germany 2006 begins in a few weeks. time to get a thread going for anyone's thoughts and opinions.

all the latest world cup news




ah ......the beautiful game!! joga bonita!!

tables and results

fundie, what handball? ;) anyway , happy to be meeting the ukraine .

kim, not quite sure what you are trying to say ..........no offence , like, but i should tell you i'm straight !!

What a load of shite that was , they should all have been given a red card , it was a bit like the Audley Harrison of football , we dont want to play (he doesn't want to fight ) ,pathetic.

it wasn't pretty , jimmy, but i was happy to see it go into extra time. the game was played at quite a pace and both teams will be knackered after 120 minutes of that.

:o) Bosley, I was referring to the picture and what I was trying to say was "She is a little Italian beauty, just like the penalty goal". Sadly my Italian is somewhat shaky these days so perhaps I should stick to Welsh, there again, maybe not, my Welsh is even shakier!!
kim

just been reflecting on last night's games while having my morning constitutional. switzerland deservedly out for me. 3 spot kicks, 3 misses/saves. very poor. ukraine looked quite solid defensively and could pose italy a problem on the break. the italians don't need telling just how effective shevcenko can be.
also, this quote from guus hiddink made me piss, "luca neill is very low. you feel bad enough if you're responsible for a penalty, but when you know you haven't committed a foul it's doubly hard to take." lucas neill was indeed very low. infact he was sliding-along-the-ground low as grosso ran into the area. it was a penalty. stop moaning. the ref was a poor one. he sent off matterazzi for the same offence of sliding in infront of someone running with the ball.
there certainly does need to be a huge improvement from the officials as they seem determined to spoil a fantastic tournament. the referee of the swiss/ukraine game was as poor as the russian ref in the portugal/holland game. portugal are without key players and have many players on yellow cards for the quarter-final game against england. this will affect the way they play. many fouls were committed in the swiss/ukraine game that deserved yellows, but the ref chose to keep his cards in his pocket. absolutely no consistency from the officials.

Graham Poll was consistent. 3 yellow cards to the same player in the same game. How much consistency do you want?
It's not really the refs faults (sounds of boos and hisses from the audience). It's FIFA. If they really want a non contact sport, let them preside over basketball. They are hell bent on trying to be consistent at the expense of consistency. A tackle from behind will be a yellow. No room for the ref to use common sense. I understand their motives but surely they would be better served allowing the ref to judge whether a foul was dangerous / deliberate / with malice.
Stop protecting goalkeepers and prima donnas, come down hard on gamesmanship and tearing the shirt off peoples backs at corners and let the ref decide what is bookable and what isn't.
The gamesmanship that has crept into the game is the real culprit. It has forced FIFA into draconian actions, but I believe the extreme regimentation of the laws and referees can be relaxed if gamesmanship can be removed. if it continues, then refs stop being judges and start being wardens, simply applying the rules blindly.
Rant over. Just hang Sepp Blatter.
Alan

i agree with your point , alan. players do make life difficult for the ref. they claim for everything, go down at the slightlest of touches, the whole idea being to put pressure on the referee to make the wrong decision. so really, managers and players shouldn't complain when the ref does get it wrong. it's all technical cheating. players kick a ball out and claim the throw. the dutch players in the portugal game didn't respond the way they should have to the russian ref's early yellow cards. the ref wanted to impose his authority and clamp down on foul play. the dutch players responded by trying to get as many portugese players booked as possible. the portugese players responded by playing the same way as the dutch and the game slowly descended in farce. hopefully , this game will serve as a deterrent, that players will look at deco, knowing he misses the quarter-final and realise that this could happen to them.

btw, graham poll gave a very good interview the day before his "consistent" performance. in it he said he fancied his chances of reffing the final and he thought people should look at him as the new "collina" !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Salmonella, anyone?

I suggest anyone who wants to bet on the world cup reads this book.
A stunning insite into how FIFA worked back then and of course now.

Blatter and mates own shares in media companies.
The world cup is massive advertising billboard the bigger the name stars they get to play the bigger the audiences. The more controvosy they create the bigger the audiences. The bigger the audiences the bigger the advertising revenue etc etc...

http://www.yallop.co.uk/read_more.htm

PROLOGUE.

During the first week of December 1997 the court of the Sun King came to Marseilles.

The court acolytes, the secretaries, assistants, press attach, security officers, scurried everywhere. There was always among members of the court an underlying anxiety when "Le Grand Monarque" was near, particularly when he was giving a public audience. On this occasion the worlds Press media who had gathered were even more deferential than usual. None of them wanted to risk being denied access to the tournament the Sun King had planned for the following summer.

He saw himself as the most powerful man in the world. He was in charge of the worlds greatest religion and the coming summers ceremonies would be watched on television by a cumulative audience of forty billion people. More than six times the population of the world.

An aide hurried forward and muttered in the ear of His Majesty. The aide had to reach on tiptoe to reach the royal ear. In his eighty-second year, the Sun King still stood six feet tall. The athletic muscle tone of his youth had softened slightly but though his weight was now some ten kilos more than in his prime, he remained an imposing figure. His face, which usually resembled a well-kept grave, hovered on a smile, then reverted to a baleful stare, but it was still obvious that he was savouring the moment.

"Do excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I have to take a phone call from President Chirac."

Presidents. Kings and Queens. Heads of State. Prime Ministers. He has met every world leader. His Holiness the Pope has been granted a number of audiences. The Sun King has a very clear view of his place in the world order.

"Do you consider yourself the most powerful man in the world?"

Most men asked such a question would demur. Would dismiss it with a laugh. Dr Jo Havelange, President of Fation Internationale de Football Association FIFA did not demur and he certainly did not laugh.

"Ive been to Russia twice, invited by President Yeltsin. Ive been to Poland with their President. In the 1990 World Cup in Italy I saw Pope John Paul II three times. When I go to Saudi Arabia, King Fahd welcomes me in splendid fashion. In Belgium I had a one and a half hour meeting with King Albert. Do you think a Head of State will spare that much time to just anyone? Thats respect. Thats the strength of FIFA. I can talk to any President, but theyll be talking to a President too on an equal basis. Theyve got their power, and Ive got mine: the power of football, which is the greatest power there is."

Thats the Havelange version of "yes".

On face value it is an outrageous claim, but the latter day Sun King offers an array of facts and figures to justify his opinion of himself. The Pope may well preside over one of the worlds major faiths, but Havelange rules over a religion that is devoutly followed by more than one fifth of the planet.

"The World Cup 94 in the United States was watched by a cumulative audience of thirty-one billion people. More than five times the population of Earth. The annual turnover of football is $255 billion. It offers direct and indirect employment to more than four hundred and fifty million people. There are national associations affiliated to FIFA in one hundred and ninety-eight countries. More countries are affiliated to my organisation than are members of the United Nations."

Not so much a case of "I am the State" as "I am the world". Jo Havelange, like many a ruler throughout history, has strengthened his grasp on his throne by relentlessly increasingly his empire. On July 11th, 1974 when he came to power after plotting and conspiring over the previous three years, the number of affiliates was one hundred and thirty-eight. That same year in Germany only sixteen countries contested the final stages of the World Cup. This year in France there were thirty-two countries. This may or may not be for the "good of the game". It most certainly was for the good of Dr Havelange, ensuring as it had six continuous terms of office. The increase in the number of international competitions from two to eight has also been a vote winner among the delegates. The FIFA Coca-Cola Cup. The FIFA Futsal World Championship. The FIFA World Championship for women. The Under-17 World Championship for the FIFA/JVC Cup. As British sports writer Brian Glanville remarked to me:

"Havelange has only two ambitions left to fulfil. The first is to become the first posthumous President of FIFA. The second to organise a World Cup tournament for embryos."

In less than three minutes, hardly time to boil an egg, the Sun King had returned from his conversation with the President of France. Cordial regrets from Chirac that he would not be able to attend the junketing in Marseilles. The relationship had not always been so cordial.

In 1985 during an International Olympic Committee meeting in Berlin Chirac, who was then leading the bid from Paris, became enraged as he watched Havelange wheeling and dealing to ensure that the Olympic Games for 1992 went to Barcelona.

The French team had gone to Berlin prepared to rest their case on the merits and virtues of Paris. Havelange, wearing his Olympic Committee member hat, was busily organising the Spanish-speaking members of the Committee behind the Barcelona campaign. The Havelange style of organising such an exercise involves lavish receptions, all expenses paid trips for committee members, gifts that began with Rolexes and ended with whatever value the committee member puts on his or her vote. Just to make sure the vote stayed committed to Barcelonas cause, members were wined and dined by Prime Minister Gonzalez and key members of his Cabinet and then entertained by the King and Queen of Spain. Chirac exploded.

"If you dont stop this bribery Dr Havelange, Ill start using my influence in Africa. Not to get the Olympic Games but to stop you getting re-elected as President of FIFA."

It made no difference. Barcelona got the Games and Havelange has continued unopposed, presiding over the worlds most popular religion.

During his brief absence from the Press Conference, Sepp Blatter, the General Secretary of FIFA, had unwisely allowed questions from the Press. The Sun King does not like the Press, even less does he like questions from reporters. He turned a basilisk glance in the direction of one questioner.

"Why hasnt Pelbeen invited to take part in the draw?"

Mute messages passed between the two men. Blatter, small, rotund, one half of a very curious double act. Havelange, tall and even now in his eighties, still exhibiting the physique of an Olympic swimmer. Blatter responded.

"We do not have a problem with Mr Pel"

There was muffled laughter. Everyone in the room knew that they did indeed have a problem with Pel

"So why has he not been invited to take part in the draw along with the other great footballers?"

"We have no problem with Mr Pel" Blatter responded.

"But"

"We have no problem with Mr Pel" Blatter said yet again but this time with a note of finality. The General Secretary had been very well trained over the years by the latter day Sun King and the modern Cardinal Richelieu Horst Dassler of adidas. The ladies and gentlemen of the Press came a great deal cheaper than an Olympic Committee member. If their potential accreditation to World Cup 98 did not fully concentrate their collective minds, there were always the freebies. The one thousand one hundred and eight-one journalists milled around for their handouts. Chocolate bars from Snickers, razors from Gillette, filofaxes from Canon. They collected their caps, badges and watches. They slipped on a jacket, put a free football in a bag, took handfuls of stickers, key rings and pens and notebooks, put out their hands for free calculators that obligingly converted a range of foreign currencies automatically.

Small wonder that the tickets to attend this affair were every bit as hot as the tickets for the actual football matches. The scene for the main festivities was the massively and expensively refurbished Stade Velodrome. It was quite a party.

There were the thirty-eight thousand ordinary guests. There were the one thousand five hundred special guests. If the former contained many children and teenagers, the latter represented the really major players of the game. Not the football stars, though they too were in attendance, but the power brokers, the wheelers and dealers, FIFA delegates who might carry many a vote in their back pockets. Sponsors whose millions paid for much more than the five days of junketing at Marseilles. At a cost of five millions that represented just a little petty cash. The financial commitment of the sponsors since the mid-1970s had dramatically contributed to the financial feeding frenzy that football has become.

The location might be Marseilles, but a stranger would have been excused for thinking that they had wandered into a rehearsal for a modern dress play about Louis the Fourteenth. The subjects being discussed by small groups huddling conspiratorially had such timeless themes. Money, power, possessions.

One group was preoccupied with the coming struggle for the throne. Would Blatter announce that he was going to run? Would Beckenbauer make a late challenge? What of Platini? Or Grondona or?

Another group was deep in discussion on marketing and television rights for 2002 and 2006. Talking telephone numbers had been updated. These people talked "one point four" or "two point six". Billions, of course.

In one corner Graham Kelly and Sir Bert Millichip were arguing the merits of pay-TV. "Just move all the games to Saturday night or Sunday. Revenues in the first year? Oh, on top of the one hundred and sixty million already being paid by Sky, got to be an additional forty million. Growth potential is Sky High!" They exploded into laughter.

Moving like patrolling barracudas through the room are the players agents. Not many have managed to get in, just a favoured few with good connections in Zurich. They want a piece of the action. They lust after a share of the wealth that is washing through the game in the last years of the century. Eighteen-year-old Michael Owen on ten thousand a week currently sets the bench mark for teenage footballers. Half a million pounds a year. Some of the lads in their twenties and thirties are pulling in a bit more. David Beckham on 8.1 million this year just edges out Alan Shearer, but is still a long way below the top earner, Luiz Nazario de Lima of Brazil, better known as Ronaldo. He has a contract with Internazionale of Milan that brings in 100,000 per week, then there is his share of the two hundred million dollar sponsor deal with Nike that is paid to the Brazilian national squad for World Cup endorsements. Ronaldos earnings this year will be 20.5 million. Just under four hundred thousand pounds per week. Ronaldo is twenty-one years of age.

Looking after the needs of the guests were one thousand staff, a further five hundred security officers and two squadrons of gendarmes. Ensuring that the festivities ran smoothly were a further one thousand four hundred and fifty stage and television technicians. Fourteen articulated lorries had brought in various items of equipment.

But above all there were the sponsors. World Cup 98 is not primarily about football. It is first and foremost about product. The product varies depending who is making the pitch.

At Marseilles in early December 1997 there was so much to do. Always assuming you had the right accreditation, the right labels, the proper badges and four different kinds of ID.

One could breakfast with McDonalds and chat to Ronaldo or Beckenbauer or Carlos Alberto Parreira. Lunch with the incomparable Pel courtesy of MasterCard, take afternoon tea with foreign ambassadors who were being paid to be pleasant by adidas; have a glass of champagne with Newcastles Alan Shearer thanks to Umbro who produced the England captain as if he were an extremely large rabbit and had him sign a fifteen-year deal worth depending on his performance on the pitch rather than the cocktail bar between ten and twenty million pounds. Shearers health is market-sensitive. Five months before the gathering in Marseilles Shearer had sustained a serious injury to ankle ligaments. Overnight 11 million was knocked off Newcastles shares. If the Umbro campaign had given the guest the taste for more, one could move on to canap and more champagne, this time from Hewlett Packard. Finally, courtesy of FIFA there was a nine-course dinner with the Mayors of the ten cities where the various football matches would be played and of course yet more champagne, while five thousand children marched past the window of the restaurant in torch-light procession. All this and not one football kicked in earnest during the entire five days, the match between a Europe team versus the Rest of the World providing a perfect example of the great difficulty that trained athletes experience when attempting to run on a full wallet.

All of this to celebrate the draw for the first round of the World Cup 98. Picking thirty-two slips of paper from a glass bowl. God only knows what the Sun King had up his sleeve for when the going got serious and we actually had the matches in June. Resplendent throughout the entire proceedings was Dr Jo Havelange. Never less than immaculately attired. Heaven help any FIFA official who ever comes within his area of vision with a top shirt button undone or a tie loosened. An enduring image of the opening ceremony for the World Cup Finals in the United States in 1994 was the Sun King. On an afternoon in Chicago when the temperature was in the high eighties, with President Clinton perspiring freely, Havelange sat wearing his dark double-breasted suit buttoned up throughout the game. He never betrayed a moments distress, but then he never betrayed any other emotion either. Marseilles was the same. By comparison with the Sun King the Sphinx suffers from chronic hyperactivity.

There were moments, however, that gave possible indications that FIFAs President was perhaps reflecting on things past, on times remembered. A glance into middle distance, a failure to respond to a companions conversation, an aide telling him where to stand, moments where it seemed that perhaps for the first time he was accepting that his long reign was indeed drawing to a close. On June 8th 1998 in Paris the twenty-four-year reign of President Havelange would come to an end and the crown would pass to one of the pretenders for the throne.

If Havelange was indeed indulging in some nostalgic reflections during the events in Marseilles, there was much for him to meditate upon.

Dr Jo Havelange has swum a very long way since competing in the Olympic Pool in Berlin in 1936 and the water has not always been clean. This man who is very much the master of all he surveys within the world of football has had honours showered upon him.

Those honours include the Cavalier of the Legion dHonneur (France), the Order of Special Merit in Sports (Brazil), the Commander of the Orden Infante Dome Henrique (Portugal), the Cavalier of Vasa Orden (Sweden) and the Grand Cross of Elizabeth the Catholic (Spain). The full list of the honours awarded to the man totals over three hundred. In 1989 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

All of this and a great deal more besides reflects a man who should be held in the very highest esteem in any country where football is played. He told me that when he took over the FIFA presidency in 1974 the coffers were empty. Officials were at that time forced to live a hand-to-mouth existence, this at least is the view of Havelange. He bowed out in the summer of 1998 leaving FIFA with property assets worth in excess of one hundred million dollars and a guaranteed income over the next ten years of more than four billion dollars.

During his twenty-four-year reign football has been transformed. Spectators now sit in all-seater modern stadiums and in many countries have the opportunity to applaud twenty-two multimillionaires onto the pitch. Many leading clubs now have fewer paying spectators than investing shareholders. Performance on the pitch now matched by movement on the Stock Exchange. Promotion to the Premier from the First Division in England is worth a minimum of an extra five million pounds revenue to a club. The price of relegation? Financial oblivion. During those twenty-four years, despite the excess of commercialism that engulfs football, the game has strengthened its grip on mans imagination. A recent survey established that in Britain ninety-five per cent of men aged between twenty and thirty-four years of age would rather watch World Cup soccer than make love to the woman of their dreams. Michelle Pfeiffer, Claudia Schiffer and the others relegated to a waiting room until after the penalty shoot-out.

So go out and get your twelve-pack, a crate of Cloudy Bay and your World Cup baseball cap, your World Cup key ring and notepad plus your World Cup sunglasses, your World Cup adidas clothes and footwear, your World Cup 98 Coca-Cola, your World Cup Canon fax machine, pay for it all with your World Cup 98 MasterCard and settle down in front of your television set. Dont try to get a ticket for any of the matches, with a twenty per cent allocation to sponsors and corporate guests in contrast to eight per cent per team for their fans you will be unlucky, unless of course you happen to know one of the FIFA executives who are peddling them on the black market. Settle down and raise a can or a glass to the Sun King. More than any other person he is the one individual responsible for the happy state of affairs described above. Even more, he has promised each of the nearly two hundred federations a million dollar gift per year for the next four years. To each of the six International Confederations he has promised a massive annual gift of ten million dollars for the same period. All of this to "improve the sport in their regions."

According to the man himself, the world of football owes Havelange much. Why then is he so despised and reviled by so many people, both in and out of the game? Is there any truth in the allegations of corruption? Of illicit arms dealing? Of bribes given and received? Any validity in the allegations that among his friends are numbered some of the worst dregs of society, certainly people that no self-respecting Cavalier of the Legion dHonneur should be consorting with?

FIFA has as its motto the slogan "For the Good of the Game". What follows is an attempt to establish exactly how good for the game has been the life and times of Jo Havelange.

Football is not on its own. Rules for the sake of rules have permeated every sport. Soccer may lead the way with stupid directives, like the one about ball boys not able to enter the pitch. How many times have we seen a game held up by a player running 50 yards to kick a ball off the pitch when there is a ball boy 5 feet away?
Even my beloved cricket is not immune, though it is more steadfast in its tradition.
A few years ago a rule was introduced that any player under 19 batting, or within 15 yards of the batsman while fielding has to wear a helmet.
Result? You now see 18 year olds in village second teams batting against a 60 year old spinner and having to wear a helmet, with a kid behind the stumps in one too!!! Ridiculous. The bowler would have a coronary if he tried to get that much bounce froma local village green!!
The long term result is even more worrying. We are developing a generation of batsmen who are less mobile than ever before, because they have no need to learn the concentration and speed required to get out of the way of a 90mph ball aimed squarely at your head. Concentration and speed of movement are everything when batting.
It is about time the busy bodies, do-gooders and businessmen left sport well alone and allowed those who know it, love it and play it to rule it with sense and sportsmanship.
Nuff said.
Alan

To my mind, the worst rule ever invented in any sport was the offside rule in football. Oh, and being penalised for a foul!!
kim

they arn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but fifa do deserve a lot of credit for many of the rule changes that have made the game better. for instance, the backpass rule, the tackle from behind, and now the two-footed lunge. these rule changes have helped speed up the game and have allowed the more skillful players to play. all anyone need do is think back to pre 1990. how many games died a death because winning teams played 20 minutes of keeper to right back , then back to keeper then keeper to left back then back to keeper, and so on and so on. think back to the plethora of truly dull games world cups used to produce. think back to the treatment of truly great players like maradonna and baggio, how many times they got tackled two footed from behind before the refs gave the opponent a yellow. these rule changes allow players like rooney to shine and show their skill.

I would have done that but for 10mil a year less!!

Are you happy to know that someone already knows the result of World Cup games beforre you start watching them?

Im not, they are so currupt its not funny. Tickets should be a tenner and available to football fans not 100 euros and impossible to get!

kim, might i advise to go and watch bastetball!

mindless excitement non stop, but why do they bother to play for more than 3 mins, its only the last 3 mons thats exciting!!

Pommy, I'm inclined to write something contrary about conspiracy theories, but am not going to because the aliens who abducted me and implanted a camera behind my eyeball in order to observe our species more closely would be able to read it.

On the other hand, your longer post, almost made a good point about sport achieving more for world peace than politics, so I'll give you five out of ten.

PS if "someone already knows the result of World Cup games beforre (sic) you start watching them", would they be kind enough to post the scorres :o) on a thread on MoneyAM (EPIC: FIX) so we can avoid the tedium of watching ghastly matches like Argentina vs The Netherlands last week.

Could well be the best days football today,all 4 teams like to attack

Goal feast for sure.

big bad al, you know what's going to happen now you've said that!!!
pommy, i wont argue with you about the way fifa run the financial side of the game. it certainly does leave a sour tatste in the mouth, but footbal endures and survives the surrounding bullshit because , when all is said and done, it is still about what happens on the pitch that matters most. that is why we still watch and love the game. the rest of it could disappear tomorrow for all i care. the game would still go on.

brazil through . scoreline says 3-0 but i didn't think they were that convincing.