Fifa

Oh, I can dive. I can soar like an eagle through the air then somersault like an acrobat. In my head, it’s Cirque du Shepherd. That this manoeuvre appears to the naked eye to be more like a drunkard belly flopping and having muscle spasms is just a matter of perception.

I know people reserve an extra special nugget of sneering hatred for soccer* players who dive. It’s unsportsmanlike, it’s cowardly and cheaty, it’s practically unorrrstrayan. Hence the rage at the game-winning penalty awarded to the Roar’s Besart Berisha on Sunday night. And yet, I must confess I dive occasionally. 

Yegads, I can smell your disgust from here. My shoulders are tensed against the pounding waves of hostility, and my neck hairs are prickling. So now I will try to somewhat redeem myself.

Continue reading "Confessions of a soccer diva" »

Les Murray was doing what Les Murray does better than anyone last weekend.

On SBS’s Women’s World Cup Show, he was pronouncing the unpronounceable, and enthusing over the prospects of one of Australia’s national teams – in this case, our women’s team, the Matildas.

In the ad breaks, there he was again, promoting his latest book. That book has gotten him into all sorts of trouble lately, due to alleged inaccuracies surrounding Murray’s claim that Socceroos skipper Lucas Neill led a players’ revolt against coach Pim Verbeek at the 2010 World Cup.

Continue reading "Whistle blows on Murray, but is it halftime or fulltime?" »

In hindsight maybe Australia’s tactics were all wrong. Instead of spending $46 million taxpayer dollars for the 2022 World Cup bid on marketing, advertising, sport-based aid projects in developing nations and flights and accommodation to persuade FIFA members of the merits of our bid, we should have just offered the money direct as bribes to the 24-member executive committee in return for their votes.

The worst kept secret of the lobbying campaign for the 2018-2022 World Cups is now becoming apparent – that the successful Qatar bid for the 2022 tournament was deeply suspect, and that nations such as Australia were always destined to look like joke candidates through their refusal to grease the right palms.

When Australia garnered a pathetic solitary vote for its 2022 bid, Football Federation of Australia chairman Frank Lowy effectively admitted that he had made the first mistake of politics – he believed the people who had told him they would vote for us, instead of just believing the people who said they wouldn’t vote for us.

Continue reading "No level playing field in Qatar’s 2022 World Cup rort" »

I, for one, can’t wait for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup, if indeed the Yanks don’t pinch it. Bring it on. Let the world sizzle and wilt in the desert sun. Let the FIFA fat cats keel over from heat stroke and the drunken northern European soccer hooligans with them.

Let sand storms arise from the desert and paralyse the whole damn thing, so that the entire world can see the full, spectacular ramifications of FIFA’s corrupt soul. “Crisis? What crisis?” FIFA boss Sepp Blatter incredulously asked at this week’s FIFA Congress. He won’t be asking that when the Qatar doomsday scenario becomes a reality.

US political scientist and soccer writer Andrei Markovits described FIFA this week as “a complete, literally perfect oligarchy”. Back home, Nick Xenophon likened Blatter to Monty Python’s Black Knight. Spot on, both of them. FIFA’s members could not be better geared for institutionalised corruption if they wore Chairman Mao hats. The thing is, it’s been that way forever. The only reason we now care in Australia is because we’re the ones that just got bitten.

Continue reading "We hate FIFA corruption because we’re sore losers" »

Hosting the World Cup is like a bad divorce and FIFA’s lawyers are better than yours. After the fun you’re left with the costs and a sour relationship.

Never mind the demands in the lead up, even during the event you realise that something is wrong. Construction activities have to stop for a month. The construction site has to be beautified. There is no compensation for the companies and the workers.

Worse still, you have to drink Budweiser. No more VB. Budweiser paid all those millions in sponsorship and FIFA requires that no Australian beers are drunk in areas associated with the event. There too, you are required to eat McDonald’s burgers. McDonald’s is also a sponsor and it is an offence to sell local in the same areas.

Continue reading "Hosting the Cup would’ve been like a bad divorce" »

So Qatar has won. And there will be no World Cup in Australian in 2022. Who’d have thought that a stupid cutesy-wootsie video wouldn’t cut through to the FIFA gerontocracy?

Obviously there are all sorts of reasons why Australia was overlooked as World Cup host overnight. – not least the fact that our time zone is not conducive to the hefty European TV rights which help keep FIFA $1 billion or more in the black.

But let’s focus our anger – or whatever it is we’re feeling – on the shocking, woeful presentation video which made Dot and the Kangaroo look like a film for grown-ups.

Continue reading "Hey, we’ve still got the 2012 Lawn Bowls World Titles" »

In a little under two weeks, at 2am on December 3, FIFA will announce the nations that will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups and hopefully all of Frank Lowy’s work will come to fruition.

But I know not everyone feels the same way. It seems Australia is split on the possibility of the world’s biggest sporting event making its way Down Under.

The majority are behind it and would love to have another international showcase, but there are two other camps – those crossing their fingers that Australia doesn’t win, and those simply shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Meh.”

Continue reading "Do we actually want the World Cup?" »

As Ben Cousins said this week, it’s a strange position to be in when you feel sympathy for Steven Baker.

When the AFL handed down its War and Peace sized list of charges against Baker this week, you could only feel the little tagger had been made a scapegoat.

There’s no doubt the AFL was correct within the letter of the law when it charged Baker with various counts of striking and “interfering with an injured player”, only it’s a letter that the league had previously ignored. Like the umlaut in Joachim Low’s name.

Continue reading "The AFL, where image trumps consistency" »

I’ve dragged myself back to (real) work after spending a blissful three weeks in South Africa covering the Socceroos’ campaign. As any of you who read my tweets would know I clearly wasn’t over there for my soccer knowledge but I did get quite immersed in the machinations over the battle to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. This piece looks at the growing alarm in the Americas over the US bid to to host 2022 - along with Qatar, Australia’s toughest rival in the bid race. 

A controversial Arizona immigration law which lets authorities randomly stop and question people of Latin American appearance and check their citizenship documents is threatening to derail the United States’ bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

In another boost to Australia’s bid to host the tournament in 2022, the US is struggling to control a wave of disquiet throughout the Americas over the radical law, which has sparked protests by sporting groups and boycotts by performers within Arizona.

Continue reading "Anti-latino laws threaten to sink USA World Cup bid" »