Governing Bodies
AMAZING! SOUTH AFRICAN AND TURKISH CONVERT ENGLAND’S 1966 WORLD CUP WIN FROM BLACK & WHITE TO FULL COLOUR
For the first time, England’s only World Cup success can now be viewed in full colour.
With the iconic images of red shirts and a golden trophy glinting in the sun it is easy to be fooled into thinking you have seen England’s finest two hours in all its glorious colour when you haven’t.
There is no complete footage of the 1966 World Cup final known to exist other than the black-and-white film broadcast to the nation at the time.
But now England’s World Cup heroics of 1966 are to be immortalised in glorious colour.
The black and white footage of the entire 90 minutes plus extra time will be restored and colourised by the team behind the acclaimed First World War film ‘They Shall Not Grow Old.’
There certainly was a full colour film before, because a talented and eclectic team of filmmakers captured the game against West Germany in glorious technicolour and created a BAFTA award-winning documentary.
Goal! navigates the thrills and spills of the tournament: the pain of Pele, Italy’s demise at the hands of North Korea, the goals of Eusebio and its finale at Wembley Stadium.
It proved a hit in cinemas around the world and was produced by Octavio Senoret, an actor turned producer responsible for the official World Cup film in 1962 when his native Chile hosted the tournament.
He paid FIFA £15,000 for the rights to do it again four years later, inspired by Kon Ichikawa’s acclaimed Tokyo Olympiad, a colour film made for cinema to document the Olympic Games of 1964.
Senoret envisaged a cinematic masterpiece. He recruited as directors Abidin Dino, a Turkish artist and political dissident living in Paris, and Ross Devenish, a South African filmmaker living in London.
‘We wanted to go beyond just a straight account,’ 80-year-old Devenish tells Sportsmail from his home in Cape Town. ‘Beyond just a news report, to something that lasted. Octavio wanted to do for football what Ichikawa had done for the Olympics.
‘He saw the opportunity to do what television companies could not, liberating the world from gloomy black-and-white and see the World Cup for what it was, in Technicolour and in Vistavision, a wide-screen system, not a simple grey smudge of shadows.
‘As our film would be shown in cinemas, long after the event, we could not simply repeat what people had already seen. We had to go in another direction. What we could do was show the detail, taking the viewer within the experience, rather than having a bird’s eye view of the battle.’
New technology enabled Devenish and Dino to get in close and concentrate on the emotions of the players such as Pele and his injury against Portugal.
‘Watching the destruction of a legend, the departure of a warrior was a major moment,’ recalls Devenish. ‘We saw Pele’s slow exit, heightened by the effects.
‘Another good example is Eusebio. He was poetry in motion and we focused on him, helped by the facility we had to shoot the last few games in slow motion.
‘We could observe the mind behind the face. It was a homage to his stature as a player, and those of his calibre. The clarity of 35mm is much greater than 16mm so the material was amazing.
‘The other player who carved his own way into the film was Bobby Charlton with his few strands of hair flying untidily about and was a real star.
‘It’s fair to say Goal! changed the manner in which TV now cover games.’
Using 117 cameras, they shot 46 hours of footage on 35mm film, with high-speed cameras recording at 24 frames per second, amounting to more than 23 miles of film.
‘Apart from being expensive, you needed a lot of space to store the film,’ says Devenish. ‘We had to be conservative about exposing the film stock in earlier games. It was important to shoot only the crucial moments and cameramen had to pre-empt them.’
At Wembley, some cameras were low, others high to cover the action and the goalmouths. One camera was used solely to capture the emotions of the crowd.
‘Extra-time was particularly nail-biting,’ says Devenish. ‘Cameramen had been allocated film on the assumption it would be 90 minutes and, as the game went further into extra time, extra stock had to be rushed out.
‘I could feel the tension of the crew about whether we would run out, and the atmosphere in the stadium was overwhelming. The team I was filming with was behind one goal and we filmed the controversial third goal.
‘It was as if it had been scripted by a master. I am not really a sport fan but I love drama, and I appreciate the tension and excitement involved in a football match. I have never before or since experienced the intensity of feeling that reached me in that arena.
‘It was certainly much more than a game. Feelings were still intense even though the war had ended some 20 years before. My tension was enhanced by the potential disaster we faced if we had no film to cover the end.
‘I felt euphoric when it came to an end. That was how the English supporters felt as well. A national eruption of joy and our high-speed cameras were able to capture the elation.’
Goal! was edited at Samuelson’s studios in Cricklewood. The drama of the final was distilled into 20 minutes at the end of the feature. Distributed by Columbia, it proved a global hit and won a BAFTA award for best documentary.
He never crossed paths again with Senoret, who reportedly killed himself in Los Angeles in 1990.
‘Octavio was handsome and polite, and perhaps a little aloof,’ recalls Devenish. ‘I always felt closer to his friend Abidin, who was an artist: a painter, a writer and a wonderful storyteller.’
Dino died in Paris in 1993 at the age of 80. As for the original colour film of the final, any that did not make the cut was probably destroyed to reclaim the valuable silver nitrate it contained.
‘Apart from the vast warehouses needed to store the film, the accountants would not have liked to see all that silver nitrate go to waste,’ says Devenish. ‘We were the only ones ever filming in colour. The games on television were only seen in black and white and when we see a colour clip today it is probably one of ours.’
Efforts to track down the original failed. The team from Final Replay ’66, the hit watch-along repeat of the final with Sir Geoff Hurst and Glenn Hoddle, screened this year, spent six months scouring the globe for it.
The search led them from the FA, the National Football Museum, the BBC, ITV, Pathe and the British Film Institute to the FIFA vaults in Switzerland, the German FA, and across the Atlantic to New York and Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles.
No-one could explain for the whereabouts of the colour film until they reached South Africa and found Devenish. They have concluded it is lost forever. Devenish’s theory about the recycling operation is probably accurate.
Yet the wonders of modern technology are about to restore and remaster England’s finest two hours. Once again, those heroes of 1966 will be conquering the world in glorious technicolour.
Kirsty Coventry became the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the most powerful person in sport, on Monday in a handover ceremony with her predecessor Thomas Bach.
The Zimbabwean is the first woman and African to head the body, and at 41, the youngest since Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who is credited with founding the modern-day Olympics.
Coventry accepted the Olympic key from Bach, who, like her, is an Olympic champion — he won a team fencing gold in 1976 and she earned two swimming golds in 2004 and 2008.
Stepping down after a turbulent 12-year tenure, Bach expressed his confidence that the Olympic movement was “in the best of hands” and Coventry would bring “conviction, integrity and a dynamic perspective” to the role.
Coventry, who swept to a crushing first-round victory in the election in Greece in March, leans heavily on her family.
Aside from her parents, who were present at the ceremony in Lausanne, there is her husband Tyrone Seward, who was effectively her campaign manager, and two daughters, six-year-old Ella, who Bach addresses as “princess”, and Lily, just seven months old.
“Ella saw this spider web in the garden and I pointed out how it is made, and how strong and resilient it is to bad weather and little critters,” said Coventry, who takes over officially at midnight Swiss time Monday (2200 GMT).
“But if one little bit breaks it becomes weaker. That spider web is our movement, it is complex, beautiful and strong but it only works if we remain together and united.”
‘Pure passion’
Coventry said she could not believe how her life had evolved since she first dreamt of Olympic glory in 1992.
“How lucky are we creating a platform for generations to come to reach their dreams,” she said to a packed audience in a marquee in the Olympic House garden, which comprised IOC members, including those she defeated, and dignitaries.
“It is amazing and incredible, indeed I cannot believe that from my dream in 1992 of going to an Olympic Games and winning a medal I would be standing here with you to make dreams for more young children round the world.”
Coventry, who served in the Zimbabwean government as sports and arts Minister from 2019 to this year, said the Olympic movement was much more than a “multi-sport event platform.”
“We (IOC members) are guardians of this movement, which is also about inspiring and changing lives and bringing hope,” she said.
“These things are not to be taken lightly and I will be working with each and every one of you to continue to change lives and be a beacon of hope in a divided world.
“I am really honoured to walk this journey with you.”
Bach, who during his tenure had to grapple with Russian doping and their invasions of the Crimea and Ukraine as well as the Covid pandemic, said he was standing down filled with “gratitude, joy and confidence” in his successor.
“With her election it sends out a powerful message, that the IOC continues to evolve,” said the 71-year-old German, who was named honorary lifetime president in Greece in March.
“It has its first female and African to hold this position, and the youngest president since Pierre de Coubertin. She represents the truly global and youthful spirit of our community.”
Bach, who choked back tears at one point during his valedictory speech, was praised to the rafters by Coventry, who was widely seen as his preferred candidate of the seven vying for his post.
After a warm embrace, she credited him with teaching her to “listen to people and to respect them,” and praised him for leading the movement with “pure passion and purpose.”
“You have kept us united through the most turbulent times.
“You left us with many legacies and hope, thank you from the bottom of my heart for leading us with passion and never wavering from our values.”
-AFP
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Former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry took over the leadership of the International Olympic Committee from Thomas Bach in a ceremony on Monday with the 2028 Los Angeles Games already threatening to fill her in-tray to overflowing.
Coventry, who starts her eight-year spell officially on Tuesday as the most powerful sports administrator in the world, became the first woman and first African to be elected head of the Olympic ruling body in March.
Much of the discussion during campaigning focused on the IOC’s need for change in its marketing strategies with several top Olympic sponsors having left in the past 12 months.
However, with Los Angeles hit by protests against immigration raids, and relations tense between state and city officials, and the U.S. government, the 2028 Games have become the major talking point in the movement that would ordinarily be focusing on next year’s Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
Coventry has long-standing ties with the United States, dating back to her time as a leading swimmer at Auburn University in Alabama. That will prove useful ahead of LA 2028, and she has said she will seek to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump to discuss the Games.
Coventry will also need to find time to help secure the long-term finances of the movement. The IOC, which generates billions of dollars in revenues each year in sponsorship and broadcasting deals for the Olympics, has secured $7.3 billion for 2025-28 and $6.2 billion for 2029-2032. More contracts are expected for both periods.
COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITIES
Coventry is also expected to continue the IOC’s plans to expand commercial opportunities for sponsors at the Olympics with the organisation’s finances in a robust state and the privately-funded LA Olympics a good place to start.
Coventry needed only one round of voting to clinch the race to succeed Bach, beating six other candidates, making history for the African continent, with the IOC having been ruled for 131 years by European or North American men.
Her background and being the first female president will be assets in a diverse IOC membership and the international makeup of Olympic stakeholders.
On Monday she was handed the golden key to the IOC by Bach, who was the organisation’s president for 12 years.
“I am really honoured I get to walk this journey with you. I cannot wait for anything that lies ahead,” Coventry said in her address to IOC members and other Olympic stakeholders.
“I know I have the best team to support me and our movement over the next eight years.”
Coventry will hold a two-day workshop this week to get feedback from members on key IOC issues.
“Working together and consistently finding ways to strengthen and keep united our movement that will ensure that we wake up daily… to continue to inspire,” she said.
A seven-time Olympic medallist, Coventry won 200m backstroke gold at the 2004 Athens Games and in Beijing four years later.
“With her election, you have also sent a powerful message to the world: the IOC continues to evolve,” Bach said in his speech. “With Kirsty Coventry, the Olympic movement will be in the best of hands.”
-Reuters
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Penalties scored when a player accidentally touches the ball twice must be retaken, world soccer’s lawmaking body IFAB has said after Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez had his spot kick disallowed in a Champions League last-16 match.
During a tense shootout with Real Madrid in March, Argentine forward Alvarez slipped and the VAR spotted that his left foot touched the ball slightly before he kicked it with his right.
Although Alvarez converted the penalty, the goal was chalked off and Atletico went on to lose the shootout and were eliminated from the Champions League.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA said the correct decision was made under the current laws but IFAB (International Football Association Board) has said that in such cases the penalty must be retaken.
Atletico Madrid v Real Valladolid – Metropolitano, Madrid, Spain – April 14, 2025 Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez scores their first goal from the penalty spot REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo
“(When) the penalty taker accidentally kicks the ball with both feet simultaneously or the ball touches their non-kicking foot or leg immediately after the kick: if the kick is successful, it is retaken,” IFAB said in a circular.
“If the kick is unsuccessful, an indirect free kick is awarded (unless the referee plays advantage when it clearly benefits the defending team). In the case of penalties (penalty shootout), the kick is recorded as missed.”
The decision to disallow Alvarez’s penalty left Atletico boss Diego Simeone livid and the club’s fans outraged.
IFAB added that if the penalty taker deliberately kicks the ball with both feet or deliberately touches it a second time, an indirect free kick is awarded or, in the case of shootouts, it is recorded as missed.
The new procedures are effective for competitions starting on or after July 1, but IFAB said it may be used in competitions that start this month.
-Reuters
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