Day two of the saw a packed schedule of talks throughout Manchester Central. was again a major talking point, but discussions ranged across the breadth of the industry. After Sepp Blatter’s virtual appearance on day one of the conference, it was the turn of some of ‘s vice presidents to have their say on day two. Concacaf president Jeffrey Webb was first up in the morning, telling David Davies that had not properly communicated its good work, and allowed the organisation to become shrouded in the misdeeds of a few, now absent, members. “I do believe that has some huge challenges and definitely its image and perception, that is definitely perhaps the number one challenge,” he said. His thoughts were echoed by Belgium’s long-serving Michel D’Hooghe in the afternoon. D’Hooghe was joined by two relatively new members of the executive committee – Northern Ireland’s Jim Boyce and Australia’s Moya Dodd. Boyce pointed out the turnover in ExCo members since the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups ended four years ago. All three agreed on the need for to keep pressing on with reforms. Dodd suggested that it was “inevitable” a generation of women interested in football – and unused to exclusion from corporate structures – would soon have a greater role in running the game. Boyce, who steps down next year at the age of 71, underlined his preference for term and age limits for officials, but accepted the Congress decision to reject those proposals. D’Hooghe, who heads ‘s medical commission, also revealed a new set of recommendations for players suffering a suspected concussion. Where such cases arise, he said, play should be stopped for three minutes with only the team doctor allowing a player to continue. has been publishing papers on concussion, he revealed, since 2003, but the lack of hard and fast rules on the issue had been down to the relative rarity of incidence compared to sports like American football. Boyce, who advises the refereeing commission, spoke of his preference for a system in which a fourth official can alert the on-field referee to incidents he has seen on video, rather than the referrals procedure discussed by Sepp Blatter. Boyce and D’Hooghe agreed, however, that the flow of the game and accuracy of decisions were the fundamental issues. Finally, the members held few fears for the future of the organisation, even with debates over the regional balance of power set to open up next year. D’Hooghe quoted his Papua New Guinean neighbour with a colourful call for unity: “We live under the same heaven but we don’t look at the same horizons. ”
Boyce, more prosaically, said the summer’s World Cup had shown and the global game what was at stake. <span style="line-height: 1. Zur berechnung des oberflächeninhalts und des volumens reicht daher zum beispiel die angabe der länge der hilfreiche Ressourcen körperkante des würfels. 5;”>
Elsewhere, Nasser Al Khater, the media and communications director for the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy for the Qatar 2022 World Cup, was on hand to give an update on the organisers’ work. Yet while Al Khater impressed, backed by another slick and effective video preview of an imagined Qatari World Cup, there was a sense he could only cover old ground while the big questions remained unanswered elsewhere. “I’ve said it so many times I feel like the message isn’t coming across,” he replied in response to a question on cooling technologies, which were trialled for fan zones and training areas this summer, but their true value will be unclear until ‘s World Cup task force decides later in the year on a likely date for the tournament. “We have always been confident of our position,” said Al Khater on the subject of Michael Garcia’s bid report. Al Khater admitted that for all his preparation he has been surprised by the “level and degree” of scrutiny associated with hosting the tournament, but that “the celebration will be 100 times sweeter” after an event which could “change perceptions” for visitors to the Middle East. managing director Barney Francis and Robert Bridge, the vice president of international marketing at Yahoo, were both on hand to give Henry Winter a sense of just how much the digital revolution has changed sports media. Yahoo doubled its page impressions between the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, going up to 2. 1 billion over the course of this summer’s tournament. As for , over 12 per cent of its Monday Night Football audience is now watching online or on a mobile device, while 67 per cent of its traffic on transfer deadline day comes from anxious mobile users. Francis revealed that the pace of social media had affected the way the revamped studio was conceived, with a social team embedded into the news team to avoid “being beaten to a story by fans”. In Studio 2, both Richard Nightingale of Postano and FC Barcelona head of partnerships Miguel Bertran gave a sense of digital strategies as building on practices that were already there. Nightingale presented the fan experience as being one of being part of an environment – either growing up in one or choosing to explore it with friends – and said that social and digital media were a chance to deepen that feeling. Where he used to work with major brands, he added, those are now his clients. Bertran, meanwhile, said that digital strategies were being used to communicate the same values the club had always had, but with greater regional flexibility. Digital, he said, had also made things cheaper – both for the club and for supporters, who might spend £1 on an app rather than £10 on a piece of merchandise. Monetising social media, however, remains an elusive concept. On a day when club were told they risked relegation if they failed to pay a fine for breaching Financial Fair Play rules while playing in the , financial management was up for discussion in Studio 2. Brendan Guilfoyle, a soccer finance specialist, and lawyer James Powell told their audience to expect more professionalism “with a small ‘p'” in financial matters. Guilfoyle suggested smaller clubs’ more diligent approach to paying tax before their bills became unaffordable had lessened the rate of administration, with Powell noting that major investors such as private equity firms would be likelier to become involved in soccer with further evidence of tightened financial controls. To read more about day one at , visit by.