Capello Index causes unrest amongst the England World Cup squad

Ahead of the England's World Cup squad annoucement, Fabio Capello has come under fire after an ill-timed press conference at the London Stock Exchange to announce the launch of a new business venture, the Capello Index.

The brainchild of Capello and the digital media entrepreneur Chicco Merighi, founder of an online gambling company, the Capello Index is a new formula that has been two years in development and is designed to objectively measure a player’s on-pitch performance.  

"I have sought to use my experience as a manager at both club and international level to identify the attributes and qualities that make players valuable to a team. Working in conjunction with Chicco Merighi, we have created a formula to objectively assess player performance beyond measurements simply based on gut instinct or raw statistical data," Capello said.

Key to the player-ranking system was the qualitative focus on key player events within a match and the position on the field where they take place. We wanted to align the extensive metrics for measuring performance such as passes completed and ground covered with informed analysis of the impact and importance of a player’s contribution.  Without context, we feel that the current statistics do not tell the whole story.”

Despite admitting at the press conference that the game of football was inherently unpredictable and hard to measure, based on the extensive testing Capello remained confident of the system’s ability to create a "robust" international player ranking system as well as providing the scoring mechanism for a new fantasy football game, the Capello XI.

Arguably confirming some deserved scepticism over the Index's accuracy, following a four-week trial period Ledley King, Michael Dawson and Sol Campbell, who was not named in Capello's 30-man provisional squad announced this afternoon, were rated the best three defenders, ahead of former captain John Terry and England stalwart Rio Ferdinand.

However it was Capello's intentions to launch the index immediately in time for the upcoming World Cup in South Africa that has caused the most controversy. Both the media and England fans have expressed concern at the possibility that player ratings being made available two hours after every game would cause friction amongst the England camp.

Furthermore the FA are also believed to be unhappy about not only the announcements timing and its links to online gambling but also question the need for a man on a US$9 million annual salary to be involving himself in an additional money-making venture so close to the World Cup.

A spokesman for Capello said, “Fabio’s involvement has been purely as a technical expert to establish statistical criteria for the Index. He has not been involved in the online gaming element of the site.”

Following a meeting between Capello and senior FA staff earlier today the launch of the Capello Index will be suspended until after England's World Cup run is over.