Fifa has turned the World Cup into a corporate jamboree, yet it’s the fans who have to pick up the pieces writes Mark Perryman, co-founder of Philosophy Football. In 2010 at their World Cup dissident South African fans used the slogan FICK FUFA. Now Perryman’s group put it on a campaign T-shirt as a manifesto to clear up Sepp’s mess. Buy it here.
Read Perryman’s article in The Guardian here.
FIFA’s newest corruption scandal and Blatter’s tragicomic re-election make David Goldblatt’s BBC radio documentary a must-listen. The author of The Ball is Round asks what is FIFA? Where has it come from and who is it for? Goldblatt hears from those who have documented FIFA’s story and its secrets and from those who have helped to shape its modern identity.
Click here to listen.
Saud Abdul Ghani, head of the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Qatar, recently unveiled a special plan for the 2022 World Cup: remote-controlled artificial clouds over the stadiums!
Powered by four solar engines, the man-made clouds would be made of ultra light carbon fiber in an attempt to bring some relief to fans in the stands and players on the field from temperatures expected to reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 Celsius) during the Qatari summer. The cost of this Addams family trick? $500,000.
Mzansi Football and Kickoff.com report that the captains and coaches of South Africa’s men’s and women’s national teams failed to cast their vote for FIFA’s Golden Ball as the World’s Player of the Year awards are now known. According to the governing body, the 2010 World Cup hosts were one of just a handful of countries (out of 208) that did not vote. The awards went to Lionel Messi for the second year in a row and Marta for the fifth (?!) year in a row.
“It is the latest botch up by SAFA since the World Cup and makes a mockery of claims the association’s new leadership would bring a new efficiency to the running of the game,” writes kickoff.com. “They failed to enter the country’s teams in the All-Africa Games qualifiers and had to scramble to the Confederation of African Football in Cairo to get a backdoor entry when Namibia withdrew.” Read the full, thoroughly embarrassing details here.
Happy New Year to all!
Back after a month-long break, we are pleased to report that our very own Sean Jacobs made it into the opinion pages of The New York Times yesterday (Sunday, 2 January 2011) as part of the ‘Around the World in 12 Months’ feature. (Some of you may recognize some of the ideas from Sean’s ‘Africa is a Country’ blog). My favorite part is his daughter’s memory of the 2010 World Cup. Click here to read Sean’s entry about the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Insightful piece in TIME magazine on FIFA’s decision to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments in Russia and Qatar is well worth reading:
“What the World Cup Choices Tell Us About the World” by Ishaan Tharoor and Tony Karon.
In a few hours WikiLeaks will release thousands of secret FIFA documents detailing World Cup match fixing and widespread corruption within football’s governing body.
Never before have such confidential documents been released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into FIFA’s activities on the shores of Lake Zurich.
The documents, which date from 1998 to 2010, contain 15,652 confidential communications between FIFA executive committee members in Zurich and corporate sponsors, media networks, and other football officials throughout the world.
But seriously, on Thursday, December 2, FIFA’s ethically challenged executive committee will award the hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. The stench emanating from the bidding “process” has been overpowering to the point that we — the citizens of FootballWorld — would benefit greatly from the assistance of Julian Assange and the people behind WikiLeaks.
As the work of Andrew Jennings showed, revelations of overt facts can damage the image, if not the profits, of FIFA and its corporate allies. Such information would give a vital boost to good governance in the game and instill hope for a healthy football community.