Time for sport to heed 'people power'

Bid cities and countries, whether chasing the World Cup or Olympic dream, face a more complex 'sales' test than even those executive committees and evaluation commissions of bountiful international sports federations.

Nowadays the people are demanding their voice be heard.

Last weekend, for instance, a re-eruption of street protests in Sao Paulo was merely a dummy run ahead of more serious stuff nationwide during Brazil’s football fiesta in June and July.

Such demonstrations will not be seen in and around Sochi during next month's Winter Olympics. But this says more about the defensive aggression of an authoritarian state than any lack of fervour about the issues.

Some years back this writer recalls being challenged by Dmitry Chernyshenko, president and ceo of Sochi 2014, to explain why protest movements arraigned the Olympics rather than the World Cup.

Back then the Games were perceived as the single natural magnet for protest because of the high-falutin' moral stance expressed in the Olympic Charter.

But that was then; this is now.

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Read the full comment by AIPS Football Commission Chairman Keir Radnedge on the AIPS website

Read more by Keir Radnedge on www.keirradnedge.com