Last night’s Champions’ League final saw some of the best football this year. It flowed, the passing and the tactics were clever and the goals were a spectacular display of individual skill and talent. Barcelona clearly deserved to win playing some superb attractive attacking football. In Amman I saw lots of Barcelona flags and a few for Manchester United. I hope everyone enjoyed the match.
It is a bit corny to say that football unites the world, but last night’s final was probably the biggest sporting event of the year and had an audience of millions of people all round the world. Despite the shenanigans and corruption scandals at the top of FIFA, ordinary people love to watch the game. And the feeling that they belong to a group of fans who support their team through thick and thin is perhaps the closest many countries, including Britain, get to tribalism. As the revered former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly once said: “Football’s not a matter of life or death….it’s far more important than that.”
The final also showed Wembley, the UK’s major football stadium as a national temple of football, a place where many triumphs and defeats have been played out. Like last month’s Royal Wedding, it showed Britain’s ability to organise a major event on the world stage and do it well. This organisational ability will be fully tested next summer when London hosts the Olympics and Paralympic Games. Preparations are well advanced. And London is concentrating hard on ensuring that these Olympics secure a lasting legacy both for London – in terms of regenerating a deprived part of the city, and for the world – in terms of making sport available to everyone.
Here in Jordan we are working with the Jordanian Olympic Committee to use the 2012 Olympics to spread that legacy among young people in all parts of the country. One year before the games start, on 29 July we will be bringing school children to the Embassy for a major event to highlight the 2012 Games and to emphasise the importance of sport in the life of the nation. I’ll tell you more about this event in the coming weeks.