Rules are rules but Ferrari’s power within Formula One told as they were issued with only a fine for deliberately breaking Rule 39.1, which states that team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited, during the German Grand Prix this weekend.

The Italian team had set out at the weekend to make a statement and get back into the championship race and to be fair to them they did just that, leading the majority of the race through Massa with Alonso second.

However, it became clear that Alonso was marginally quicker than his team mate and with Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel threatening to challenge for the lead Ferrari took the decision to ‘hint’ to their drivers that Alonso should be allowed through to prevent a proper race between the two drivers.

“Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?”

Those were the words of Ferrari’s race engineer Rob Smedley to Massa and moments later the Brazilian allowed Alonso through – as clear a case of team orders as there can be. That was confirmed when the Ferrari team were punished post-race with a trifling £100,000 fine.

Guilty as charged then, but it’s the level of punishment I’m taking issue with here. Rule 39.1 was put in place to prevent just this sort of thing and to give the F1 audience proper racing up front. Both McLaren and Red Bull have allowed their drivers to fight it out for the lead this season and Ferrari should have done the same.

Instead they cheated, pure and simple. It would have been fantastic viewing to watch Alonso and Massa battle each other and it could also have allowed Vettel to get involved too, serving up a three way fight for the victory. Who wouldn’t want to see that?

Ferrari robbed us all of that chance and as such should have had both drivers disqualified. It may have been unsatisfactory, but so was what happened. It would also have sent a clear message to the other teams that team orders will not be tolerated.

Eddie Jordan was apoplectic with what happened, as you would expect from the fiery Irishman.

“It was unlawful and was theft. They stole from us the chance of having a wheel-to-wheel contest between the drivers. Ferrari should be ashamed. This was a team order. For me, it is cheating and these two cars should be excluded.”

Strong but fair words in my opinion, and it’s rare I agree with Jordan. This is potentially the best F1 season in a very long time. Ferrari – and a weak willed FIA – have put that at risk by inferring you can get away with only a small fine if you want to cheat. It’s outrageous and the precedent set will not discourage team orders being used in the future.

Not that I’m surprised. As I said, Ferrari have a lot of power in Formula One and they put it to good use here, forcing their way back into contention for the championships through very underhand tactics. I can only hope Red Bull and McLaren reinstate their dominance so far this season and ensure Ferrari have had their moment of ‘glory’ for this year.

The new season isn’t far away and Sporting Fare is inviting you to join our Fantasy Football League on Sky Sports. There’s a £25,000 prize for the overall winner on the site (NOT the Sporting Fare League – though if I can work out a prize I’ll let you all know) and it’s free to enter so there’s a good incentive!

All you have to do to join up is follow these simple steps:

1. Visit http://fantasy.premierleague.com/
2. Register a team as described on the site
3. Once you’ve picked your team, click on the Leagues link on the left
4. Click the Create / Join tab
5. Enter this code: 50021-17065 to join the Sporting Fare league
6. Hit the Join League button
7. That’s it!

You can make as many changes to your team between now and the start of the season at 11.30am BST on August 14th, so don’t worry if you want to leave your final team selection to the very last minute to get that final star in.

I’ll do the occasional update throughout the season to keep you up to date with the winners and losers as the season progresses.

Look forward to playing against you!

I did consider doing a daily round up of all the action from the Open at St Andrews, but Louis Oosthuizen changed all that with his runaway victory. I wanted to wait and see whether his game would hold up under the pressure or if he’d crumble as the likes of Paul Casey and Lee Westwood attempted to chase him down.

In the end, of course, his game not only held up but shone. Not at any point did he look like he would lose his cool or his control and his mastery of the links course in tough, windy and wet conditions was a pleasure to watch.

This was golf at its best. There were other brilliant rounds over the four days, not least from Casey, Westwood and the young Rory McIlroy who, despite a torrid second day, recovered superbly to finish tied third on 8 under after a 68 on the final day.

If it hadn’t been for that 8 over 80 on the second day, we could have had a much tighter finish. Casey will feel disappointed with his 75 on the last day as again, he could have challenged Oosthuizen with a better day.

One proud man, the South African winner aside, will be Lee Westwood. He remains the nearly man at majors, but his last round of 70 gave him second place on his own – and did beat Oosthuizen’s calmly taken 71.

For a while it looked like The Open record win of 8 shots clear was under threat. Woods – whose poor putting kept him out of contention here – was the last man to win by that margin, and Westwood ensured he retains that record by pulling back Oosthuizen to a 7 shot victory.

Will Louis gone on to be a great golfer in the same mould as compatriot Ernie Els? On this evidence, he has the game and temperament so why not? He needs to push on from here now, get consistency and challenge for more major honours.

Justin Rose, who I was following closely, sadly failed to perform. He missed the cut on Day Two but I remain hopeful that the 29 year old will one day capture a major. However, if anything, I want Westwood to do it first. He’s so close to it it must be weighing on his mind and his golf does deserve it.

The next golf I’m looking forward to now is the Ryder Cup. Should be brilliant. The USA remain strong but there has clearly been a resurgence in European golf over the last couple of years – a quick look at the final leaderboard here at the Open shows that. The five behind Oosthuizen were all Europeans. Bodes well, I hope!

Back from his undeserved holiday, England manager Fabio Capello faces the FA board on his return to work (assuming he decides to attend – he doesn’t have to, but he damn well should), expected to hand in his report on what happened in South Africa during the World Cup.

Smacks of the failed school child filling in his end of term report, doesn’t it. I can imagine Capello and his ‘gang’ – Franco Baldini et al – staring at their shoes, looking sheepish, in front of a long table occupied by the FA board members as they peruse his broken English report.

It’s almost demeaning.

Yet should he expect anything else? I don’t for a second lay all the blame for England’s poor tournament performance at his door. They players MUST shoulder the majority of the blame, they didn’t do themselves or their country justice. However, several of Capello’s decisions in the run up to and during the World Cup were questionable.

What I’m wondering now is what does he do between now and England’s friendly against Hungary in August?

Capello talked about freshening up the England squad with youth and exuberance. He has the chance to run the rule over our Under-19s from the 18th-30th July during the European Championships, yet reports suggest he won’t be attending. One can only assume he is sending Baldini – or should I say one hopes?

I can’t see that he has anything else to do for those 12 days, so why isn’t he going? This is England’s future and he has two years left on his contract, by which time at least some of these players could and should be pushing for a senior place. This is the ideal time to earmark those he feels will make it and follow their progress in the run up to the Euros in 2012.

It will be baffling if he doesn’t take that opportunity.

Of course, he has that tricky board meeting this afternoon first. Sky Sports are reporting that the World Cup is NOT an item on the agenda, however. Nothing like sweeping things under the carpet, eh, lads. They should be sitting down and picking apart EVERYTHING that went wrong, no matter how uncomfortable it is.

We’ve all read the reports of dressing room unrest and players falling out with one another. Surely decisions need to be taken on who was at fault for this and banish them from the squad for good, freeing up those places for youth. No matter who they are…

I laid out my blueprint for England’s future a couple of weeks ago and I stand by it. Radical action needs to be taken to start getting England back to the pinnacle of world football and it seems to me it isn’t going to happen…again.

The FA have always been stuck in the past but I thought Capello was dynamic enough to start changing that, respected enough to be allowed to do so. Seems I was wrong and he has been ground down by the sheer idiocy and resistance to change from his bosses. That’s why change is needed at the very top, not at manager level.

In the meantime, we may as well resign ourselves to overall mediocrity and the boom and bust mood England’s performances (and the media reporting of it) will create in the country.

The 150th Anniversary Open Championship gets underway on Thursday at the home of golf, St. Andrews, and reigning champion Stewart Cink will be looking to retain his title in the face of stiff opposition.

Cink won last year at Turnberry, beating crowd favourite Tom Watson in a four-hole play off. Watson would have won his sixth Open and, at 59, been the oldest champion, but he missed out by six shots to Cink.

Every big name in golf you can think of will be vying for the Claret Jug on one of the toughest links courses in the world. Woods, Harrington, Mickelson, Els, Montgomerie, Lyle…I could go on and on. There are 156 professional and amateur golfers in total, all looking to topple Cink and each other over four days of what promises to be fabulous golf.

The Old Course at St Andrews has hosted golf matches for 600 years and is home to the longest running tournament for the 28th time this year.

Par is 72 over the 7305 yards that make up the 18 holes. There are only two par 3s and two par 5s, one of each on the front and back nines. The longest hole is the par 5 14th, stretching 618 yards but with a strong wind from the east, it’s doable in three. The shortest is the par 3 11th at 174 yards. The green is steep so you have to get your distance right or risk rolling off the green at the front or dropping into a gully at the back.

The Open Championship will start at 6.30am tomorrow with Paul Lawrie, Thomas Levet and Steve Marino teeing off on the first hole, Burn, as it is known.

All eyes will be on Tiger Woods no doubt as he attempts to win his third successive Open at St Andrews, but with his off-course personal troubles and a putting game that his own caddie has described as “sub-standard” he’ll have his work cut out. Tiger tees off at 9.09am alongside in-form Justin Rose and Camilo Villegas.

Other notable tee off times for us Brits and Irish include:

• 7.36am: Sir Nick Faldo
• 8.42am: Ian Poulter, Ernie Els, Stewart Cink
• 9.20am: Padraig Harrington
• 9.53am: Darren Clarke
• 12.25pm: Sandy Lyle
• 12.47pm: Luke Donald
• 13.31pm: Paul Casey
• 13.42pm: Lee Westwood
• 14.20pm: Colin Montgomerie, Phil Mickelson, Retief Goosen

I’ll be keeping a close eye on Justin Rose. He has recently won two tournaments on the PGA Tour and is bang in form. How he’ll handle the links is a big question, as is how he’ll feel playing alongside Woods for the first two days. I really hope he does himself justice.

Who do you want to win and perhaps more to the point who do you THINK will win? Let me know in the comments.