Uefa are making it up as they go along by allowing France into a qualification group despite already having a free pass

The problem for Michel Platini is that he appears to suffer what you might consider an unfortunate flaw for someone in his position. Every time he says he has a new idea the first reaction is to wince inside and wonder whether Uefa’s president has the clear intention of becoming the biggest bug on football’s manure pile.

The latest is another belter given that it means France, the team he used to grace, are to be shoehorned into next month’s Euro 2016 qualifying draw, regardless of the fact it is actually their own tournament and they get a free pass come what may.

Let’s walk through that one again. France will be included in the qualifying stages in a competition for which they qualify automatically. They will play all the games, it is just there will be no points at the end of them, and there will be an asterisk by their name that might as well say: ignore.

France were worried apparently that it might not be easy organising worthwhile friendlies in the buildup to the tournament. Platini has helped out and the new plan – with the official title of “centralised friendlies” – will be ticked off this week in Nyon.

Perhaps we should be getting used to it by now, this sense that they are making it up as they go along. At the same meeting, Uefa’s bigwigs are expected to discuss another of their recent brainwaves, namely replacing international friendlies from 2018 with a competition called the Nations League, featuring nine different divisions, with relegation and promotion and prize money for the ultimate champions.

In fairness, at least that shows the basis of an understanding at the highest level that something needs to be done to revive interest in international football outside of the major competitions. Yet there is a delicious irony that it is actually Uefa themselves, by taking a sledgehammer to the usual European Championship format, whose fingerprints will be all over the next stage of deterioration.

The draw takes place in Nice on 23 February and, put bluntly, it is going to be the most boring qualification process in the history of the sport. France’s involvement means there will be nine groups of six and the top two from each will qualify in line with the tournament’s expansion from 16 to 24 teams, rather than just the one-team rule that made England’s World Cup qualification a test of both endurance and nerve.

The third-placed team with the best record will also go through, though it is not exactly clear how that will work in France’s group bearing in mind that the host nation’s results do not count. The other eight teams in third position will go into the play-offs and that effectively makes a lot of the key matches the third-versus-fourth encounters.

To go back to Euro 2012, that would have meant the crunch fixtures included Armenia-Slovakia, Serbia-Slovenia, Romania-Belarus and Israel-Latvia. Under the same format, England’s defeat to Croatia in 2008 would have meant a playoff and another chance for Steve McClaren to save his job. The new system is geared so much towards preserving the big football nations, tedium will quickly follow. The chances one could drop out will all but vanish, replaced by a plodding sense of inevitability. Roll up, roll up for 18 months of drudgery.

Uefa seem blissfully unaware about all of this and have arranged for the qualifiers to be played under a Week of Football format, with games running every day from Thursday to Tuesday. The idea is that there can be more live coverage on television rather than all the matches happening on the same night and, no doubt, Uefa think the public will embrace it. In reality, it is trying to put a gold cap on a tooth that needs pulling. More and more of these games are going to lose their competitive edge. Saturation coverage will become a turn-off.

Just consider the numbers. With 54 teams taking part, there will be a 43.4% chance of qualification once France are removed from the equation. Yet it will actually be considerably higher than that for any half-decent side bearing in mind there are at least a dozen nations who could have a black marker pen put through their names straight away. Take the Faroe Islands, Lichtenstein, Gibraltar, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Georgia, Lithuania and Moldova out of it, and there will be 41 teams competing for 23 places. The seeding system will help to ensure several Groups of Dearth.

A more legitimate debate could be had about raising the standard of tournament qualification, possibly bringing in a pre-qualifying process to avoid the non-contests that regularly occur against, say, San Marino, joint last on Fifa’s global rankings, with 118 defeats from 124 games, 525 goals conceded and the grand total of 20 scored since they started playing international football in 1990. San Marino are approaching the 10th anniversary of their one and only win in almost a quarter of a century, a 1-0 defeat of Lichtenstein at the Stadio Olimpico in Serravalle, a stadium most notable for having a pine forest behind both goals.

As it is, Uefa have successfully ensured that the qualifying draw will simply be setting up the mundane anyway. As for the actual competition, the beauty of previous European Championships is its slick format, without having a clunky group stage, and there was absolutely nothing about the last event in Poland and Ukraine to suggest that fleshing it out would be an improvement. Now, there will be 51 games rather than 31, and only eight of the 24 teams will be eliminated after the group stage. Even the Uefa general secretary, Gianni Infantino, has described it as “not ideal,” but that is an understatement when four of the third‑placed teams, from six groups of four, will still go into the first knockout round.

Back at Uefa headquarters, Platini will no doubt continue coming up with ways to repair a sport in which a lot of the damage is being caused by, well, Uefa. What a shame that somewhere along the line he stopped dealing in common sense. Not the biggest bug on the pile, perhaps, but one of them certainly, and all a grave disappointment given the intelligence he once showed within the perimeters of the football pitch.

Change of mind over Mata a reaction to pressure

Juan Mata is a footballer of such exquisite gifts that it can feel slightly strange to suspect he is bordering on a panic acquisition on Manchester United’s part. The best I can do, however, is say that something has drastically changed at Old Trafford given that the club had been saying all season, including the first part of this transfer window, that they had no interest in any player who fundamentally did his best work in the No10 role.

David Moyes has cited exactly this when asked several times about Mata and, by his own admission, it was also the reason he was unenthused about challenging Arsenal for Mesut Özil once it became clear Real Madrid were willing to do business in the previous window.

The priority, Moyes always maintained, was another left-back and a classic central midfielder, and that precise message was repeated behind the scenes little more than a week ago.

All sorts of theories can be bandied about to explain the sudden volte-face, but the truth is simply that United came under crashing pressure to act. Shinji Kagawa has spent too long sporadically decorating matches, rather than dominating them. Wayne Rooney’s position is waiting to be confirmed and Robin van Persie’s recurring injury issues are another factor. If Van Persie, at 30, cannot be relied upon to appear regularly, Mata would slip seamlessly into a side that has Rooney playing further forward.

Adnan Januzaj has played with great distinction but Bryan Robson made a good point when he said it was unfair that a club of United’s ambitions had suddenly become so reliant on an 18-year-old in his breakthrough season. Mata should alleviate that and will plainly be a central figure in United’s plans to re-establish themselves as credible title challengers during the next campaign. The Spaniard’s arrival brings a new sense of hope to a club sorely in need of a lift. A player of his grace and ability will have the effects of balm, and it is not entirely easy understanding why Chelsea have let it happen, in complete contrast to United’s position with Rooney.

As for Januzaj, at least the last week has cleared something up. Marc Wilmots, Belgium’s manager, was at Old Trafford to watch his latest performance. Gianni De Biasi, Albania’s coach, has said it is easier to speak to the Pope than get to Januzaj but will carry on trying to bring him on board. Roy Hodgson is on the edges, too, and suddenly the question of Januzaj’s nationality becomes a little clearer. That penalty against Sunderland. English DNA.

Osvaldo’s previous a warning to Saints

It was a game between Roma and Udinese, in November 2011, when Dani Osvaldo took exception to his team-mate, Erik Lamela, not playing him the ball exactly as he wanted it. An argument that began on the pitch flared up again in the dressing room and that was the moment Osvaldo punched his colleague in the face. “Nothing personal,” as he said afterwards.

Roma suspended him for 10 days and their general manager at the time, Franco Baldini, said the player would be fined the maximum allowed. “What happened was a complete lack of respect from Osvaldo towards one of his team-mates,” he said.

Fast-forward to the spilling of blood between Osvaldo and José Fonte at Southampton’s training ground last Wednesday. Southampton can hardly claim their £15m record signing did not have previous.

• Euro 2016 qualifiers
• Michel Platini
• Uefa

Daniel Taylor

theguardian.com