It was this guy who led to Blatter accusing the British (or more specifically the English) of being racists for criticising FIFA. Just a shame that only our press and FA have complained, while David cunt-face Cameron was busy brown-nosing with the corrupt bastard.
“I know that they are criminal scum, and I’ve known it for years,” he said. “And that is a thoughtful summation. That is not an insult. That is not throwing about wild words.”
“These scum have stolen the people’s sport. They’ve stolen it, the cynical thieving bastards,” he said. “So, yes, it’s nice to see the fear on their faces.”
Thanks for this.
I remember watching that Panorama episode and thinking, surely something will come of all this now... Only took 9 years!
Glad to see there are people out there recognizing Jennings in all this.
Next FIFA gaffer? Please not Platini - hates England and let us not forget his utterly OTT celebration when he scored the winner for Juve in 85, against a Liverpool side who didn't want to contend a final with 50+ corpses lying around the ground.
Zico alas comes from a country with a less-than-pristine record for transparency, but Figo would have my full respect.
I think it's fair to say that it will take years before FIFA rights the ship, and I really hope the DOJ, FBI, IRS and any other 3-letter acronym continue to press these dirt bags --- I wouldn't put it past Blatter to try and step down, only to hope that the attention blows over and come back later on (suggesting that it would take 6-9 months to convene a FIFA conference for a vote is in itself very sketchy in my book).
But I have been thinking/day dreaming of the next best steps to put FIFA back in the good graces. Surprisingly, there are a few things they have done under Blatters' reign that I don't mind. I [strong]do like[/strong] the idea of moving the WC to different continents every 4 years where it makes sense (i.e. not in the F*cking desert). So to that extent, I'm hoping even if 2022 get rescheduled, it goes to a continent that hasn't had a WC in a while.
I also don't even hate the idea of spreading the money earned from a WC in a rather equitable manner across all member countries. Unfortunately, the graft is pretty bad for many of these smaller countries, but ideally, that distribution would help build out the sport to countries that could really benefit from more investment. That said, I don't think Solomon Islands necessarily deserve as much as Ivory Coast/Chile/Poland, etc....so I think some revenue sharing should be completed by a coefficient of either population or performance on the pitch.
My main hope is that FIFA moves to a representative parliament/congress for future voting of leaders, officials and WC hosts (again, perhaps using population and performance coefficient). That is the only way I see making sure the undeniable levels for corruption potentially become something more in line with the acceptable corruption we all expect ;-)
What about USA? Seems a fair reward for shafting Blatter.
I know a lot of us Yanks were hoping we'd get it for 2022 -- thinking that Russia was quasi Asia Region, it seemed like a N. America 2022 WC was a logical next place (even if it was Mexico or Canada). That said, the idea that we as a nation were so bothered by getting shunned that we started to finally investigate FIFA for racketeering, etc. is ridiculous.
Prior to FIFA imploding, the assumption over here was that FIFA actually wanted to play nice with the U.S. because they saw how popular the sport was becoming (and thus saw us as a potential cash cow for their coffers). But I think a lot of people in the States really got peeved about Qatar --- not because of just getting looked over for at least 4 more years, but because that it was too obvious that Qatar paid off FIFA.
To be fair, USA could host the World Cup next week if we needed to (/hyperbole) --- we have at least 50 stadiums across the states that could be morphed into very [strong]SOCCER[/strong] friendly stadiums, and that could each hold 50-75K plus people.
Not to mention that we now have at least 15-20 [strong]SOCCER[/strong] specific stadiums in the MLS that could be used as training (and hold at least 15K).
It was this guy who led to Blatter accusing the British (or more specifically the English) of being racists for criticising FIFA. Just a shame that only our press and FA have complained, while David cunt-face Cameron was busy brown-nosing with the corrupt bastard.
Loooool
Tories are responsible for Fifa corruption scandal
Not Fifa, natch
Tories, see?
Brownosing and gladhanding is on the daily agenda of [em]any[/em] PM.
Candidates for the Government (regardless of "Party"; AKA The Illusion of Choice) are chosen by, backed by and campaigned by The City, who will already have enough dirt on them to ruin them should they think about anything other than the Mission Statement.
The Mission Statement is to keep The City rich. END OF.
To be fair to Duder, the European authorities have done absolutely nothing to curtail FIFA, when the evidence was there for them to act on and the investigation was led by a Brit. Any of them speaking up about it now is like the dude who starts talking shit after the fight is over. You can be sure as hell the fact that the BBC played a big role in bringing the corruption to light won't be getting a mention by anyone on the right in this country at the moment, so everyone has agendas. But Labour were in power the last time we bid for the WC so they would've kinda been in charge of the brown nosing.
Now that Warner is taking the revenge route, the shit will really hit the fan.
I reckon FIFA will not elect a euroman friendly pres; UEFA will withdraw from it, and S America will join them.
There will be two orgs along the boxing model, with original FIFA running The World Cup, and EurAmFA setting up The Real World Cup,
Sponsors initially will back both, and over time will evolve to be targeted to their respective audiences.
No doubt Europe will continue to attract the best world talent, and Arg n Bras will want to compete with them rather than minnows.
Gradually, as first world Asian countries improve and African countries mature economies, they will join the new org and leave og FIFA to become a sort of Conference South and East compared to the Premier League.
These things seem inevitable, given a voting structure where tiny populations and lack of game history have equal votes to the evergreen powers.
In fact it might even make more sense.
It seems that everyone involved in playing the game wants basically the same thing, regardless. It's all the vultures and backroom men who are ruining it for everyone. So I guess it could come down to whether the players themselves want to stand up and risk rocking the boat, and I'm willing to bet the majority won't. Eric Cantona was recently quoted saying that choosing between Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini for presidency is like choosing ‘between the plague and cholera’. It's all about power, politics and ultimately money and unfortunately the end of Blatter or FIFA isn't going to change that, Platini will simply try and take over where Blatter left off.
Two things are for sure, every player will want to compete against the world's best and every fan wants to watch that. The S.Americans will want to be in a competition with Europe's elite because of historical ties. USA, Canada, Mexico etc and the Auzzies & dem will side with Europe because it's the home of football etc. East Asia will too because their aim is to compete with the best. Which leaves what.. Africa, South Asia & the Middle East and Russia. Not exactly great footballing nations. All of who are ruled by corruption so they could well go wherever the moneys is. And their aint no money in a tournament with just those countries involved.
Any indication in all this that games were rigged/thrown?
Yes, certainly suspicions about South Korea vs Portugal/Italy back when it was in the Far East
suspicions in the sense that there were shitty refereeing decisions, but I don't think there's any actual indication of match fixing happening or that the FBI investigation includes that. If it did happen, I doubt it involved high up FIFA officials. Match fixing always involves big betting syndicates and it's a very different type of corruption, nowadays they know better than to bring officials into it, they go directly to referees or players. These dudes were into wholesale diverting of funds into their accounts, not the kind of small time money that match fixing entails.
Although CBF officials are being investigated for scalping tickets during the World Cup, so it's not like they refuse money if they think they can get away with it. Do these dudes really need to make a few grand scalping tickets after they've made millions in bribes???
Some intriguing news coming out of Ireland now. John Delaney, the chief executive of the Football Association of Ireland, has apparently been on Irish radio revealing that his organisation received five million euros from Fifa in 2009 in the wake of Thierry Henry’s infamous handball to avoid any legal action.
More from Delaney now – he was speaking on The Ray D’Arcy Show and has revealed he was not Sepp Blatter No1’s fan.
“He met Emma, my partner, in Vienna recently,” said Delaney. “He stared at her for seven or eight seconds and he said, “I approve of your new girlfriend’”. I asked him to move on, move on please.”
I was actually thinking it wouldn't be surprising if Silvio Berlesconi offered to be the next FIFA president.
The home nation bias could well be a real thing, but it's done for reason of encouraging a good tournament rather than pure financial gain. The people at the top of FIFA were swimming in so much money and privilege they really had no reason to get involved with betting syndicates.
It's probably a point worth making because it would be a shame if the uninitiated's take away from all this was that football is a wholly corrupt sport because the leaders of largest governing body are. And I've heard no evidence that the corruption goes beyond those involved in the financial side of the game.
Delaney on Blatter’s ability to maintain his grip on the presidency (until now):
I remember being at the Fifa Congress in Morocco when the guy from East Timor, they were just brought in as a member of Fifa. And four times in the East Timor’s president’s address, he called Blatter your excellency. He presented him with a sword of some kind. I turned to our Preisdent David Blood and said do you know if Blatter turned around and shoots somebody in the front row, East Timor would still probably still vote for him. That’s how he got revered. He was brilliant at it. You’ve got to give him some bit of credit, I don’t admire him at all but he was resilient, and it took a wave of momentum to finally get him stepping down. He was brilliant at dividing and conquering.
Brasil = 1 vote, East Timor = 1 vote. As Skel said, this was the secret to his success.
Milner has signed for Liverpool. Seems like a good fit. He should get game time their at least.
THERE ;)
Well, it was in two consecutive poastz.
Yeah, sad to see him leave City as he's been a consumate pro there, but he seems a genuinely likeable and talented chap who's sadly not a perfect fit for Pellegrini's system. Dunno if he's going to be the "Gerrard Replacement" some of the press are bigging it up to be - I can't see Rodgers current system ever allowing him the kind of freedom Stevie had BITD, but I hope it works out for him (not to the detriment of City doe, natch.)
Leaves us with a hole to fill and Yaya's not getting any younger. Isco and Pogba please.
Comments
It was this guy who led to Blatter accusing the British (or more specifically the English) of being racists for criticising FIFA. Just a shame that only our press and FA have complained, while David cunt-face Cameron was busy brown-nosing with the corrupt bastard.
Thanks for this.
I remember watching that Panorama episode and thinking, surely something will come of all this now... Only took 9 years!
Glad to see there are people out there recognizing Jennings in all this.
England will be ready in 6 months.
Save us qualifying
Next FIFA gaffer? Please not Platini - hates England and let us not forget his utterly OTT celebration when he scored the winner for Juve in 85, against a Liverpool side who didn't want to contend a final with 50+ corpses lying around the ground.
Zico alas comes from a country with a less-than-pristine record for transparency, but Figo would have my full respect.
It's a massive job, even more so with the mess that needs to be cleaned up.
In fact, we all could.
But I have been thinking/day dreaming of the next best steps to put FIFA back in the good graces. Surprisingly, there are a few things they have done under Blatters' reign that I don't mind. I [strong]do like[/strong] the idea of moving the WC to different continents every 4 years where it makes sense (i.e. not in the F*cking desert). So to that extent, I'm hoping even if 2022 get rescheduled, it goes to a continent that hasn't had a WC in a while.
I also don't even hate the idea of spreading the money earned from a WC in a rather equitable manner across all member countries. Unfortunately, the graft is pretty bad for many of these smaller countries, but ideally, that distribution would help build out the sport to countries that could really benefit from more investment. That said, I don't think Solomon Islands necessarily deserve as much as Ivory Coast/Chile/Poland, etc....so I think some revenue sharing should be completed by a coefficient of either population or performance on the pitch.
My main hope is that FIFA moves to a representative parliament/congress for future voting of leaders, officials and WC hosts (again, perhaps using population and performance coefficient). That is the only way I see making sure the undeniable levels for corruption potentially become something more in line with the acceptable corruption we all expect ;-)
What about USA? Seems a fair reward for shafting Blatter.
I know a lot of us Yanks were hoping we'd get it for 2022 -- thinking that Russia was quasi Asia Region, it seemed like a N. America 2022 WC was a logical next place (even if it was Mexico or Canada). That said, the idea that we as a nation were so bothered by getting shunned that we started to finally investigate FIFA for racketeering, etc. is ridiculous.
Prior to FIFA imploding, the assumption over here was that FIFA actually wanted to play nice with the U.S. because they saw how popular the sport was becoming (and thus saw us as a potential cash cow for their coffers). But I think a lot of people in the States really got peeved about Qatar --- not because of just getting looked over for at least 4 more years, but because that it was too obvious that Qatar paid off FIFA.
To be fair, USA could host the World Cup next week if we needed to (/hyperbole) --- we have at least 50 stadiums across the states that could be morphed into very [strong]SOCCER[/strong] friendly stadiums, and that could each hold 50-75K plus people.
Not to mention that we now have at least 15-20 [strong]SOCCER[/strong] specific stadiums in the MLS that could be used as training (and hold at least 15K).
Loooool
Tories are responsible for Fifa corruption scandal
Not Fifa, natch
Tories, see?
Candidates for the Government (regardless of "Party"; AKA The Illusion of Choice) are chosen by, backed by and campaigned by The City, who will already have enough dirt on them to ruin them should they think about anything other than the Mission Statement.
The Mission Statement is to keep The City rich. END OF.
I reckon FIFA will not elect a euroman friendly pres; UEFA will withdraw from it, and S America will join them.
There will be two orgs along the boxing model, with original FIFA running The World Cup, and EurAmFA setting up The Real World Cup,
Sponsors initially will back both, and over time will evolve to be targeted to their respective audiences.
No doubt Europe will continue to attract the best world talent, and Arg n Bras will want to compete with them rather than minnows.
Gradually, as first world Asian countries improve and African countries mature economies, they will join the new org and leave og FIFA to become a sort of Conference South and East compared to the Premier League.
These things seem inevitable, given a voting structure where tiny populations and lack of game history have equal votes to the evergreen powers.
In fact it might even make more sense.
Two things are for sure, every player will want to compete against the world's best and every fan wants to watch that. The S.Americans will want to be in a competition with Europe's elite because of historical ties. USA, Canada, Mexico etc and the Auzzies & dem will side with Europe because it's the home of football etc. East Asia will too because their aim is to compete with the best. Which leaves what.. Africa, South Asia & the Middle East and Russia. Not exactly great footballing nations. All of who are ruled by corruption so they could well go wherever the moneys is. And their aint no money in a tournament with just those countries involved.
Yes, certainly suspicions about South Korea vs Portugal/Italy back when it was in the Far East
suspicions in the sense that there were shitty refereeing decisions, but I don't think there's any actual indication of match fixing happening or that the FBI investigation includes that. If it did happen, I doubt it involved high up FIFA officials. Match fixing always involves big betting syndicates and it's a very different type of corruption, nowadays they know better than to bring officials into it, they go directly to referees or players. These dudes were into wholesale diverting of funds into their accounts, not the kind of small time money that match fixing entails.
Although CBF officials are being investigated for scalping tickets during the World Cup, so it's not like they refuse money if they think they can get away with it. Do these dudes really need to make a few grand scalping tickets after they've made millions in bribes???
I was actually thinking it wouldn't be surprising if Silvio Berlesconi offered to be the next FIFA president.
It's probably a point worth making because it would be a shame if the uninitiated's take away from all this was that football is a wholly corrupt sport because the leaders of largest governing body are. And I've heard no evidence that the corruption goes beyond those involved in the financial side of the game.
Brasil = 1 vote, East Timor = 1 vote. As Skel said, this was the secret to his success.
Looking forward to Jack Warner's 'avalanche' of secrets tho.
what a bunch of scummy little rats they are.
Et tu, Jabulani????
Vuvuzela's fall-guy.
THERE ;)
Well, it was in two consecutive poastz.
Yeah, sad to see him leave City as he's been a consumate pro there, but he seems a genuinely likeable and talented chap who's sadly not a perfect fit for Pellegrini's system. Dunno if he's going to be the "Gerrard Replacement" some of the press are bigging it up to be - I can't see Rodgers current system ever allowing him the kind of freedom Stevie had BITD, but I hope it works out for him (not to the detriment of City doe, natch.)
Leaves us with a hole to fill and Yaya's not getting any younger. Isco and Pogba please.
but real arent that stupid
They did hire the Waiter, albeit as a one-season stopgap for Herr Klopp or someone