Englands 2018 World Cup Bid - Backhanders and bribes

The FIFA executive committee are due to announce the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups on Thursday against the back drop of fresh allegations of corruption and dodgy dealings, made by BBC’s Panorma program. 

It comes as no surprise that FIFA executive committee members have been engaged in backhanders and bribes, especially recently with the huge sums of money being spent on the actual bids themselves and the estimated £3 billion in revenue brought into the country.

FIFA has always been more of a clandestine intuition similar to The Masons, where nobody really knows what goes on behind closed doors and there is no transparency over voting. FIFA is beast that has never been responsive to change and this is highlighted in their secret voting system. Rooting out bribery and backhanders should be quite an easy process for FIFA with heir being only 23 voters on the committee but the problem comes from the willingness and almost blasé attitude of both the competing host nations in offering bribes and the committee members willingly accepting them.

The voting is highly political within FIFA and all committee members are first and foremost looking to get the best deal for their region in exchange for their votes. It is basically a d*ck swinging contest with the competing nations pandering to the committee members who use this to show how big their d*cks are and how influential within FIFA they are. 

Jack Warner is a prime example of someone who has abused his power as recently as 2010 in buying up tickets to sell on the black market for South Africa 2010 but remains a key influential figure in the voting for 2018 and 2022. 

Hopefully this furore has given FIFA a wakeup call and they will review the whole bidding and voting process for future tournaments and they will at least understand that with so much money invested in the bid and the financial and prestigious rewards for the winning country are so large that a little transparency will go a long way to giving much more credibility to the FIFA executive committee.

I hope the FIFA committee don’t read this post, (I know Sepp is a huge fan of the site) and decide they are not going to vote for England’s bid and hopefully the Panorama program hasn’t damaged the bid too much. Politicians and the England 2018 bid party have all criticised the timing of the Panorama program, calling it unpatriotic. I tend to agree the timing is poor, especially as they were not fresh allegations. Having said that, if as a country, we are willing to spend millions of pounds on a bid we have the right to know that the voting process is fair and true. Also we have a free press in this country, something we should be proud of and not something we should be trying to curb, unpatriotic or not!

Personally I would love to see the World Cup in England and here’s hoping that Big Willys (sorry) Royal seal of approval helps seal the deal!

http://www.england2018bid.com/

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Time for Players to Take Responsibility

The major talking point form the weekend was Nani’s goal against Spurs. Harry has been quoted as saying it was farcical and a real mess, which it is true it was but not on the refs part.

From the very first time you start playing football you are taught the basic lesson of playing to the whistle, why then does Harry feel that Gomes and his Spurs team should play to their own imaginary whistle?

True, Nani handled the ball when he was on the floor but Gomes picked the ball up and looked to play on, so Mark Clattenburg was well within his rights to not blow his whistle and let the game flow. Spurs are arguing that there was no advantage but Gomez didn’t even drop the ball close to where the handball happened, he threw the ball about 12 yards forward. Was he expecting the free kick to be taken form there?

The ref got it right, he never blew for a free kick and let the game carry one as Gomes had the ball in his hand, Gomes then threw the ball 12 yards forward and assumed he had a free kick. This is where players and managers need to take responsibility for their actions. Players can’t go deciding they should have a free kick or start making referring decisions otherwise it would be more like a kick about in the play ground with no ref.

It amazes me that professional players think they can blame the ref for their own stupidity, it is a similar situation with the goal Liverpool scored against Sunderland after Michael turner had nonchalantly back heeled the ball towards his keeper from a free kick. 

Maybe the players should take a break from training for a session or two and actually get to know the basic rules of football, they can’t just change them mid game to suit themselves or because they think they know better. It is indicative of the way the game is going where players do all they can to cheat and con the referee and then managers moan when the ref gets a decision wrong. Players no longer accept responsibility for their own actions on the pitch and it is time they did.

Note to Harry, moan and criticize the ref all you want but you should know the rules and so should your players. Maybe he should stop talking to the press and actually teach his players the rules of the game.

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