rolling lol FIFA thread

They'd rather be without the international game altogether is my feeling. Handily, fifa seem bent on giving every reason for it to be marginalised.

totally xxp.

not sure of the role of the ECA, but my impression is bayern are seen as (1) a technocratic, well run club (2) not english.

At his victory press conference, Blatter announced that a key member of the new internal structure to clean up the governance of Fifa will be the former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. His precise role is as yet unclear.

presumably dispensing advice like: "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/06/british-and-corruption

"We" think "they" are too tolerant of corruption. They think we are revolting hypocrites.

both otm

The article's OTM about the perception that England's complaints look hypocritical. There's certainly a sense that England tried to 'play the game' but weren't as clever or well-resourced as the rival bids.

All the stuff about integrity and decency also sits ill in the light of the FA's decision to roll out the red carpet for people like Abramovich, Usmanov, Shinawatra and al Mubarak at the domestic level. For a start, two of them provided the bankroll for the bid that actually beat England. Fixing a World Cup bid is hardly the greatest of Abramovich's crimes but the English game has been more than happy to swim in his money.

true. i've been surprised the extent to which the british press have rallied round the fa. it's been held in total contempt (incompetent, likely corrupt) basically throughout the premier league era afaict.

that's just their xenophobic instinct over-riding

4 reals tho blatter out

He's not cheating, he's just being "clever". The other team's going to do it, so why shouldn't we etc...

Not sure it is 'rallying round the FA' so much as 'we've got a story and we're going to run it'. The dear, hapless FA just happen to be the only ones putting themselves up to be shot down - it'd be a lot more effective if it was someone else.

i suspect the FA would not be sticking their neck out without the UK press. the press/attention made it untenable for them not to at least abstain.

do we know how many abstentions there were for the presidency vote btw?

i suspect the FA would not be sticking their neck out without the UK press. the press/attention made it untenable for them not to at least abstain.

Then Prince William stuck his oar in. Has Cameron jumped on the bandwagon yet?

sport secretary was giving it all that last week iirc

I think Blatter got 186 out 203 votes cast, out of 208 possible votes in total.

oh yeah, that was in the economist thing. lol vietnam.

Call me gullible, but could Blatter actually be the best of a bad lot? Is that possible?

oh yeah, that was in the economist thing. lol vietnam.

― caek, Thursday, 2 June 2011 14:30 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

if vietnam accidentally voted for blatter, then he appointed kissinger... it's almost too perfect.

fifa hammers another nail into own coffin, announces plan to increase friendlies to 17 per year

jack warner resigns, fifa closes its investigations and says "the presumption of innocence is maintained". that should silence the doubters!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/20/fifa-jack-warner-resigns

nothing to see here, move along

great bunch of lads

loool http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/13878161.stm

it's kind of amazing, but bigsoccer actually has a blogger churning out good stuff on this

http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?u=20531

Fifa could allow matches at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to be played over three 30-minute periods if temperatures in the stadiums became dangerously high for the players.

Michael Beavon, a director of Arup Associates who helped to develop the zero-carbon solar technology that will cool the 12 stadiums, told delegates at the Qatar Infrastructure Conference in London that the air-cooling would maintain a comfortable temperature of around 24 degrees Celsius in the stadiums.

"There is a moderate risk of heat injury to the players between 24C-29C but if you go above that you have high and extreme risk of injury. The one thing Fifa do say, although it is for guidance, is if it's 32C they will stop a match and play three 30-minute thirds rather than two 45-minute halves.

The one thing Fifa do say, although it is for guidance, is if it's 32C they will stop a match and play three 30-minute thirds rather than two 45-minute halves.

Even though it was quite a bit hotter than this at many games in 94?

They should have the next WC on the moon. Of course circumstances there will be very different than on earth, and not perfect for the actual players of the game. But nothing some tinkering with the game's fundamental rules won't solve.

It's easy to see FIFA as unimportant in part because, as the Blatter-bin Hammam wrangle illustrates, there's something deeply silly about many of the organization's Machiavellian twists. One of the common misconceptions about FIFA corruption is that it flourishes because the organization is rolling in money. In fact, if FIFA were a corporation, its revenue of just more than $1 billion a year wouldn't get it within a Tim Howard goal kick of the Fortune 500. In 2010, ExxonMobil raked in $284.6 billion; Blockbuster Video, the 500th company on the list, had revenues more than four times the average for world soccer's governing body. By the global scale on which it operates, FIFA is at best a medium-sized outfit. And it's the organization's middlingness, combined with its exposure to much larger economic powers, that determines the peculiar character of its scandals.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/16/sepp-blatter-fifa-race-rows-handshakes

love this guy

Blatter reveals his ambition to work as a television pundit

• Fifa president wants analyst's role in 2015

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/international_football/154784/france-football-claim-to-have-proof-that-qatar-rigged-2022-world-cup-vote.html#NoSurprise

Sepp Blatter, 77, the current Fifa president, was not found guilty of any misconduct but was branded as "clumsy" in his handling of the case.

Blatter has taken the report as vindication. "I note with satisfaction that this report confirms that: 'President Blatter's conduct could not be classified in any way as misconduct with regard to any ethics rules'. I have no doubt that Fifa, thanks to the governance reform process that I proposed, now has the means to ensure that such an issue does not happen again."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/may/30/sepp-blatter-fifa-great-survivor

On Sunday, Joseph S Blatter attended a ceremony on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius to celebrate the renaming of the country's FA headquarters in his honour.

They added the middle initial to make him sound like a n@zi war criminal

Blatter, who left the tournament last week as the protests reached their peak, hit back at Brazilian media which suggested he had fled the country without warning, saying he had to be present at the world under-20 championship in Turkey which overlaps with the Confederations Cup.

"In no way can it be said I escaped my responsibilities, on the contrary I assumed two responsibilities at the same time," he said.

Behind-the-scenes international intrigue, cronyism and allegations of vast corruption schemes: the story of Fifa, football's governing body, is surely ripe for a dramatic Hollywood retelling.

But a film in the works, starring Tim Roth and Gerard Depardieu, looks likely instead to be a sanitised version of Fifa's history and a hagiography of Sepp Blatter, its controversial president.

wtf, am I wrong to expect better from Roth than this? (he is to play Blatter)

LOL cannot wait

[heat exhausted footballer crawls towards blatter during qatar test match. he dies at his flip flops]

"be cool honey bunny!"

[curtains roll]

It is unclear who is funding the project

I wonder

Sepp Blatter: Fifa president hints at increased term

"Anything Mugabe can do I can do better..."

http://i.guim.co.uk/n/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/12/6/1386343964233/fadc4fa0-91e7-45ba-8dc8-2d18b174be8b-460x276.jpeg

It's actually morbidly impressive what a cushy nest this con-artist has been able to feather for himself. I mean, how does one go about becoming this sort of gravy-train grandee? I might apply for some work experience with him

start here

In the early 1970s, Blatter was elected president of the World Society of Friends of Suspenders, an organisation which tried to stop women replacing suspender belts with pantyhose.

Is Michael Garcia, who led the investigation into corruption in the Qatar bid, appealing against his own report?

His position seems to be that the findings (which he didn't write up) clear Qatar but are a distortion of what the committee actually reported.

I'm not sure if it's his report, but he is definitely claiming that the report itself doesn't correspond with his findings.

I'm sure FIFA were very relieved that their own investigation cleared them of any wrongdoing, anyway.

Appeals committee:

Larry MUSSENDEN Bermuda
Fernando MITJANS Argentina
AHMAD Madagascar
Édgar PEÑA GUTIÉRREZ Bolivia
F Randall CUNLIFFE Guam
Abdul Rahman LOOTAH United Arab Emirates
Leo WINDTNER Austria
Christian ANDREASEN Faroe Islands
Laureano GONZALEZ Venezuela
Dan KAKARAYA Papua New Guinea
Tourqui SALIM Comoros
Victor GARZA Mexico
Samuel RAM Fiji
Oliver SMITH Turks and Caicos Islands

He seems to have written a full report that someone else has summarised so there'll be pressure to publish both.

all the Russian documents got destroyed in a computer fire

I understand it that Garcia is disputing the summary made by FIFA of his report, claiming it's a false or inaccurate summary.

Dude should just put the whole thing online right now tbh

am loving - LOVING - the implication of the English FA as corrupt, but the clearing of Russia and Qatar. magnificent, magnificent stuff

1 out of 3 is something i guess