Soccer

i, erm, 'worked from home' today and got to hear most of Radio 5's
coverage of the whole FIFA thing which, if it wasn't so ridiculous,
was actually pretty funny (i mean the event itself, not the Radio 5
coverage!)

and then from 7pm until about 9pm they just discussed loads of stuff about
FIFA which just basically laid into both FIFA and the FA, sorry, the
ENGLISH FA. i stress that last bit because apparently we're arrogant
and colonialist and calling our Football Association 'The FA' really
annoys lots of other country's FAs... and no, i'm not joking.

and another 'apparently'... when we bid for the World Cup and say we're
bringing football "back home" then that also annoys everyone else...
despite the fact that they acknowledge that we invented/codified the game.

Oh, FFS, i could go on and on here but it's just not worth it... we're
fecked as far as FIFA and getting tournaments are concerned because (a)
no-one likes us, and that includes UEFA, and (b) our FA is just useless
and that's the first thing that needs reforming if we're ever going to
have any chance of achieving anything through FIFA.

Radio 5 said the only other FA that supported us was Scotland (ironic) so
we can only assume that Wales and Ireland backed Blatter, and seeing as
the Northern Irish bloke Jim Boyce became vice-president of FIFA you can
see why...

...oh, and Boyce took over from Geoff Thompson of England, surely the
greatest example of a political vacuum in the history of football
politics. Thompson, a man widely 'admired' but massively ignored by
everyone everywhere.

i'm English, i'm bitter and i'm twisted, but in this case i don't care,
for once i think we're actually right! ;-)

anyway, listen to Wednesday evening's Sport On Five on the podcast, it's
well worth it.

'FIFA' the new swear word being used by the discerning pirate...

On Wed, 1 Jun 2011, ladyinred wrote:

> On Wednesday 01 June 2011, Edward Crusoe wrote:
>
>> We've got the richest league in the world and that isn't likely to change
>> anytime soon. Money talks. And while FIFA may control the global game -
>> their grip on the club game is very, very weak - as is UEFA's. There may
>> well come a time when the clubs in the big European Leagues look to break
>> away again, and that more than anything else will spell the downfall of the
>> governing bodies.
>
> I have been very disappointed in the response of the other FA's who surely
> must see what we see. Last time I heard only the English and Scottish FA's
> were making a serious protest. What about Wales? The Republic of Ireland?
> Northern Ireland. The Australian FA? The rest of Europe? Where were the rest
> of them?