Bonkers FIFA
I can understand giving the World Cup to Russia for 2018, but to give it to Qatar for 2022, is probably one of the stupidest decisions they have made in recent years, amongst a whole basketfull.
I’ve been to Russia to support Ipswich and although it was a day trip, it was a pleasureable experience. Especially as Ipswich won in the Olympic Stadium, where Seb Coe and Steve Ovett won their gold medals.
My only worry about Russia is that the Russian police are not noted for being friendly. Even a few thousand Ipswich supporters, who are not noted for trouble, were treated with strong suspicion. When I went to Belarus to support England, other England fans, I said that Minsk was a really pleasureable experience compared to an earlier visit to Moscow, where the police were overly aggressive.
But that is a problem, they will have to overcome, just as they’ll have to come to terms with black players, who often don’t get the best of reception from the crowds in Russia.
When I heard Qatar had won, I thought it was a joke.
The games will be played in very high temperatures, drinking by fans will be a problem and the population of Qatar is only 1.6 million, so it must be the smallest country ever to stage a World Cup. So if they fulfil their promise of building 12 stadia, they would just about be big enough to hold the whole population of the country.
I suspect that it will be the first World Cup that will be played in an alternative venue or it might well be the least successful in terms of visitor numbers. After all, some of the cheaper options for travel and accommodation, will just not be available.
I suspect too, that we’ve not heard the last of these two World Cup bids, when a few investigative journalists get their noses into the story.
I also can’t get it out of my mind, that for 2022, the United States was one of the bidders and I suspect that their bid was strong. So did the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan mean that no-one would vote for England or the United States.
This article from the Brisbane Times is a good summary of the farce. Like England, Australia got just one vote.
This paragraph from the article quotes Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph.
But prominent English football analyst Henry Winter, while lamenting his country’s loss, wrote in London’s Daily Telegraph that Qatar’s win was “the real scandal” and that FIFA credibility was battered by its decisions.
“Yet the real scandal in FIFA-ville was the decision to award the 2022 tournament to Qatar, a soulless, featureless, air-conditioned, cramped place with so little connection to football it required hired hands like Pep Guardiola. It was as if FIFA were saying ‘to hell with the fans’. Qatar 2022 will be a joyless experience for supporters,” Winter said.
“FIFA’s credibility was battered yesterday, not by any allegations of corruption but by the cynical game of collusion and vote-trading that patently went on in Fifa House. All the fish are soiled.”
We’ve not heard the last of this scandal.
One-Nil Flattered West Brom
That is how the BBC summed up Ipswich’s remarkable victory at Portman Road tonight.
Did I wish I had gone? Not really, as I wouldn’t have been able to get home!
Beckham Plays it Straight!
My late wife always reckoned that Seb Coe’s speech in Singapore to win the 2012 Olympics for London was one of the best speeches she’d ever heard and she’d heard a lot as a barrister for some really hopeless causes.
Today, David Beckham has given a wonderfully crafted press conference in Zurich, as England try to win the World Cup for 2018. If we don’t win, we won’t be able to blame him! But then he’s got too much London and Essex in his DNA not to give it his best shot.
They even asked him whether he had an invite to the Royal Wedding! That’s the main reason of course why we won’t win. Prince William and Kate Middleton won’t be inviting Sep Blatter!
Have the BBC Shot Themselves in the Foot?
Panorama tonight reports that members of FIFA have taken bribes in the past. I would not know if they have, but then the records of the worlds’ top sporting bodies on corruption is generally not as snow white as it should be.
But I would not like to be the man from the BBC negotiating the next set of TV rights for the World Cup. I suspect that the matches won’t be shown on the BBC.
Crying in Their Beer
As an Ipswich suppoter, I hate to say it, but Norwich City have given me one of my best football moments.
It was the 18th February 1967 and C and myself went for a drink in a Greenall Whitley pub, called something like the Royal Oak on the East Lancashire Road (A580) by St. Helens. C wasn’t into football much, although she used to go to Barnet as a child with her father. But she was so amused at a table full of disgruntled Manchester United fans, crying in their beer, after Norwich had beaten them 2-1 in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
She actually remembered this incident a few months before she died. I’ll never forget it!
A Second Visit to Carrow Road
I’d only been to Carrow Road once before and that was with my late youngest son to see Norwich City play the team he supported as a twelve-year-old, Liverpool.
The ground then was fairly ramshackle and you can see now that it has been completely modernised.
Carrow Road, Norwich
What the flags were about, I don’t know!
I will say little about the football, except that Ipswich self-destructed and I don’t believe they’ll do any better until someone takes charge of the defence. Damien Delaney may have scored but he needs someone to help him out. We need Gareth McCauley back in the team as soon as possible to put some sense and backbone there.
Off to Norwich This Morning
I’ve just ordered the taxi to take me to the station to get my train to Cambridge. The weather doesn’t seem too bad, but it’s a bit cold. To say the least. The train was also on time at Ipswich and is just approaching Needham Market.
Here’s hoping it all goes well!
The Ugly Face of Scottish Football
Scottish football seems to going to be hit by a referees strike this weekend according to many reports like this. There has been this comment from John Hughes, a former manager of Hibernian and Falkirk.
The game is in a little bit of chaos. It needs bringing together and I sympathise with the referees because they do get a hard time.
But managers are also open to criticism, that is part and parcel of the job.Referees need to be accountable and there has to be more transparency in what goes on behind the doors at Hampden.
But one thing I will say, if referees are getting phone calls to their home or work place, or their kids are getting a hard time at school, then that is not on, that is way below the belt.
After all, it is just a sport.
I heard a bit last night on Radio 5, where it would appear completely outrangeous claims have been made to employers as well, with even claims of religious bigotry.
Obviously, these critics don’t agree with the last part of John Hughes comment.
The End of the Season Ends in One!
This football season ends in 01 and what does that mean?
Look at 1901, 1921, 1951, 1961, 1981 and 1991!
These were the years that ended in one, where Tottenham Hotspur won something.
So are they going to win something this season?
The way some of the other fancied teams are playing, I wouldn’t say that Spurs won’t win something this year!
A New Type of Football
Yesterday evening I watched the FA Cup replay between Ebbsfleet United and AFC Wimbledon. Both are very much fans-supported clubs, with Ebbsfleet being owned by the on-line community MyFootballClub and AFC Wimbledon having emerged after the transfer of Wimbledon to Milton Keynes.
Will we be seeing more clubs like these? It could be possible that next season AFC Wimbledon are in the Football League.
One thing that was different, was that there was a pitch-side advert for the Samaritans at the match.
The Anonymous Widower 