As if events swirling around FIFA needed to get any more surreal, Joseph Blatter was last week challenged for the Presidency of the world football governing body by a man purported to be a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad.

And, in what must strike football neophytes, though not habitual observers, as another bizarre twist, Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein, third son of the late King Hussein of Jordan, is expected to get much of his support in May's election from Western Europe. Asian football chiefs, meanwhile, have thrown their weight behind the Swiss septuagenarian who, it is widely assumed, will attempt to win a fifth term in office.

Prince Ali, who turned 39 just over two weeks ago and has been a FIFA vice-president since 2011 (though not for much longer), has shown early signs of being an administrator who can get things done. I understand that he played an important role in FIFA's decision last year to lift its ban on women footballers wearing a hijab during matches.

But he wouldn't yet be considered a truly credible candidate to head up the world's most powerful single-sport federation but for a strong feeling in Western Europe, magnet for most of the money that gushes into the game, that FIFA is in such dire straits that someone, anyone needed to be found to let Blatter know he had been in a fight.

A journalist I much respect indicated some days ago that Prince Ali might be nearing 100 votes. Given that FIFA only has 209 member associations, and that we are still nearly five months from polling day, that would spell serious trouble for the incumbent.

Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein announced his candidacy for the FIFA Presidency later this month ©Getty Images



My own feeling, and that of most others I have spoken to, is that, barring truly seismic developments in the course of the campaign, the Jordanian will do well to get beyond a respectable 60 to 70 votes.

Frankly, the fact that we can be so blasé about discussing likely scores only a week or so after a candidate has declared is a symptom of one of the structural, or attitudinal, flaws that beset FIFA. This is the way confederation bosses sometimes act like chief whips in political parties, urging or signalling to associations within their region to vote a particular way. Not all do, but enough probably will to render campaign platforms on how better to run the global game largely redundant.

I thought I could feel the frustration of Jérôme Champagne, the third horse in this race, last week when he called on Prince Ali to spell out the changes he wanted to implement. If actual ideas counted for much in this contest, Champagne, who has set out his platform in great detail, could expect to be running strongly. Instead, some feel he may struggle to secure the written support of five member associations that is necessary formally to enter the race under the FIFA statutes. If he won, it would be an upset far greater than Foinavon.

I would be nearly as dumbfounded if Prince Ali won. I base this not on a detailed analysis of how each member of the electorate is likely to cast his or her vote, but on my surmise of the electoral outcome that may best suit UEFA President Michel Platini.

It is pure speculation on my part, but it is my hunch that the 59-year-old Frenchman, though sitting out this election, would quite like to run FIFA one day. If you accept that, then ask yourself what situation he would prefer in four years' time: a governing body presided over by an 82 year-old finally ready to hand over the reins after two decades in the saddle; or a FIFA run with increasing assurance by a man 20 years his junior, who lacked experience at the outset, but is starting to grow into the role and has gained respect for his integrity?

UEFA President Michel Platini could harbour hopes of eventually becoming FIFA President ©Getty Images



If Platini does harbour ambitions of succeeding Blatter, then you might reason that a vote which weakens the Swiss incumbent but does not remove him might be an acceptable outcome. That result might be delivered if Blatter beat off his rivals but failed to secure the two-thirds of votes of members "present and eligible to vote" which the statutes say are necessary for victory in the first ballot. It seems distinctly within the bounds of possibility for Prince Ali to gain enough support to keep Blatter below that two-thirds threshold.

Who knows, if the incumbent President really did scrape over the line, he might even opt to stand down without serving his full mandate. Either way, it is during the first election without Blatter's direct involvement that I fancy the big beasts of world football will finally exit their lairs and enter the fray.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

As with those in other walks in life, versatility and the ability to eradicate any sign of a weakness is a key trait vital for any top athlete.

Yes, they must have talent - and lots of it -  but that is only the tip of the iceberg. They must be strong mentally, tactically and technically, they must have different ways of succeeding when Plan A fails, and they must have the determination and perseverance to do all of this on the biggest stage.

As a fan of English Premier League football club Arsenal, I have had to cope with my fair share of disappointments in recent years, but in Chilean signing Alexis Sánchez, the team now have a gem of a player who seemingly ticks all of these boxes.

A striker who has scored countless goals for Chile and for his previous club Barcelona, Sánchez has a ruthlessness and instinct in front of goal which is missing in most of his team mates. He has already scored 18 times in all competitions and is the fourth highest Premier League scorer this season in a list headed by two other South American-born stars in Chelsea's Diego Costa and Manchester City's Sergio Aguero.

But, arguably unlike someone like Costa, there is so much more to Sánchez's game than just goal-scoring. He is also the fourth-highest provider of assists in the League, in a list headed by a completely different sort of player in Cesc Fàbregas. He is also one of the best dribblers, one of the hardest working, one of the best at tracking back, and one of the best at leading and supporting his team mates.

Chilean Alexis Sánchez has proved the ultimate attacking talent for Arsenal so far this season ©Getty Images




In short, he is like a Tour de France rider who is the best climber, time trialler and sprinter. And he would also be the best domestique helping the rest of the squad as well.

It goes without saying that his attitude to training is exceptional as well - he reportedly barely ever has days off - and this is a crucial ingredient for all successful athletes.

There is a runner I used to train with (or rather, behind) back home, who will remain unnamed, who was in many ways a similarly complete athlete. He had incredible endurance, meaning he could barely ever be spat out the back of the pack by a fast pace, while he also had enough of a sprint finish to invariably see off his rivals and the mental strength to push himself further than anywhere else in the back end of a race.

But, and unfortunately, his one crucial weakness was his attitude to training, which ranged from mediocre to downright horrendous. When it was mediocre it usually resulted in him winning national titles, but when it was horrendous, as with all sportspeople who don't put in the required effort, he would be found wanting in the big races.

There hasn't been a week like this in sports politics, not for a long time.

To summarise:

The third son of a deceased Middle Eastern monarch announced he would run against a long-entrenched West European incumbent for the Presidency of the world's most powerful single-sport federation.

Much of this Arab prince's support is expected to come from Western Europe; leading sports power brokers in the Arab world have, meanwhile, pronounced in favour of his European opponent.

It was suggested that two countries which are still technically at war might co-host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The suggestion was quickly rebuffed, but it raised a faint echo of the at times farcical negotiations involving the same two ideologically-divided countries, North and South Korea, in the run-up to South Korea's first Olympics in 1988.

The world's only superpower announced the city that will bid to stage the planet's pre-eminent multi-sports event nine years from now.

Against expectations, it chose sports-crazy Boston - a city where less than two years ago, three people were killed and more than 200 injured by bomb explosions near the finish-line of the world's oldest annual marathon.

Boston was chosen as the USOC's bid city for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games less than two years after the bombings that killed three people and injured more than 200 at the Boston Marathon ©Getty Images



Overshadowing everything else of course was the shooting atrocity that left 10 journalists/cartoonists and two police officers dead in the city that is likely to be one of Boston's chief rivals in the race for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics.

It would be wrong to draw too many conclusions before more is known about the perpetrators and their motives, but the message for believers in freedom of expression was utterly chilling.

I was glad that International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach saw fit to issue a statement laced with emotion.

Though often criticised, the IOC has done its bit for press freedom in more illiberal corners of the world over the years.

More to the point, the Games's very ethos as an event where the world gathers, competes under agreed ground-rules and - most importantly - lives under the same roof for a few magical days/weeks acts as a powerful antidote to the ignorance on which bigots and fascists feed.

If there is a Paris bid, Charlie Hebdo would have - will still no doubt lampoon any trace of extravagance or pomposity with unbridled glee.

But intelligent, clear-headed criticism - however uncomfortable for individuals – is, of course, a vital component in keeping institutions grounded and moving in the right direction.

If there is a memorial service, or other secular official event, for those murdered, the IOC should be represented - I would argue by the chair of its Press Commission, who just happens to be the chairman of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC).

The tragic Charlie Hebdo shooting has, in the grimmest, most despicable way, stirred a deep-held, you might say instinctive, sense of human solidarity in France ©Getty Images



Only last week I asserted that France needed something to jolt it out of the morosity into which it had fallen and speculated whether a Summer Olympic bid could provide the electricity to flick the switch.

Well in the grimmest, most despicable way, the Charlie Hebdo gunmen seem to have stirred a deep-held, you might say instinctive, sense of human solidarity, potentially far more powerful than the displays of national solidarity that followed France's World Cup victory in 1998.

The scenes in Place de la République show very movingly that, when it really matters, the French capital can still summon a potent, quick flaring, spirit of community.

Provided - and this is critical - that the urge to identify and chastise scapegoats can be resisted, the defiant togetherness unleashed by Wednesday's hideous events could provide a real national lift.

It should also give all of us pause for thought about matters of security in a world in which relatively soft targets, such as high-profile road races and satirical magazines, are apt to come under attack.

100 per cent security is not possible; our best bet for long-term safety, that being the case, comes not from consenting to ever more state snooping or encroachments on the very civil liberties that set liberal societies apart from repressive ones, but from safety in numbers ©Getty Images


As experts told me after the Boston bombings, but as common sense would also attest, 100 per cent security is simply not possible.

Our best bet for long-term safety, that being the case, while remaining vigilant and protecting flagship institutions and events with all resources we can muster, comes not from consenting to ever more state snooping or encroachments on the very civil liberties that set liberal societies apart from repressive ones, but from safety in numbers.

If the bombers and gunmen can see that when they do strike, opposition to what they stand for is reinvigorated and multiplied, then eventually, if they are rational, they and those who control/incite them will devise new strategies.

That's what Je suis Charlie means.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

Last month Fernando Aguerre, President of the International Surfing Association, spoke to me with what you would have to call a rising tide of excitement about the prospect of the 2024 Olympics coming to the place he described as "the soul of surfing".

By which, of course, he meant California, the state which has advanced two cities - San Francisco and Los Angeles - towards selection as the United States contender for the next Games after Tokyo 2020.

That decision is due to be announced by the United States Olympic Committee today. And Aguerre - who lives in San Diego, a little way down the Pacific coast from the two challengers - had better be keeping his fingers crossed for LA.

Because there is a well-orchestrated message of dissent coming out of the place where, as Scott McKenzie's Sixties hit had it, visitors should be sure to wear some flowers in their hair.

Fernando Aguerre, President of the International Surfing Association, is hoping either San Francisco or Los Angeles gets the nomination as US bid city for the 2024 Olympics, as he says California is "he soul of surfing" ©Getty Images

The 12-point argument put together by the self-styled San Francisco No 2024 Olympics group pulls together a series of well-rehearsed points which will come as no surprise to the International Olympic Committee as it seeks, through the catalyst of the Olympic Agenda 2020 discussions, to re-cast its prized possessions into a more fitting shape for a changing world.

"San Francisco is NOT a Playground for the Rich," insists the group, citing the gentrification of the city in recent years and the process whereby the arrival of Google and other tech giants has pushed up rents and forced many working class San Franciscans out of their traditional living areas.

Hosting an Olympics, it is maintained, would only amplify this effect.

Another powerful strand of the argument rests upon the contention that the average cost overrun for producing an Olympic Games has exceeded 200 per cent since the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where the host city was left with huge and unforecast debts.

Working on those lines, the prediction is that the Olympic price tag for a San Francisco Games would climb to $13.5 billion (£9 billion/€11.5 billion).

The symbol of protest against an Olympics where you should be sure to wear some flowers in your hair - the logo of the San Francisco No 2024 Olympics pressure group ©SF NO 2024

The source, cited here is an article written by Dr Will Jennings, senior lecturer in politics at the University of Southampton and a research associate at the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

In it, Dr Jennings identifies three main reasons for the pattern of Olympics costing way more than the forecasts - a pattern which he points out had a form during the very first of the Modern Olympics, the 1896 Athens Games, the final report for which reflected that the initial estimates had "vastly underrated" the cost of restoring the ancient Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, rising some 57 per cent from 585,000 to 920,000 Drachmas.

The first reason, Jennings maintains, is a bid process which encourages contending cities to produce bid books which Richard Pound, former vice-president of the IOC, once described as being the "most beautiful fiction."
The second is what he calls "Scope creep", in which costs escalate due to changes and escalations in planned projects. Jennings cites as an example the rising cost to the London 2012 Games of changes to the design of the Olympic Stadium roof.

The third reason is an amalgam, involving the failure of Olympic organisers to identify risk, the moral vacuum created by the necessity for host Governments to underwrite the Games, meaning the private sector need only garner the gains without risking itself, and finally the illusion of control established through the detail of final bids.

Richard Pound, the former IOC vice-president, has described Bid Documents by cities seeking the Olympics as containing "the most beautiful fiction" ©Getty Images

The San Francisco protestors insist there are more important priorities to spend billions of dollars on - a comment that must surely send the word "Oslo" buzzing through the heads of IOC members.

They cite the example of successful Olympic resistance offered in 1972, when Colorado voters dissuaded the IOC from holding the Winter Games at their nominated choice of Denver, threatening to reject the use of any public funding for the event.

Claims that an Olympics is a long-term benefit to host cities are refuted using the recent example of the 2013 America's Cup, which left San Francisco $11.5 million (£8 million/€10 million) in the red as predictions of its economic impact fell short by more than 50 per cent.
Other reasons form a kind of jamboree bag of dissent, and include claims that the city is too small and lacks the infrastructure for an Olympics. There are also warnings of "IOC corruption" taking a toll on the city's due process.

In an article published by the San Francisco Magazine, one of the leading members of the SF No 2024 group, the city's former Supervisor, Chris Daly, expands on his dissent to the bid headed by the Mayor, Ed Lee, and Larry Baer, chief executive of the San Francisco Giants baseball franchise.

"If I were to ask San Franciscans what the number-one issue here is, most would say it's affordable housing," Daly told the Magazine. "Not lack of entertainment. Folks who are making under $200,000 (£133,000/€169,000) a year already can't afford to live here."

The 2013 America's Cup, raced in San Francisco Bay, left the city $11.5 million in the red, claim the SF NO 2024 group ©Getty Images

These points of protest will resonate beyond today's decision, whatever it may be. Like the Blues, they will never die...

There are so many reasons not to hold an Olympics, you do wonder how any have managed to be staged.

Bauer's take on it is this: "You're building something that will be around for generations. The economy here is extremely strong. We can afford to dream a little bit."

Daly begs to differ. But on the other side of this vast country, another US candidate is undergoing its own version of Olympic REM.

On the eve of the USOC's selection - with Washington DC as the fourth option - Boston's bidders have released a video featuring a diverse group of Bostonians explaining why they love their city and why it would be a great place for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Among those featured are Tommy Amaker, head coach of Harvard men's basketball team; Cheri Blauwet, a sports doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Spaulding Rehabilitation Network and a seven-time Paralympic medallist; Roger Brown, President of Berklee School of Music; Joi Ito, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab; Steve Moundou-Missi, junior at Harvard College and a forward on Harvard men's basketball team; and Israel Ruiz, executive vice-president and treasurer of MIT.

Ruiz concludes: "Having an Olympics in Boston would offer the opportunity to have a Games that are combining not only the virtue of the Olympic sports movement, but also the passion of the city, which you can feel within an arm's length."

Moundou-Missi maintains: "The Olympics would bring an energy that Boston can carry and take it to another level."

While Brown insists: "If we get our scientists and our artists together and say, 'Let's do this in a way that's better than it's ever been done before', what city on earth would be better at doing that than Boston?"

Very different mood music.

In Boston, it seems - to borrow again from McKenzie's iconic song - "There's a whole generation, With a new explanation, People in motion, people in motion..."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian.To follow him on Twitter click here.

At the European Olympic Committees headquarters in Rome it feels like we have been waiting for 2015 to arrive for the past 20 years. So it is very exciting that this seminal year for European sport is finally here.

Since the era of my esteemed predecessor as EOC President, Count Jacques Rogge, it has been the EOC's dream to stage a continental multi-sport Games for Europe. We are now just over six months away from realising this dream.

On June 12 the Opening Ceremony of the inaugural European Games will take place in the wonderful city of Baku, Azerbaijan, signalling the start of 17 days of competition between more than 6,000 athletes hailing from all 50 EOC member countries.

Introducing these Games to Europe and developing the concept at every future edition is a strategic priority for the EOC.

The purpose of the Games is to serve the specific needs of our member National Olympic Committees and their athletes. The European Games will achieve this by providing opportunities for success for NOCs on a continental scale leading to new sources of funding; offering athletes more qualification opportunities for the Olympic Games, thus reducing costly and tiring travel schedules; and giving them valuable experience - only one year out from an Olympic Games - of living, training and competing in a high-pressure Games-time environment.

My EOC Coordination Commission's next and final visit to Baku will be in February and I am confident that chairman Spyros Capralos will be able to issue another excellent progress report afterwards.

The Baku 2015 European Games will be a landmark event for all 50 European Nationals Olympic Games participating, Patrick Hickey has predicted ©Baku 2015



Right from the beginning of these Games we have enjoyed the total support of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Azerbaijan's First Lady, Mehriban Aliyeva, who is also chair of the Organising Committee. Meanwhile the Baku 2015 European Games Operations Committee has been led expertly by Azerbaijan's Minister of Youth and Sports, Azad Rahimov.

It is the final lap of our race in preparing for the European Games and I encourage everyone to keep pushing for the line to make Baku 2015 a truly fantastic inaugural event.

Twenty fifteen is set to be a very important year for the Olympic Movement as a whole as we lay down our new roadmap in the form of Olympic Agenda 2020. I would like to congratulate International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach for the success of December's era-defining IOC Session in Monaco.

The timely declaration from Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein that he will challenge Sepp Blatter for the Presidency of FIFA in May is the most welcome news yet for sport in 2015 - a year in which leadership off the field will be even more crucial than achievement on it.

The year sees two key international posts up for grabs, with the outcome of pending elections certain to determine the shape of sport to come.

The hope is that in May a Prince will ascend to the throne of world football, assuming timely proper governance of a game embedded in sleaze and corruption.

Three months later a good Lord looks set to become the new ruler of sport's other major ruling body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), with Sebastian Coe, one of track and field's most revered icons, the favourite to become head honcho of an equally troubled global pursuit upon which scurrilous chemists and cynically cheating athletes continue to leave such indelible scars.

These are game-changing times for Sepp and Seb, for differing reasons. The former surely has had his day, and must go; for the latter the time has come for him to rise to yet another challenge, as I believe he will.

When Prince Ali, like Coe already a vice-president of his organisation, announced his candidacy this week he made a point of saying he wants the emphasis to be on football again and not FIFA.

"It is time to shift the focus away from administrative controversy and back to sport. The headlines should be about football, not about FIFA," he said.

Good on him.

But can he unseat slippery Sepp, who himself won a bitter election against former UEFA president Lennart Johansson in 1998? Those close to the Prince say he would not stake his reputation on such a fight if he did not believe it is one he could win.

Prince Ali of Jordan will run against current FIFA President Sepp Blatter in May
©Getty Images



Prince Ali, President of Jordanian football since 1999, and current vice-president of the Asian Football Federation, says he has been encouraged to stand by colleagues.

"The message I heard, over and over, was that it is time for a change. The world game deserves a world-class governing body - an international federation that is a service organisation and a model of ethics, transparency and good governance."

It could be that the recent resignation of World Cup corruption inquisitor Michael Garcia has now inflicted a fatal blow to the re-election prospects of the won't-let-go Blatter, who seeks a fifth term of office at 79 at the FIFA Congress in Zurich on May 29.

For it is believed to have finally convinced Prince Ali, always potentially his most credible rival outside of Michel Platini, to challenge him.

The well-respected Prince, who at 39 is the youngest member of the FIFA Executive Committee, was angered at Blatter's blockade of Garcia's damaging report, and the ethics investigator's decision to quit in protest, citing "a lack of leadership", was to be the tipping point.

Prince Ali has been a strong backer of American lawyer Garcia and a leading advocate of his full findings being revealed. The fourth son of the late King Hussein of Jordan and brother to King Abdullah II, his half-brother Prince Feisal is a prominent member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

While his reformist views are not shared by Blatter and FIFA's old guard, many believe Prince Ali is the ideal figure to clean up the discredited governing body's shabby act, among them newly re-elected UEFA president Platini, and Britain's Home Football Associations.

Prince Ali can also expect firm support from Asia and the CONACAF federations - notably the United States and Caribbean nations. This might just be enough to oust Blatter - or force him to reconsider his position.

Prince Ali's decision to stand in the FIFA election in May will provide arguably the strongest challenge to Sepp Blatter's reign as President to date ©Getty Images

Others who say they may challenge the Swiss are Frenchman Jerome Champagne and former Chilean FA president Harold Mayne-Nicholls. But neither carry the clout, charisma or connections of Prince Ali.

It is good that someone of such substance finally has the balls to stand against Blatter.

More bad news for Blatter is that his native Switzerland is clearly growing tired of the repeated corruption allegations, and has passed a law which demands closer scrutiny of governing bodies to whom they are a tax sanctuary.

These include FIFA and the IOC. Further legislation is in the pipeline to make corrupt acts in sports linked to Swiss-based bodies a criminal offence.

Of course, it is not a foregone conclusion that Prince Ali or anyone else will depose battle-hardened Blatter.

But curiously one man who might have done so had his career been in football rather than athletics is one Sebastian Newbold Coe.

How FIFA members must wish they had a Coe in their midst. Yet they did have once, as the Chelsea fan was called in by Blatter to chair their Ethics Committee in September 2006. He stood down from this post to join the bid team that failed to bring the 2018 World Cup to England amid allegations of a FIFA stitch-up.

So he well knows the murky machinations of world football.

Had he remained on FIFA's books could he have, in the immortal words of Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront, been a contender?

Sebastian Coe has already demonstrated his prowess as a leader and could have been in the frame to challenge Blatter if he stayed with FIFA ©Getty Images



The multi-faceted Lord Coe - an ardent boxing aficionado - was also courted a couple of years back as a future chair of the British Boxing Board of Control.

But it is his beloved athletics where the British Olympic Association (BOA) chief may once again get the opportunity to demonstrate his organisational supremacy on a global scale, as he did for London 2012.

It is interesting that the biography in his comprehensive election manifesto for the Presidency of the IAAF makes no mention of his peerage. It is a deliberate omission for Baron Coe of Ranmore, who says as far as athletics is concerned he is, and always will, be plain Seb. Good on him too.

Unlike the last British Lord to be president of the IAAF. Some interesting coincidences here. Like Coe, the far more autocratic Lord Exeter was also an Olympic athlete - a hurdler - as well as a Tory MP, chair of the BOA and organiser-in-chief of a London Olympics - the 1948 Summer Games.

Coe would also take over a body under a cloud, and not just for its eternal struggle with drugs. Current octogenarian President Lamine Diack, like Blatter, is embroiled in controversy with his son Papa Massae suspended from his IAAF marketing role for allegedly soliciting a $5million (£3 million/€4 million) bribe in relation to Qatar's failed bid for the 2017 World Athletics Championships.

And Treasurer Valentin Balakhnichiev has temporarily vacated the post while a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Commission investigates any connection with the Russian doping scandal.

While unquestionably a popular figure among the athletics elite, winning the Presidency in August's Beijing election won't be a cakewalk for Coe either.

His most likely rival, Sergey Bubka, is also a good guy and an able adversary. But crucially he lacks Coe's cachet as an administrator.

Coe's brilliant overseeing of London 2012 surely will remain fresh in the of the IAAF's 200-odd electorate, not least for his determination to ensure that the Olympic Stadium retained a tangible legacy for track and field, as he had vowed when London won the bid seven years earlier.

So my prediction for those worthy couple of contenders stalking sports corridors of power in 2015 is that Coe will soar above Ukraine's pole vault legend and that a man appropriately named Ali will knock out Blatter, though it may take a round or two.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for the Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

I have already started reading two of the books I received for Christmas. One, Andrew Jennings' fascinating 1996 epic, The New Lords of the Rings: Olympic Corruption and How to Buy Gold Medals, I have already completed. The other, a new biography of iconic British war leader Winston Churchill - The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History - written by the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, I am halfway through.

Johnson, best known in Olympic circles for his presence throughout the Games of London 2012, shies away from the wealth of facts and prose seen in many historical biographies, instead highlighting in a much more readable fashion his idol's endearing legacy on the modern world, successfully pointing out how the course of 20th century history would have been very different without him.

A fascinating figure, in a political career spanning six decades Churchill's achievements ranged from the creation of Britain's Royal Air Force to the reorganisation of the Middle East, including the formation of Israel, while his military career also contained the dubious honour of being shot at on four different continents.

But he was also no stranger to failure and controversy. Politically incorrect even by the standards of his day, he supported ill-judged causes such as the campaign against Indian independence, while he swapped between the Liberal and Conservative political parties with the same ease with which sportsmen switch teams today.

But Churchill will always be best remembered for his role as British Prime Minister between 1940 and 1945. After taking over shortly before the seemingly insurmountable Nazi advance bore down on the English Channel, he masterminded the Allied fight-back, working with the United States and Soviet Union to eventually clinch victory from the jaws of defeat.

British leader Winston Churchill was instrumental in the Allied victory in the Second World War ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images



While there has been a revisionist tendency to play down his and Britain's significance to the path of the War, it is undebatable that the outcome would have been very different without him, and his fighting spirit, encapsulated in one speech vowing to offer "Blood, toil, tears and sweat", has lived on in the British psyche ever since.

Perhaps the greatest orator the country has ever produced, it would be fascinating to see how Churchill would cope in modern politics, or in an organisation like the International Olympic Committee, where, I suspect, he would find it hard to avoid upsetting many of his colleagues - although he would certainly liven up some of the speeches.

It is harder to picture him as a sportsman, yet, despite his rotundness, Churchill was actually a renowned rider and polo player, and a less successful golfer, throughout his life. But, as someone more used to reading sporting biographies than political ones, I found many similarities between aspects of his character and those of a professional athlete.

A renowned drinker who encapsulated a "work hard, play hard" philosophy, Churchill would seem best suited to a dangerous sport - he flew his first plane barely a decade after the Wright brothers embarked on the first ever flight - with motor racing a sport which would surely have interested him. He would undoubtedly sit on the maverick side of the sporting spectrum, holding more in common with swashbuckling sporting figures like Usain Bolt or Muhammad Ali than cleaner-cut ones like Lionel Messi and Roger Federer.

But like those two successful sporting mavericks, he combined his panache with a relentless work ethic, determination and attention to detail, and was famed during the War for a brutal working day which saw him often convene meetings for the middle of the night.

Sporting outsiders, such as Muhammad Ali when he overcame George Foreman during boxing's "Rumble in the Jungle" in 1974, inherited some Churchillian bulldog spirit ©AFP/Getty Images





He would also have been a natural at the mind games and skulduggery required in modern sport, once allegedly responding to the female MP Bessie Braddock who rebuked him for being drunk by remarking: "And you, madam, are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning". The art of sledging in cricket would have been an obvious area of strength.

But it was for his ability as an underdog, to never give up and prevail against insurmountable odds, where his expertise is most obvious. At time of writing during the Third Round of football's FA Cup, in which non-league sides such as Blyth Spartans, who play in the seventh tier of English football, have been taking on some of the biggest sides in the game, his legacy here lives on.

Well done on making it to 2015 - a year about which little seems predictable, but that will, I fancy, see France's relationship with the modern Olympic Movement it spawned put under a pretty powerful microscope.

I have accordingly spent part of the holiday period immersed in the latest book by Armand de Rendinger, Director of International Relations for Paris 2012, whose account of that campaign, in which the French capital was perceived as favourite throughout only to lose out to London, was published in 2006.

The new work, La tentation olympique française [The French Olympic Temptation], focuses on the forthcoming race for the 2024 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games - a contest that now seems more than likely to feature Paris, along with rivals from the United States, Italy, Germany, South Africa and others.

I gather that the text should be available in English translation soon.

Close students of the Olympic Movement may find that they can jump straight to page 135, where the chances of France being able to construct a convincing 2024 bid start to be assessed in earnest.

For all that, I found the tour d'horizon of everything that has happened since the shattering moment in Singapore in 2005 when then International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge opened the envelope containing the fateful word "London" immensely valuable.

It is only when you see them catalogued that you realise quite how many electoral reverses French candidates have suffered in the Olympic world in the intervening period.

Not for nothing does de Rendinger observe at one point that "the world of sport gave the impression it was evolving without France".

Armand de Rendinger's book chronicles France's recent Olympic bids, and ultimate lack of success therein, before looking ahead ©La tentaton olympique française



But, if the disappointment of 2005 led to a sort of rupture, it cut both ways.

The book also flags up what it terms "an absence of will to capitalise intelligently at least on the 50 IOC members who had voted for France". [London won the decisive vote 54-50.]

This opportunity has now been lost, since more than 40 percent of current IOC members have been elected since Singapore.

If it is to win the Games again, then even the city that gave them birth in their modern form must learn that it is no longer sufficient merely to court the IOC when it wants something.

In this context, Paris's loss to Lausanne of the headquarters of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) must be seen as a real setback: the regular influx of key Olympic decision-makers that the presence of the HQ ensured has instead, since 2010, shifted to Switzerland.

What is sure, as we wait for the full list of 2024 runners and riders to assemble, is that France is in dire need of something to jolt it out of the morosity that has the far right National Front riding high in the opinion polls.

Could an Olympic bid provide that spark?

Well, the good news is that the French sports establishment does at last seem to have achieved a state of mind where it is ready to try to learn the lessons of past defeats.

French President François Hollande, right, pictured with IOC President Thomas Bach, is among those to have indicated support for a fresh Parisian attempt for the 2024 Games ©Présidence de la République/L Blevennec



The bad news is that it has taken so long to get over Singapore that France is in a position where, if it does launch a bid for 2024, it may find itself attempting to implement important structural reforms in mid-campaign.

De Rendinger believes that measures are needed to strengthen the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF) by getting away from the age-old French concept of sport as a public service, much like education or national security.

The reforms successfully conducted in Germany, under the leadership of a certain Thomas Bach, now IOC President, could, he thinks, serve as a model.

"Without a strong CNOSF," he argues, "it is difficult to be able to make one's mark in the international competition countries participate in to obtain the Games."

De Rendinger also writes about what he describes as "the imperious necessity of having a commando-type, agile team".

This, I felt, was a big lesson from the 2016 race, which Rio won partly because it could draw on the presence of a charismatic national leader who was at once fully immersed in the campaign and ready to listen to - and act on - the advice of trusted specialists.

As of today, this is probably my biggest doubt about France's ability to wage a campaign strong enough to worry the Americans who are set to begin the race as favourites: I have yet to detect any sign whatsoever that a country inured to Government by hierarchical elite is ready to sanction a bid team with the necessary level of autonomy.

Paris 2024 would seek to learn much from recent bidding contests, including from Paris's defeat to London in the race for 2012 ©AFP/Getty Images



Ultimately, though, ready or not, it is probably sensible for France to press ahead with a bid, if, that is, the country aspires for Paris to host its third Summer Games within the next quarter century or so.

For one thing, it would look pretty foolish if it sat out the 2024 contest on the assumption that the USA would win only for the spoils to go to a European rival.

That would leave little chance of a Paris Games before 2036.

Or, to look at it another way, what do you suppose would have happened if, instead of sulking, France had quickly absorbed its lessons from 2005, maintained strong contacts with the IOC and run hard for 2020?

Knowing what we know now, there is every chance a strong Paris bid would have won.

As for the rather farcical 2022 Winter Games contest, had it entered that (with a better bid than the botched Annecy 2018 campaign), France could have banked a large fund of IOC goodwill that would have been of enormous benefit to a future Summer Olympic bid.

Towards the end of his thought-provoking and informative book, de Rendinger quotes Madame de Staël, a woman of letters of the Napoleonic era.

"Conquest," she wrote, "is a contingency ["un hasard"] that depends more on the faults of the vanquished than the genius of the victor."

That amounts to a neat summation of the 2020 race; it may yet apply to the 2024 contest as well.

It was Mahatma Gandhi who famously said, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world". Whether forceful like a tidal wave or incrementally like a glacier, change is always hard. The hardest part is accepting that you need to change, harder still when you are a group of more than one hundred independent strong-minded members from around the world all needing to be of one mind.   .

But together the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members came together with one mind - they understood that the world has changed and that we have to continue to change with it. They agreed to a man and woman to support the forty recommendations of Olympic Agenda 2020 that will change our organisation and Olympic sport and make it fit for the future.

But why now? For me this is an easy answer. The Olympic Movement has rarely been stronger. We have had two exceptional Games in 2012 and 2014. We enjoy financial stability and redistribute more than 90 per cent of our revenues to sport and to the athletes - that is over $3 million (£2 million/€2.5 million) every single day going to support worldwide sport. Being strong and in good health is important to any change programme. The world is changing faster than ever so we need to be in the driving seat rather than sitting in the back being driven by others.

Agenda 2020, adopted by the IOC last month at its Session in Monte Carlo, will help the Olympic Movement keep pace with what people want ©Getty Images

The world is more fragile, fragmented and individualised than ever. Our messages of tolerance, solidarity, friendship and peace are more important today than ever before. But if we want to strengthen the relevance of our Olympic Message people have to hear that message, they have to understand what we are endeavoring to do and they have to believe in our integrity to deliver.

Christopher Davidge, the triple Olympic rower and former British Chef de Mission who died three days before Christmas aged 85, was a remarkable man. As I learned three years ago when I made what was - for me at least - a memorable visit to interview this athlete-turned-administrator who had been involved in an extraordinary series of important sporting moments.

Like many of his forbears, Christopher Guy Vere Davidge was a lawyer, educated at Eton College and Oxford University. As he stood in the wide doorway of his family home, a handsome Georgian house in Little Houghton, near Northampton, his form was a little stooped but still clearly recognisable as that of the man who was known during his competitive days as a stroke of monumental power and determination. His outstretched hand was huge; his eyes, above high cheekbones, piercingly blue.

Davidge was involved in the Olympics over 36 years. He started as a rower at the 1952 Helsinki Games and signed off at Seoul 1988, where he was chairman of the Regattas Commission for the sport's world governing body, FISA.  "I suppose my experience has been pretty unique," he admitted.

Christopher Davidge (third rower on the right) and his Oxford University crew-mates prepare to launch in the 1951 Boat Race, where they sank in rough water ©Popperfoto/Getty Images

Davidge's experiences in three Boat Races served as a keynote for his subsequent sporting career; all were dramatic.

By the time of the 1949 Boat Race he was established at stroke in the Oxford boat which lost to Cambridge University by a quarter of a length - one "dead heat" apart, the closest margin in the history of the event until the 2003 Boat Race.

Elected President of Oxford University Boat Club the next year, Davidge was unable to row because of jaundice. Unusually, he was re-elected in 1951, and sat in the Oxford boat that sank in rough weather shortly after the start of that year's race, before suffering a heavy defeat in the re-run on the following Monday.

The 1952 Boat Race, in which Davidge was again at stroke, saw Oxford win by six feet. This was the famous contest rowed in a snowstorm during which the BBC radio commentator John Snagge made his classic, despairing comment: "I don't know who's in the lead...it's either Oxford or Cambridge!"

That year's Olympics, in Helsinki, offered Davidge another claim to fame as he secured a place in the team rowing in the pair with his old school team-mate David Callender.

"We were up against experienced international pairs - we hadn't raced internationally at all - and we weren't really quite up to it," he recalled. "As with everybody else, we came fourth. But it was a great achievement to get to the Olympics."

Christopher Davidge (right) pictured at Henley in 1958 preparing for that year's British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Four years later Davidge was in the Leander eight involved in a three-race series against a composite Amateur Rowing Association crew to determine Olympic selection for the Melbourne Games of 1956. He described the process as "an absolute farce". 

After beating the composite crew in the first two races, Leander lost the last one after the selectors had swapped two crew members round, placing at number two a rower Davidge characterised with a grim smile as "a boat-stopper". 

"The selectors, who were three fairly elderly gentlemen, had got the result they wanted," Davidge said. "Because for some reason or other they didn't like us."

But when the selected crew performed badly at the European Championships, a new composite was put together for the forthcoming Games in Australia - including Davidge.

"It still wasn't a good eight, but we were much better than the one which had gone to the European Championships," Davidge said. "We didn't do very well but we weren't a complete disgrace."

The rowing was at Ballarat - about 80 miles from Melbourne. "We got there thinking we were going out to a lovely Australian summer," Davidge recalled. "Like hell. It was as cold as blazes. There was no heating and we were in Army barracks. The first thing our team had to do was to go and buy a whole load of electric fires."

The United States eight after winning Olympic gold at Ballarat during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics ©Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

The 1960 Rome Olympics offered Davidge the prospect of a tangible reward. But fate was to decree otherwise. Davidge, John Vigurs, Colin Porter and Mike Beresford were in a coxless four that had reached the final in style. But on the morning of the big race Beresford turned out to have suffered a recurrence of malaria overnight. He was deemed able to row - just.

"We were not going to win, but I felt we would definitely have won a silver medal if Mike had not gone sick," Davidge remembered. "That was really disappointing. Because as far as I was concerned it was going to be our last Olympics, as we were already in our thirties by then. With Mike being at bow there was the question of keeping the boat straight. We had to sort of nurse him through, and we finished fifth."

Davidge resumed his active Olympic career at Mexico 1968, where he was rowing team manager. The shooting of hundreds of students by police in Mexico City during protests against the Government provided a shocking background in the lead-up to the Games.

"I knew all about it, as I was working closely with the general team HQ," he recalled. "We were most anxious that news of this didn't get back to England as we had some young competitors in the team and we were very concerned that parents might get the wind up. Because it was very nasty indeed - something like 300 students were shot dead, and the tanks were out.

"So all the team were very closely confined to barracks. The buses all had armed troops on them. There was no question of any members of the team going out into the city, which was very sad really. The team members began to smell a rat, but we were anxious not to tell them what was going on."

Four years later Davidge had another set of shocking circumstances to deal with when he was the British team's Deputy Chef de Mission at the Munich Olympics, at which members of the Israeli team were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.

"Everybody was thoroughly shaken," Davidge said. "The immediate worry was that the Games might be stopped, but that discussion was at a higher level from me."

By the time the Olympics reached Montreal, in 1976, Davidge was Chef de Mission of the British team, leading them out in the Opening Ceremony. This time around, the chief difficulty before the Games lay in the demand issued by 17 African countries that New Zealand - whose rugby players had recently played against apartheid South Africa - should withdraw or risk an African boycott.

Davidge explained how the New Zealand Chef de Mission had come to him for advice in the days preceding the Opening Ceremony in Montreal.

"I said: 'You do not under any circumstances agree to withdraw. Rugby football is not part of the Olympic Games. Therefore there is no reason whatsoever why the Olympic team should be crucified, as it were. You stand firm.'"

New Zealand did stand firm - something for which John Walker, who won the 1500 metres gold, was particularly grateful. And Kenya and 16 other African nations ended up boycotting the Games in protest...

John Walker wins the Olympic 1500m gold at Montreal 1976 after the British Chef de Mission had persuaded his New Zealand counterpart not to withdraw from the Games despite the threat of an African boycott ©Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

In 1980, Margaret Thatcher's Government sought to bolster Britain's "special relationship" with the United States by calling on Britain's Olympic athletes to join the US boycott of the Moscow Games following Russia's invasion of Afghanistan.

Davidge, as President of the Amateur Rowing Association, was given a mandate by his Council to stand up for rowers wishing to attend those Olympics.

He was summoned to the Foreign Office to account for himself and his sport to the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington. Shortly before he did so Carrington's Parliamentary Private Secretary, Douglas Hurd - with whom Davidge had been at Eton - came into the waiting room for an informal chat.

"I said, 'I hope I'm not going to get into too much hot water, but I'm not complying,'" Davidge recalled. "I put my case to him and he said, 'Good luck, have a go.'

"Anyway, I was duly ushered in to see the Foreign Secretary. My case was quite simply this: 'If you, the British Government, will stop trading with Russia, we will support you. But we, as sportsmen, are not prepared to be used as the whip for protest.'

"He was very gentlemanly about it. He said, 'I quite understand your position. But we must agree to disagree.'

"It was a meeting I shall never forget. Because they were trying to pick us off sport-by-sport, and we were an obvious first target."

Lord Carrington, Britain's Foreign Secretary, pictured in office in 1980, the year his efforts to get Christopher Davidge, then President of the Amateur Rowing Association, to sign up to Margaret Thatcher's plan to boycott the Moscow Games were genteelly rebuffed
©Getty Images

Davidge was to attend two more Olympics in his FISA role - Los Angeles in 1984 and then Seoul in 1988. He vividly recalls his experience on the final day of racing in 1984, when the rowing got underway at Lake Casitas in thick mist. Davidge, in the launch which followed the crews, was able to witness Steve Redgrave win the first of his five Olympic golds in the coxed four.

"I was the only Englishman who actually saw them row the race and win, because the spectators could hardly see anything from the bank," he said with a smile. For Davidge, it was a unique distinction in what was a unique Olympic career.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. To follow him on Twitter click here.

As Qatar draws breath following the conclusion of the International Swimming Association (FINA) World Swimming Championships in Doha earlier this month, I have been reflecting on how far our nation has progressed in 2014 towards achieving our vision of becoming a leader in bringing the world together through sustainable sport development.

It is boom-time for boxing again. Few sports have experienced such a huge surge in popularity, both in participation and numbers of spectators packing venues from small provincial halls to stadiums including Wembley, London's O2 and ExCeL, as well as those in Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast and Glasgow.

Virtually every major show promoted in 2014 has been a sell-out. Some football clubs in the lower leagues - and certainly in Scotland - must be envious of the gates boxing attracts even in the smaller venues.

And according to the agencies, the return between Carl Froch and George Groves, which attracted 80,000 to Wembley in May, was the hottest sporting ticket in town in 2014.

Boxing has fought its way back off the ropes and is now one of sport's biggest hitters again, here in Great Britain and overseas.

The promoter Frank Warren points out that it is connecting with a new, younger audience.

Following his side's disappointing English Premier League draw with Southampton yesterday, Chelsea manager José Mourinho came out with one of his more outrageous post-match comments. Namely that his side were the victims of a concerted discriminatory agenda by a consortium of meddling figures.

"There is a campaign against Chelsea. I don't know why there is this campaign and I do not care," he said, with typical bluntness. "The media, commentators, other managers are all doing it [putting pressure on referees]."

This followed a penalty-area incident involving Chelsea's star midfielder Cesc Fàbregas. Instead of receiving a penalty after a heavy tackle, the Spaniard was instead shown a yellow-card for diving by referee Anthony Taylor.

Although the decision did not seem immediately obvious, replays subsequently proved Fàbregas had been tripped and should have received a penalty. The decision to punish him for simulation was both wrong and unfair. But neither is this evidence of a campaign against the Premier League leaders. In recent weeks, there have been two incidents of Chelsea players - defenders Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic - each getting away with what was widely considered to be an outrageous dive. At the same time, Mourinho has also criticised rivals for daring to question the decisions of officials.

Like every other team, Chelsea have received some bad decisions in recent weeks, but they have also benefited from some fortuitous ones. The referees are not perfect, but neither, in most countries at least, are they deliberately biased, and over the course of a season these decisions generally balance out.

José Mourinho was furious after a decision went against his Chelsea team ©Getty Images



But I don't think Mourinho himself seriously believes there is a really a campaign. His outburst was more a clever attempt to get into the minds of referees, opponents and everybody else, to take the pressure off his players and attempt to manipulate future decisions in his favour.

In short, he was continuing a longstanding sporting tradition of playing mind games.

One of the best known exponents of mind games in football management was former Manchester United boss, Sir Alex Ferguson, a man Mourinho has long sought to emulate in the managerial stakes. It was always said that the nagging fear of invoking Sir Alex's wrath helped decisions go in the home side's favour at Old Trafford, while a new concept -"Fergie-time" - emerged due to the manager's relentless pursuit of stoppage time, whenever his team was trailing...

The best example of Sir Alex's mind games came in 1995/96, when after claiming other teams did not try as hard against title rivals Newcastle United as they did against his side, Newcastle boss, and future England manager, Kevin Keegan, finally cracked.

"I'll tell you, honestly, I will love it if we beat them - love it," a furious Keegan proclaimed. But unfortunately for him, Sir Alex had successfully got him rattled and Manchester United went on to win the title despite trailing by 12 points at one stage.

Kevin Keegan lost out in the battle of the mind games to managerial great Sir Alex Ferguson ©Getty Images



Similar games are at work all over the pitch in football, from the fans trying to put off the opposition goalkeeper with relentless catcalls, to players actually diving in order to win a penalty.

On Boxing Day, I watched my local team Forest Green Rovers - a Vanorama Conference side in the fifth tier of English football best known for a ban on all meat products inside the ground introduced for environmental reasons several years ago - lose an entertaining clash 3-2 to mid-table rivals, Kidderminster Harriers.

Having not watched lower league football for a while, I was impressed by the absence of all the histrionics you see on a weekly basis at higher levels. There was no diving, no waving imaginary cards at the referee, and no rolling around on the floor for five minutes only to recover instantly after the slightest whiff of a substitution. Instead, there were plenty of strong, tough players with little skill or footballing intelligence, leading to plenty of mistimed tackles, some calamitous defending and a couple of moments when a full-scale fight seemed to have been narrowly avoided. In short, an entertaining match. 

But, when I thought about it, in a strange way, I concluded that one reason why these players were not at a higher level was because they were lacking that bit of mental nous and ingenuity. Just as they wouldn't have been able to implement a pass with the intricacy of a Chelsea of Manchester United player, they would not have been able to trick the referee into a dive had they wanted to.

And that brings us back to an age-old question: if a player successfully cons the referee into awarded a match-winning penalty in order to effectively do their job and earn their team three points, should they be criticised? Do footballers have a higher-purpose than to win by any means possible?

Similar mind games exist across a myriad of other sports. In cricket, fans around the world have been experiencing the uncomfortable sensation of feeling sympathy for Australia following the tragic death of batsman Philip Hughes after being hit on the head by a bouncer last month.