It is now time to switch to a new Money AM football blog as the world cup is now over and we all look to the future.....World cup 2010 is over, Bravo Espana, and Forlan, once again and bring on the new season !.....I never expected the last thread to be such a success...thanks all.... so this new one might go on for years without the need to edit the title...we shall see...

Brilliant Stan :0)

Thanks, a goody eh CC -):

By Paul Hayward, Chief Sports Writer
1:46PM GMT 02 Dec 2014
In bidding for the 2018 World Cup the FA missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance to blow the whistle on Fifa corruption and instead signed a Faustian pact

Remember the handbags? They seemed a tiny thing at the time – a homage to Lady Thatcher, perhaps – but the luxury accessories lined up for the wives of Fifa’s World Cup voters were the first sign that England’s 2018 bid thought it could play a dirty political game while pinching its nose.

With a curious mix of abhorrence and a slavering eagerness to bring the World Cup to these shores, the Football Association and government (let us not forget Whitehall’s involvement or the public money squandered) pitched themselves into a process that is now coming back to torment them as a swarm of ghosts. In a sentence, English football spurned a historic chance to blow the whistle on Fifa corruption and instead signed the Faustian pact.

And, studying the fallout for England’s governing body, this is the most charitable interpretation we can come up with. Confirmation that the FA compiled intelligence dossiers on Fifa executive committee members and rival bidders is no shock. Nor is it necessarily reprehensible. Nobody could hope to enter Fifa’s Augean Stables without knowing who is aligned with whom and which Exco member might be dodgy. The problem is what they did with that information.


A fat lot of good it did them too. Anyone who was in Zurich for the week of the vote will never forget observing England 2018’s deluded belief that David Beckham had swung the vote, Prince William had swung the vote, David Cameron had seduced Fifa’s panjandrums into seeing England as Blake’s Jerusalem, ripe and ready to greet the world.

If the bid leaders were calling on ex-MI6 security specialists, ambassadors and other high level sources, as the Sunday Times claim, how did they miss the clear signs that deals had already been done, that 2018 was going to Russia and 2022 would end up as the plaything of a repressive oil state who proposed to stage a World Cup in conditions that might kill the players?

The warnings were pretty hard to ignore. In November 2010, Miguel Angel López, the leader of the Spain-Portugal bid, announced that England’s frantic late lobbying would come to nothing. "All the fish is sold," he said. I reckon this should become Fifa’s new slogan. Never mind ‘ For the Game. For the World.’ Much better is ‘All the fish is sold.’

Anyway: if there was this sophisticated network of intelligence gathering in London, it either failed to set the alarms off or the FA’s team simply ignored any inconvenient findings. We need to establish whether they failed to pass on or draw attention to clear evidence of corruption: to what it extent the FA of the time might have been complicit, if only through silence, in how the votes turned out.

England’s 1,752-page bid book was delivered to Fifa around the time Lord Triesman resigned as FA chairman after a newspaper published tapes of a private conversation in which he accused Spain and Russia of plotting to bribe referees at the 2010 World Cup.

In 2011 Triesman used parliamentary privilege to allege that four senior Fifa officials had asked for inducements. The Mail on Sunday’s Patrick Collins reported the previous year that Andy Anson, the bid’s chief executive, had said of Fifa’s Exco at a private press briefing: “At least 13 are buyable.”

Collins wrote: “On the way home, I thought about Anson's indiscretion. How did he know which members were 'buyable'? What kind of research had they done to reach such a conclusion? Had the matter been raised with Fifa's so-called 'ethics committee?”

As Collins asked four years ago, why was this not acted upon on at the time? Probably because the FA knew by then they were in the midst of a filthy business but elected to press on anyway. Eyes on the prize. But they went further. When Panorama lifted the lid on Fifa on the eve of the vote the England bid team issued a statement: "We stand by our previous position that the BBC's Panorama did nothing more than rake over a series of historical allegations none of which are relevant to the current bidding process. It should be seen as an embarrassment to the BBC."

We also now know from Michael Garcia’s redacted report that England officials allegedly tried to help an associate of Jack Warner find a job in London, sponsored a gala dinner for the Caribbean Football Union and of course sent the England team to Trinidad & Tobago to schmooze Warner, whose reputation was well known. So it would be useful to know whether the bid officials at the time simply used the intelligence gathered about Warner to help them find ways of securing his vote, which, again, they failed to do. Old Jack had them on a string.

Now we hear tales of security experts advising England bid officials to lock their phones in lead boxes during meetings and have rooms swept for bugs. Industrial espionage around a multi-billion contract is hardly surprising. The impetus meanwhile, in the latest revelations, is towards state involvement in the network of alleged sweeteners that eventually sent 2018 and 2022 across new frontiers.

Thus Britain’s Serious Fraud Office and the FBI in America emerge as law enforcement agencies no longer willing to look the other way, as the FA did while “currying favour” (to use the Fifa ethics committee phrase) with Warner and attacking the BBC for doing its job in trying to expose corruption.

The curse for the current FA regime is that they are having to answer for the sins of an earlier time. But it hardly inspired confidence to see them convince themselves that cooperating with Garcia’s investigation (unlike Russia or Spain) was some kind of noble act, when in fact the activities now seeping out obliged them to come clean if they are serious about wanting to reform Sepp Blatter’s failed state. Greg Dyke’s bizarre belligerence on the subject of a free £16,000 watch he brought home from this year’s Fifa Congress in Brazil also points to a major disconnect.

You can see, too, how handing over intelligence 'dossiers' to an organisation no one can trust would be problematic. Fifa has already demonstrated its eagerness to divert attention from institutionalised corruption by bashing the English and the FA.

Yet the FA’s current leaders cannot protect the 2018 bid, hide behind indignant statements or refuse to acknowledge that a once-in-a-lifetime chance presented itself to expose the truth about Fifa, even if it meant withdrawing from the ballot. Instead, they sent in Prince William. They tried to work both sides of the street.

Another cracking game, as we move up the table.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30188074

How are your Duffers these days Dil, speak to us -):

Everton 1 Hull City 1: Sone Aluko cancels out Romelu Lukaku's opener to brings jeers to Goodison Park
Everton vs Hull City, Premier League – Roberto Martinez's side have won just two of their seven league fixtures at home as they once again squander a lead


A Plan B is sadly lacking, all very well playing from the back consistently,
works if you have players the calibre of Messi and Iniesta, afraid Distin and Jagielka are only good enough to hoof the ball the Davy Moyes academy. Barkley seems to be lacking confidence. Martinez is taking the flack for spending to much time at the World Cup instead of concentrating on pre-season training fitness levels. Injuries too frequent.

The sooner McCarthy is back and Oviedo the better. City up next, I'll be hiding behind the settee. :0(

What's going on? LOL! Great result for Newcastle. Stoke repeat STOKE! beating Arsenal 3-0 at home half time.

Is there hope for Everton against City? Hiding behind the settee 5.30pm Sky Sports 2 kick off at the Etihad.

QPR 2 Burnley 0. should have won that, had enough possession, wheres Dil these days watching Swansea -):

What a soft penalty that was!

Really soft, if Everton up their game could get a result here.

Oh well at least we didn't get a hiding. Every cloud ETO, not bad for a free. Winners of the group with a game to spare in Europe. Quite a few players to come back from injury, money to spend in January without any pressure to sell anybody. Barkley getting fitter will have gained a bit of confidence in that display today as sub. Still a two horse race for Prem imo and Everton can only get better and climb the table.

Referee! Did they play 'Kung Fu Fighting' at the Manchester City Christmas party?

Dreadful ref, Barry should have walked as well.

Saints trying to do an Arsenal and walk the ball in the net. Hit it!!!

YESSSSSS!!

Man U fans very noisy up to now. Mind they haven't had to travel very far, just how far is it from London to Southampton :0)

Another skanky win.

UTD UTD UTD UTD UTD UTD UTD

just think Casey Carson 100 million to spend in January and then 200 million to spend in the summer.

JOSE JOSE look over your shoulder JOSE JOSE........look over your shoulder.


UTD UTD UTD UTD UTD UTD UTD

Going to need every penny.

3rd Rd. FA Cup Draw: Burnley v Spurs... the obvious highlight game -):

Louis van Gaal tells Gary Neville to 'pay attention to his words' for former Man United's 'pub match' comment
Gary Neville's prediction United's clash with Liverpool this weekend could be “the Dog and Duck versus the Red Lion” does not go down well with United manager

Brilliant!!! LOL!!!!