Archive for the ‘World Cup’ Category

Blitzkrieg on the football field – Superblitzingsmarticrushingvirtuosity

July 9, 2014

Brazil 1 – Germany 7

The match: Rout, embarrassment, master-class, depressing, exhilarating, staggering, bewildering, astonishing, awesome, disaster, historic, crazy, unbelievable, blitzed, farce …….

Germany: Rampant, masterful, ruthless, spectacular, skillful, superb, organised, brilliant, fast, memorable, unprecedented, clinical, triumphant, virtuoso, smart ……

Brazil: Crushed, humiliated, crumbled, swamped, shell-shocked, disgraced, heart-broken, dismantled, thrashed, shameful, farcical…..

There is a shortage of words and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious will not do.

Superblitzingsmarticrushingvirtuosity perhaps.

(super-blitzing-smarti-crushing-virtuosity)

Biter bit: Suarez banned for 4 months including 9 international matches

June 26, 2014

Luis Alberto Suárez Díaz, the serial biter / footballer has played his last match at this World Cup.

BBC: 

Uruguay striker Luis Suarez has been suspended from all football-related activity for four months for biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini.

Fifa’s independent disciplinary committee imposed the ban after finding the 27-year-old guilty of misconduct.

Suarez has also been banned for nine international matches, ruling him out of the rest of the World Cup.

ReutersSuarez was also suspended from any football-related activity for four months and fined 100,000 Swiss francs ($111,000).

“Such behaviour cannot be tolerated on any football pitch, and in particular not at a FIFA World Cup when the eyes of millions of people are on the stars on the field,” Claudio Sulser, chairman of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, said in a statement.

“The Disciplinary Committee took into account all the factors of the case and the degree of Mr Suarez’s guilt in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Code. The decision comes into force as soon it is communicated.”

Nothing is reported (yet) as to whether he

  1. will be required to wear a muzzle whenever he plays
  2. will have to take an AIDS test before every match
  3. will have his “wisdom” teeth extracted
  4. will have to provide a written guarantee to all opposing players before every match
  5. will have to provide his club Liverpool with a personal indemnity for his future actions
  6. will have to attend psychiatric counselling
  7. will be prosecuted for assault

Liverpool will not get very much for him when they do finally get rid for him.

Best to write his financial value off.

Was Suarez paid to bite an opponent?

June 25, 2014

I just saw this article on Swedish Radio’s website:

Betting site Betsafe offered odds of 175-1 that Suarez would bite an opponent during the World Cup. Over 100 people won.

Jonathan Brack from Stockholm was one of them. ……. 

The Swede won over 14 000 kronor after the game and is now planning a trip to Manchester to see his favorite team Machester United play.

This was just in Sweden. And when there is big money or big odds at stake I tend to suspect that some kind of fixing could have taken place. If the bookies have paid out then it can no longer be in doubt for FIFA that he did the deed.

Luis Suarez’ action was so stupid and so outrageous – considering that he has done this twice before – that I cannot help suspecting that he could have been paid to do what he did.

The numbers are compelling. Just suppose he had placed – through a friend of course – $100,000 with someone offering 175:1. With $17.5 million, being suspended for just 2 years would be no big deal! Or suppose that 1,000 punters worldwide each bet $1,000. That would have provided a pot of $175 million to be shared with Suarez if he ensured that they would win!!

Suarez – 3 bites and time to pull his teeth

June 25, 2014

A dog which bit 3 times would most likely be put down.

After having attacked Branislav Ivanovic and Otman Bakkal in the past, Luis Suarez was at it again at yesterdays World Cup match between Uruguay and Italy. This time he managed to sink his teeth into Giorgio Chiellini’s shoulder.

Time to put him down. Or only be allowed to play after a long suspension provided he has all his teeth pulled and plays with an empty mouth.

Luis Suarez - 3 bites and out

Luis Suarez – 3 bites and out

Are all spammers watching the World Cup? or why the Spanish team are like potato plants

June 14, 2014

I usually check my spam folder once a day every morning. Once in a while I find something there which isn’t spam. I have enrolled for a number of subscriptions but where my interest in the subject waxes and wanes. Sometimes, therefore, I delete a number of consecutive  mails and the spam filter picks that up and starts putting these into spam. But retrieving such mail seems to be sufficient to reset the filter to again accept them. I typically get around 50 – 60 spam messages a day and about half of them are in Chinese. Many are of course for Viagara. Most of the Indian spam is for real estate deals. Always 5 – 10 messages regarding some “Register/Query from the home page”  with weird, female, Eastern-Europe- sounding, sender’s names (clearly generated by a very poor program).

But the number of spam messages have been sharply down yesterday and today. This morning there were only 3. It is Saturday morning so it could be the weekend effect. But my working hypothesis is that even the spammers are watching the World Cup matches. And they were all watching yesterday’s Spain – Netherlands match .

In the first half the Spanish flattered to deceive. But in the second half it was just abject surrender. The Spanish team, like the potato plants of the old Spanish saying, were basking in past glories and forgot they were playing a match.

“A man who prides himself on his ancestry is like the potato plant, the best part of which is underground”

Netherlands 5   –  Spain -1!!

World Cup 2014 forecast

June 10, 2014

It’s that time again and there is no point in not sticking my neck out. It’s a mixture of “science”, wishful thinking and my prejudices. If I get one of the finalists and at least 8 of the last 16 correct I shall claim my system works!!!

My probabilities of winning for the 32 participants are:

WC 2014 Probabilities

WC 2014 Probabilities

And for the peace of the world and to avoid a full-blown revolution, Brazil will win.

 

It is time to take the 2022 World Cup away from Qatar

June 1, 2014

If FIFA is to retain any semblance of credibility they need to re-run the selection process for the 2022 World Cup. This time without Qatar participating.  That won’t stop the corruption of course but at least it could clean out the stable before it is despoiled again.

The latest revelations in the Sunday Times (paywalled but reported by the BBC) merely confirm that Qatar did buy selection.

BBC:

Fifa is facing fresh allegations of corruption over its controversial decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

The Sunday Times  has obtained millions of secret documents – emails, letters and bank transfers – which it alleges are proof that the disgraced Qatari football official Mohamed Bin Hammam made payments totalling $5m to football officials in return for their support for the Qatar bid.

…….. the Sunday Times alleges Bin Hammam’s strategy was to win a groundswell of support for the Qatari bid which would then influence the four African Fifa executive committee members who were able to take part in the election.

The Sunday Times also alleges that it has documents which prove Bin Hammam paid 305,000 Euros (£250,000) to cover the legal expenses of another former Fifa executive committee member from Oceania, Reynald Temarii.

Temarii, from Tahiti, was unable to vote in the contest as he had already been suspended by Fifa after he was caught out by a Sunday Times sting asking bogus American bid officials for money in return for his support.

But the paper now alleges that Bin Hammam provided him with financial assistance to allow him to appeal against the Fifa suspension, delaying his removal from the executive committee and blocking his deputy David Chung from voting in the 2022 election.

The paper claims that had Chung been allowed to vote he would have supported Qatar’s rivals Australia. Instead there was no representative from Oceania allowed to vote, a decision which may have influenced the outcome in Qatar’s favour. The paper also makes fresh allegations about the relationship between Bin Hammam and his disgraced Fifa ally Jack Warner, from Trinidad. ….. 

That Qatar bought its selection was already known.

But what now becomes obvious is that many of the FIFA officials currently in power and including Sepp Blatter have known about this for some time. Some of them were probably involved themselves.

A Qatar World Cup will probably break all records in the number of deaths per goals scored. The competition will probably have to be shifted to the winter.

It is time for FIFA and Sepp Blatter to bite the bullet and take the 2022 World Cup away from Qatar. Blatter will probably try to pin the blame for Qatar on Michel Platini.

It would be best if neither Platini or Blatter stood for the FIFA Presidency next year.

FIFA Presidential electioneering underway as Blatter blames Platini, France and Germany for selling 2022 World Cup to Qatar

May 17, 2014

FIFA Presidential electioneering for 2015 is underway as Sepp Blatter (who is Swiss) blames Michel Platini (who is French), France and Germany for selling the 2022 World Cup to Qatar. But this attack is just positioning by Blatter in case the 2014 World Cup in Brazil doesn’t go too well and Blatter will have to take that blame.

FIFA bows primarily to financial inducements (not political pressure as it sometimes appears). In many cases the financial inducements are just simple, straight-forward  bribery implemented in a very sophisticated manner. Even after the FIFA technical committee had clearly indicated that Qatar was unsuitable as a location for a World Cup tournament, the Executive Committee decided otherwise. That Qatar bought the 2022 World Cup is clear and it seems likely that the number of deaths per goal will be the highest ever by a long way in 2022.

Qatar 2022 will achieve more deaths than goals

Based on the track record of World Cup Tournaments, the Qatar 2022 championship will see between 100 and 180 goals – most likely around 150. But this number will be easily exceeded by the number of construction workers who have been killed by then. Already over 70 Nepalese workers have died since 2012 and the total number is probably around 200. By 2022 this number will exceed 1000.

Perhaps FIFA could introduce a safety performance index for the Qatar World Cup? Maybe to have less than 6 deaths per goal?

FIFA’s next presidential election is in 2015 and Sepp Blatter will be trying to retain his seat and Michel Platini will probably be opposing him. And so the electioneering has begun. This year’s World Cup is less than a month away and kicks-off on June 12th. The stadiums and infrastructure are still not quite ready. A fiasco in Brazil will be blamed on Sepp Blatter and will undermine his chances in 2015 of being President again. For some time now he has been trying to ensure that anything negative to do with Qatar is tied to Platini. Come 2015 Platini will have to deal with the Qatari dirt if he opposes Blatter.

A plague on both their houses!

November 2013Sepp Blatter Now Blames France and Germany for 2022 World Cup Fiasco

Always looking to blame somebody else, Sepp Blatter hasn’t let us down by now blaming France and Germany for the 2022 World Cup mess in Qatar. According to theFIFA fool, these two nations are to blame for the ongoing turmoil regarding Qatar hosting the 2022 event. In addition, he believes they’re also accountable for some of the ill treatment of the migrant workers over there, along with the construction firms. 

Blatter said on November 22 that France and Germany exerted a lot of political pressure to grant Qatar with the World Cup because of their financial interests and they’re the two biggest economies in Europe. In Blatter’s own words, there was a lot of “political pressure from European countries…because there were so many economic interests. Two of these countries pressured the voting men in FIFA: France and Germany…I think the heads of state of these two countries should also express what they think of this situation.” 

March 2014: Only I Can Beat Sepp Blatter In FIFA Elections – Platini

“Only one person can beat Blatter,” Platini said at UEFA congress in Astana (quotes from Reuters). 

Platini told the UEFA Congress he would have more meetings with European football leaders in coming months before announcing whether he would stand for FIFA.

“I will give my answer after the World Cup. There will be a series of meetings with European federation officials. Maybe 99% of them will say ‘we prefer that you stay at UEFA’, that could also be an element of reflection” in the decision, Platini said.

Meanwhile, the Frenchman earlier blasted the world federation’s lack of action over secretive companies owning players as he stepped up a war of nerves with Blatter. Platini said the so-called ‘third party ownership’ of players is a “danger” to football.

May 2014: Sepp Blatter: awarding 2022 World Cup to Qatar was a mistake

“Yes, it was a mistake of course, but one makes lots of mistakes in life,” said Blatter, Fifa’s president, in an interview with the Swiss broadcaster RTS. “The technical report into Qatar said clearly it was too hot but the executive committee – with a large majority – decided all the same to play it in Qatar.”

… Blatter is believed to have voted for the USA to host the 2022 World Cup while his prospective rival for the presidency, Uefa’s Michel Platini, voted for Qatar and has been closely linked in the public mind with the controversial plans for the 2022 tournament.

The Fifa inspection team ranked Qatar as the only “high risk” option overall, yet it was still chosen by 14 of the 22 voting members of the executive committee in December 2010. ….. 

Platini and others have denied being influenced by their heads of state into voting for Qatar for business reasons. ….. 

“I will never say that they bought it, because it was political pushing. Really, both in France and Germany,” said Blatter, who has previously claimed there was “definitely direct political influence” on European executive committee members to vote for Qatar.

France’s foreign ministry said the assertion was “without foundation”, despite the fact that Platini has admitted to attending a high level meeting with former president Nicolas Sarkozy and the now Qatari Emir.

 

“Dirty” FIFA and Qatar World Cup confirmed

March 18, 2014

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar will already achieve the dubious distinction of causing more deaths than they will score goals perhaps 6 deaths per goal.

It has long been assumed that FIFA’s decision to award the World Cup to Qatar was bought – not least because of FIFA’s long, institutionalised tradition of representatives accepting bribes and the poorly kept “secret” that any country wanting to host the World Cup must reserve bribe money in its budget – by whatever name is most appropriate.

Now the Telegraph reveals that millions changed hands just after Qatar was awarded the Championship:

A senior Fifa official and his family were paid almost $2 million (£1.2m) from a Qatari firm linked to the country’s successful bid for the 2022 World Cup, The Telegraph can disclose.

Jack Warner, the former vice-president of Fifa, appears to have been personally paid $1.2 million (£720,000) from a company controlled by a former Qatari football official shortly after the decision to award the country the tournament.

Payments totalling almost $750,000 (£450,000) were made to Mr Warner’s sons, documents show. A further $400,000 (£240,000) was paid to one of his employees.

It is understood that the FBI is now investigating Trinidad-based Mr Warner and his alleged links to the Qatari bid, and that the former Fifa official’s eldest son, who lives in Miami, has been helping the inquiry as a co-operating witness.

The awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was one of the most controversial decisions in sporting history. The intense summer heat in the desert nation has raised the prospect of the tournament being moved to the winter for the first time.

from pambazuka.org

Qatar 2022 will achieve more deaths than goals

October 2, 2013

Based on the track record of World Cup Tournaments, the Qatar 2022 championship will see between 100 and 180 goals – most likely around 150.

But this number will be easily exceeded by the number of construction workers who have been killed by then. Already over 70 Nepalese workers have died since 2012 and the total number is probably around 200. By 2022 this number will exceed 1000.

Perhaps FIFA could introduce a safety performance index for the Qatar World Cup? Maybe to have less than 6 deaths per goal?

The Guardian:

Seventy Nepalese builders working in Qatar in the runup to the 2022 football World Cup have died on construction sites since the start of 2012.

Fifteen have died this year, according to a death toll announced by Nepal government representatives in Doha. It is the clearest official data yet on the dangers facing 1.2 million migrant workers in the Gulf kingdom during the $100bn (£62bn)construction drive before the World Cup and came as David Cameron called on Qatar’s leadership to take action. He said zero deaths on the London 2012 Olypmics project showed Doha “it can be done”.

Nepalese trade unions said many of the fatalities were caused by workers without proper safety equipment toppling from the upper floors of buildings. …..

There are 340,000 Nepali workers in Qatar and if the mortality rate was extrapolated across all migrant workers it would suggest that more than 200 foreign workers could have died on Qatari building sites since the start of 2012.

“This reminds us of the industrial revolution 150 years ago,” said Sharan Burrow, secretary general of the International Trade Union Confederation. “Young healthy men are being worked to death in Qatar. Scores are dying from heat exhaustion and dehydration after 12-hour shifts in blazing heat, often during the night in the squalid and cramped labour camps with no ventilation and appalling hygiene.”

Last week the Guardian reported that documents showed 44 Nepalese workers died in Qatar between 4 June and 8 August this year, and that more than half died of heart attacks, heart failure or workplace accidents. It said evidence of exploitation and abuses pointed to “modern-day slavery, as defined by the International Labour Organisation”.

Of course the Qatari government claims that all these numbers are exaggerated, but the reality is that the lives and working conditions of their “guest workers” is of little interest for the Qataris. Foreign workers are expendable and the supply of such workers is endless. In this they are happily supported by the manpower agencies – in Qatar and abroad – whose revenue depends upon the turnover of bodies. Perversely the death of a worker only leads to additional revenue for the agencies who find his replacement. From what I have heard from one such manpower agenciy in India, they get paid for fulfilling their quota of workers to the main contractor of the construction project. They merely deliver bodies to Qatar and the construction site. They only perform a cursory check on the suitability or the abilities of the workers. Two arms and two legs generally seems to enough.

These agencies then pay a cut of their fee to a Qatari owned agency in Qatar and that cut includes the amounts which are passed up the Qatari chain. The construction company in its turn pays an agreed amount for having obtained the contract to the same Qatari chain of beneficiaries – often through the same Qatari agency. The modes of doing business in Qatar are no great secret.

And FIFA buries its head in the sands.


%d bloggers like this: