You're Going the Wrong Way!

Well if anyone has been watching, the US took a tumble in the FIFA World rankings. While Spain remains on top, the US continues its slide closer to the bottom. At current, we are ranked 34th, between Ghana and Algeria.

As it cited here from the WSJ, the system used in determining who goes where, is convoluted to say the least. Also at the end of the day what really matters is that (a) the US qualifies for the 2014 Cup, and (b) while no goal has been stated by our new skipper, I suspect that anything less than a 1/4 final berth will be a failure.

Well, look on the bright side. We are #2 in CONCACAF ... behind Mexico.

Now Leaving the Reservation ...

Let me being by saying that I believe Franz Beckenbauer is one of the best players in history, and certainly the best German player of all time. Let me continue by saying that I believe his suggestions to "make offside simpler" (for the referees), and do away with send offs for non-brutal fouls is a bit misguided. See here from ESPN for his proposals.

While unquestionably well intended, Franz may have forgotten why those changes went in to the LOTG in the first place. Which is why most of the changes have gone in with recent history ... to score goals, or in the alternative to make the penalty so harsh for preventing them, people won't.

While correct in saying that offside is difficult to judge, his decision to place it on the FIFA agenda for discussion seems to stem from a particular incident (or at least ESPN portraits it as such) and not from a well thought out, and larger campaign of why it was changed in the first place ... again to score goals.

Der Kaiser may also be reminiscing a bit back to his days when sweepers were for the man and the ball, his comment of send offs for "brutal fouls" is somewhat dated. There are lots of sneaky and non-violent methods to prevent goals, and sending players off is to protect that goal scoring bid, not just punish brutal fouls ... and to score goals.

Same reason for implementing the "5 second" modification and doing away with the "4 step" modification for goal keepers ... to score goals. You can't score goals if you don't have the ball.

Let's face it folks, soccer is not a high scoring game, and FIFA recognizes for the marketability of the game, you need goals ... even I agree with FIFA on that one. Laws should be touched sparingly as I think FIFA has is pretty correct now. That said, I am always open to making it better. I would opine however Mr. Beckenbauer's suggestions would not make things better, but actually much worse.

PES v. FIFA. The Greatest Debate of Our Time? Really?

FIFA or PES? The greatest debate of our time.

The greatest rivalry in the history of video-games cranks up another notch with the launch of Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 this weekend.

As some of you will be aware, Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 will be released this weekend and with it comes the re-establishment of videogames' greatest rivalry. With FIFA 12 already on the shelves for two weeks and being the fastest-selling sports game of all time the boys from Konami will have a lot of catching up to do, both financially and critically.

A quick look across the internet will tell you that FIFA is once again dominating the critical acclaim, scoring about 90% on average with poor old Pro Evo barely scraping 80%. So will the gaming public be acknowledging FIFA as the king of this genre? Not likely as PES fans are a proud stubborn bunch that just won’t let go, and they've good reason for it. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of Joe.IE.

Kicking Back Comments: Entertaining to be sure. In fact I used to play the MLS match I was going to be refereeing on FIFA, before the match happened. However, as I tell Jr. every time he tells me how good he is at FIFA 11 ... go outside and kick a real ball.

Stone Cold Busted

Former Fifa vice-president Jack Warner is caught on tape offering 'gifts’ of £25,000 to Caribbean delegates

Exclusive: Jack Warner has been caught on tape apparently urging fellow Caribbean officials to accept cash gifts from Mohamed Bin Hammam, the disgraced former presidential candidate. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of the Guardian.

Kicking Back Comments: Shocking! (yawn)

Romario "strikes" back

FIFA must be put in its place, says Romario

(Reuters) - FIFA must not be allowed to ride roughshod over Brazilian law when it stages the 2014 World Cup, former Brazil striker Romario, now a federal Congressman, said Monday.

Romario told reporters that Brazilian laws which guarantee half-price entry to football matches for the elderly and ban on alcohol in stadiums should not be swept away for FIFA's benefit.

"If FIFA is not put in its rightful place, FIFA will soon have more power than our president and the World Cup will be the way FIFA wants it and not the way we should do it," Romario told reporters. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of Reuters.

Kicking Back Comments: Romario for President! I am with him. As I noted here, this policy from FIFA not only abridges the sovereign law of the land ... but its really crappy public policy from FIFA ... you guessed it ... for a buck. Well $100,313,600 to be more precise. Chump change for FIFA in light of what they make on World Cups. They use the excuse of "investing it back into football", which some of it likely does ... but please ... give us a break with the PR rubbish. Let the elderly see the matches at 1/2 price ... after all, they help build the game that you have the luxury of governing now.

$32,915,400 to $0

FA reveals true cost of England's failed 2018 World Cup bid

• Total spending was £21m rather than £15m widely reported
• England spent more per vote than any country bar Australia

England's failed 2018 World Cup bid cost £21m – some £6m more than had been widely reported, according to the latest Football Association accounts.

The bid for the tournament ended in disaster last December, attracting only two Fifa members' votes including that of the British Fifa vice-president, Geoff Thompson. ...

See the full article here, courtesy of the Guardian.

Kicking Back Comments: I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Forget THE game, it's big business folks.

Chuck's OUT!

FIFA Whistleblower Blazer to Quit CONCACAF Role at Year’s End

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Chuck Blazer, the soccer official whose corruption complaints led to a senior FIFA colleague being banned for life, will step down as general secretary of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football at the end of this year.

Blazer, 66, said in a e-mailed statement that he’ll end his two-decade tenure with CONCACAF, one of soccer’s six regional confederations, on Dec. 31. He’ll continue as a member of FIFA’s executive committee and intends to “pursue other career opportunities” in the sport. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of Bloomberg.

Kicking Back Comments: As is clear here, I am no fan of FIFA as an institution. Check however is a bright spot in an otherwise black hole. CONCACAF, and selfishly the US, are losing a tremendous advocate.

What does FIFA have against the elderly and students?

Brazil, FIFA fight over 2014 World Cup

RIO DE JANEIRO -- With fewer than a thousand days to go before Brazil 2014, the 20th World Cup, there is a standoff between two heavyweights -- Dilma Rousseff and Sepp Blatter, the presidents, respectively, of Brazil and FIFA.

At the heart of the dispute are the problems of staging the World Cup in a developing economy. For FIFA, the World Cup is low-risk -- it makes its money from the sale of TV rights. Meanwhile, it makes all sorts of demands on the host nation, and in a country such as Brazil there are many competing claims on the public purse. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of ESPN.

Kicking Back Comments: So where did my lede come from? Well in the article, you can find this:

FIFA has been anxiously waiting for Brazil to pass a law bringing into effect a legislative framework for 2014. Brazil has been in no hurry, and is unwilling to give FIFA all it wants; Brazilian law, for example, decrees that senior citizens should pay half-price for public events. Some of the country's 27 states extend the same right to students. FIFA wants no discounts.

Nice, huh. Arguably, the most vulnerable in a developing economy, and no discounts. This too from the fact that FIFA derives most if its revenue from TV royalties.


A new low? Nah, business as usual.


This one will get interesting as the days click by, and no agreement is reached.

Lightning Strikes Again

N. Korea women out of World Cup for deer gland doping

ZURICH (AP) – FIFA banned North Korea from the 2015 Women's World Cup after five players tested positive for steroids from traditional musk deer gland therapy at the tournament last month.

FIFA on Thursday imposed bans of up to 18 months on all five players, who North Korean officials said were treated with traditional therapy after being struck by lightning at a pre-tournament training camp. ...

See the whole story here, from USA Today.

Kicking Back Comments: This FIFA doc who is responsible for this stuff is no joke. Check out his CV here.

NO BADGE FOR YOU!

Six officials given life bans for match-fixing

(Reuters) - Six match officials have been banned for life over match-fixing in two friendly internationals last February that produced a total of seven penalties, FIFA said Wednesday.

The officials, three from Bosnia and three from Hungary, were involved in the Latvia-Bolivia and Bulgaria-Estonia matches played in the Turkish resort of Antalya on Feb. 9.

Latvia won 2-1 and the other game ended 2-2, all the goals coming from penalties including one in the first match which was taken twice. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of Reuters.

Kicking Back Comments: A well earned prize for those who dare to mettle with the fabric of THE game. I can only hope that FIFA looks inward and deals with its own institutional corruption as well as it has dealt with this match fixing.

Let the games begin!

Soccer Body Said to Start Corruption Cases Against Officials in Caribbean

FIFA will start corruption proceedings against more than 10 Caribbean officials after a probe into allegations they took money from a candidate in the world soccer body’s presidential election, according to two people familiar with the matter.

FIFA, the sport’s governing body, on July 26 gave the officials from the Caribbean Football Union 48 hours to come forward with information about a meeting where Mohamed Bin Hammam, a one-time challenger to FIFA’s president Sepp Blatter, allegedly offered envelopes stuffed with $40,000. Bin Hammam, the ex-head of soccer in Asia, is appealing the lifetime ban he was given from the sport July 23. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of Bloomberg.

Kicking Back Comments: I personally think this is going to be ugly for the folks on trial. Despite what I am sure will be flimsy evidence and procedural issues, FIFA (Sepp) will be looking to "make an example" out of someone. These folks I believe will be his example, even if they do not deserve it.

@FakeSepp Revealed!

So as some from seen from me from time to time, I follow @FakeSepp on Twitter. He is hilarious and pokes some good fun at the current president of FIFA.

In a tweet from him on the 3rd, his secret identity is revealed, as well as some insight into the man himself, Zach Woosley. Not the model from Boston, the photocopier technician from Texas.

Check out the interview at fourfourtwo.com here, and some of Zach's work at SBNation.com.

Interesting insight into a soccer satirist.

"The World Cup is not a Circus" - Blatter

Blatter: "The World Cup is Not a Circus"; Asks for Time to Rebuild FIFA

(WFI) FIFA president Sepp Blatter is calling for Brazil to accelerate its legacy plans for the 2014 World Cup, claiming the World Cup is not a circus that leaves nothing when the event is over.

"The World Cup is not a circus which arrives, stays for two weeks and is gone. There has to be the legacy," Blatter said in an interview with Sunday's O Globo newspaper.

Blatter said the most pressing problems in Brazil's 2014 preparations were different issues linked to the development of airports - FIFA's biggest concern - hotels and stadia, particularly Corinthians new venue that is being constructed in the eastern part of São Paulo. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of WFI.

Kicking Back Comments: For a guy who was steadfast there was "nothing to see here", and "we don't have an image problem", he sure seems to have come to grips/can't hide just how corrupt FIFA is, or at least how corrupt FIFA appears to be.

We will see in the next 3 years the ups and downs of how this plays out and if Sepp will set up his heir apparent (Teixeria) ... as a hero to bring the WC back to its full glory ... or a goat who let it fail. 

Bin Hammam - Barred for Life

Bin Hammam Is Latest FIFA Official to Go, but Cloud Remains

FIFA, the ruling body of world soccer since 1904, is shedding its senior executives in an attempt to appear to be moving faster than its corrupters.

The head of its Caribbean and North and Central American region, Jack Warner, removed himself by resigning from all soccer activity last month.

And now FIFA has barred for life Mohamed bin Hammam, who until Saturday was the elected leader of Asia’s soccer confederation, which serves more than a third of the world’s population. ...

See the whole article here, courtesy of The NYT.

Kicking Back Comments: You're getting warmer guys, but your not quite there yet.

Don't forget about Bin Hammam

Kicking Back Comments: In the afterglow of the WWC, don't forget we still have some serious stuff going on at FIFA. Notably Bin Hammam's ethic trial in this Friday. He is out stumping clearly as his claims now include that FIFA is out to get him.

World Cup - Bin Hammam: 'FIFA out to get me'

Suspended Asian football chief Mohamed Bin Hammam says a campaign has been waged against him within "certain quarters" at FIFA to "eliminate" him from the game amid investigations over a cash-for-votes bribery scandal.

The Qatari is scheduled to attend a FIFA Ethics Committee hearing on Friday which is investigating allegations that he tried to bribe members of the Caribbean Football Union in return for votes during his FIFA presidential election bid last month. ...

See the whole story here, courtesy of Yahoo! Sport.

We've got your bias right here ...

Blatter focuses on soccer milestones, not scandals

BERLIN -- A beaming Sepp Blatter took the dais at Olympic Stadium to talk about FIFA's love of women's soccer -- and nothing else -- at the Women's World Cup 2011 opening press conference Saturday .

The FIFA President spoke with enthusiasm on "Frauenfussball" and reveled in the furious din of clicking cameras as he handed a game ball to Steffi Jones, president of the organizing committee and a former Germany player herself. The photographers, one carrying a zoom lens usually reserved for taking pictures of distant skiers, eagerly snapped away.

Most of the questions elicited a few more comments on "Frauenfussball" and some dollar figures. But one reporter changed the tone slightly when he asked if the recent Playboy pictorial featuring female soccer players was a sign of "progress," given Blatter's infamous suggestion years ago that women's uniforms should go shorter and tighter to show off more of players' bodies.

See the whole story here, courtesy of ESPN.

Kicking Backs Comments: I am already in trouble from my last post, even repeating the comments from another that there are differences between the men's and women's game. Good old Sepp, stands on his own for these comments. Beyond that, I have no comments.

Billions and Billions Served

Say what you will about FIFA, they are a marketing machine. Just take a look at the recent statistics regarding viewership for the 2010 World Cup Final.

1 Billion people. That's about 1/7th of the Earth's population.

THAT is a good day in the office.

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FIFA: 1 Billion People Saw Part Of World Cup Final

FIFA announced Monday that the 2010 World Cup final was seen by at least 1 billion people.

FIFA research shows that 909.6 million television viewers watched at least one minute of the match between Spain and the Netherlands. ...

See the complete story here, courtesy of mediabistro.

It could never happen to me

Well here at the Region I tourney we have a saying ... "Be prepared for everything."

Check out the clip below (and here) from the  AUS v. EQG match (report [.pdf]):



The referee for this match was Referee: Gyoengyi Gaal of Hungary. There was no penalty given for the incident (source ... and a really funny article).

Be ready for anything folks, the weirdest things can happen at the worst times.

USA 2 :: Korea 0

Well the US did well in their first match as far as a result goes taking it 2::0 after the halftime. More interesting to me however was the match through the referee, and some of the crazy comments after.

For anyone interested, the referees were:
Referee: Bibiana STEINHAUS (GER)

Assistant Referee 1: Marina WOZNIAK (GER)

Assistant Referee 2: Katrin RAFALSKI (GER)

Fourth official: Gyoengyi GAAL (HUN)

This referee is interesting. She is the ONLY woman referee in German professional football, and a police officer to boot (shades of Howard Webb).

Her FIFA profile can be found here, Facebook page here, and personal (authorized) website here. You just have to love the information age.

The match itself (again from a refereeing perspective) to me was boring. A full match summary is here, and the official report is here (.pdf). Just looking at the summary (below), you can get the sense there was really not a lot going on by the way for fouls and misconduct, and this referee did not have to get too involved.

USAPRK

19	Shots	13
8	Corner kicks	4
0	Yellow cards	0
0	Second yellow card and red card	0
0	Red Cards	0
53%	Possession (%)	47%

One of the more interesting parts came after the match, where the Korea coach Kim Kwang-Min when asked about his teams (lack of) performance, came up with a doosey. Quoting the coach (source):

"When we stayed in Pyongyang during training there was an unexpected accident so our team was not capable of playing. Our players were hit by lightning during a training match. More than five were hospitalised. The match was on 8 June."

Well, at least he did not blame the referee.

¿Hablas español?

Well Tim Howard is not a happy camper based on his rant the other day about the Gold Cup organizers. His tirade made international news, and "jumped the shark" to shows like "The O'Riley Factor", as he harpooned CONCACAF organizers for their lack of cultural sensitivity. In his own words:

“CONCACAF should be ashamed of themselves. I think it was a f&(%ing disgrace that the entire post-match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass if we were in Mexico City it wouldn’t be all in English.”

Reports on this point are varied as apparently there was some English spoken during the ceremony (source).

Coach Bradley took a decidedly diplomatic tone stating that:

"Obviously, the support that Mexico has on a night like tonight makes it a home game for them,” U.S. coach Bob Bradley said. “Certainly we have some fans, but the overwhelming amount of support (for Mexico) is something that we expected and as a team we understand it's part of what we've got to deal with tonight. It was still a great atmosphere.”

For my money while I was not thrilled with CONCACAFs lousy handling of the situation, and the lack of a spine to fail to give a statement after when asked repeatedly, to me this is not that big a deal. Yes, the ceremonies should have been conducted in both languages out of respect for where the match was being played, and the other team. Shading the way of the Mexican population at a high level seems disrespectful to those who are not able to understand the language.

That said I have the luxury of speaking Spanish and beyond a protocol gaffe, I don't see the issue. I have to believe that Howard was emoting more about the dismal loss the US Team just suffered, than how CONCACAF was conducting business.

... and for the record, the US Teams disrespect for not taking a photo after the match was rather pathetic. They came to the match and lost in a "fair fight." They have professional responsibilities outside of just playing the match. Instead of pouting and hiding in their locker room, act like pros and take the damn picture.

Use it as some motivation the next time the US plays Mexico.