By Ken Foster

(Ken Foster, our irreverent guest columnist, highlights the inequalities of football in a way that I hope you all find informative and amusing and most definitely thought provoking !)

Sepp Blatter of FIFA has a reputation - some might say well deserved - of having a new idea every day.  The problem with this is two-fold.  Most of them are bad, and perhaps more worryingly, the FIFA organisation he heads allows him to put some of them into practice.

Anyway, one of Herr Blatter's recurring themes is that football should be the same the world over - the same game on the public park as in the World Cup - hence One Game For All.  This principle is the cornerstone of his argument against the use of technology in the game.  Now, as we all know, proper technology would have meant that our beloved Spireites would have made the FA Cup Final in 1997.  It would have also proved to any whinging Johnny Foreigner that the Azerbaijani linesman was right and Geoff Hurst's goal did cross the line.  Herr Blatter objects to such things, using as his argument that there can't be instant video replays in the Chesterfield Sunday League.  Not that he mentions it by name, of course, but hopefully you get my general drift...

So, there has been much comment about a decision a couple of months ago to trial a micro-chipped ball alongside goal line sensors.  This is supposed to happen in the World Youth Cup later this year in Holland.  Australia are there so perhaps our Aaron will be able to give us a first hand opinion.  Now, maybe I'm just an old cynic, but surely you must have noticed that this became a real issue after Roy Carroll's "save" against Spurs earlier this season?  Decent goal line technology existed 8 years ago, but back then the only beneficiary would have been little Chesterfield.  Now there's a need for it because of an incident in the "Worlds Greatest League", and in a match involving the "Worlds Greatest Club".  So, goal line technology is on the way in, and if it works then we'll see it at all the major tournaments pretty soon.  And if it doesn't work then there'll be more and more experiments until it's proved that it does work.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against this idea at all.  I just find some of the pontificating about it to be a tad hypocritical, and I can't see how Herr Blatter can equate this innovation against the One Game For All mantra.  After all, how much will a micro-chipped ball cost?  Somehow I don't think we'll see them for a while yet in the Chesterfield Sunday League.

There is a potentially much more dangerous departure from the One Game For All theme soon to hit us.  We all know about the transfer window in the Premiership and, of course, it has been widely reported that this will apply at our level from next season.  Now, unless there are some late changes, then this means that clubs at our level will have the same restrictions on signing players as the big boys.  So, no transfers outside the window.  Hence no chance of transfer fees if cash flow starts to look a bit iffy.  And, perhaps more important for us, no more loan deals.  We won't be able to take players on short term loan from Premiership clubs - an arrangement that works to everyone's benefit.  The Premiership reserves get first team experience - something that Bournemouth our recent visitors have benefited from in the past, with Rio Ferdinand and Jermain Defoe both having excellent loan spells at Bournemouth.  The "little club" saves the expense of carrying a larger-than-necessary squad, something that we've benefited from every season for the last few years.  The only way we'll get a new player outside the window is to pick up a player who is out of contract - which effectively means someone whose contract has been cancelled mid-season.

One Game For All?  Maybe, in that it means that the Premiership and Football league clubs abide by the same set of rules.   But the cost is a totally unnecessary set of upheavals in a sector of the game that is hardly awash with money.  A club's budget isn't going to increase, but if they need a bigger squad you don't need to have an MBA to realise that the most likely consequence is lower wages for players.  But is it really One Game For All?  How far down the pyramid does the transfer window rule apply?  When is the transfer window open in the Central Midlands League?  And what about the good old Chesterfield Sunday League?  No, it's not One Game For All, its just another senseless idea from dear Herr Blatter.

To conclude, have any of you heard of a "blatteroon"?  It's a proper word, in the dictionary, and means "a senseless babbler or boaster".  If you don't believe me, look it up.  Next stop Call My Bluff, though I doubt I'd get into a team if Sandi Toksvig, or whoever it is these days, has to obey the transfer window rules as well...