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Not worthy of a thread - 2018 FIFA World Cup edition

OzzieMandias

by OzzieMandias
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Thespence

Thespence

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Is Fifa scandal an own goal for Switzerland?

 

As world football governing body Fifa investigates allegations of corruption, some observers are asking questions about the federation’s host nation – Switzerland.

 

Switzerland is renowned as the home of many global sporting associations, including Fifa, Uefa and the International Olympic Committee. Such bodies are granted tax breaks and flexible legal terms that allow them to govern their own affairs.

 

The attraction of playing host to an array of some 50 international sporting governing bodies is clear. Switzerland enjoys the prestige of having such a glittering array of guests on its doorstep, a fact that enhances the country’s reputation for neutrality and tolerance.

 

But the latest scandal to engulf Fifa has raised questions about how to regulate the activities of such bodies that control the fortunes of so many multi-billion-franc sports.

 

Fifa stands accused by the British Sunday Times newspaper of certain members paying and receiving huge bribes to secure votes for the privilege of hosting of the World Cup.

 

Such an activity by Fifa officials would not break Swiss anti-corruption laws because non-profit sporting entities are exempt from such legislation – last updated in 2006. Anti-corruption watchdog group Transparency International has long criticised the exemption.

 

Legal freedom

 

“This is a big mistake,” Anne Schwöbel, director of Transparency International’s Swiss branch, told swissinfo.ch. “The government decided that these bodies are non-commercial, but there are huge financial interests behind sport.”

 

“Switzerland benefits from the fact that it has a lot of sporting organisations because they bring prestige. These bodies are in the comfortable situation of knowing that if they have internal malpractices then they do not have to fear an external investigation.”

 

The Swiss justice ministry told swissinfo.ch that there were no plans to change the exemption of sporting associations from anti-corruption laws.

 

Sporting bodies enjoy a large degree of legal freedom when they set up in Switzerland, confirmed sports law specialist Piermarco Zen-Ruffinen of Neuchâtel University.

 

“It is very simple to create an association, we have very few mandatory rules,” he told swissinfo.ch. “Associations are given a lot of freedom to govern themselves.”

 

Diminishing confidence

 

The only possible legal proceedings that Zen-Ruffinen can see coming out of the current Fifa affair is a banned member or member state complaining to the civil courts. A national football association that loses out on hosting the 2018 or 2022 World Cups could also sue Fifa for any legitimate expenditure on its bid, if the voting procedure is proved to have been corrupt.

 

Fifa has been involved in one recent criminal investigation in Switzerland that focused on its bankrupt commercial marketing partner ISMM-ISL. Legal proceedings in canton Zug uncovered a series of kickbacks worth SFr138 million ($143 million), some connected to Fifa.

 

But the proceedings, which took place between 2005 and June of this year, were settled with compensation payments from the accused parties without an admission of guilt.

 

With diminishing confidence in sporting associations, courts of law and politicians to sort out corruption in sport, some observers are calling for an independent international organisation to be formed – along the lines of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

 

“Trust us”

 

But Fifa says it is determined to restore confidence by launching its own internal investigation into bribery claims.

 

On Wednesday, the federation’s ethics committee, chaired by ex-Swiss football player Claudio Sulser, announced it had provisionally suspended two executives – Nigerian Amos Adamu and Tahitian Reynald Temarii – and four other officials.

 

Sulser said the decision was taken to “protect the integrity” of the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

 

The investigation, which is due to publish its findings in mid-November, is also probing the suspicious behaviour of certain unnamed bidding countries. A decision on which countries will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups will be made on December 2.

 

Fifa President Joseph “Sepp” Blatter told reporters on Wednesday that the “devils” to be found in society could also be found in football. But he insisted that the investigation would “bring back credibility”.

 

“Trust us and you will see [that] confidence will be restored,” he said.

 

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sport/Is_Fifa_scandal_an_own_goal_for_Switzerland.html?cid=28601954

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LooneyToonArmy

LooneyToonArmy

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not sure if it's been posted before but...... :lol:

 

 

---

 

Top 10 Reasons why it wouldn’t be a disaster if England lost the 2018 World Cup

 

D-Day turned into disaster day for England as FIFA confirmed the 2018 World Cup will take place in Russia. Don't be glum, though - here's 10 reasons why this is actually a GOOD thing:

 

1) The only joy England get from major tournaments is our false sense of security-inducing romp through the qualifiers. A series of meaningless friendlies just wouldn’t have been the same.

 

2) We won’t have to sit through a boring Panorama programme on the eve of the event explaining how our facilities aren’t up to scratch (or, rather, how they weren’t up to scratch in 2014).

 

3) The Queen won’t have to pretend to care about the beautiful game when she’s handing out medals at the final.

 

4) We’ll be spared the horrors of an official World Cup 2018 song caterwauled by the winner of the previous year’s X Factor show…

 

5) And also the official mascots: a lion in a gaudy shell-suit kicking a football through his neighbour’s window.

 

6) You’ll be able to buy your groceries for the week without having to fight through mountains of ‘limited edition’ football-related tat: 'Make sure YOU score tonight with our limited edition World Cup condoms!' etc

 

7) We won’t have to suffer supposedly topical mentions of the tournament being crowbarred incongruously into Coronation Street and EastEnders: ‘Oi, Minty! Come quick! The Vic’s on fire… again!’ ‘Not now, Billy – I’ve got to catch a train to Milton Keynes to see Nigeria vs Paraguay!’

 

8) We won’t be severely delayed getting to work every day by a police roadblock set-up solely to allow Sepp Blatter to zoom past in a solid gold Mercedes converted to run on orphans’ tears and that comes complete with seal-skin seat covers hand-stitched together by blind Burmese children working for a penny an day.

 

9) The Premier League’s impoverished football scouts can continue to rack up the air miles filing reports on which mediocre Scandinavians would be best suited to fighting relegation in 2019.

 

10) We won’t have to put up with legions of German fans celebrating in the fountains of Trafalgar Square following our inevitable last 16 drubbing.

 

(Mirror)

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Colocho

Colocho

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Posted

Our own media stirring shit didn't help.

 

isn't it the people who accept bribes for votes that 'don't help' ?

 

Obviously. But all the accusations etc that got leaked by our own press did not help.

If they've been bribed, it wouldn't matter what the press said.

 

Would the Spanish and Russian media sources run the stories as much as we did here? Essentially, FIFA will see our country as a grass - this is our punishment.

 

Fifa's Warner blames UK media for failed World Cup bid.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9265919.stm

 

:snod:

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Pandamninator

Pandamninator

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I am getting slightly embarrassed by the amount of whining going on since england lost the bid, I do wonder if anyone is aware of the quality of the Spain/Portugal and Holland/Belgium bids and if they are moaning as much as we are.

Does this sense of entitlement come from a touch of arrogance in out attitude ?

And if so this attitude isn't likely to make us very popular.

 

 

Spain hosted in 1982, we last hosted in 1966 so they might not moan as loudly as we are.  It looks like the Americans and Australians are having a good moan and they have every right to moan considering who won in the same group.

 

What have Qatar done to host a World Cup?  You can't dismiss the history of countries that have been competing for years as if that was worthless.  Without the game being played historically we wouldn't have a future, we'll have a footballing future without Qatar.

 

You shouldn't have to do anything to host the World Cup. As long as you can convince the delegates that you can produce and run a successful, safe, and entertaining World Cup you should be just as eligible as anyone else. I don't understand how not hosting the tournament since 1966 bears any importance when competing with an established nation on the World stage which has never hosted the event.

 

This is a joke post right? Some troll attempt?

 

You shouldn't have to do anything to host the World Cup? Seriously, read over that nonsense again.  You should prove your bid is better then the rest, Qatar haven't done so, FIFA even savaged their bid in their own reports calling it high risk.  Are you seriously niave enough to think that Qatar the World Cup was based on anything other then some oil monies ending up in the pockets of Blatter, Warner and friends?

 

And Qatar is an established nation on the World Stage? GTFO.  It is a population of 1.6 million, of which only 200,000 are actually from the place, the other 1.4 million are ex-pats there for a quick buck and slaves who are there for no buck.  It was nothing 20 years ago, in 20 years ago it will be nothing again.  It has no stadiums, no facilities other then a couple of silly youtube videos, no proven experience at hosting any thing bigger then a couple of poxy tennis tournaments and B-Team Football Friendlies.

 

13000

9000

12000

 

Those are the crowd numbers of Qatars qualifying games in the last World Cup.  What a joke of a nation, what a joke of a bid, what a joke of a world cup it will be. The Wellington Phoenix in the A-League get bigger crowds then that on a weekly basis.  And were a shitty club team from New Zealand where Soccer probably ranks at best as the 5th most popular sport

 

How about England vs Brazil last year , Khalifa stadium 14th November, match attendance 50,000.?

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/match/3095739

:facepalm:

 

 

 

 

I think I said something about B-Team friendlies somewhere.  Oh, that's right, in the post you just quoted.  Look, you even bolded it for me 

 

 

See, I completely disagree with what you are saying here. In my opinion, the entire goal of that process is to present the voters with as much information as possible, and to quickly destroy any bids which are deemed unacceptable upon review. The idea of the "best results" is subjective as you're talking from a white European perspective. Can you see into the future? How do you know Qatar will not be a success? you are projecting your personal opinions onto what will happen in the future. You can ridicule this statement when I am 32 years old, but for now you cannot prove anything.

 

That's it, you've 100% confirmed it.  Baba be trolling.

 

"The idea of the "best results" is subjective as you're talking from a white European perspective."

 

That's right, it's just us racist Europeans, using such bigoted and silly criteria such as you know, the amount of stadiums you have, whether you have a population bigger then say Auckland New Zealand and expecting, you know, the winning nation to not have the worst technical bid (as stated by FIFA's own damn reports).   Please, tell us, what criteria should us pack of bed-sheet wearing bastards really be judging Qatar's bid by?

 

You make sure every bid fits the parameters,

 

Which Qatar doesn't, Fifa rules say you can't have more then 2 stadiums in a single city.  You have 3 in Doha and 4 in Al-Rayyan (Which is actually just a suberb of Doha)

 

you attempt to give the delegates perfect information,

 

Such as FIFA's own technical report giving Qatar a High Risk rating (the only bid from either 2018 or 2022), while all the other 2022 bids had a low risk rating?

 

you distribute the votes in a fair way, and go from there. FIFA do need to work to limit corruption, but this is an impossibility in my opinion.

 

Well, FIFA's failed on both those count.

 

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Disco

Disco

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Some news going on that Blatter said in a talk with LequipeFifa might allow some of the games in 2022 to be played in countries near Qatar such as Bahrain, that would mean the same stadium that i've played on a few times might be hosting world cup games :lol:

 

Am I right in thinking Bahrain is more liberal than Qatar but wouldn't that also mean Bahrain would need a bye to the finals as well.

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Newcastle Fan

Newcastle Fan

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Some news going on that Blatter said in a talk with LequipeFifa might allow some of the games in 2022 to be played in countries near Qatar such as Bahrain, that would mean the same stadium that i've played on a few times might be hosting world cup games :lol:

 

Am I right in thinking Bahrain is more liberal than Qatar but wouldn't that also mean Bahrain would need a bye to the finals as well.

 

Its much more liberal, its 45 minutes by car away from Qatar anyway, honestly don't think its going to happn though.

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