... or if you prefer...
Great news - England not hosting FIFA World Cup.
I was very, very pleased when I found out. As previously discussed on this blog (and exposed earlier this week by the BBC's Panorama programme), FIFA is a totally corrupt and unaccountable organisation, very likely in hock to the same organised crime interests that control Russia (who will be hosting the 2018 World Cup, and I think that's a good match - pun intended).
The sight of Dave Cameron toadying up to the FIFA officials (with superannuated clothes horse Dave Beckham - the Bryan Ferry of English football) was toe-squirmingly ugly, although hardly worse than Tony Blair's exercise in glad-handing to secure the 2012 Olympics. Anyway it doesn't matter Dave. It's most unlikely you'd have been in office to welcome the World Cup mafia to English soil in any case. 2015 - at the latest - is your Best Before date.
So I'm ecstatic that we're not going to host this PoS tournament. In fact I'll go one step further. We should boycott all future World Cups until FIFA is replaced with a democratically accountable, non-corrupt organisation. Boycott and replace - it's a strategy that I prescribe for all manner of monolithic, unaccountable organisations including FIFA, the Catholic Church, the British royal family, the banks, and U2. And if pursued, it would work every time.
Red Two was right all along. The debate over video replays was an irrelevant, time-consuming smokescreen which distracted attention from the real issues with FIFA. But no longer.
For more discussion of FIFA and the World Cup I can recommend this post and comments on Richard Murphy's excellent Tax Research UK blog.
Showing posts with label world cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world cup. Show all posts
11 July 2010
Back in contact
Well we had a good holiday last week but it's nice to be back. Or it would be, if there wasn't SO MUCH work to do. Still, I will make some time to watch the World Cup final tonight. I will be backing the Netherlands (or "Holland" as they are erroneously called on ITV - that's a bit like referring to England as "East Anglia", for example) for the sole reason that they have a good shirt number font. It's not exactly the same as the font used in the movie "Rollerball" (that was more like cheque book numbers), but it does conjure up that 70s spirit. Also they play in orange, which was the colour that Houston (James Caan's team) wore in "Rollerball", so there is a nice connection there as well.
So much stuff on the government during the week I was away that it's hard to know where to begin. I'll try to do some more detailed posts on just how awful this administration is later this week. But it was nice to see Micky Gove taking some real flak over letting schools fall down rather than refurbish them. Once Labour gets a new leader they will probably be running at something over 50% in the opinion polls. And, under just about any electoral system, that translates to a wipeout for the coalition next time round. So Bring It On.
So much stuff on the government during the week I was away that it's hard to know where to begin. I'll try to do some more detailed posts on just how awful this administration is later this week. But it was nice to see Micky Gove taking some real flak over letting schools fall down rather than refurbish them. Once Labour gets a new leader they will probably be running at something over 50% in the opinion polls. And, under just about any electoral system, that translates to a wipeout for the coalition next time round. So Bring It On.
28 June 2010
Should football be more like boxing?
This will probably be the last posting on football for some time... I don't run a sports blog very well, as I simply don't know enough. But I wanted to draw attention to an interesting article by Simon Kuper in the Guardian, "Fifa corrupt? is the Pope a Catholic?"
Extraordinary allegations of vote-rigging for the election of FIFA president Sepp Blatter (he who is opposed to 4th official video replays in games), match-fixing and intimidation by FIFA of anyone who dares to speak out against corruption.
I should stress that I have absolutely no idea whether any of this stuff is true. But even if halfway true, it seems to me that the best course of action for any countries who think the current system stinks would be to form a breakaway international football association and hold their own rebel world cup.
FIFA is like any unaccountable monopolist: that power corrupts, and in the absence of any democratic mechanism to hold them to account, a bit of competition would work wonders.
I've always liked the fact that boxing has about 3 or 4 separate world titles as it makes things somewhat more messy and unpredictable - which is the essence of generating any interest in sport, really. Maybe football will end up going the same way. It would be much more exciting than what's going on at the moment, anyhow.
Extraordinary allegations of vote-rigging for the election of FIFA president Sepp Blatter (he who is opposed to 4th official video replays in games), match-fixing and intimidation by FIFA of anyone who dares to speak out against corruption.
I should stress that I have absolutely no idea whether any of this stuff is true. But even if halfway true, it seems to me that the best course of action for any countries who think the current system stinks would be to form a breakaway international football association and hold their own rebel world cup.
FIFA is like any unaccountable monopolist: that power corrupts, and in the absence of any democratic mechanism to hold them to account, a bit of competition would work wonders.
I've always liked the fact that boxing has about 3 or 4 separate world titles as it makes things somewhat more messy and unpredictable - which is the essence of generating any interest in sport, really. Maybe football will end up going the same way. It would be much more exciting than what's going on at the moment, anyhow.
27 June 2010
F***ing lame!
The end of an extraordinary week which has seen two events of staggering lameness - the Coalition's neo-Thatcherite, slasher horrorshow budget (which may well be the harbinger of the death of the Liberal Democrats given the evidence in The Observer on the number of supporters deserting them) and England soccer team stepping into the abyss with a performance of staggering ineptitude, losing 4-1 to Germany.
The cries of "we wuz robbed" have predictably arisen after a clear England goal by Frank Lampard (which would have taken them to level pegging on 2-2) was disallowed by the assistant referee, who said it didn't cross the line when it certainly did. However this just seems like an excuse to avoid focusing on the fact that England were utter cack. Is there anyone out there who seriously believes England should have won this game? Get a lobotomy. They were good for about 10 minutes and utter shite for 80.
Fabio Capello won't resign... well, would a change of manager really make any difference? Four weeks ago everyone seemed to think this guy was a genius. Is it his fault that players of the calibre of Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney can't pass the ball or put together any kind of fluid attacking play? I'm not sure. The media have a lot less of a clue even than the England management, in my book.
The one thing I couldn't understand was the presence of David Beckham. A "bridge" between the manager and the players? Why was one needed? Perhaps he was only there for the beer.
A more interesting question is whether there should be video replay technology involved in games to stop crappy refereeing decisions affecting the outcome. I'm not sure. FIFA says it would slow the pace of the game down. But rugby union uses it and it takes a few seconds, at most. So it seems a pretty weak reason not to have it.
It's not really something that's unfair on a macro level, though (as opposed to in an individual incident), as both teams have to put up with the absence of video replay, so essentially it's just another random factor. And in this case it would be hard to argue it determined the result - just made it 4-1 rather than 4-2 IMHO.
F*** it all anyway. I'm a casual fan of football at best - enjoying the Glastonbury footage a lot more at the moment. Dizzee Rascal with Guthrie Govan - now that's rock'n'roll.
The cries of "we wuz robbed" have predictably arisen after a clear England goal by Frank Lampard (which would have taken them to level pegging on 2-2) was disallowed by the assistant referee, who said it didn't cross the line when it certainly did. However this just seems like an excuse to avoid focusing on the fact that England were utter cack. Is there anyone out there who seriously believes England should have won this game? Get a lobotomy. They were good for about 10 minutes and utter shite for 80.
Fabio Capello won't resign... well, would a change of manager really make any difference? Four weeks ago everyone seemed to think this guy was a genius. Is it his fault that players of the calibre of Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney can't pass the ball or put together any kind of fluid attacking play? I'm not sure. The media have a lot less of a clue even than the England management, in my book.
The one thing I couldn't understand was the presence of David Beckham. A "bridge" between the manager and the players? Why was one needed? Perhaps he was only there for the beer.
A more interesting question is whether there should be video replay technology involved in games to stop crappy refereeing decisions affecting the outcome. I'm not sure. FIFA says it would slow the pace of the game down. But rugby union uses it and it takes a few seconds, at most. So it seems a pretty weak reason not to have it.
It's not really something that's unfair on a macro level, though (as opposed to in an individual incident), as both teams have to put up with the absence of video replay, so essentially it's just another random factor. And in this case it would be hard to argue it determined the result - just made it 4-1 rather than 4-2 IMHO.
F*** it all anyway. I'm a casual fan of football at best - enjoying the Glastonbury footage a lot more at the moment. Dizzee Rascal with Guthrie Govan - now that's rock'n'roll.
23 June 2010
England and the curse of dimensionality
The mention this morning on BBC 6Music that Val Kilmer is to set up a B&B (?!?) reminded me of a review of Batman Forever where the comment was made, "the problem with Kilmer's Batman is that the role requires two-dimensional acting from an actor who is barely capable of one."
And that seemed to me a fine metaphor for England-Slovenia today. I have not been to Slovenia but by the accounts of friends and family who have done, it is a fantastic place, and I wish them all the best in today's game. To win, England will require at least a two-dimensional approach; but against Algeria they were at best one-dimensional, and perhaps still lower.
One of the advantages of being self-employed is that you can bunk off to watch football anytime you feel like it. I rarely do, but today will be an exception.
Will England bounce back, as in 1990? Or will they fall apart with the incredible lameness of France?
"Fascinating".
And that seemed to me a fine metaphor for England-Slovenia today. I have not been to Slovenia but by the accounts of friends and family who have done, it is a fantastic place, and I wish them all the best in today's game. To win, England will require at least a two-dimensional approach; but against Algeria they were at best one-dimensional, and perhaps still lower.
One of the advantages of being self-employed is that you can bunk off to watch football anytime you feel like it. I rarely do, but today will be an exception.
Will England bounce back, as in 1990? Or will they fall apart with the incredible lameness of France?
"Fascinating".
19 June 2010
...and another classic
England-Algeria: hilariously bad. Kids, I haven't laughed this much since Ray Wilkins threw the ball at the ref in Mexico 1986. Marina Hyde in the Guardian sums it up well: "almost comically unwatchable".
No "almost" about it in fact, folks: this was pants-wettingly lame.
Topped off by a hilarious outburst from Wayne Rooney - the Phil Collins of English football (to be fair, probably extremely frustrated at not being 100% match-fit): "it's nice to see your own fans booing you". Well sorry mate but what do you expect based on that performance. I guess the fans would love to lie and say it was great, but it was in fact piss poor.
Based on this evidence, if we encounter even mildly good opposition, let alone class teams like Argentina or Mexico, we are toast.
But we may well not even get far enough to find out. On this form, Slovenia will probably beat us. And that would add up to the lamest first round effort for England since the infamous Euro 1992 tournament: with Capello becoming the new "turnip" hate figure. We hope something will turn up but what we get is turnip... actually I think Graham Taylor was underrated, the poor bastard.
Although I am too young to remember it first hand, the public and media reaction to performances like this seems to recall the super-lame Don Revie era of the mid-seventies. While Kevin Keegan is often held up as the archetypal England manager I would make the case for Revie: great on paper, a bust on the pitch, an enigma to media and players alike, and finally pissing off for a big cheque at the United Arab Emirates.
If England lose the final group game I expect a delegation from UAE to be landing at Heathrow to meet Mr Capello with a Very Big Cheque forthwith.
I will miss Fabio's facial expressions though. Top class. If it was decided on facial expressions we would already have won the tournament.
Actually there's method in England's madness this time out. If you can't win, at least lose badly. That's a lot more exciting for fans and pundits alike. No-one really remembers World Cups 2002 or 2006, when we were OK but not brilliant; but people do remember the farce of Euro 2000, when we was bloody awful. Something To Put The Boot Into. That's what football in this country is about. I don't really like it, but it does make me laugh.
No "almost" about it in fact, folks: this was pants-wettingly lame.
Topped off by a hilarious outburst from Wayne Rooney - the Phil Collins of English football (to be fair, probably extremely frustrated at not being 100% match-fit): "it's nice to see your own fans booing you". Well sorry mate but what do you expect based on that performance. I guess the fans would love to lie and say it was great, but it was in fact piss poor.
Based on this evidence, if we encounter even mildly good opposition, let alone class teams like Argentina or Mexico, we are toast.
But we may well not even get far enough to find out. On this form, Slovenia will probably beat us. And that would add up to the lamest first round effort for England since the infamous Euro 1992 tournament: with Capello becoming the new "turnip" hate figure. We hope something will turn up but what we get is turnip... actually I think Graham Taylor was underrated, the poor bastard.
Although I am too young to remember it first hand, the public and media reaction to performances like this seems to recall the super-lame Don Revie era of the mid-seventies. While Kevin Keegan is often held up as the archetypal England manager I would make the case for Revie: great on paper, a bust on the pitch, an enigma to media and players alike, and finally pissing off for a big cheque at the United Arab Emirates.
If England lose the final group game I expect a delegation from UAE to be landing at Heathrow to meet Mr Capello with a Very Big Cheque forthwith.
I will miss Fabio's facial expressions though. Top class. If it was decided on facial expressions we would already have won the tournament.
Actually there's method in England's madness this time out. If you can't win, at least lose badly. That's a lot more exciting for fans and pundits alike. No-one really remembers World Cups 2002 or 2006, when we were OK but not brilliant; but people do remember the farce of Euro 2000, when we was bloody awful. Something To Put The Boot Into. That's what football in this country is about. I don't really like it, but it does make me laugh.
16 June 2010
A perfect start to England's World Cup
Apologies for radio silence over the last week. At the weekend I went to my best friend's stag do in Norwich, which I'd organised, via Thetford where we ran around with lasers against a bunch of 14-year olds. For someone of my age, being "killed" by a kid who looks like Lookyboop is slightly embarrassing. But never mind.
Since then I've been up against so many deadlines at work that I probably shouldn't be taking the necessary 5 minutes out to write this email. But it's nice to have a break.
I loved the England-USA game in the World Cup. It was the classic England start... an OK performance marred by dodgy goalkeeping (a perennial bugbear for us over the years) and bizarre managerial facial expressions (again, something of a standard for us.) Sadly as it was just a group match there was no penalty shoot-out, otherwise I bet we'd have lost out with a real howler.
The same things seem to recur every time in the World Cup, regardless of players or managers. England and Spain always underperform, Germany always overperform. Amusing but a bit dull really.
My prediction? We'll draw or maybe scrape a win in our second match before thrashing the opposition in our final group game and going through to a second round match with Germany, which we'll lose on penalties. A German bistro in somewhere like Coventry will be vandalised by English morons. And so it goes.
Since then I've been up against so many deadlines at work that I probably shouldn't be taking the necessary 5 minutes out to write this email. But it's nice to have a break.
I loved the England-USA game in the World Cup. It was the classic England start... an OK performance marred by dodgy goalkeeping (a perennial bugbear for us over the years) and bizarre managerial facial expressions (again, something of a standard for us.) Sadly as it was just a group match there was no penalty shoot-out, otherwise I bet we'd have lost out with a real howler.
The same things seem to recur every time in the World Cup, regardless of players or managers. England and Spain always underperform, Germany always overperform. Amusing but a bit dull really.
My prediction? We'll draw or maybe scrape a win in our second match before thrashing the opposition in our final group game and going through to a second round match with Germany, which we'll lose on penalties. A German bistro in somewhere like Coventry will be vandalised by English morons. And so it goes.
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