty again, albeit I fear only fleetingly.

Bradford City's shock win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday was one of the highlights on a fantastic weekend of FA Cup action ©Getty Images

The FA Cup may have lifted the spirits, yet outrageously there is still no word from a sponsor.

Try as they have, the Football Association can't tempt a commercial backer despite the bundles of banknotes from bookies to brewers, moneylenders to motor manufacturers being shovelled into the ever-deepening pockets of most other aspects of the game.

Football truly needs to search its soul.

It is a game I grew up with, being weaned on it journalistically as a club reporter on local and provincial newspapers.

Indeed, it was the FA Cup which gave me one of my fondest career memories.

I was working for weekly newspaper in South London in 1959 when the local amateur club, Tooting and Mitcham United from the then Isthmian League, provided one of the great giant-killing feats by successively defeating Bournemouth and Northampton Town in the first two rounds before drawing 2-2 at home with First Division side Nottingham Forest (I still claim they were robbed of a sensational victory by the ref awarding a dodgy penalty!)

"The Tooting Terrors", we labelled them, although inevitably they lost in the replay.

Later, when in Fleet Street, I covered hundreds of top matches, among them the 1966 World Cup and several others, often enjoying the company of great men such as Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton in days when we hacks could have a friendly beer and banter with players.

But my love of the game has, in recent years, turned to acute disenchantment as gradually it has become one which places itself beyond the rules designed for the rest of us.

It is now infested by greed, self-aggrandisement and squalid, slack-jawed laddishness.

More sleazeball than football.

Nowadays, despite the sort of occasional FA Cup rainbow we saw last weekend it remains blighted by dysfunctional leadership and blind-eyed incompetence from FIFA downwards.

Radical surgery is required but will we get it? Breath should not be held, particularly when it comes to sorting the sordid side of the game.

Greg Dyke has overseen many controversies during his tenure in charge of the English Football Association, including the Ched Evans saga ©Getty Images

Take as an example the deafening silence of the FA and Premier League over the Ched Evans affair.

There may well be a case for the redemption of the convicted Sheffield United rapist, whose return while on licence from prison has been ultimately rejected by three clubs, but whether he should be back in the public eye as a footballer is open to question.

And it is one that needs an answer from the game's authorities.

The attitude of Evans' prospective father-in-law is equally puzzling. If a boyfriend of any daughter of mine had behaved as Evans did in that Rhyl hotel room, whether or not actual rape was involved, I would not want him in the house, let alone try to facilitate the resurrection of his career.

And while the FA may have temporarily suspended Wigan Athletic owner Dave Whelan for remarks deemed to be racist they, and the Premier League, seem to have washed their hands over the case of the manager he hired, Malky Mackay, and his undisputed involvement while at Cardiff City in texts that were both sexist and homophobic.

Reports suggest he will walk away without punishment.

As indeed did the Premier League chief himself, Richard Scudamore, when it was revealed he had exchanged emails with a pal that were adolescently sexist and grossly insulting to women.

Instead he was given a vote of confidence after admitting "an error of judgement".

Scudamore's temporary PA, who exposed the emails, has described the Premier League as being "institutionally sexist...an old boys' club."

The latter might also be said of the FA, though we do hear that even that male-dominated body might consider hiring a woman as new chief executive to replace the departing Alex Horne.

We understand chairman Greg Dyke has made it clear that he would not be adverse to considering a female candidate.

Chelsea Ladies' and England striker Eniola Aluko, the first female pundit to appear on the BBC's Match of the Day, would help the Football Association become a less male-dominated organisation if a role could be found for her ©Getty Images

One who certainly has the qualifications for it is the current Sunderland chief executive Margaret Byrne, a 33-year-old lawyer from Belfast who is already on the FA Council and a member of the International Committee.

She has impressed with her grasp of the game at the club she joined as in-house lawyer in 2007, becoming CEO three years ago.

Heather Rabbatts, the only female FA Board member, and Baroness Karren Brady, the West Ham United vice-chair, also would be on any headhunters' list as female options, as would Debbie Jevans, Sebastian Coe's right-hand woman as sports director during London 2012 and now the most influential female in British sport as organiser of this year's rugby union World Cup.

The former junior Wimbledon tennis champion is currently a rare feminine presence in football at governing body level as an independent director of the Football League.

Once the rugby showpiece is done and dusted it would be good to see her invited to shake up the round ball game though, like ex-Millwall chair Rabbatts and the politically ambitious Tory peer Brady, I fear she may be considered far too feisty and strong-willed for football's chauvinistic freemasonry.

Another female who ticks all the right boxes for a place at football's top table is Chelsea Ladies' articulate 27-year-old Nigerian-born England striker Eniola Aluko, the first female pundit in the history of the BBC's Match of the Day, who has a first-class law degree and says her life motto is "have a healthy disregard for the impossible".

That attitude surely reflects what is needed to prod the game's inert hierarchy into positive action.

Meantime some good news is that Rabbatts, who with sports minister Helen Grant co-chaired a meeting between relevant football bodies last week, reports progress is being made to end the "closed system" which sees disturbingly few black coaches, managers and administrators in the game.

If it takes girl power to get things sorted in football, then bring it on, eh chaps?

Let's drink to that - out of the FA Cup of course.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Nick Butler: FA Cup upsets show sport still has the power to inspire after another week of bad headlines

If you, like me, watch sport to be entertained and to enjoy some respite from the complexity and controversy of normal life, it's fair to say that 2015 has been something of a disappointment so far, because just as many negative headlines have been generated in sport as everywhere else.

Near the top of the pile is the ever-flowing avalanche of criticism surrounding FIFA, following the latest hardening of the opposition movement at last week's Summit in Brussels.

As we have pointed out before, it is important to note that the wave of anti-FIFA and anti-Sepp Blatter sentiments so prevalent in Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe are nowhere near replicated in most of the rest of the world.

But that does not mean that some profound and sweeping changes are not required within football's governing body, just as they were within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) a decade-and-a-half ago following the Salt Lake City Bribery Scandal.

There are few signs of progress so far.

Yet even this pales into insignificance when compared with the raft of doping allegations we have endured so far this year. I wrote last week about doping and concluded, slightly unnecessarily, with a prediction that we would see many more scandals involving Russian athletes in the months ahead.

I wasn't expecting to have been proved right quite so quickly.

Olympic 3,000 metres steeplechase champion Yulia Zaripova is the latest Russian to be implicated in a doping scandal ©Getty Images

In the few short days since, bans have been handed to three Olympic champion race-walkers, while the reigning Olympic steeplechase champion Yulia Zaripova is also set to be stripped of her title due to suspicious biological passport readings. The country's top athletics coach has lost his job and a new Government position has been set up to combat doping, but there still seems little willingness from key officials to accept the scale of the problem.

Yet, Russia is by no means the only guilty party. The International Association of Athletics Federations may have criticised the supposed list which reportedly documents 150 athletes - including a high profile Briton and leading individuals from many other countries - with suspicious blood values recorded between 2006 and 2008, but I am not so sure.

I have been told off in the office this week for expressing scepticism about certain sporting performances about which I have no evidence to back up my claims, but if I have learnt one thing in my short time at insidethegames, it is that you can never be absolutely sure that anyone is clean regardless of what they say about doping, or whatever their test results indicate.

And for all the backslapping at the IOC Session in Monte Carlo last month when it was emphatically - and rather pointlessly - declared that tackling doping is the "biggest priority" in the Olympic Movement, for me all the big sporting organisations are still not doing enough to combat the problem.

The case of Lance Armstrong taught us to be skeptical about doping in sport...if nothing else ©Getty Images

Yet, just when I was in mid-rant yesterday about this, one of my colleagues rather wisely switched the radio over to the football, and I was distracted by a scintillating afternoon showcasing the other side of the coin: all that is still good and desirable about sport today.

For those that are not familiar with the FA Cup, the tournament, first awarded in 1872, is open to all levels of English teams, with those from the lowest level having to play a surfeit of qualifying rounds before the Premier League big boys enter proceedings in round three. With teams drawn at random, the tournament is renowned for producing shock results, and for providing that one glorious opportunity for lower league players to mix with multi-millionaires, play on live television and enjoy a lucrative pay day.

In recent years there has been a sense that the tournament has lost some of its grandeur, with the allure of the Champions League meaning the FA Cup has become a lesser priority for some of the top teams. But this season, with the standard of Spain and Germany's finest meaning European glory is a tough ask for a British team, many seem to have realised the FA Cup offers perhaps the only chance of silverware, and they have consequently talked a good game and fielded strong sides for their opening matches.

Yet this weekend, the Premier League's finest have been well and truly shown up.

First we had Manchester United, playing a team including superstars Radamel Falcao and Angel Di Maria, held to a goalless draw at Cambridge United. I doubt a Friday night in Cambridge was why Falcao was enticed to come and play in England, and he looked uncomfortable and freezing throughout.

Yet by last night, a 0-0 draw seemed a pretty solid result as Chelsea, Manchester City and Southampton, the league's top three, had all been dumped out, the first two by lower league opposition. The manner of Chelsea's 4-2 loss to Bradford City was simply astonishing, with Chelsea, playing at home, going two goals up in the first half only to spectacularly lose the plot.

Bradford City celebrate their sensational 4-2 FA Cup win over Chelsea ©Getty Images

Suddenly, the meanest defence in English football were kicking at the air, as the League One side surged forward again and again, and when Chelsea reinforcements arrived in the shape of Cesc Fàbregas and Willian, Bradford went and increased their lead.

It was a reminder that football, to a greater degree than any other sport, is still capable of throwing up results which make absolutely no sense at all, too incomprehensible even to be considered as a plot for a Hollywood film.

A lot of rather irritating clichés get used in football, but never has the phrase the "magic of the Cup" seemed more apt.

United States Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren once said he read the sports pages of newspapers first because they focused on human accomplishments and achievements, while the front pages focused on human failing.

It has been shown this week that Warren's claim is not completely true, and there are plenty of failings in the sports pages as well, but his claim has also been backed up by action on the pitch.

To adapt another well used footballing cliché. It was a week of two halves, with much of the time spent discussing all that is wrong with modern sport, only for the likes of Cambridge and Bradford to remind us of the brilliance that remains possible.

Nick Butler is a Senior Reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here.

David Owen: From rowing to the IBC - remaking the Tokyo 2020 venue jigsaw

I have been trying to second guess what sports Tokyo 2020 is most likely to move under its revised Olympic venue plan.

This may become clearer next month, possibly as soon as the next International Olympic Committee (IOC) Project Review meeting expected on February 4 and 5.

But for now much uncertainty persists, with suggestions surfacing last month that as many as 14 sports might be affected.

What is driving this in part is the Brave New IOC World, ushered in by Agenda 2020, in which compactness is no longer such a cardinal virtue for Games planners and sustainability/cost containment much more of one.

John Coates, chairman of the IOC's Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission, made this pretty plain in November, telling Reuters: "[The IOC] has come out and specifically said that we should make the maximum use of existing facilities.

"That, so far as I am concerned, overrides the eight kilometre philosophy which we had as part of the bid."

IOC Coordination Commission chair John Coates has encouraged Tokyo 2020 organisers to take advantage of existing facilities ©AFP/Getty Images

Tokyo 2020, for its part, last month acknowledged it had been reviewing the original venue plan since June, telling me the review was "being conducted from the perspectives of legacy, the impact of the Games on Tokyo residents and venue construction and maintenance costs".

We already know, for example, that a smaller design for the National Stadium that will be the Games' centrepiece has been unveiled.

This should restrict the cost of this big-ticket item to far closer to the $1.5 billion (£1 billion/€1.3 billion) estimated in the original bid book, but I don't see why it would make any difference to the sports and ceremonies it is planned to stage there.

We also know, as I reported at length last month, that the rowing and flat-water canoeing venue is up in the air.

It has been suggested to me that as many as eight alternatives may now have been assessed without a satisfactory and cost-effective solution emerging.

As yet, one still cannot state categorically that the originally envisaged Sea Forest Waterway will not be built; but this would probably require the city to agree to foot a potentially quite hefty bill for non-event-related preparation work.

If the waterway proposal is dropped, would it have a knock-on effect for the temporary equestrian cross-country and mountain bike courses planned for the land to either side of the channel?

The rowing and flatwater canoeing venue is one facility that is still up in the air
©Getty Images

When I put this question to the International Cycling Union (UCI) this month, they told me that a staff member was travelling to Tokyo to discuss venue plans – "and the different options being offered to us".

The International Equestrian Federation has told me that the eventing cross country for the 2020 Games "will be held in Tokyo".

This is no great surprise, since it would clearly not be practical to move the cross country too far away from the other three-day event elements, which have been earmarked for the Dream Island Stadium.

I would be far from astonished though to see switches for both horse riders and mountain bikers when the revised masterplan is revealed.

It is possible too that the more relaxed attitude to the compactness of the Games may open up fresh options for other cycle disciplines, with both the BMX course and the velodrome conceived as temporary venues costing a combined $74 million under the original blueprint.

Also close to the Sea Forest zone, on the other side of Tokyo Gate Bridge, is a proposed permanent sailing facility, the Wakasu Olympic Marina, that was costed at $105 million (£68 million/€86 million) in the original bid book.

If Sea Forest is dropped from Tokyo 2020's plans, I would be far from surprised to see this bite the dust too, simply on the assumption that there must be pre-existing sailing venues in the Tokyo region that could be pressed into service for the Olympics and Paralympics at lower cost.

Still with water sports, I gather that a move is in prospect for the proposed Kasai canoe slalom course, costed at $36 million (£24 million/€32 million) including overlay.

Since I understand that this is merely to a different position in the same parkland area, however, consequences for competitors (and overall costs) would appear to be limited.

The Saitama Super Arena, one hour outside Tokyo, is one pre-existing venue which could be used ©Wikipedia

Perhaps the biggest saving against price estimates contained in the bid book will come if, as expected, basketball and badminton are moved to pre-existing venues.

This would mean that Youth Plaza Arenas A and B would not need to be constructed at a cost, in the Bid Book, of more than $400 million (£267 million/€357 million).

The 37,000-seat Saitama Super Arena, one hour north of Tokyo, now looks red hot favourite to host men's basketball.

Badminton, with its particularly high ceiling requirement, may be more of a challenge to place, but one imagines, again, that suitable halls within reach of central Tokyo must exist, even if temporary seating for additional spectators needs to be provided.

It has, meanwhile, occurred to me to wonder - given that Tokyo 2020 is also coming under pressure to add new sports and disciplines to the Games programme - whether organisers might be more inclined to find space for 3x3 basketball, with its clear youth and urban appeal, as a consequence of the flexibility that the sport appears to be showing with regard to the likely switch of its main venue.

We should also know more about how Tokyo 2020 will go about choosing any additional sports in two weeks' time: the recently-constituted Additional Event Programme Panel is expected to agree the process at the February IOC Project Review meeting.

As for other adjustments, I am hearing word of a proposed reconfiguration of the International Broadcasting Centre (IBC)/Main Press Centre (MPC), along with the suggestion that this may have a knock-on effect for sports slated initially to be accommodated at the Tokyo Big Sight halls nearby.

That is to say wrestling, taekwondo and fencing.

The competition schedule set out in the bid book confines taekwondo to four days in the latter stages of the Games, making it feasible for the sport to share a venue with other indoor disciplines.

That all adds up to 10 sports that seem to face a moderate to high chance of being moved under the new masterplan.

I am not convinced that the final tally will be as high as 14, but if it is, who else might be affected?

Well, I have received various indications along the way that little is thought likely to change with respect to archery, modern pentathlon, aquatics and judo.

And when our eyes fastened on volleyball, on the basis that the planned Ariake Arena carried a $200 million (£133 million/€178 million) price-tag in the bid book, the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) told us it understood that "no changes have been made to our sports venues".

The National Stadium is being re-built with a slightly downscaled design, despite the continuation of an opposition movement ©Getty Images

Hockey, located in the planned Seaside Park Hockey Stadium, priced at $52 million including overlay, might be one possibility; so, conceivably, might gymnastics, placed in the bid book in a $100 million (£66 million/€87 million) temporary facility not far from the proposed velodrome and BMX course.

I should emphasise, though, that I have no remotely hard information one way or the other (not yet) on either of these.

Handball, table tennis, weightlifting and boxing are all earmarked for existing venues, are all relatively low cost and, hence, I would think are all unlikely to be moved.

The football proposals seem to me to make good use of the country's 2002 World Cup legacy, while Ariake Tennis Park - though $67 million (£60 million/€45 million) of works is said to be required - hosts the Japan Open Tennis Championships and is hence, perhaps, the obvious Tokyo 2020 venue.

That, then, is my best stab for now at this new Olympic pursuit of venue hopping; we should all be rather better informed by this time next month.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Jaimie Fuller: New FIFA Now is seeking much needed change within football's governing body

This week saw the Brussels Summit on FIFA's future take place in the European Parliament and I'm as proud as I could possibly be that I, on behalf of SKINS, was involved.

As SKINS chairman, I consider myself privileged to have played a part in a series of sporting causes in my time, but as I write today, I reckon this is the biggest yet.

FIFA is the global governing body of the world's most popular team sport, but it is a discredited organisation that the world recognises is in need of root and branch change. At the European Parliament, we debated that change and committed global support for the organisation that SKINS and I are supporting, New FIFA Now.

I'm proud of the waves that we made with Change Cycling Now when we pulled together an influential group of legendary riders and global influencers to join a movement and enforce change to the Presidency of the International Cycling Union (UCI).

It was the first time in 40 years that a sitting President of an International Federation lost his job, attempting to be re-elected and Pat McQuaid did so because he was presiding - very poorly - over an administration that was short-changing the fans.

With Choose The Right Track in 2013, we joined forces with Canadian athlete Ben Johnson to further the cause of anti-doping in worldwide sport. A month after we completed a global tour with this notorious but reformed drugs cheat, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced an additional $20 million (£13 million/€18 million) of funding into anti-doping and the fight against match fixing and corruption. I'm not naive enough to think it was all because of us, but I believe we played a significant part in the debate.

SKINS has previously helped Brian Cookson (right) successfully bid to replace Pat McQuaid (left) as President of the International Cycling Union ©Getty Images

And so to now.

FIFA's untrustworthy leadership has resulted in allegations of corruption and constant scrutiny and ridicule of its alleged "commitment" to transparency. FIFA remains in denial and the world has had enough. For us, as a company that repeatedly enforces the values of the true spirit of competition, it means that New FIFA Now is a cause we passionately believe in and support because FIFA has to change.

And why wouldn't a company with our background promote and attend an event such as this in Brussels and stand shoulder to shoulder with figures who know, far better than I do, what FIFA is REALLY like?

The Brussels Summit was energised by the leadership of British Member of Parliament Damian Collins. Damian is a politician who has witnessed dubious decision making when England - and several other worthy countries - were suspiciously disregarded by FIFA's Executive Committee when the hosts for the World Cup tournaments in 2018 and 2022 were decided by "secret" ballot.

Damian shared the stage with Lord David Triesman, England's Bid chairman when the process began and also with Bonita Mersiades, a strong, determined Australian lady who was ousted as the Australian Bid's head of corporate and public affairs because she had the temerity to question activities that appeared to be both dubious and potentially corrupt. The views of Bonita and Lord Triesman on FIFA's failure to address the subsequent allegations of corruption within both the bidding and voting processes were fascinating and intriguing.

New FIFA Now is seeking to engineer sweeping changes within the governing body
©New FIFA Now

Current FIFA President Sepp Blatter has been in office since 1998 and he is now standing for a fifth term. The result will be known in May but such has been his leadership, the identity of the winner will not, in itself, be enough to pave the way to change - whoever wins.

Whoever is elected has a rocky road to travel and one of Mr Blatter's challengers, Jérôme Champagne was with us in Brussels too. In the interests of the sort of transparency we seek, he was afforded a platform to discuss his view, his hopes and his promises.

There is no doubt that FIFA needs to change.

It needs an independent authority to oversee guaranteed reform. It is too late for FIFA to be trusted to do it themselves. It needs unequivocal resolution to the current inquiries around institutional corruption and it needs sponsors to stand firm and defend their own integrity by telling FIFA enough is enough through influence via the cheque book.

SKINS is not a FIFA sponsor; in fact, as of today we are announcing the first ever "official" non-sponsorship of football's governing body. The non-multi-million dollar announcement allows us to highlight unshared brand values and confirms our contempt for an organisation which has been constantly shrouded in allegations of corruption and controversy, yet is potentially preparing to re-elect its President Sepp Blatter for an unprecedented fifth term in office. You can get lots more info here.

Sepp Blatter is widely expected to resume the FIFA Presidency for a fifth time later this year, despite the opposition ©Getty Images

We are standing as advocates to change a sport we have no direct commercial involvement in. Football can be returned to clear, fair and transparent governance - it just needs a will from people prepared to confront the issues, not sit in a locked, five star room with their heads shoved right up their own backsides.

Soon and after the events of Brussels, SKINS will be announcing a series of initiatives aimed at engaging the football public in support of New Fifa Now. You can find out more on the website here, where you can sign up with your support and join our social media platforms.

Please give it a visit because FIFA needs to change.

Jaimie Fuller is the chairman of SKINS. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Mike Rowbottom: Tiger Woods and love - the tooth hurts

Shortly after breaking the record for women's Alpine skiing World Cup victories in Cortina d'Ampezzo on Monday (January 19) with a 63rd career race win, Lindsey Vonn spoke of the pressure which had lifted off her shoulders, having tied the record in the previous day's downhill.

"I feel a lot lighter," Vonn admitted. Her boyfriend Tiger Woods, meanwhile, was also feeling lighter - by one tooth.

His preternaturally pristine dentistry developed a sudden gap when he was knocked out by a swinging camera in the crush at the finish line, having turned up incognito - ish - for an intended surprise visit.

The United States' golfing legend - albeit ranked 43rd in the world at the time of writing - had watched the record-equalling effort on the internet from Florida before making a flying visit to see if Vonn could follow on. He turned up in the Italian Alps with a skull mask covering most of his face - although the surprise element fell a bit flat.

"I knew it was him immediately," Vonn said. "He loves that stupid mask."

As for the tooth - well, they say love hurts.

Tiger Woods supports his girlfriend Lindsey Vonn during her competition at Val d'Isere in December 2013 ©Getty Images

Shoot me down in flames if you don't agree, but I found something endearingly childish about Woods this week.

After Tiger Woods, Invincible Master, and then Tiger Woods, Incorrigible Womaniser, it was novel at least to see this version emerge on the Alpine slopes - Tiger Woods, Love- and Camera-struck Nerd.

While Vonn may have recognised her beloved straight away, she had certainly not been expecting him to be there. Woods had last seen her race in December 2013 in Val d'Isere, when she skied off course before ending her comeback bid for the Sochi 2014 Olympics following serious knee injuries.

"This is a much better memory [than Val d'Isere] that we can have forever," Vonn added.

Forever is a long time, however. Particularly for high profile sporting figures, as history records.

"Who cares?" is a cry one often hears - or rather sees - in response to such tales of twinned hearts. 'Let's get back to the real business in hand - the economy...'

But whenever two well-known figures get together, there is public interest. It's just a fact.

A lot of people care, even if they don't care deeply.

If only because of the phenomenon whereby TV viewers all over the world have invested hours of emotional energy in watching these sporting phenomenons in action, and feel a bit as if they know them.

Lindsey Vonn supports her boyfriend during the 2013 President's Cup competition
©Getty Images

Such sporting unions make a lot of sense given the common understanding both parties will have of the pressures to succeed in an increasingly prying world. That said, you can't help thinking there are some uniquely difficult inbuilt problems when legends collide in love.

"I'm sorry - did I just hear you ask the world's number one golfer to put out the bins?"

"Well pardon me, but if you'd noticed I do have the small matter of retaining a French Open title next week. We've discussed a million times how I have to listen to my body right now. And anyway you slipped to four..."

Well I've conducted a little survey of sporting couples in recent times, and I am now in a position to offer a short guide to what does and doesn't work when it comes to athletes and romance.

Rule 1. Golf and skiing go together well. Although golfers sometimes need to beware the ski slopes, as we have seen in the case of Tiger Woods.

And thinking about it, skiers sometimes need to beware golf courses - recalling Olympic champion Bode Miller's horrendous miscued tee-shot in 2012 which hit his wife, beach volleyball player Morgan Beck, in the eye: 50 stitches, but thankfully no lasting damage thanks to a pair of sunglasses.

Maybe we need a different Rule 1. Golf and tennis go together well. For instance, multiple Grand Slam tennis champion Chris Evert married not quite multiple golf Majors winner Greg Norman. And golf's world number one Rory McIlroy was an item with former world number one tennis player Caroline Wozniacki.

Former world No1 tennis player Caroline Wozniacki caddies for her boyfriend Rory McIlroy. But their planned marriage was later called off and they have split up
©Getty Images

But then Evert and Norman they got divorced after 15 months. And McIlroy and Wozniacki are no longer an item.

Alright, let's try another Rule 1. Always stick to your own sport.

So here we find happy tales.

Years ago, before Steffi Graf got married to fellow tennis champion Andre Agassi, someone shouted out to her during a match at Wimbledon: "Steffi! Will you marry me?" Upon which she shouted back, jestingly, "How much money have you got?"

It was funny then, and we can still laugh at it now, as both Graf and Agassi have oodles of money, much of which they direct towards charitable causes.

Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi play doubles in a charity exhibition match in 2011 ©AFP/Getty Images

Roger Federer is a doting husband to former tennis player Mirka Vavrinec, whom he met while they were competing for Switzerland at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. They now have twin boys, and twin girls.

But hang on. There's Chris Evert again. Romance with fellow US tennis player Jimmy Connors - very much the fellow. Then marriage to the English player, John Lloyd. Then divorce.

Athletics. What about that? Who could forget how Emil Zatopek, triple gold medallist at the 1952 Olympics, met his future wife Dana Zatopkova, the javelin gold medallist, at those Games.

And then, years later, there was the touching tale of retired British 400m hurdler Chris Rawlinson coaching his wife, Australia's Jana Pittman, to the 2006 Commonwealth and 2007 world 400m hurdles titles.

Chris Rawlinson congratulates his wife Jana Pittman after helping coach her to the Commonwealth 400m hurdles title in 2006 ©Getty Images

But by 2009 they had separated.

A year later, however, they re-married in England.

A year later, however, they were reported to have split again.

So there we have it. No Rule 1 after all.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £8.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Uğur Erdener: World Archery will continue to innovate and progress in 2015

This last year has been a productive one for the sport of archery and our Federation. World Archery continued to innovate across the sport to make it more engaging for athletes, fans and the media.

Nowhere was this clearer than during the Archery World Cup, known for being hosted in iconic locations, which culminated in the Olympic Capital of Lausanne in 2014.

Appropriately, the first ever Brazilian archer to make the Final posed for a photograph in front of the official clock counting down to his home Games - Rio 2016 - after collecting his silver medal.

Those who watched the live broadcast and the millions exposed to the highlights on Eurosport and other channels in territories around the globe saw new graphics made possible by Falco-Eye, a highly-accurate laser scoring mechanism that pinpoints the exact position of arrows in the target.

World Archery has supported Falco-Eye's development with the aim of introducing it as standard at future Olympic Games and high-level international archery and multisport events. In the Lausanne venue, spectators tested VoGo - one of the world's most advanced instant video replay systems - produced by Olympic TOP Partner, ATOS.

Images from multiple broadcast cameras were fed directly to the audience's smart devices in real time and at the same time.

Archery continued to play a key role in international multisport events and was included in both the Incheon 2014 Asian Games and the Nanjing 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games.

Li Jiaman's thrilling women's gold, via a shootout, at the Summer Youth Olympic Games, was one highlight ©World Archery

World Archery constantly looks to engage the younger generation in the sport and Nanjing 2014 showed not just how appealing archery is to young people - but how impressive the sport's young athletes can be. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Dr Thomas Bach commented on how exciting it was for a gold medal match at Nanjing to end in a tiebreaker decider.

In its second Games appearance, after debuting at Singapore 2010, the mixed team event made another strong case for its inclusion on the full Olympic programme. It is a proposal our Executive Board strongly supported at its meeting at the end of the year.

World Archery's commitment to being an accessible sport for all was strengthened when the
International Paralympic Committee announced that Para-archery would be included as a core sport on the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic programme in October.

The talk of Games will only increase as we transition from a successful 2014 into an exciting
2015. Our Road to Rio begins in Copenhagen at the World Archery Championships in July. The week long competition, which will draw over 600 of the world's best archers, includes the primary qualifier for the next Olympic Games and will draw considerable attention from the press.

Having already hosted a world-class Archery World Cup Final in 2009, I have no doubt that
Copenhagen will do the important event proud.

Teenager Marcus Dalmieda is poised to become an archery mega-star at Rio 2016 ©World Archery

After Brazilian archers had the opportunity to shoot their national championships in the
Sambodromo - the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Archery Venue - in November 2014, the rest of the world will have the same opportunity in the autumn of this year at the official test event.

World Archery will remain in frequent dialogue with the Rio 2016 Organising Committee to ensure the very best conditions for our athletes during the Games - which are now just over one year away.

This year's Archery World Cup season marks the 10th anniversary of an international circuit that has had such drastic impact on the development of our sport, dramatically increasing worldwide interest, exposure and participation over the past decade.

Shanghai, Antalya, Wroclaw and Medellin host the four stages for the third year in a row, with the Final set to take place in Mexico City in October.

Before we look towards the new season, we have an opportunity to recognise the outstanding contributions of our athletes, officials and volunteers in 2014. The first World Archery Gala and Award Ceremony will be held during the fourth stage of the 2014/15 Indoor Archery World Cup in Las Vegas.

Public voting for the Athlete of the Year awards has drawn over 25,000 ballots to date and
remains open until the end of January, and can be done via the World Archery website here. The gala will be broadcast on Archery TV and I hope you will join me in thanking everybody who has contributed to the growth and success of our sport during 2014.

World Archery will work closely with IOC President Thomas Bach as he implements the Agenda 2020 reform process ©World Archery

The New Year also brings an opportunity for World Archery to work in close collaboration with the IOC, led by President Thomas Bach, as it implements its visionary Olympic Agenda 2020.

At our Executive Board meeting in December, we embraced the unanimously approved Agenda 2020 by identifying a number of key recommendations that World Archery could act upon.

As an organisation, we will continue to work with the IOC throughout 2015 to help implement these changes to ensure a brighter future for archery and the entire Olympic Movement.

I look forward to seeing each and every one of you on the archery field in 2015.

Prof Dr Uğur Erdener is the President of World Archery, as well as the President of the National Olympic Committee of Turkey and a member of the International Olympic Committee's Executive Board.

Alan Hubbard: Girl Power to come to the fore in 2015

We are barely into 2015 yet there is growing evidence that Girl Power - a trite phrase but nonetheless a pertinent one - will be an increasingly influential aspect of sporting life in the year ahead, on and off the playing field.

Already, we have seen how Sport England's admirable This Girl Can campaign, masterminded by chief executive Jennie Price, is having an impact on getting women who may not normally be so inclined to do more sport and exercise, with six million plays on Facebook of the compelling commercial that grabbed the attention of viewers during a Coronation Street ad-break last week.

We also witnessed the Youth Sport Trust's chair Baroness Sue Campbell forcefully reminding politicos that the losing battle between the PlayStation and the playing field among schoolchildren must be urgently addressed by the next Government.

Now this week, two more of British sport's female twin strikers, Sports Minister Helen Grant and Football Association (FA) Board member Heather Rabbatts, both themselves black, have teamed up to address the issue of the worrying lack of coaches and administrators from the ethnic minorities in football.

Key figures from the game have been summoned to a summit meeting at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and pressed about what football is doing to encourage greater diversity.

Not enough, we fear.

Around one in four professional football players are from Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. However, as Grant and Rabbatts point out, that is not reflected elsewhere in the game.

"There are very few BAME coaches coming through the ranks and landing top coaching positions at professional clubs, while there is also a lack of BAME people at senior Governance and administration positions in football," Grant tells us.

As well as women of course.

Significantly it is women themselves who have taken up the crusading cudgel on behalf of sport, thus building on the female achievements of London 2012 and their continuation since.

It is worth recording that there is a welcome escalation of women in key sports posts. Apart from a female Sports Minister committed to championing the cause of sporting emancipation for women, the chief executive posts at both Government quangos, Sport England and UK Sport are occupied by women - Price and Liz Nicholl respectively.

The former tennis star Debbie Jevans, one of Lord Coe's leading ladies in his 2012 Olympics team, is now arguably the most important female figure in sport this year as she is responsible for organising the rugby union World Cup. And you won't find a more macho environment than that - unless it is at the FA.

There, Rabbatts is the only woman on the Board though there are those among us who would like to see the ever-feisty and formidable former lawyer and film producer, once chair of Millwall, installed as the new chief executive. Sadly this would seem a step too far for the old boys' brigade who purportedly run the show.

Belgian lawyer Katrien Meire is another of the rare breed in the male-dominated world of football - joining (Lord) Sugar babe Karren Brady (aka Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge), the West Ham vice-chair, Sunderland's Margaret Byrne, and Mansfield Town's Carolyn Radford as female powers in the boardroom.

More women stalking sport's corridors of power include other former Coe aides Emma Boggis, now chief executive at the Sport and Recreation Alliance, and the 2012 communications chief Jackie Brock-Doyle, a top PR troubleshooter who came to the rescue of both UK Commonwealth Games in Manchester and Glasgow. She is now chief executive of Chime Communications-owned PR network Good Relations.

Nicola Sapstead is interim chief executive of UK Anti-Doping following the departure of Andy Parkinson to British Rowing where Annamarie Phelps has succeeded Di Ellis as one of the few chairpersons of an Olympic sport.

Debbie Jevans is now arguably the most important female figure in sport this year as she is responsible for organising the rugby union World Cup ©Getty Images

The redoubtable Louise Martin is chair of Sportscotland; former Welsh hockey captain Sarah Powell is now the first female chief executive of Sport Wales.

Even boxing has a female representation at administrative level, with Charlotte Leslie MP, chair of the sport's All-Parliamentary Group, a steward of the British Boxing Board of Control, together with Baroness Golding and Dame Mary Peters.

All very commendable. But what about getting more women digging away the grass roots?

Tackling the shortage of women participating in sport is what Price says the £10 million ($15.2 million/€13.1 million) investment in the This Girl Can campaign is designed to do.

The gap between men and women playing sport and exercising regularly is around two million, with females aged 16 lagging behind their male counterparts by almost 20 per cent.

Research conducted by Sport England shows that 75 per cent of women aged between 14 and 40 wanted to exercise more but were being held back by fears of how they are perceived while exercising and playing sport.

"What we've got to do is make more women feel more comfortable," Price tells insidethegames. "A lot of this is about confidence and worrying about being judged. When you're a teenager or in your early 20s, you are much more worried about what others think of you than when you get that bit older."

Prior to joining Sport England in 2007, Price, was in the recycling business as the founding chief executive of Waste & Resources Action Programme which was established by Government in 2000 to improve the UK's recycling performance and reduce waste.

Now she advocates not recycling but cycling - as well as swimming, running, punching the bag - anything that makes women sweat, or if they prefer the phrase, perspire.

The campaign doesn't hold back in trying to encourage women to beat their barriers. "Sweating like a pig, feeling like a fox" and "I kick balls, deal with it" are among the hard-hitting lines used in the campaign to prompt a change in attitudes and help boost women's confidence.

Jennie Price, chief executive of Sport England, says the money invested into the This Girl Can campaign is designed to tackle the shortage of women participating in sport
©Getty Images

"The figures on participation are crystal clear," says Price. "There is a significant gender gap, with two million more men than women exercising or playing sport regularly. I believe we can tackle this gap, because our research shows that 75 per cent of women would like to do more.

"Before we began this campaign, we looked very carefully at what women were saying about why they felt sport and exercise was not for them. Some of the issues, like time and cost, were familiar, but one of the strongest themes was a fear of judgement.

"Worries about being judged for being the wrong size, not fit enough and not skilled enough came up time and again. Every single woman I have talked to about this campaign - and that is now 100s - has identified with this, and it is that fear of not being 'good enough' in some way, and feeling you are the only one who feels like that, that we want to address.

"Women are always told it is unladylike to sweat. But it can be fun when it helps get you fit. Exercise and enjoy it is the message.

"When you look at how sport and exercise for women have been portrayed it has been airbrushed. It always seems to be done by women who are amazingly fit and proficient but this is not always the norm.

"It is ok for sportsmen to look hot and sweaty because for them that is what sport is all about. But not women.

"So one of the things I wanted to do was create images of women of all shapes and sizes exercising. I know what it is like to be judged. I know what it is like to think 'I am not fit enough to go into that gym, so I can go at it from a more empathetic perspective."

The 90-second video aimed at eliminating any feminine fear of sport, is being screened repeatedly over the coming weeks and has already had what Price says is 'fantastic feedback' via social media both here and in several other countries including the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

She claims Sport England's £10 million ($15.2 million/€13.1 million) investment, which has Government backing, is no vanity project but a much-needed campaign to get the nation - or a important part of it - back on its feet.

Hopefully it will also help to show that women's sport has moved on apace from the Women's Lob slogan of the sixties, 'You've Come A Long Way Baby', demonstrating that 2015 is the year when These Girls Can.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

Nick Butler: Last week has proved doping in sport is a hugely complex issue

Last year came to an end with a flurry of athletics doping accusations following the three-part series of German TV documentaries seemingly exposing, first, systematic doping within the Russian team, and then the existence of a list of high profile athletes whose suspicious readings were supposedly ignored by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The usual flurry of commissions were convened in response, and getting to the bottom of these allegations is clearly the big challenge in 2015, with the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) having now announced that their three-man Panel, headed by International Olympic Committee stalwart, Richard Pound, will draw conclusions by the end of the year.

On a general sporting level, there have already been fresh doses of rumour and suspicion - along with the occasional confirmed failure - with the admission of International Biathlon Union President Anders Besseberg that the use of new testing-technologies deems more high-profile failures both likely and imminent something to look forward to,

In the last week we have also been bombarded by a number of far less concrete cases, with athletes found guilty or partially guilty through arguably no fault of their own.

It has been evidence that tackling doping is, if nothing else, a complicated, multi-dimensional issue rather than a black and white one.

First we had Sweden ice hockey player Nicklas Bäckström, who was allegedly permitted to use allergy medicine Zyrtec-D, which contains the banned substance pseudoephedrine, by his team doctor.

Nicklas Bäckström tested positive shortly before the Winter Olympic ice hockey final in Sochi ©Getty Images

The fact this substance is not banned in the National Hockey League, where Bäckström plies his club trade for the Washington Capitals, was a complicating factor. After months of negotiations he was handed a reprimand, the minimum applicable sanction permitted by the WADA Code.

Kazakh boxer Almat Serimov, an Astana Arlans team-member in the World Series of Boxing, has also been handed a two-year ban, for a failure which apparently arose because he took pills containing prohibited substance to remedy a high blood pressure, but forgot to apply for an exemption.

Two British athletes, 800 metres runner Gareth Warburton and 400m hurdler Rhys Williams, were others to come a cropper due to using substances, doing so last summer shortly before each was due to compete for Wales at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

A review has now found both ingested anabolic steroid metabolites contaminated within a blackcurrant Mountain Fuel Xtreme Energy and they have served bans of six and four months respectively but will now face no further punishment.

"I'm not going to give stuff to them that has anabolic steroids in it," Mountain Fuel chief executive Darren Foote told BBC Wales. "I'm just chuffed the guys are back in running. I stood by them all the way, I'm glad the truth has come out, they are genuinely 100 per cent good guys."

This last comment, that the duo are "100 per cent good guys" is particularly revealing. While these two seemingly are innocent, we must get away from the feeling that doping is a good guys/bad guys argument. An athlete is not automatically clean because they are "too nice" and neither is one automatically a cheat because they are from a certain country, or a perceived "bad guy".

And of course, our understanding of someone's true character by observing their public utterances from afar, can be fatally flawed - think, Lance Armstrong, the heroic cancer surviving charity pioneer, for example.

Lance Armstrong was presented as a heroic cancer survivor until his dark secret was revealed ©Getty Images

Even more complicated is the case involving German speed skater Claudia Pechstein. A five-time Winter Olympic champion across four Games, in 2009 Pechstein became the first athlete banned for doping based on solely circumstantial evidence, when she was issued with a two year doping ban over elevated blood levels in her biological passport.

Pleading innocence and putting the irregular levels of reticulocytes in her blood down to an inherited condition from her father, Pechstein launched an unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but she has now - in a highly significant move - been granted permission to have her case heard in a German Civil Court.

This not only sets a precedent for future cases being heard in non-sporting courts, but it also re-raises the question of drugs cheats facing criminal prosecution, and potentially jail, for their actions. A proposed law in this regard was presented at the German Bundestag in Berlin before Christmas, and will be put to the country's Parliament in the spring.

Similar proposals have been suggested in other nations, such as Kenya, but the idea has been staunchly criticised by many, including WADA President Sir Craig Reedie. Yes, there would be many potential problems of any criminalisation of doping, including the simple fact that something would be illegal for one group of people but permitted for others, but neither should the idea should be completely cast aside.

Doping is a huge problem, and if this is what is takes to eradicate it, then so be it.

Further evidence of the lack of improvement was implied by a study showing that stanozolol, the anabolic steroid that triggered Ben Johnson's positive test at the Seoul 1988 Olympics 26 and a half years ago, was responsible for more doping cases in 2014 than any other single cause.

One response prioritised in the new World Anti Doping Code is punishing those who encourage or assist athletes who dope. Some early exposure was provided over the weekend by a case involving the former girlfriend of Italy's disgraced Olympic race walking champion Alex Schwazer, who allegedly lied to doctors to help cover up his use of erythropoietin (EPO).

Carolina Kostner is facing a 16 month ban after allegedly helping her former boyfriend dope ©AFP/Getty Images

The case has become higher profile by the fact the girlfriend in question was former figure skating world champion Carolina Kostner. She has been handed a 16-month ban, casting into doubt her participation at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, but she is expected to appeal the decision to CAS.

One thing which all of these cases have in common is that the defendants - with the possible exception of the Kazakh boxer - are successful athletes from western nations, consequently enjoying access to the best legal support, a luxury many other cannot afford.

A final case, and perhaps the most interesting of all this week, involves another disgraced Olympic champion race walker, Russia's Elena Lashmanova. The IAAF in investigating after reports she competed in an event in Russia despite the fact she is currently serving a two-year doping ban, a blatant breach of rules which, if proven, should result in a two year extension.

Speaking last week, Russian Athletics Federation President Valentin Balakhnichev said that doping will soon disappear in Russia.

"I will guarantee to you that in the near future, after carrying out a difficult process, we will clean our hands of this dirt," he told Reuters. "We are not working to support doping - we are fighting against it."

But, unfortunately, all the evidence, including the latest allegations involving Lashmanova suggest there remains a long way to go.

Expect many more doping case in 2015 for us to get our teeth stuck into, involving Russians but also many athletes from elsewhere.

Nick Butler is a Senior Reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Chungwon Choue: Making taekwondo more spectator friendly is now a major aim

The year 2014 has been a great year for the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) for good reasons and the year ahead of us is shaping up to be an exciting one.

In 2014, we continued to work to grant our athletes more and better opportunities. Our World Taekwondo Grand Prix Series - giving athletes new opportunities in which to compete at the highest level, and even win a little prize money - matured, with tournaments taking place in Suzhou, China; Astana, Kazakhstan; and Manchester, Great Britain. The 2014 Grand Prix Final took place in Queretaro, Mexico.

Queretaro was the location for another event designed to raise the public profile of our athletes: the first-ever WTF Gala Awards Dinner. The same city was the setting for our World Cup Taekwondo Team Championships, which saw some tag-team battles that will go down in the annals of our sport as among the most exciting ever fought.

The WTF endorses universality, and working on the principle that in our sport, "No Athlete is Left Behind", we have been energetically promoting Para-taekwondo. The 5th WTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships in Moscow, Russia were the best-ever.

The Para-Taekwondo World Championships, at which Canada's Lisa Standeven secured her fourth under 58kg world title, was among the highlights of 2014 ©ITG

The inaugural World Cadet Taekwondo Championships, which took place in Baku, Azerbaijan, were also a huge success.

In December 2014, the International Olympic Committee unanimously passed all 40 items that make up the Olympic 2020 Agenda. The WTF fully supports this roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement.

The year ahead of us is shaping up to be another exciting one for the WTF.

In 2015, our top event will be the World Taekwondo Championships in Chelyabinsk, Russia in May. As this will be the biggest event prior to the Rio 2016 Olympics, I eagerly anticipate some spectacular action. The Championships will use the octagonal rings and the electronic headgear, which was first used at the Manchester Grand Prix Series in 2014.

We will see the 2015 Grand Prix Series take place in Moscow, Russia in August; Samsun, Turkey in September; and in Manchester, Great Britain in October. The 2015 Grand Prix Final and the 2nd WTF Gala Awards Dinner will take place in Mexico City, Mexico in December.

The WTF Grand Prix Final will return to Mexico following the success of last year's event in Queretaro ©WTF

We are also going all-out to place Para-taekwondo on the official programme of the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. We will find out early in 2015 whether our application has been successful, so please cross your fingers. But regardless of that result, we are going to maintain our current dedicated focus on Para-taekwondo, ensuring that ever more disabled athletes get the opportunity to take part.

Now I think the time has come for a major paradigm shift in how the WTF oversees, administers and promotes taekwondo.

After taking office in 2004, I had two chief aims. The first was to ensure fairness and transparency in referring, judging and administration. The second was to ensure that taekwondo was as exciting and dynamic as possible. I think it is fair to say that we are almost there on both counts.

Thanks to colossal efforts over decades, taekwondo has become one of the world's top participation sports. Now, it is time to build upon that foundation and make it one of the world's top spectator sports.

Taekwondo has come a long way from the judging controversies that plagued the sport at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, where Britain's eventual bronze medallist Sarah Stevenson was among those on the receiving end ©Getty Images

This means making our events more media-friendly and upgrading marketing and promotion to lure the crowds. And this means giving our elite athletes the exposure they deserve, by helping them become taekwondo stars. In this regard, we will further activate our tag-team matches.

To be sure, this directional shift is going to require different mindsets to those the WTF has employed thus far; this new goal represents a towering challenge. To achieve it, the WTF leadership hopes to leverage the full support of the global taekwondo family.

I wish all members of the WTF family a successful and prosperous 2015.

Dr. Chungwon Choue is the President of the World Taekwondo Federation. Click here for a full report of the WTF Extraordinary Council meeting in Bangkok on January 16, where some of these plans were put into fruition.

David Owen: Pan American Sports Organization starts to face up to a potentially bright new era

There was no mistaking the elephant in the room at this week's Pan American Sports Organization (PASO) General Assembly in sunny Puerto Vallarta: it was the elephant not in the room.

Mario Vázquez Raña, the 82 year-old Mexican newspaper magnate, has presided over PASO since 1975, the year of Margaret Thatcher's election as leader of Britain's Conservative party and the fall of Saigon.

He has marked the body with an indelible stamp: scarcely 10 minutes went by in and around this week's meetings without someone commenting, publicly or privately, on Don Mario's negotiating skills, business acumen, generosity or autocratic management style.

But the last few months are forcing PASO to face up to the fact that a remarkable era is nearly over.

First, last September, this Puerto Vallarta General Assembly was postponed after Vázquez Raña underwent surgery; then in November he missed a PASO Extraordinary General Assembly in Bangkok; and now this week, having been hospitalised for six days in mid-December, he was unable to make it to Mexico's palm-fringed Pacific coast.

Happily, PASO's most pressing current concern - the 2015 Toronto Pan American and Parapan American Games - looks to be in good shape; and the vastly experienced, not easily impressed eye of Michael Fennell, President of the PASO Technical Committee, is available to make sure it stays that way.

But it seems inevitable that there will now follow a (potentially lengthy) period when nothing more strategic than the succession issue will be at the forefront of many PASO members' minds.

Mario Vázquez Raña has presided over PASO for almost 40 years but the last few months are forcing PASO to face up to the fact that a remarkable era is nearly over ©PASO

First vice-president Ivar Sisniega, who chaired the General Assembly after learning just two days before the event that Vázquez Raña would be absent, may have been justified to say that he was "gratified to see the level of mature and serious debate that took place in a very responsible fashion".

It is hard to imagine, though, that the agenda would have been wrapped up inside a day (albeit quite an intensive one) had Vázquez Raña been in the hot seat.

And with so many major international events, including an Olympics and a Youth Olympics, coming to the Americas from this year onwards, it would be highly preferable if the long-term leadership question were not left hanging for too long.

Nobody, at least that I met, expects Vázquez Raña to remain as President beyond 2016.

But the date of that General Assembly is not yet known - and given that what was to have been the 2014 Assembly did not take place until January 2015, that could leave the Mexican in situ for up to another two years.

Equally, the transition may come considerably earlier than that.

An Executive Committee meeting set for March was announced with the comment, "At that time, decisions will be made for the future leadership of our organisation".

I was subsequently advised, however, that this was a reference to a statute review process that is currently in train, rather than anything more dramatic.

Carlos Nuzman, President of the Brazilian Olympic Committee and the man at the helm of Rio 2016, is a leading candidate for the succession of PASO ©Getty Images

This may itself have an important bearing on the outcome of a future Presidential election, since it may lead to a change in voting entitlements.

At present, as it was explained to me, each of the 41 PASO National Olympic Committees (NOCs) has a vote, and an extra vote is granted for each time a country has hosted the Pan American Games.

This, of course, increases the voting power of larger nations, particularly Mexico, which has hosted on three occasions.

Should the system revert to a straight one country one vote, the influence of the Caribbean members in particular would be increased, especially if they were to vote en bloc.

Based largely on my attempted straw poll around the wide, airy corridors of the conference hotel, I would say that the leading candidates for the succession seem to be as follows:

Carlos Nuzman, PASO's second vice president, from Brazil; Sisniega, another Mexican; and José Joaquín Puello from the Dominican Republic.

It is very possible that another Caribbean candidate may also emerge, with Keith Joseph, PASO's third vice president, from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Richard Peterkin, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) member from Saint Lucia, those most frequently mentioned in this connection.

Conceivable dark horses include José Quiñones, if he can overcome his domestic difficulties in Peru, any US or Canadian candidate, and perhaps others.

Neither Nuzman, 72, or Puello, 74, are spring chickens exactly; Nuzman, moreover, will presumably have his hands full until Rio 2016 has come and gone.

But it could be argued that a transition candidate may be in PASO's best interests, while the body transforms itself from a creature, essentially, of a single individual into something much more modern and transparent.

An interesting presence in Puerto Vallarta was Pere Miró, IOC director of relations with NOCs and Olympic Solidarity ©Getty Images

An interesting presence here in Puerto Vallarta was Pere Miró, IOC director of relations with NOCs and Olympic Solidarity, who acknowledged it was his first PASO General Assembly since Vázquez Raña resigned as President of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) and head of Olympic Solidarity in March 2012.

This seemed a signal that the first rays of light on PASO's new era are just starting to creep over the horizon.

While the immediate future for PASO looks uncertain in many ways, one thing I would not be worried about, based on what I have seen here, is the organisation's ability to make a success of the post Vázquez Raña era.

The body seems to have an excellent multicultural balance, notwithstanding a big wealth gap between its richest and poorest NOCs; it is also imbued with plenty of men - and women - who have already shown themselves to be able sports administrators, with skills in a variety of areas.

I have little doubt, for example, that the more media savvy could quickly engineer a profile boost for the Pan American Games - and for that matter PASO itself - if given a freer rein.

They have plainly waited a long time, some of them, for additional responsibilities to be thrust upon them.

For a few, opportunity will shortly knock.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Mike Rowbottom: Fingers crossed for Radcliffe's London Marathon swansong - a decade after Holmes bade farewell on a TV camera buggy

It's hard to believe that Paula Radcliffe, whose ongoing plans to make this year's Virgin Money London Marathon her "swansong" were confirmed this week by Race Director Hugh Brasher, hasn't run that event in almost a decade.

Radcliffe last competed in the London Marathon on April 17, 2005, winning her third title in the capital in 2hr 17min 42sec -which was and remains the third fastest women's time ever. Second fastest is Radcliffe's 2002 Chicago win in 2:17.18. The world record of 2:15.25, set at the London Marathon a year later, also stands to her.

No other woman has got within three minutes of Radcliffe's record - the fourth fastest performance ever is that of Kenya's Mary Keitany, one of the favourites for this year's race, who clocked 2:18.37 in winning the London Marathon in 2012.

And so the 41-year-old mother-of-two - and it's also hard to believe that description now fits the game teenager I saw chase home Olympic champion Derartu Tulu in her first senior race, the 1993 Durham cross country - is homing in on what will be an almighty homecoming.

Paula Radcliffe back training in earnest in Kenya last February. Despite a long-term foot injury, she is still on course to make a final flourish at the 2015 Virgin Money London Marathon on April 26 ©AFP/Getty Images

Gone are the days when Radcliffe was one of the sport's most agonised and agonising "near missers". Gone are the days when Radcliffe's presence in a race merely prompted the question of how fast her winning time would be.

Now we are looking at a ludicrously fit woman on the brink of middle age who is also negotiating unknown mental territory. Having been initially grateful just to be able to run following the serious foot injury - one of an escalating sequence of physical breakdowns in a body which has been driven to its limits for more than 20 years - Radcliffe has been able to train regularly and seriously in the course of the last year.

But, by her own admission, she goes forwards to what she wants to be her final flourish uncertain of whether the mechanics will let her down again.

For years, Radcliffe has advocated the wisdom of "listening to your body". What is hers saying now, one wonders? "Maybe Paula. But don't push it, yeah?"

When, in May last year, Radcliffe first floated the idea of a final 26.2 miles run-out in either London or New York, she reflected: "I'm not thinking I can get back and run 2hr 15min, but if I could come back and run like a sub 2hr 30min then I'd like to do it.

"I'm not saying I could win London or New York but I would like to just run one more and finish on my terms. I'd just like the chance.

"London would be my sentimental choice. It's where I started my career, my dad ran it when I was a kid, and then there was missing out on the Olympics at London 2012."

So next up, body permitting, the swansong.

It's an odd phrase, swansong. It was current in ancient Greece, referring to the ancient belief that swans - habitually silent or discordant - sing a beautiful song in the moment just before death.

How will this innately sweet and mournful image fit the events of April 26 for the world record holder? Well, one hopes. While remembering the physical frustrations which Radcliffe has had increasingly to endure in her running career.

Radcliffe in her pomp - at the halfway point in the 2003 London Marathon, en route to a world record which no other woman has got within three minutes of ©Getty Images

It raises the question of what is the best way for an athlete to bow out?

Herb Elliott. Now there was a man who did it perfectly, surely? The rangy Australian retired in 1962 as Olympic 1500m champion and world record holder, unbeaten in either the mile or metric mile. Tick the box. Job done.

But Elliott's last race was a half mile in 1962, representing Cambridge University against the Amateur Athletic Association. He had been talked into racing, and felt it would have been rude not to. Overweight and unfit, he finished a distant last.

By that time, Elliott's world mile record had been beaten by the rising force in middle distance, New Zealand's Peter Snell, who had won the Olympic 800m title in 1960 and went on to do the Olympic 800/1500 double at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

Australia's Herb Elliott cruises to the 1960 Olympic 1500m title. He retired unbeaten over the mile and metric mile. but not unbeaten - he was eighth and last in an 800m between Cambridge University and the AAA ©AFP/Getty Images

Snell shocked the athletics world when he announced his retirement in 1965. His final track action took place as he toured the United States. In one of his final races he was beaten over the mile by 17-year-old Jim Ryun - the rising force in middle distance, and the Olympic champion who never actually was.

Getting out at the top, it seems, is easier said than done. Michael Johnson, as you might expect, managed it, finishing an illustrious career by taking the 400m gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. But it's a relatively rare trick.

Had Radcliffe wanted to do the same, she would have had a problem knowing where the top was. In retrospect, she could have called it a day after the 2003 London Marathon. But then two years down the line she became world champion in Helsinki - her only global marathon gold.

Michael Johnson running at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, where he won the 400m gold and subsequently retired ©Getty Images

Whatever the retrospective debate, she is well served in being able to choose an event in which to officially bow out. Many great athletes, including some of Britain's best performers in past years, have not had that opportunity as injury, illness or international selectors have applied the coup de grace.

I saw Sebastian Coe's last race, at the 1990 Auckland Commonwealth Games. Running over 800m, the distance at which he held a world record that would stand for another seven years, the double Olympic 1500m champion faded to sixth place in the final. Despite being well placed around the final bend, the old detonation never happened. Coe's challenge, it turned out, had been undermined by a virus. And that turned out to be his last track competition.

The other two parts of that famed British middle distance triumvirate, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram, also ended their competitive careers with a whimper rather than a bang.

Ovett's last track race turned out to be a 3000m at Cardiff on May 18, 1991. Cram finished by winning an 800m in his native Jarrow on June 8, 1994, in 1:50.3.

Sally Gunnell, who finished 1994 as world, Olympic, European and Commonwealth 400m hurdles champion and world record holder, effectively went out on her shield as she came back from injury in time for the 1997 World Championships, only to injure herself again warming down from her heat victory, subsequently announcing her retirement.

For Roger Black, double European 400m champion and Olympic silver medallist, the decision to call it a day was effectively made by the selectors who chose 200m specialist Solomon Wariso ahead of him for the only remaining place at the 1998 European Championships. Wariso ran out of his skin in the trials, but was disqualified at the Championships.

Radcliffe's contemporary in the British team, Kelly Holmes, was also able to announce her "swansong" a year after her 800/1500m double at the Athens Olympics. She picked the 800m at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix in Sheffield, and much razmattaz accompanied her final appearance.

Mobile Holmes - Kelly says farewell on the back of a TV camera buggy after limping home last in her Sheffield "swansong" in 2005, a year after her double Olympic triumph
©Getty Images

But Holmes had been troubled by a recurrent Achilles tendon injury for most of the year. She limped home last in the 800m and had to complete her lap of honour on a TV camera buggy.

Fingers crossed Radcliffe's last hoorah goes off more smoothly...

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £8.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

David Owen: Why I would be dumbfounded if Prince Ali won

As if events swirling around FIFA needed to get any more surreal, Joseph Blatter was last week challenged for the Presidency of the world football governing body by a man purported to be a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad.

And, in what must strike football neophytes, though not habitual observers, as another bizarre twist, Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, third son of the late King Hussein of Jordan, is expected to get much of his support in May's election from Western Europe. Asian football chiefs, meanwhile, have thrown their weight behind the Swiss septuagenarian who, it is widely assumed, will attempt to win a fifth term in office.

Prince Ali, who turned 39 just over two weeks ago and has been a FIFA vice-president since 2011 (though not for much longer), has shown early signs of being an administrator who can get things done. I understand that he played an important role in FIFA's decision last year to lift its ban on women footballers wearing a hijab during matches.

But he wouldn't yet be considered a truly credible candidate to head up the world's most powerful single-sport federation but for a strong feeling in Western Europe, magnet for most of the money that gushes into the game, that FIFA is in such dire straits that someone, anyone needed to be found to let Blatter know he had been in a fight.

A journalist I much respect indicated some days ago that Prince Ali might be nearing 100 votes. Given that FIFA only has 209 member associations, and that we are still nearly five months from polling day, that would spell serious trouble for the incumbent.

Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein announced his candidacy for the FIFA Presidency later this month ©Getty Images

My own feeling, and that of most others I have spoken to, is that, barring truly seismic developments in the course of the campaign, the Jordanian will do well to get beyond a respectable 60 to 70 votes.

Frankly, the fact that we can be so blasé about discussing likely scores only a week or so after a candidate has declared is a symptom of one of the structural, or attitudinal, flaws that beset FIFA. This is the way confederation bosses sometimes act like chief whips in political parties, urging or signalling to associations within their region to vote a particular way. Not all do, but enough probably will to render campaign platforms on how better to run the global game largely redundant.

I thought I could feel the frustration of Jérôme Champagne, the third horse in this race, last week when he called on Prince Ali to spell out the changes he wanted to implement. If actual ideas counted for much in this contest, Champagne, who has set out his platform in great detail, could expect to be running strongly. Instead, some feel he may struggle to secure the written support of five member associations that is necessary formally to enter the race under the FIFA statutes. If he won, it would be an upset far greater than Foinavon.

I would be nearly as dumbfounded if Prince Ali won. I base this not on a detailed analysis of how each member of the electorate is likely to cast his or her vote, but on my surmise of the electoral outcome that may best suit UEFA President Michel Platini.

It is pure speculation on my part, but it is my hunch that the 59-year-old Frenchman, though sitting out this election, would quite like to run FIFA one day. If you accept that, then ask yourself what situation he would prefer in four years' time: a governing body presided over by an 82 year-old finally ready to hand over the reins after two decades in the saddle; or a FIFA run with increasing assurance by a man 20 years his junior, who lacked experience at the outset, but is starting to grow into the role and has gained respect for his integrity?

UEFA President Michel Platini could harbour hopes of eventually becoming FIFA President ©Getty Images

If Platini does harbour ambitions of succeeding Blatter, then you might reason that a vote which weakens the Swiss incumbent but does not remove him might be an acceptable outcome. That result might be delivered if Blatter beat off his rivals but failed to secure the two-thirds of votes of members "present and eligible to vote" which the statutes say are necessary for victory in the first ballot. It seems distinctly within the bounds of possibility for Prince Ali to gain enough support to keep Blatter below that two-thirds threshold.

Who knows, if the incumbent President really did scrape over the line, he might even opt to stand down without serving his full mandate. Either way, it is during the first election without Blatter's direct involvement that I fancy the big beasts of world football will finally exit their lairs and enter the fray.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Alan Hubbard: School sport must be a key priority for future Governments to sustain British Olympic success

Great Britain's potential Olympic medallists are now limbering up for Rio 2016, hopeful of another record-breaking haul to further fuel the lingering euphoria of London 2012.

That's fine. It's all looking good. But what about the Tokyo Games of 2020 and beyond?

Where will the talent come from then? That is a major concern as evidence grows of a serious decline in fitness of a nation where traditionally our sporting excellence has been honed initially in schools.

Now the fear is that an alarming reduction in the physical education of our young bodes ill for the future continuation of the production line of British sporting champions.

The current physical inactivity levels of young people is described as "bleak and worrying" by Baroness Sue Campbell, chair of the Youth Sports Trust, whose manifesto on the need for a re-think of PE and schools sport by a future government, whatever the colour, will be launched at the House of Lords this Wednesday.

The promised presence of political heavyweights Sir Hugh Robertson, ex-Conservative Olympics and Sports Minister, and Andy Burnham, Labour's Shadow Health Minister, encouragingly suggests prospective cross-party support.

Sports Minister Sir Hugh Richardson is expected to be in attendance when the Youth Sports Trust 'Unlocking Potential' manifesto is launched this week ©Getty Images

Sports Minister Sir Hugh Richardson is expected to be in attendance when the Youth Sports Trust 'Unlocking Potential' manifesto is launched this week ©Getty Images

Former Sports Minister Sir Hugh Robertson is expected to be in attendance when the Youth Sports Trust 'Unlocking Potential' manifesto is launched this week ©Getty Images

The YST's 'Unlocking Potential' manifesto will call for emphasis on more physical education and competitive sport to be implemented by whoever is in Government after the May General Election.

"It is in no sense political," Baroness Campbell, the left-leaning peer who for 10 years was arguably the most influential female administrator in British sport-and certainly the most formidable, told insidethegames.

"Reversing the growing levels of physical inactivity among young people is a seismic challenge and one that we hope the next Government will make a priority because it is an opportunity to improve the nation's health, education and sporting prospects.

"It is an attempt to get cross-party, and cross-departmental agreement on the big issues in schools sports.

"There is a huge question here not only for the physical well-being of our young people but also a very emotional one.

"Every day we hear about more self-harming or massive emotional traumas and while I am not stupid enough to think more PE and sporting activity can solve everything, I do believe that if we don't get it right we undermine the health and education of our kids and the sporting future of the nation.

"With one in three children leaving primary school obese or overweight, and less than one in five meeting the minimum recommended guidelines for physical activity, it is clearly a bleak and worrying picture.

"One of the things that made us so successful in 2012 at the elite end is that we had a ten year run at it. While I was at UK Sport [from 2003 to 2013] we had a very consistent strategy [labelled as 'no compromise' over elite funding]. Whether you agreed with it or not it allowed us to create real change. Now we need another ten year run."

Whether this can happen clearly depends on how important any incoming Government sees sport in schools, not least as a means to an end in Britain's success in international competition.

Team GB will be aiming to build on their success at London 2012 when the Games go to Rio next year ©Rio 2016

"Every few years the policy changes. It is really tough for schools. This is not about investing a lot more money but rather using the money effectively," Baroness Campbell added.

"In terms of post-Olympic legacy there are welcome programmes of investment going into primary schools but it also makes sense to invest in secondary schools sport. What happens if the next Government doesn't want to do that?"

I understand that in their manifesto the YST will call for more time for high quality PE, physical activity opportunities be embedded in every school day, and sustained competitive sport.

"We have to set out where we believe any future Government should focus its efforts if we are to stand any real chance of reversing the trends that are leading to increasingly sedentary lifestyles among young people," she said.

In other words, the battle is now on between between the PlayStation and the playing field.

Encouraging more sporting emphasis, she says, is not something that should be regarded by head teachers as something "nice" to do. "This is something they need to do."

She adds that one of the most vital aspects of the manifesto seeks a joined-up, three-pronged approach between the Government Departments responsible for education, health and sport.

London 2012 heptathlon gold medallist Jessica Ennis-Hill owes a lot of her success to being inspired by sport at school at a young age ©Getty Images

"If every time a new Government comes in we get rid of the old initiatives and have to start all over again it will be impossible to build any meaningful long-term strategy.

"There are politicians on both sides of parliament, like Andy Burnham and Hugh Robertson, who are committed and passionate about sport, which is why we have invited them along. But this can't be a political football."

The newly ennobled Sir Hugh, who was one of the most able and constructive of Britain's long line of Sports Ministers, agrees. "This must not be turned into a political argument," he tells us.

"Schools sport is a major part of building a sports career and at a time when further cuts are on the way. Whoever wins the election it is vital we build a cross-party consensus."

As Baroness Campbell points out, if you ask our sporting champions - like Dame Kelly Holmes, Jessica Ennis-Hill or even Sebastian Coe - who first motivated them and ignited their enthusiasm for sport the answer in most cases would be their PE teacher.

"To sustain our sporting success we need to be building a group of young who enjoy sport and can excel at it," she said.

"This is an opportunity to improve the nation's health, shape the character of our kids and provide a platform for Britain's sporting excellence."

Let's hope our political masters are listening.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

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Chungwon Choue: Making taekwondo more spectator friendly is now a major aim

David Owen: Pan American Sports Organization starts to face up to a potentially bright new era

Mike Rowbottom: Fingers crossed for Radcliffe's London Marathon swansong - a decade after Holmes bade farewell on a TV camera buggy

David Owen: Why I would be dumbfounded if Prince Ali won

Alan Hubbard: School sport must be a key priority for future Governments to sustain British Olympic success

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