football thread No11

[MacAttack]

We try to hold the NFL and Major League Baseball at a high standard, and it works, corruption is relatively low and those leagues try to reform themselves when things get out of hand. It is clear that FIFA has no intention to reform itself. It is now up to us and world governments to hold FIFA accountable. This is a first step. I wish we had an alternative to FIFA, sadly we don't.

 

[Serutan]

I did say this several years ago. Screwing over the USA with Obama actively watching would come back to haunt FIFA. Surprised they still haven't gone after Blatter.

That statement oozes irony, as Obama's political upbringing was in what is probably
the most corrupt place in America - Chicago.

 

[madviking]

I reckon that they think they can get evidence against Blatter from this so they have a better chance of finding him guilty further down the track.

you don't take down an entire (criminal) organization at once. dominos will fall.

Much more corrupt things go on in Switzerland than FIFA, hard as that might be to believe. It's not because they are too corrupt, it's because they annoyed the Americans. Switzerland gets to play its role in the corrupt world of global finance at the US's discretion, and the Obama government have become increasingly fed up with Switzerland's role in shielding US taxpayers from the US authorities. This FIFA revenge attack is probably part of the same drive of behind-the-scenes deal-making that the Swiss have been agreeing to in order to get the US off their backs. Basically, in screwing over the USA a few years ago, FIFA took on the one enemy with the type of power necessary to defeat it.

yes, if you run afoul of RICO, the feds will hunt you down with extreme prejudice.

 

[schlaufuchs]

We try to hold the NFL and Major League Baseball at a high standard, and it works, corruption is relatively low and those leagues try to reform themselves when things get out of hand. It is clear that FIFA has no intention to reform itself. It is now up to us and world governments to hold FIFA accountable. This is a first step. I wish we had an alternative to FIFA, sadly we don't.

HA!

Just because FIFA and IOC are horrifying abominations doesn't make the NCAA (legal slaveowners), the NFL (lots of local-level police corruption; near-IOC-level stadium shenanigans; CTE cover-up), nor the MLB (repeated obstruction of justice; collusion; near-IOC-level stadium shenanigans) any more acceptable.

 

[MacAttack]

I am not a fan of our President, but, he did position this to happen, whether intentional or coincidental. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who was appointed by Obama, approved by a Republican dominated Congress, oversaw Michael Garcia's case in Brooklyn, before she was appointed to lead the Justice Department. Garcia is a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. There is the New York connection. Speaking of New York connections, who was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before Garcia? James Comey. Who is he? He's the current FBI director. And the developments are a result of a three-year FBI investigation. The FBI was not ready to let FIFA off the hook once FIFA cleared itself of wrongdoing, at the protest of Michael Garcia.

The United States Department of Justice has issued a 47-count indictment against Nine FIFA Officials and Five Corporate Executives Indicted for Racketeering Conspiracy and Corruption

 

[Pangur Bán]

That statement oozes irony, as Obama's political upbringing was in what is probably
the most corrupt place in America - Chicago.

The US uses the same corruption habitually. It's not about upholding anti-corruption values, it's about interests. Obama wanted the US to hold the world cup, put a little of his own reputation on the line to try to get it. FIFA screwed the US over publicly, damaged US national interests, embarrassed Obama, and undermined the legacy that he was pursuing. His comments afterwards were rather restrained, but I bet you anything with those restrained comments came some private conversations along the lines of 'let's get these guys'. Then the silent hunt commenced.

 

[MacAttack]

HA!

Just because FIFA and IOC are horrifying abominations doesn't make the NCAA (legal slaveowners), the NFL (lots of local-level police corruption; near-IOC-level stadium shenanigans; CTE cover-up), nor the MLB (repeated obstruction of justice; collusion; near-IOC-level stadium shenanigans) any more acceptable.

They are not, but at least none of those organizations (except the NCAA, which I did not include in my original post) are conducting internal investigations and clearing themselves of any wrong doing. They are at least working to make things better, albeit slowly. FIFA is not even trying to make this better they are getting worse.

 

[dutchfire]

The USA is well positioned to attack FIFA, if they get kicked out of the world cup, they can just let New York play LA and call it the World Series of soccer.

 

[MacAttack]

The US uses the same corruption habitually. It's not about upholding anti-corruption values, it's about interests. Obama wanted the US to hold the world cup, put a little of his own reputation on the line to try to get it. FIFA screwed the US over publicly, damaged US national interests, embarrassed Obama, and undermined the legacy that he was pursuing. His comments afterwards were rather restrained, but I bet you anything with those restrained comments came some private conversations along the lines of 'let's get these guys'. Then the silent hunt commenced.

Well Sepp Blatter's hypocrisy knows no bounds. When he first met Obama, first thing he told him, was not, "Nice to meet you Mr. President" it was "You need to get your league (MLS) on the international schedule." It is also FIFA policy to punish countries and federations when national governments interfere with domestic football activities.

We are infuriated as a country (not just our president) for being screwed out of a World Cup bid, and given to a country smaller than the state of Massachusetts, particularly when FIFA pointed out that the 2002 World Cup needed to be held in two countries because Japan and Korea were too small to hold it individually. We also have state of the art stadiums in place across this continent spanning nation in world class cities EVERYONE recognizes and visits regularly, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Chicago. And the comments that the World Cup organizers said about our cities and stadiums is abhorrent. Qatar is building cities to hold the tournament with essentially slave labor. WTH is that all about?

You don't get to insult one of the greatest countries in world history and get away with it. FIFA are a money grubbing SOBs with a false sense of power, and they will pay for corrupting our beautiful game one way or another.

 

[schlaufuchs]

The USA is well positioned to attack FIFA, if they get kicked out of the world cup, they can just let New York play LA and call it the World Series of soccer.

I've never really understood the complaint about the world series being called a world series. Baseball is a global sport, with competitive professional leagues existing in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Cuba, DR, Australia, and Venezuela. The MLB is far and away the most competitive league of all, so when New York or LA wins the World Series they would be considered the best team in all of baseball. The best team from Japan or Korea could theoretically play a 7-game series against them, but the result would, optimistically, end in a 5-game win for the MLB team. Therefore it is understood that the victor of the World Series is the "world champion", in much the same way you would consider the winner of the Champions League to be the best soccer team in the world.

Now American Football...that's a bit harder to grok. Maybe all the various footballs of the world could come to some accepted set of rules and force all teams to compete in a massive free-for-all tournament in order to determine the true football world champions :3

For the record I am not pissed that the US lost the bid. I am pissed that a country which clearly submitted a bogus bid, will force the total rearrangement of international league schedules, who is building their stadiums on the backs of LITERAL slave labor, and which, by its completion, will have caused the deaths of THOUSANDS of people, all for the promotion of a local league which is effectively nonexistent is the country which ultimately won the bid. I couldn't care less if the US ever got another World Cup bid and I hope I never live to see the US host another Olympics. They're horrible wastes of money which provide no appreciable benefit to their respective localities. Thank god most 1st world major municipalities have grown wise to this blatant con job. I was elated when I found out SF lost its Olympic bid.

 

[Wrymouth3]

I'll be attending the 2018 World Cup, I'll give live updates of what to expect from Qatar when I see the event in Russia.

 

[MacAttack]

Russia plans to use prison labor to complete their 2018 World Cup commitments.

Good luck staying safe in those stadiums Wrymouth3

 

[madviking]

and california uses prison labor to fight forest fires.

 

[MacAttack]

fighting forest fires = readying for a soccer tournament. I get it now.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Well Sepp Blatter's hypocrisy knows no bounds. When he first met Obama, first thing he told him, was not, "Nice to meet you Mr. President" it was "You need to get your league (MLS) on the international schedule." It is also FIFA policy to punish countries and federations when national governments interfere with domestic football activities.

We are infuriated as a country (not just our president) for being screwed out of a World Cup bid, and given to a country smaller than the state of Massachusetts, particularly when FIFA pointed out that the 2002 World Cup needed to be held in two countries because Japan and Korea were too small to hold it individually. We also have state of the art stadiums in place across this continent spanning nation in world class cities EVERYONE recognizes and visits regularly, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Chicago. And the comments that the World Cup organizers said about our cities and stadiums is abhorrent. Qatar is building cities to hold the tournament with essentially slave labor. WTH is that all about?

You don't get to insult one of the greatest countries in world history and get away with it. FIFA are a money grubbing SOBs with a false sense of power, and they will pay for corrupting our beautiful game one way or another.

Yes, Qatar is an outrageous scandal. All my life they said world cup hostings should bring football to as many people as possible, be in big accessible countries, and then they hand it to a tiny city-state in the desert whose main workforce are slaves and whose temperatures are unsuitable for any kind of sustained athletic activity.

It looks like the US is using anti-Mafia laws to prosecute these guys. Beautiful. I hope it works, and to see Blatter finally brought to justice would be extra beautiful. A scene like the end of the movie Fargo would be especially nice. What good will his petrodollar slush funds be to him as he spends his retirement golden years in a small cell with a large angry tattooed guy called Bubba?

 

[warpus]

I've never really understood the complaint about the world series being called a world series.

It's mainly because in most/all other parts of the world, when you're ____ champion, that means that you've entered a contest involving teams from all of ______ and been crowned champion. So if you're European champion, that means you've taken on other European teams and been crowned champion of that tournament. If you're Belgian champion, that means that you've participated in a tournament where other Belgian teams take place - and you were crowned champion.

It works on all geographical levels - There are provincial champions, city champions, even suburb champions at times. Global championships are labelled in the same fashion - the world champion is someone who entered a tournament with other teams from around the world - taking on representatives from all corners of _____.

So it's not really a complaint so much as a pointing out of an oddity that doesn't make sense to someone who is used to the above format, which is used.. well, pretty much everywhere. Saying "We're world champions", when you didn't enter a tournament with other representatives from around the world, feels like cheating to someone who is used to the usual way of labelling regional tournaments.

So essentially it boils down to ____ champions implying to most people that it's a ______ regional tournament - while the world series of baseball is not. So to a lot of people it will seem like "cheating". i.e. you can't be Polish champion if you haven't entered a tournament with teams from all across Poland. and so on.

Mind you the "World Series" moniker was introduced due to some sort of a corporate sponsorship, I thought. It was either a company or something similar that had that phrase trademarked, wasn't it? But to the rest of the world it seems like baseball fans are trying to "cheat" and say that this or that team are world champions - without having entered the proper regional tournament to be afforded such a title. That's just how it works pretty much everywhere in the world, so that's what people assume.

 

[MacAttack]

I am an American and it bugs me when Super Bowl champions, NBA champions and MLB champions label themselves as World Champions in their sport. The real kicker are the NBA champions since the USA participates in the FIBA World Championship tournament...

 

[MacAttack]

FIFA is fully cooperating as injured party in the actions by Swiss authorities

FIFA playing victim,

 

[schlaufuchs]

I am an American and it bugs me when Super Bowl champions, NBA champions and MLB champions label themselves as World Champions in their sport. The real kicker are the NBA champions since the USA participates in the FIBA World Championship tournament...

The MLB, NFL, and NBA are all the best/most competitive leagues in their respective sports. When a team is crowned champion they are effectively the best teams in the world in those sports. Hence: world champions. Particularly in the NBA and MLB, a challenger from a foreign country could play against the champions, but they would be annihilated quite simply. The gap in competition is just that wide. The only time the US doesn't dominate in FIBA and the Olympics is when they struggle to drum up enough interest among their 1st team stars to actually go compete, and the WBC has notoriously failed to pique the interest of the best American baseball players beyond making a token appearance for a couple innings in one or two games.

It's kind of like how Chelsea are now the champions of Britain (or England) even though they didn't beat EVERY podunk pro and semi-pro squad. It's implicit in the format of the tiered league system. The Premier League teams represent the best teams in Britain, and the champion of the Premiership is the best team in the Premier League, and thereby is the champion of all of English soccer. In much the same way the MLB represents the biggest, most competitive, most talented group of teams in international baseball, and as such the champions of the MLB are understood to be the champions of all of baseball. If the Japanese or Taiwanese or Australian or Korean leagues started to become more competitive to the point where they were attracting big name stars and assembling quality teams that could conceivably be a match for the best of the MLB, then we might actually have a conversation, and I'm sure there would be legitimate interest in a game or series of games of some kind. Until that happens. Yes. The champions of the MLB are the world champions.

The NFL is a different story because unlike baseball and basketball (and hockey), football has zero international presence. Superbowl Champions are World Champions by default, rather than implicit understanding. And in that sense, yes, the Superbowl winners calling themselves "world champions" is the absolute epitome of American naïveté.

 

[uppi]

We try to hold the NFL and Major League Baseball at a high standard, and it works, corruption is relatively low and those leagues try to reform themselves when things get out of hand. It is clear that FIFA has no intention to reform itself. It is now up to us and world governments to hold FIFA accountable. This is a first step. I wish we had an alternative to FIFA, sadly we don't.

That is not a fair comparison. NFL and MLB are national organizations and as such much easier to regulate. They have to operate under United States law and would have no way to pull out of the USA, even if they really wanted to.

FIFA is a global organization and only subject to national law as far as their operations extend to that country. So there is no single government that could reign them in and international cooperation fails at much easier things than regulating FIFA.