Dull, dull, dull as Ghana tops Brazil to win FIFA Under-20 World Cup

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Having just spent -- wasted? -- more than three hours watching Ghana and Brazil go through the motions in the final of the FIFA Under-20 World Cup in Egypt, I can draw only one conclusion:

If club teams around the world refuse to release their best young players to take part in such tournaments and if toothless FIFA is incapable or unwilling to do anything about it, then why bother?

The teams that took the field at the International Stadium in Cairo contained not a single player worth the price of admission. Not one. Small wonder that it ended 0-0 after 120 tedious minutes before Ghana prevailed in the penalty shootout, 4-3.

That is not to take away from the players’ resolve, their determination, their hard work. But the crowd of 67,814 was not treated to a single bit of extraordinary skill. There wasn’t a Lionel Messi anywhere in sight. Nor a Diego Maradona, a Robert Prosinecki, an Adriano or any other future star.

‘It should be an obligation to free players for this competition,’ Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter, FIFA’s president, said before the final. But unless Blatter and his cronies on the FIFA executive committee make it an obligation, clubs will continue to thumb their noses at the competition and at world soccer’s governing body.

For the record, Hungary took third place in the tournament, edging Costa Rica, 2-0 on penalty kicks after a 1-1 tie.

The next Under-20 World Cup takes place in Colombia in 2011, but it is not too early to say that unless FIFA changes the rules and insists on clubs releasing eligible players, who cares?

-- Grahame L. Jones