Welcome Aboard!

When I was a young(er) National Referee, it was a regular occurrence that we had a tremendous guest speaker opine about aspects of the modern game. One such guest speaker was George Cumming who is an incredible wealth of knowledge, and one I took a tremendous amout away from.

His credentials include (from his blog):

George Cumming was the first FIFA Head of Refereeing and was in charge of refereeing at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Korean/Japan. Previously he was Development Director for Referees and Education with the Scottish Football Association from 1988 until 2000. He is presently a Senior Consultant with the Asian Football Confederation.

I have included a link to the blog (George Cumming's Football Blog) in the sidebar. As with the other blog's of note, I would recommend taking the time and reading some of the entries as they are very insightful.

Two recent posts from his blog, FIFA must face up to the corruption charges, and World Cup voting must be public, are clear demonstrations about just how wide spread and vitriolic these charges of corruption are, and how badly FIFA needs to get a good hold of what is happening, and expel any found to have committed any wrong doing.

One of my fears however, is in the process that FIFA "throws the baby out with the bathwater," and punish a party (such as the UK) for being in proximity to the corruption, without being a participant in it.