Guten Ahbend.
I can say this in jest you see only because of the actions of those who were cut in half by machine gun fire, choked by mustard gas, blown to smithereens or disemboweled by bayonet. Blimey Aitch, tad heavy for a Saturday night, old man…
Well, I tell you this: I just enjoyed a cracking firework show on the Stray in Harrogate. And that was a show! But before I left the house I made sure I had my Poppy on. Then I get home and get a Tweet from a chap – regular or and indeed occasional readers – may recall. Remember a chap by the name of ‘This Is Sammy’?
Well he wrote a superb piece which I was very happy to run out on this blog about the whole David Baddiel fiasco which was HERE.
Well Sammy has unsurprisingly hit another bulls-eye with a piece about ‘the Poppy’ and FIFA which is lengthy and so I would ask you to click HERE.
You know me, I can be an intolerant/flippant git. But stuff like this is important. I hope you afforded it a minute or two and enjoy a great read about a deeply important subject.
And you can let ’em know how you feel! http://www.fifa.com/contact/form.html
That’s RACIST.
we shall remember them . those that died for us and our way of life .WE SHALL REMEMBER . a small price to pay me thinks
They stood and died for everyone of us,we should at least stand for them and their memory.
Do we really need a poppy stitched on to an English football shirt to enable us to remember the sacrifices made by so many? I personally don’t think so.I don’t see the need to tubthump about FIFA either,all footy fans in Britain and Ireland know what a self serving bunch they are.
It’s not a matter of whether we need it or not. It’s a matter of principle. Are we just going to kowtow to those pricks in Switzerland, or are we going to tell them to fuck off?
the danger is that public spectacles have long been used as tools for state propaganda, just ask the romans or the germans. The yanks have got it so bad right now that they cant have a sporting event without wailing out the national anthem and honouring some vets, to not do so would be considered treasonous. It is actually a govt policy to promote the armed forces at sporting events. So we need to be careful that we can distinguish between “remembrance” and being swept up on a wave of state orchestrated militarism…
now back to the football…..COYS!
Excellent :daumen:
Yes it’s frightening when you look at the aftermath of 9/11, to see how many people were to scared to speak out, and hence they were able to introduce the Patriot Act. Then again, the US has a long history of intimidating dissenters with MacCarthyism and the Salem witch trials as a couple of examples.
I honestly believe that it couldn’t happen here though because of those who sacrificed their lives to allow us to be dissenters.
I look forward to the day when UEFA tells FIFA that the money comes from Europe and without Europe, their corrupt oligarchy is nothing. Why for example, should they be telling Europe tat we can only have World Cup every twenty years, when if it wasn’t for Europe, they’d be struggling to sell the TV rights to the Solomon Islands.
I’ve been to Asia 15 times, and I have never seen the equivalent of a the S.American CL being shown there, but when it is European CL, the bars that are open are packed.
Personally, I think that FIFA are so corrupt that if we never played another game in the WC, I would not care.
What, as corrupt and incompetent as the English F.A?
FIFA are in a league of their own ever since Blatter came to power. Warner was well known by everybody to be corrupt, and he was Blatter’s strongest ally. Blatter dumped him when he had to be seen to be taking action about the endemic corruption that was constantly being linked to him.
Than you have the case of Bin Hamman, the Qatari delegate who was found to have offered bribes to other delegates. FIFA ruled out any possibility that he might also have offered bribes to obtain the 2022 WC for Qatar. As we all know, the whole world is waiting a for a WC to be played in a desert kingdom with a population of 1 mill, and distinctly lacking in purpose built stadia, where temperatures reach 120 degrees and Sharia law is practiced.
A couple of extracts from Wikipedia to show you just how desirable this world cup is: “According to the Trafficking in Persons Report by the US State Department, men and women who are lured into Qatar by promises of high wages are often forced into underpaid labour. The report states that Qatari laws against forced labour are rarely enforced and that labour laws often result in the detention of victims in deportation centres, pending the completion of legal proceedings. The report places Qatar at tier 3, as one of the countries that neither satisfies the minimum standards nor demonstrates significant efforts to come into compliance”.
and “A Wikileaks report has revealed that letters signed by the deputy prime minister, Abdullah al-Attiyah, and sent to Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and a number of other major oil companies showed that the Qatar government demanded donations of up to $1.7 billion towards the cost of building a medical centre in 2007”.
And FIFA think they are some sort of moral guardians?
So you’re miffed because Qatar know how to bribe somebody properly, instead of our lot who offered FIFA delegates wives cheap, knock-off, fake designer hand bags?
As for the trafficking incidents, The U.S State Department (or any U.S Deapartment for that matter) lecturing anybody about anything is nothing surely but a sick joke, given their own history.
FIFA are bent, no doubt. But those bodies and institutions who readily condemn them at the drop of hat are far from whiter than white themselves.
Your original question was one of scale, were FIFA worse than the FA? I caould have just said “yes”, but I thought it more useful to back my answer up with details.
I am not miffed about the Qataris having bribed their way to a World Cup Final, I am miffed at the selective exposure of bribery that Blatter indulges in and then his taking the moral high ground regarding honouring our dead.