What do Sepp Blatter, Jose Mourinho's appointment today at Inter Milan and Real Madrid's pursuit of Ronaldo have in common? Well, two things. The first is football's relentless move towards globalization: players and managers are now international commodities, moving from Portugal to London to Milan (Mourinho) or from Lisbon to Manchester (and possibly to Madrid) (Ronaldo). This is unstoppable and Sepp Blatter's blustering won't stop it. What is interesting is the growing conflict between football fans who are intensely local and the changing nature of the sport which is international. The second thing these big news stories have in common is more specific. The huge success of English Premiership in Europe over recent years reached its climax in Moscow with the first all-English final. The most revealing image of the night was not John Terry or Ronaldo but the shot of Blatter, Platini and all the other great and the good from FIFA and UEFA. They looked like the old men of the Kremlin, stony-faced and deeply unhappy. Like Milton's Satan, they saw undelighted all delight. Is it really a coincidence that it is this summer that Blatter has issued his attempt to bring back national quotas for football clubs? Those with any memory will know that it was similar UEFA legislation which punished English clubs in the early 1990s, counting Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish players as foreign/overseas. No wonder no English club won the Champions League during those years. If Blatter's quota is introduced it will have the same effect. But, like Canute, he is fighting against greater forces than UEFA -- the EU's immigration legislation and the new globalization. Blatter and the UEFA aparatchiks were not the only ones to be shaken by the all-English final. The Italian clubs took one hell of a beating this year. Roma lost to Manchester United, Inter Milan to Liverpool and AC Milan to Arsenal. Not one team from Serie A made it to the Semi-Finals. It was a huge humiliation. The appointment of Mourinho and the inevitable influx of Chelsea players that will follow is the first step to put Italian football back on top. Meanwhile, in Spain egos were just as bruised. Real Madrid were the biggest losers. Yet again, they failed to even make the Quarter-Finals, losing to Roma. Barcelona lost in the Semi-Final, failing to score against Manchester United in more than three hours of football. Messi, Henry , Deco, Gudjohnsen and Eto couldn't manage a single goal between them. So, of course, Real Madrid have brought out the cheque-book and are trying to buy the best player in the world from -- where else? -- an English club. Prepare for plenty of transfer action, hirings and firings, as the big Spanish and Italian clubs try to move the centre of gravity of European football back south.
