Euro 2012 Day 1

Here we are again folks, another tournament and we're all a bit older and perhaps wiser, no one is tipping England (unless they win against France and then the media machine will go into overdrive), and we can look forward to 3 weeks of football festivities. Or can we? 
Today's worrying news about some members of the Dutch squad being subjected to 'monkey chants' at the open training session in Krakow, Poland has only intensified the calls for UEFA to properly tackle this problem swiftly and effectively, it will not be easy. Michel Platini was asked by a BBC reporter whether he felt his position as UEFA president would be under pressure if there were further outbursts of racism, his response, correctly I believe, was "are you joking?". It is down to the police (who by some accounts have been apathetic in the past to such incidents) to deal with such crimes, as that is what they are. Let us hope that the tournament can be a success for both countries involved and we don't see an escalation of this unacceptable behaviour. 


It will have not escaped your attention that England have once again had major problems in the build-up to this tournament. Hodgson has performed admirably so far both on and off the pitch and has had to deal with several withdrawals and of course the Rio Ferdinand saga which the press have handled like a dog with a bone. For my money Hodgson has made his decision on the squad and has stood by it. Ferdinand has accepted the decision with all the good grace you'd expect from the serial tweeter and his response to being left out sums up perhaps one of the reasons why he has been omitted.

Rio - Not very clever and clearly very 'bovered'

Anyway, as David Bernstein has rightly said, it's about the players who are in the England squad, not any players that have been left at home, so for the sake of sanity I think it's time for the media to forget about Ferdinand and move on.