Day -936. WorldCup2018
Sometimes it's just not meant to be. On the road, no Internet. But day -936 does still exist. So it has been marked.
Monday, 30 November 2015
Sunday, 29 November 2015
Russia and it's friends
Day -937. WorldCup2018.
At this rate Russia are going to have an easy first round at their own World Cup. It's not unthinkable that the list of countries not wanting to play football against Russia is going to grow by 2018. And if that is so, there will be many requests not to be drawn in the same group as Russia at the World Cup.
Ukraine-Russia is probably not going to happen for a very long time. With Vladimir Putin dragging that conflict out to suit Russia's needs a status quo in 3 years seems likely.
Turkey are now portrayed, by the Russians, as Russia's new enemy over the downing of the Russian fighter jet and the refusal of Turkey to apologise. Today, Vitaly Mutko, President of the Russian Football Union, member of Fifa's Executive Committee, Chairman of the Russia 2018 organising committee announced that as part of the sanctions against Turkey no Russian football teams will be able to engage Turkish players in the January transfer window. And no Russian teams will go to Turkey for winter training camps. Turkey won't be invited to Russia for a friendly any time soon.
The Americans? Well, it was they who started the investigations into the allegations of corruption and bribery at Fifa, which led to the call for an investigation into how Russia got to be awarded to World Cup. Putin maintains it is all a conspiracy by the Americans to have Russia removed as hosts, all because the Americans are jealous. Depending on what happens with Turkey and Syria this could get worse.
The Syria situation could change. Right now Russia is about the only ally of the Syrian President al-Assad. Who Russian planes are bombing is still unclear but by 2018 there could be a different Syria. And whoever is leading that Syria might remember what the Russians did in 2015. Whether Syria will even qualify is still a big uncertainty but they are looking like they could be the story of the unlikely World Cup participants.
And who else? With Russia's political posturing right now they are sure to have more vocal opponents soon. By association, the whole of the UEFA member nations could be strongly anti-Russian, more than they are now over Putin's defence of Sepp Blatter and everything to do with Fifa. Whoever wins the next Fifa presidential election could have a huge impact on the relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe.
There will probably be quite a different political picture come 2018. One thing is for sure. The chances of politics staying out of football seem more unlikely than ever.
At this rate Russia are going to have an easy first round at their own World Cup. It's not unthinkable that the list of countries not wanting to play football against Russia is going to grow by 2018. And if that is so, there will be many requests not to be drawn in the same group as Russia at the World Cup.
Ukraine-Russia is probably not going to happen for a very long time. With Vladimir Putin dragging that conflict out to suit Russia's needs a status quo in 3 years seems likely.
Turkey are now portrayed, by the Russians, as Russia's new enemy over the downing of the Russian fighter jet and the refusal of Turkey to apologise. Today, Vitaly Mutko, President of the Russian Football Union, member of Fifa's Executive Committee, Chairman of the Russia 2018 organising committee announced that as part of the sanctions against Turkey no Russian football teams will be able to engage Turkish players in the January transfer window. And no Russian teams will go to Turkey for winter training camps. Turkey won't be invited to Russia for a friendly any time soon.
The Americans? Well, it was they who started the investigations into the allegations of corruption and bribery at Fifa, which led to the call for an investigation into how Russia got to be awarded to World Cup. Putin maintains it is all a conspiracy by the Americans to have Russia removed as hosts, all because the Americans are jealous. Depending on what happens with Turkey and Syria this could get worse.
The Syria situation could change. Right now Russia is about the only ally of the Syrian President al-Assad. Who Russian planes are bombing is still unclear but by 2018 there could be a different Syria. And whoever is leading that Syria might remember what the Russians did in 2015. Whether Syria will even qualify is still a big uncertainty but they are looking like they could be the story of the unlikely World Cup participants.
And who else? With Russia's political posturing right now they are sure to have more vocal opponents soon. By association, the whole of the UEFA member nations could be strongly anti-Russian, more than they are now over Putin's defence of Sepp Blatter and everything to do with Fifa. Whoever wins the next Fifa presidential election could have a huge impact on the relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe.
There will probably be quite a different political picture come 2018. One thing is for sure. The chances of politics staying out of football seem more unlikely than ever.
Saturday, 28 November 2015
Rest day.....
Day -938 WorldCup2018.
And on the 63rd day he rested. Tomorrow I'll be back and before you know it Round number 52 of qualifying in Oceania will be over.
And on the 63rd day he rested. Tomorrow I'll be back and before you know it Round number 52 of qualifying in Oceania will be over.
Friday, 27 November 2015
A little bit of Syria
Day -939. WorldCup2018.
There are days, and there will be more amongst the 939, where all I can do is find a good story. This is a topical one from a couple of weeks ago. The premise of it: the coach of the Syrian national team, in Singapore for a World Cup qualifier, wore a t-shirt with a picture of Syrian President Bashar as-Assad on it at a press conference and said he wanted to keep politics out of sport.
http://uk.reuters.com/…/uk-soccer-world-asia-syria-idUKKCN0…
There are days, and there will be more amongst the 939, where all I can do is find a good story. This is a topical one from a couple of weeks ago. The premise of it: the coach of the Syrian national team, in Singapore for a World Cup qualifier, wore a t-shirt with a picture of Syrian President Bashar as-Assad on it at a press conference and said he wanted to keep politics out of sport.
http://uk.reuters.com/…/uk-soccer-world-asia-syria-idUKKCN0…
Thursday, 26 November 2015
Andrew Jennings
Day -940. WorldCup2018.
Investigative reporter Andrew Jennings was not particularly interested in football when he researched and wrote his excellent book, "Foul" about corruption at Fifa, and followed it up with his BBC Panorama film. He hounded Sepp Blatter, Jack Warner and the whole of Fifa, and was refused entry to Fifa press conferences. All his work was vindicated this year with the charges brought against members of Fifa, Blatter's step down as Fifa president and the ongoing American and Swiss investigations. On hearing about the Swiss police raid and arrest of seven Fifa officials, Jennings said:
"I know that they are criminal scum, and I’ve known it for years. And that is a thoughtful summation. That is not an insult. That is not throwing about wild words.
“These scum have stolen the people’s sport. They’ve stolen it, the cynical thieving bastards. So, yes, it’s nice to see the fear on their faces.”
Here he is trying to interview Blatter the only way he could, by ambushing him on a street. The best crooked politician would have been proud of Blatter's performance.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5HaZ2ykBjdE
Investigative reporter Andrew Jennings was not particularly interested in football when he researched and wrote his excellent book, "Foul" about corruption at Fifa, and followed it up with his BBC Panorama film. He hounded Sepp Blatter, Jack Warner and the whole of Fifa, and was refused entry to Fifa press conferences. All his work was vindicated this year with the charges brought against members of Fifa, Blatter's step down as Fifa president and the ongoing American and Swiss investigations. On hearing about the Swiss police raid and arrest of seven Fifa officials, Jennings said:
"I know that they are criminal scum, and I’ve known it for years. And that is a thoughtful summation. That is not an insult. That is not throwing about wild words.
“These scum have stolen the people’s sport. They’ve stolen it, the cynical thieving bastards. So, yes, it’s nice to see the fear on their faces.”
Here he is trying to interview Blatter the only way he could, by ambushing him on a street. The best crooked politician would have been proud of Blatter's performance.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5HaZ2ykBjdE
Wednesday, 25 November 2015
In-betweeners.
Day -941. WorldCup2018.
It's all pretty quiet on the international football front these days. Come March the Europeans will be gearing up for the next round of meaningless friendlies (or dreading them), where some players will be out injured because their club managers are worried about a sore pinky finger or tooth and other players will be playing their hearts out for a spot on the bench at Euro 2016.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will be embarking on another round of Russia 2018 qualifying. The Europeans with 52 participating countries start in September 2016, while South America with only 10 teams have been at it since last month. Not to be outdone in the madness of prolonged qualifying processes, Oceania completed Round 1 in September and have another round to go to determine which two teams will play in the play-off to decide who will play in the intercontinental play-off in the hope that a team from Oceania makes it to Russia. One would not be amiss for thinking that there must be a lot of teams in the Oceania region, a lot of obscure countries that are not known. No. There are 11 teams. Eleven. And it takes over two years to whittle them down to one country that might make it to Russia. Australia got so bored with all of this they begged to be considered Asian and off they went to join a qualifying region where they would have more than one competitive match. That meant no more world record wins like their 31-0 win against American Samoa in 2002 qualifying. So New Zealand became the new giants of the Pacific Ocean. In the first qualifying phase without Australia, they made it to South Africa in 2010, drew their three matches in the first round and finished above Italy, narrowly missing out on a spot in the second round. That was after an intercontinental play-off win against Bahrain. In 2014, they weren't so lucky and had to play against an angry Mexican team, angry that they were relegated to the humiliation of a play-off to qualify. It wasn't even close. With New Zealand as the new big boys of Oceania and Australia now pretending they're Asian, it would be fairly comical if they ended up playing each other in the intercontinental play-off.
This amusing world cup qualification process distracted me from my original intention, to look for a football parallel of the current tension between Russia and Turkey. Football often has a good story that distracts from other unfortunate realities, even though that story may also be political and reflected in circumstances surrounding the football meeting of the two countries. In this case, it's a good thing that I got carried away with the 11 island nations in the Pacific as there is very little to report on a footballing history between Russia and Turkey. There are records of just two official matches between the mens' national teams, and both of them were friendlies in April 1994 and April 1998. Russia won 1-0 twice. The old Soviet Union played Turkey 16 times, but never in a World Cup. But this current conflict is between Russia, not the countries of the Soviet Union, and Turkey. Some of those countries would hardly be supporting Russia right now.
So with no fascinating stories of epic, controversial football matches between the two countries we will have to hope that nothing comes of what is going on right now that would set a horrible scene for a possible meeting in the future. A World Cup group of Russia, Ukraine, Syria and Turkey in 2018 could be very, very interesting. Who would be first to boycott?
It's all pretty quiet on the international football front these days. Come March the Europeans will be gearing up for the next round of meaningless friendlies (or dreading them), where some players will be out injured because their club managers are worried about a sore pinky finger or tooth and other players will be playing their hearts out for a spot on the bench at Euro 2016.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will be embarking on another round of Russia 2018 qualifying. The Europeans with 52 participating countries start in September 2016, while South America with only 10 teams have been at it since last month. Not to be outdone in the madness of prolonged qualifying processes, Oceania completed Round 1 in September and have another round to go to determine which two teams will play in the play-off to decide who will play in the intercontinental play-off in the hope that a team from Oceania makes it to Russia. One would not be amiss for thinking that there must be a lot of teams in the Oceania region, a lot of obscure countries that are not known. No. There are 11 teams. Eleven. And it takes over two years to whittle them down to one country that might make it to Russia. Australia got so bored with all of this they begged to be considered Asian and off they went to join a qualifying region where they would have more than one competitive match. That meant no more world record wins like their 31-0 win against American Samoa in 2002 qualifying. So New Zealand became the new giants of the Pacific Ocean. In the first qualifying phase without Australia, they made it to South Africa in 2010, drew their three matches in the first round and finished above Italy, narrowly missing out on a spot in the second round. That was after an intercontinental play-off win against Bahrain. In 2014, they weren't so lucky and had to play against an angry Mexican team, angry that they were relegated to the humiliation of a play-off to qualify. It wasn't even close. With New Zealand as the new big boys of Oceania and Australia now pretending they're Asian, it would be fairly comical if they ended up playing each other in the intercontinental play-off.
This amusing world cup qualification process distracted me from my original intention, to look for a football parallel of the current tension between Russia and Turkey. Football often has a good story that distracts from other unfortunate realities, even though that story may also be political and reflected in circumstances surrounding the football meeting of the two countries. In this case, it's a good thing that I got carried away with the 11 island nations in the Pacific as there is very little to report on a footballing history between Russia and Turkey. There are records of just two official matches between the mens' national teams, and both of them were friendlies in April 1994 and April 1998. Russia won 1-0 twice. The old Soviet Union played Turkey 16 times, but never in a World Cup. But this current conflict is between Russia, not the countries of the Soviet Union, and Turkey. Some of those countries would hardly be supporting Russia right now.
So with no fascinating stories of epic, controversial football matches between the two countries we will have to hope that nothing comes of what is going on right now that would set a horrible scene for a possible meeting in the future. A World Cup group of Russia, Ukraine, Syria and Turkey in 2018 could be very, very interesting. Who would be first to boycott?
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
Big Phil for President!
Day -942. WorldCup2018.
If all else fails go with humour. I almost have to believe that that has become Sepp Blatter's mantra. Despite his self-proclaimed recent near death experience, the constant threat of an FBI, American and Swiss Attorney General investigation finding reason to prosecute him, and just the general mistrust by the majority of anybody with an interest in football following him wherever he goes (which isn't many places because he doesn't dare leave Switzerland for the fear of being arrested), he still manages to come out with a gem of an example of his "you'll-never-get-rid-of-me", Blatter-esque fighting spirit.
The lawyer for his partner in crime, Michel Platini, announced today that the Fifa Ethics Committee is looking to impose a lifetime ban on Platini. Blatter's spokesman said Blatter has not been informed of his recommended sanction, but that he is "deeply surprised" by the possibility of Platini being banned for life. Platini's lawyer says of course that it is a scandal and it is a conspiracy to stop Platini being elected Fifa president. When Blatter stepped down a few months ago, but didn't really step down, Platini was the instant favourite to replace him. Not so anymore. "Disloyal payments" and "verbal contracts" have practically put an end to all of that. But it's all ok. There is a list of very capable looking candidates ready to help us forget about the golden boy of French football and UEFA's great hope for a European-led Fifa. Just forget that one of them, the Sheikh from Bahrain, has been accused of torturing his subjects in Bahrain and that Tokyo Sexwale, the South African, has been a part of Blatter's inner circle and another 2 candidates had intimate knowledge of the workings of Fifa and UEFA and did nothing about all the allegations that came with the knowledge. Platini seems like a pretty clean-cut, upstanding individual next to this lot of fossils pledging the magical "reform of Fifa". Maybe, if nothing else, he should go back to his earlier support of Prince Ali, UEFA's supported candidate and the seemingly cleanest candidate in the elections held earlier this year. After all, hosting the national team of Malta and it's vote-wielding football association president and delegation in Turkey as part of a closed-door friendly against Jordan escapes the radar of corruption and gift-giving. It's just a friendly favour between friends and it's only little Malta after all.
Digress as I may, Blatter's pronouncement today was against this background of "how much worse can this get". When Blatter announced in June this year that he was stepping down as President, only 4 days after winning re-election the world, and not just the football world, took that as a resignation. A few days after that he "clarified" his "resignation" as not being a resignation after all. All he was doing was calling for an extraordinary session of the Fifa Congress to hold another election and that he would not stand for re-election. Or would he? Even that was very unclear. Then came the 90 day provisional ban by the Ethics Committee, while he was being investigated for the "disloyal payment". A few days ago his appeal against the ban was rejected. Today we get the news that, chances are, by association (with Platini's recommended ban) that he may be kicked out of anything football related for ever. Will he give up? Will he finally say, enough is enough and at least concede that it is laughable that he even consider holding on to his position as president? To all those people who can't remember if he did resign or not, will he say, that's it, I'm done.
No, what Sepp Blatter's poor spokesman says is :"Mr Blatter was elected by the Fifa congress and only the congress can remove his power.” In other words he is still hanging on the his friends' support, the presidents of the national associations around the world who have been a part of the corrupt-laden, bribery-ridden world football structure (allegedly, of course) for all of Blatter's years. He believes, therefore, that they may actually vote him back in if he did indeed seek re-election.
To really understand how far Blatter took Fifa down the road of institutionalized corruption please read Andrew Jennings excellent books, "Foul!" and "“Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family”, together with his fantastic BBC Panorama film, "“The Beautiful Bung: Corruption and the World Cup.”
Yesterday, I mentioned the reincarnation of Luiz Felipe Scolari, Big Phil. Maybe it's not as manager of a smaller country at the World Cup in Russia that he needs to make his full return. Maybe what the world needs, and what those Fifa Executive Committee members need, is Big Phil barking out instructions in those stately Fifa boardrooms. If he can get something out of Fred, Hulk and Jo (well, OK maybe not Jo) just imagine how he could get those men in the ridiculously priced suits squirming in their fit-for-royalty boardroom chairs. It will be all action in no time.....or just after David Luiz leads them in prayer.
If all else fails go with humour. I almost have to believe that that has become Sepp Blatter's mantra. Despite his self-proclaimed recent near death experience, the constant threat of an FBI, American and Swiss Attorney General investigation finding reason to prosecute him, and just the general mistrust by the majority of anybody with an interest in football following him wherever he goes (which isn't many places because he doesn't dare leave Switzerland for the fear of being arrested), he still manages to come out with a gem of an example of his "you'll-never-get-rid-of-me", Blatter-esque fighting spirit.
The lawyer for his partner in crime, Michel Platini, announced today that the Fifa Ethics Committee is looking to impose a lifetime ban on Platini. Blatter's spokesman said Blatter has not been informed of his recommended sanction, but that he is "deeply surprised" by the possibility of Platini being banned for life. Platini's lawyer says of course that it is a scandal and it is a conspiracy to stop Platini being elected Fifa president. When Blatter stepped down a few months ago, but didn't really step down, Platini was the instant favourite to replace him. Not so anymore. "Disloyal payments" and "verbal contracts" have practically put an end to all of that. But it's all ok. There is a list of very capable looking candidates ready to help us forget about the golden boy of French football and UEFA's great hope for a European-led Fifa. Just forget that one of them, the Sheikh from Bahrain, has been accused of torturing his subjects in Bahrain and that Tokyo Sexwale, the South African, has been a part of Blatter's inner circle and another 2 candidates had intimate knowledge of the workings of Fifa and UEFA and did nothing about all the allegations that came with the knowledge. Platini seems like a pretty clean-cut, upstanding individual next to this lot of fossils pledging the magical "reform of Fifa". Maybe, if nothing else, he should go back to his earlier support of Prince Ali, UEFA's supported candidate and the seemingly cleanest candidate in the elections held earlier this year. After all, hosting the national team of Malta and it's vote-wielding football association president and delegation in Turkey as part of a closed-door friendly against Jordan escapes the radar of corruption and gift-giving. It's just a friendly favour between friends and it's only little Malta after all.
Digress as I may, Blatter's pronouncement today was against this background of "how much worse can this get". When Blatter announced in June this year that he was stepping down as President, only 4 days after winning re-election the world, and not just the football world, took that as a resignation. A few days after that he "clarified" his "resignation" as not being a resignation after all. All he was doing was calling for an extraordinary session of the Fifa Congress to hold another election and that he would not stand for re-election. Or would he? Even that was very unclear. Then came the 90 day provisional ban by the Ethics Committee, while he was being investigated for the "disloyal payment". A few days ago his appeal against the ban was rejected. Today we get the news that, chances are, by association (with Platini's recommended ban) that he may be kicked out of anything football related for ever. Will he give up? Will he finally say, enough is enough and at least concede that it is laughable that he even consider holding on to his position as president? To all those people who can't remember if he did resign or not, will he say, that's it, I'm done.
No, what Sepp Blatter's poor spokesman says is :"Mr Blatter was elected by the Fifa congress and only the congress can remove his power.” In other words he is still hanging on the his friends' support, the presidents of the national associations around the world who have been a part of the corrupt-laden, bribery-ridden world football structure (allegedly, of course) for all of Blatter's years. He believes, therefore, that they may actually vote him back in if he did indeed seek re-election.
To really understand how far Blatter took Fifa down the road of institutionalized corruption please read Andrew Jennings excellent books, "Foul!" and "“Omerta: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family”, together with his fantastic BBC Panorama film, "“The Beautiful Bung: Corruption and the World Cup.”
Yesterday, I mentioned the reincarnation of Luiz Felipe Scolari, Big Phil. Maybe it's not as manager of a smaller country at the World Cup in Russia that he needs to make his full return. Maybe what the world needs, and what those Fifa Executive Committee members need, is Big Phil barking out instructions in those stately Fifa boardrooms. If he can get something out of Fred, Hulk and Jo (well, OK maybe not Jo) just imagine how he could get those men in the ridiculously priced suits squirming in their fit-for-royalty boardroom chairs. It will be all action in no time.....or just after David Luiz leads them in prayer.
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