The Real Football Thread

[ebandit]

i can't comment re is this good news but it sure is the correct way forward.....................what could be a worth

of a president whom distances himself from FIFA officials corruption.....................?

Mark L

 

[ebandit]

now will serious questions be asked about FIFA's hopes to pull a fast one awarding 2 world cup finals at once

to bids that were not really the best........but where the most £ could be made?

Mark L

 

[l.Harm]

I don't trust this, he must have known before he got re elected.

 

[mrhender]

Sometimes you must sacrifice the queen to save the king...

Money is king....

 

[gooner]

Great news.

Delighted for journalists like Andrew Jennings, Heidi Blake, Jonathan Calvert and David Yallop.

 

[Amsterhammer]

...and the old guard will rob the coffers blind before a new election brings in a new man...who will almost certainly be Platini, whom I also mistrust.

 

[gooner]

Re:

now will serious questions be asked about FIFA's hopes to pull a fast one awarding 2 world cup finals at once

to bids that were not really the best........but where the most £ could be made?

Mark L

Yeah, Blatter's deal with the Qatari Emir to protect the WC bid if Bin Hamann withdrew from the presendential bid, needs to be fully exposed on the back of this.

No way do I want Platini as presendent. He voted for a summer World Cup in Qatar after Sarkozy spoke to him.

Frightening to think Havelange and Blatter had a stranglehold on the presidency for over 40 years between them.

 

[BigMac]

Good riddance.

Just put someone in charge who actually has a clue about the sport, not some businessman.

 

[Berzin]

What's worse for a bureaucracy than scandal is the hint of scandal.

The next person in charge is going to make sure the noise from all the corruption is quieted down. They will fine-tune the process and the show will go on.

If Quatar and Russia don't have their World Cups taken away, then nothing will be resolved.

"Status quo from the get-go" is what FIFA will be like going forward. We all thought Cookson was going to be the transparent, saving grace of world cycling, but he's proven to be nothing but another in a long line of hacks. He's been effective because the doping scandals have decreased. In terms of public perception, that is what's going to keep the sponsors happy and the money flowing.

This is what will be required from the next FIFA president-not transparency and certainly not accountability.

 

[gooner]

Members of the Qatari bid advised not to travel to the US.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/...22-world-cup?utm_term=.eeA4aWwKNv#.vkNWgKAqyo

 

[Amsterhammer]

Members of the Qatari bid advised not to travel to the US.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/...22-world-cup?utm_term=.eeA4aWwKNv#.vkNWgKAqyo

Excellent find, Gooner. Cheers.

 

[Jagartrott]

In Russia, Sincere Backlash Over Satire Article on 'U.S. Invasion of FIFA'

Popular American satirist Andy Borowitz appears to have fooled the Russian government's official newspaper into believing that U.S. senator John McCain has sincerely called for a military invasion of FIFA, football's governing body.

"We must make FIFA taste the vengeful might and fury of the United States military," Borowitz "quoted" McCain as having said. The latter then supposedly roared: "I will follow Sepp Blatter to the gates of hell," with reference to FIFA's scandal-mired, newly re-elected president.

Borowitz writes a regular satirical column for American magazine The New Yorker. He spins current events into humorous and often bizarre tales of fiction meant purely for entertainment.

In Thursday's edition, Borowitz wrote that McCain had called on the United States to resort to military action to "dismantle and destroy" FIFA, which has been entangled in a corruption scandal that flared up last week.

At the request of the U.S. Department of Justice, Swiss authorities launched an investigation last week into criminal mismanagement and money laundering among FIFA's top officials, some of whom were arrested.

Apparently failing to see the humor in the scenario, Russian state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta published an opinion piece saying that the statements attributed to McCain attested to the United States' blatant disrespect for international law.

Rossiiskaya Gazeta's reaction, penned by Vladislav Vorobyov, cited the same McCain "quotes" featured in Borowitz's piece, arguing that these statements demonstrated that the United States was ready to bomb "any place on the planet" and that American politicians had lost touch with reality.

"It would be interesting to see who he [McCain] would order to bomb if he had real power," Vorobyov wrote. "Football stadiums? The offices of football officials in prestigious quarters of European capitals? Would all balls be sent to secret CIA prisons?"

As of Sunday, Vorobyov's article was still available on Rossiiskaya Gazeta's website.

Last week, President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of meddling in FIFA's affairs and hinted that its corruption investigation was an attempt to prevent Russia from hosting the 2018 World Cup.

 

[Amsterhammer]

Brilliant headline from an Aussie paper.

 

[Netserk]

Beautiful trifecta of puns.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

The Irish took cash from FIFA after the Henry Handball qualifier debacle to go away without suing.

More here: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/fifa-paid-fa-of-ireland-5m-to-not-pursue-legal-action-over-thierry-henry-handball-in-world-cup-qualifier-10297956.html

Once a whoore always a whoore.

 

[gooner]

Re:

The Irish took cash from FIFA after the Henry Handball qualifier debacle to go away without suing.

More here: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/fifa-paid-fa-of-ireland-5m-to-not-pursue-legal-action-over-thierry-henry-handball-in-world-cup-qualifier-10297956.html

Once a whoore always a whoore.

Pathetic. It has been rumoured for quite a while and Delaney has been very coy about it in the past.

FIFA should have told him to take a hike. I can't see how legal action would have come to anything when the game prior to the handfall was still on course for pens. Ridiculous why they were going the legal route anyway. Plenty of the teams have decisions go against them. Get over it.

Both deserve huge criticism.

 

[python]

me thinks - and i dont pretend to have read everything - the irish-fifa latest affair falls far short of an outright bribery charge or even an obvious corruption case.

was it akin to to a busyness-like 'out of court settlement' were both sides expect to benefit rather than being exposed to an open-ended confrontation ?

 

[gooner]

Re:

me thinks - and i dont pretend to have read everything - the irish-fifa latest affair falls far short of an outright bribery charge or even an obvious corruption case.

was it akin to to a busyness-like 'out of court settlement' were both sides expect to benefit rather than being exposed to an open-ended confrontation ?

It was hush money. Remember Delaney said it wasn't about money at the time, yet puts a price on it at the expense of the moral standpoint he had initially on this.

This is an organisation who happily uses Denis O'Brien to pay Trappatoni's and O'Neill's wages over the years. A guy who has bribed a minster for communication for a mobile phone licence and is up to his eyeballs in controversy right now over the IRBC/SiteServ situation. He has control over various national and local newspapers along with national radio stations where he has a good grip of influence and power. None more so than when Sam Smyth was left go from Today FM(O'Brien owns it) because he had the audacity to criticise him. Basically a Murdoch type figure.

Morals go out the window with FAI when the euro signs are flashed in front of them. Delaney was a public supporter of Blatter in the 2011 election.

 

[l.Harm]

'It was a loan.'

 

[sniper]

Re:

me thinks - and i dont pretend to have read everything - the irish-fifa latest affair falls far short of an outright bribery charge or even an obvious corruption case.

was it akin to to a busyness-like 'out of court settlement' were both sides expect to benefit rather than being exposed to an open-ended confrontation ?

i don't see any (noteworthy) foul play in this case either.
actually sort of puts FIFA in a favorable daylight, imo.
alternatively they could have said "sorry, part of the game, now move on", and they would have been right. Titles have been won and lost because of referee blunders.
I think in court Ireland wouldn't have had a leg to stand on, so five million for compensation was always going to be better than nothing.

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

This thread has never been more awesome than in the last dozen posts or so.

 

[Berzin]

Blatter knew he was going to resign before he took the position as newly elected FIFA president. He took the position simply to give himself enough time (4 months) to do some serious paper shredding.

And who at FIFA has denounced him and said he should exit his office immediately? Not one from what I know. Why? Because everyone sitting in that room feels that if they step into his role after the next vote, that four-month window is something they themselves may need down the line. And no one wants to cause waves because they don't want any dissenting comments to haunt them in the future in terms of a possible World Cup bid for their country.

 

[ILovecycling]

Demolition day is HERE!

Xavi in starting lineup probably, I dont like it, but nvm, we will win again
I hope I'll catch it from the kickoff!

 

[DBotero]

Demolition day is HERE!

Xavi in starting lineup probably, I dont like it, but nvm, we will win again
I hope I'll catch it from the kickoff!

Juve: Buffon, Lichtsteiner, Bonucci, Barzagli, Evra,Marchisio, Pirlo, Pogba,Vidal,Tévez, Morata.

Barca: Ter Stegen, Alves, Piqué, Mascherano, Alba, Rakitić, Busquets, Iniesta, Messi, Suárez, Neymar.

UEFA site doesn't think Xavi will be in the starting lineup.

I saw Barca losing games when they totally dominated,i hope is one of those odd days.Forza ragazzi!

 

[python]

http://www.zeit.de/sport/2015-06/chuck-blazer-fifa-fussball-weltmeisterschaft-2022
(german)
to add to the string of fifa investigations, now it is germany under fire.
according to Die Zeit, the 2006 wc in germany was a 'vote for investments' deal and in the case of the saudis - a weapons contract.

i bet, if we wait another week, a fifa world domination plot will be uncovered