Let's hope for the right sort of Sports headlines in 2007

That we have thought this every year as long as we can remember, only for our best hopes to be dashed, does not undermine our confidence that this year will be different! For the always objective and unbiased commentator on things sporting (like your correspondent, of course) this year there is a more serious hope. Can we please have a sporting year, no matter who the winners and losers are, which is untainted by scandal?

Too many villains in 2006

In 2006 too many of the big sporting stories were about abuses on and off the field - too many villains hogging the headlines and not enough heroes. And too many people who should know better excusing these abuses.


• Zinedine Zidane's head butt of Marco Materazzi in the Football World Cup Final was made all the worse when the following day the President of France said to Zidane 'You are also a man of heart, commitment, conviction. That's why France admires and loves you.' Politicians - don't you just love 'em!

• Another villain in France was the winner of the Tour de France Floyd Landis who was stripped of his title for allegedly using a performance enhancing drug. The sport of cycling has been tarnished for as long as anyone can remember by drug abuse and whilst Landis appears to be the first American 'winner' of the Tour to be found out he is not the first to be accused. The matter is still under appeal and the sport remains under a dark cloud.

• Drug abuse reared its ugly head in cricket as well when in November 2006 the Pakistan Cricket Board suspended Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif for using banned performance enhancing substances. The International Cricket Council supported these bans saying 'The PCB has done extremely well in handling this matter...'. A month later the PCB overturned their decision on appeal 'The appeal committee holds that Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif will not be deemed to have committed a doping offence,' they now said - much to the ICC's (who clearly felt they had been out-maneuvered by the PCB) consternation. Cricket administrators - don't you love 'em!

• Mohammed Asif was at the centre of one of the other great sports scandals of 2006 - the ball-tampering fiasco at the England v Pakistan Test Match at The Oval. Asif had been warned for ball abuse earlier in the season so some pointed the finger at him when the umpires penalised Pakistan for the same offence in England's second innings. The repercussions from this match rumbled on for months with it being umpire Darryl Hair who was the main victim. Although the ICC and others in sports administration would hope that this matter is over I doubt that it is - expect some more revelations from the pen of the aggrieved Mr. Hair this year!

And so it all went on: a 'betting ring' in the National Hockey League; drug abuse by baseball stars; Michael Schumacher cheating at the Monaco Grand Prix; match fixing in Italian Football and (for light relief) one member of the All Blacks Rugby team hitting another with a woman's handbag!

Looking forward to 2007

It is perhaps too much to hope that sport in 2007 will be scandal free - but let's hope that it is performance and results which dominate the headlines not abuse. Of the two World Cups, in Cricket and Rugby, it is the former which looks the more interesting and open. The tournament is ridiculously overblown and let's hope that interest can be held for its ludicrous 49 days of competition. You can make a case for almost any of the top teams - with New Zealand perhaps being the best dark horses to challenge Australia. New Zealand are deservedly the favourites for the Rugby and although the tournament is still nine months away the All Blacks are overwhelming odds-on to win.

The Formula one season will be the first for 16 years without Michael Schumacher. The word from insiders is that Ferrari is making progress over the winter break and it may be the Ferrari drivers Raikkonen and Massa who will be the ones to watch in the early season skirmishes rather than World Champion Fernando Alonso newly in a McLaren. In golf it is difficult to see anyone really challenging the hegemony of Tiger Woods and in men's tennis the same applies to Roger Federer.

Glamour all around - especially in Valencia

There will be glamour galore in Sporting 2007; Monaco, Barbados, Wimbledon, Paris, Carnoustie… but nowhere will be able to touch Valencia, Spain in the high summer. Here the very high rollers of sport - the America's Cup yachting teams - will compete for the first time in Europe since 1851. Let's hope that this tournament is fought on the high seas, not (as has happened before) in the court rooms - and let's hope for a good clean fight in all of the rest of 2007's sporting events.