Sepp Blatter Deservedly Gets His Own

Some Kind Of Justice

This blog's had a very dim view of Sepp Blatter and FIFA for a long time. It goes all the way back to the 2006 World Cup. 28th June 2006 to be exact wherein a crappy ref decision allowed the Italians to slot a goal and go through to the next round of the finals. It was a tough loss on the back of a terrible referee decision, that even Sepp Blatter thought was a bad call. Somewhere along the line I found the disconnect between the obvious problems of refereeing international games, the way the World Cups are selected and staged and how the money flows amounted to one big conflict of interest with Sepp Blatter at its heart. Amazingly, this wasn't (and isn't) some kind of blinding insight, it turned out to have been fairly commonly accepted information about the modus operandi of FIFA.

The thing is, Sepp Blatter looked too comfortable with all these problems. And usually, the best way for me to understand just how bent these practices are, is to imagine the commissioner of the MLB doing the sorts of things Sepp Blatter has been accused of doing and how unseemly that would look. Would Rob Manfred or Bud Selig before him do...? What would that look like and how would the scribes respond? I'm not saying baseball has better administrative practices (although probably does), but unlike the premier Euro and Latin American sport, it is followed by a fairly critical press that parses everything. FIFA an Blatter in most part looked way out of step, even a decade ago.

I think that's about where this blog parted ways with football. There are other entries since, but really, that 2006 World Cup and its aftermath killed me. Even more than the Red Sox comeback in 2004 which also killed me - but not enough to hate baseball. That being said, bad referee calls are part of sport. The road to hell is paved not with good intentions but umpiring decisions. What really browned me off was Sepp Blatter's cavalier take on it, which amounted to how he doesn't care what the punters think in the outer outposts of football fandom. Especially places like Australia. Which is insulting because a lot of people have put tremendous amounts of effort in to make football have a place in country with 2 variant rugby codes and AFL.

The logical retort to that has been to say I will care no longer for the product you are pushing. I have many other more pleasing options for spectator sport without the aggravation of FIFA and its sport. And that's how it went down with me. Next to the Olympic Games, the most ethically vexed sports aren't the one-time steroids-addled baseball or cycling but the ethically bankrupt football.

As for Sepp and his FIFA cronies, they ended up on the FBI's radar after the dodgy World Cup choice of doing one in Russia. Worse still, there was the failed campaign by the FFA to invite the World Cup to Australia that lost to Dubai, which also cost $40million of our tax payers money in what can only be described as bribes. Yes, worse than the IOC and its 100 or so voting members, the FIFA votes comes down to 23 people, and you can't tell me they're not corruptible or collusive. Where exactly does 40-odd million dollars go in lobbying 20-odd people but inevitably into their pockets?

Clearly the US Federal Government thought FIFA was dodgy and has since pursued them mightily, which has resulted in this bit of good news: Sepp Blatter and his head flunky have been banned for 
8years from the game.

ZURICH: Sepp Blatter says he will appeal against his eight-year ban from football to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. 

Blatter also insists that he still views himself as FIFA president despite being banned for eight years by FIFA's ethics committee on Monday. 

Speaking at a news conference, Blatter said: "I fight for me and I will fight for FIFA. Suspended for eight years for what? 

"I'm sorry as president of FIFA I'm this punching ball." 

Blatter and Michel Platini were each banned for eight years by the FIFA ethics committee in a stunning blow for world soccer's most powerful leaders. 

FIFA president Blatter and his one-time protege Platini were kicked out of the sport for conflict of interest and disloyalty to FIFA in a $US2 million ($2.79 million) payment deal that is also the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland.
Blatter's FIFA career is ending in disgrace after more than 17 years as president and 40 years in total with the scandal-hit governing body.

Great. He's going to be a rogue President of FIFA. That's like Rob Manfred taking bribes to rig the amateur draft, then getting banned from the sport like Pete Rose but still insisting he's the commissioner. It's that weird. Clearly he didn't resign like he said he would when the FBI started investigating FIFA. Anyway, it's nice to see them get some cold hard justice served up to them.

Sport Nut Weekend

Get Some Perspective On The World Cup

The big news this morning is how dismally Australia lost to Germany in its first match in the World Cup. 4-0 sure is a whuppin', and nobody has anything nice to say about Australia's sons of the moment, the Socceroos.

Australia for all its posturing this time is mostly an older team of the same old guys from 2006. They couldn't have expected to do better than last time.

That delusion lasted as long as it took for decoy forward Richard Garcia to snatch a shot on the turn, only to have it blocked. The rest of the match was benign tyranny, football royalty lording it over commoners. Or, eschewing empirical metaphors, the Germans' movements were intricate, precise and oily, like a German- engineered car. Australia bumped along in a paddock basher.

The goals hurt; of course, they did. But they were only to be expected, and deceptive in their simplicity; it was the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity. The multitude of bookings hurt, because they had implications not only on the night, but for whatever Australia can hope to salvage from this tournament now. They also implied that Australia was a team of second resort.

But the red card for the talismanic Tim Cahill hurt most, because it was the massacre of hope.

Beneath the croaking of the vuvuzelas, there was now a hush. Even the German fans appeared shocked. The sentiment trapped inside the stadium now was more like a fart. Coach Pim Verbeek did not bother with Harry Kewell, or Josh Kennedy or Marco Bresciano; it would have been a waste of their time. A crowd of more than 60,000 thinned by half. Miserably, many of the Australians were going home to tents.

Australia thought it was better than this. Australia WAS better than this, four years ago. Hell, Australia was better than this in the 1974 World Cup when a team of amateurs played a stronger West German team than this German team, and lost by merely 3-0. It took more than 30 years to return to the World Cup as peers. This setback will have repercussions for a long time, on the field and off.

Which is a bit mean. I just want to write this post because I want us to get some perspective on what it is that the Socceroos were up against.

Firstly, without a shred of a doubt this tournament means more to Germans than any Australian. Germany is a three time winner of the World Cup and it's almost the only World Cup they contest. They don't contest the Cricket, Rugby World Cups, and they sure as hell don't send squads to the World Baseball Classic. I can't quite recall if they've ever threatened to win Olympic Gold in Ice Hockey. I don't think they even field a credible Basketball team, while Australia does. I don't even know if they have ever sent a team to the Netball World Cup. Soccer/Football is the it sport in Germany.

Australia on the other hand contest just about all of these World Comps except maybe Ice Hockey, but I'm sure there will eventually be a marsupially named squad in the future trying to get there. The point is, it's a bit rich for Australia to come at Football with the hopes of rolling with the top-5 nation of the sport. Or even Top-8. And if they don't, it's no slur on Australia's sporting prowess for not being within shouting distance of drawing with Germany. Being there, competing on the World Cup Stage is already an immense, towering accomplishment for the sport in Australia.

Some people are saying it's an embarrassing loss. I just can't go with that, even though a) I hate soccer and b) am no fan of soccer fandom, I have an appreciation of how deep the world's love for that sport is and where that depth is spread. There are nations out there that have no shot of being there, but it's still their no.1 sport. Think about that for a moment. It's like the no.5-6 sport in Australia in terms of exposure and we've got a team competing against the best of the best.

Talking about this match without that perspective is really disrespectful for an opponent that's steeped in the sport. It is inherently insane for Australia to think that it can equally be competitive at the ultimate level at Football. So much would have to change for Australia to be that good.

A World Cup Of What? - Part 1


This all got me to thinking about this notion of World Cups. Cricket's World Cup and the Baseball World Baseball Classic field 16 teams in the group stage. In either competition, the tail end of the 16 look a little ragged. It's really the top-8 in each competition that has a shot at the last 4 with few surprises. The gap between the top 8 and next 8 nations is in fact huge.

The same applies to the Rugby World Cup. Japan has been turning up to the Rugby World Cup each time but it's never gotten out of the group stage. Japan has the distinction of copping the worst hiding in Test matches, but it has also handed out the next worst hiding to minnows Taiwan. Should they be there or not? If they weren't there, would it still be a 'World Cup'? You could argue Rugby isn't too deep, but then there are such results as the horrible thrashing Australia handed out to Canada in cricket at the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

In each case, there's the Top 8 and the rest.

While it is true that the World Cup of Football fields 32 teams in the group stage from 200 odd nations, it is arguable that it is only the top-8 that have a serious shot at the finals. Yes, Football is deep and wide across the planet, but at its core it's still only about 8 nations. The rest of them are like window dressing to make the word 'World' stand up. We should revel in the fact that we make such good window-dressing.

A World Cup of What? - Part 2

Here are some rhetorical questions to go with the above:

Is it any surprise that Australia has won 2 Rugby World Cups?

Is it any surprise that Australia has won 4 Cricket World Cups?

Is it any surprise that Japan is a 2-time champion at the World Baseball Classic?

Is it any surprise that Brazil has won the FIFA World Cup 5 times?

Is it any surprise that Germany hasn't won a World Cup in Cricket or Rugby, or that it hasn't even fielded a team in the WBC?

Dare we even mention the Rugby League World Cup?

Is it reasonable/rational to expect Australia to get out of the Group Stage at the FIFA World Cup?

The Wrong Code

Australia will never relinquish League and AFL and Rugby in order to concentrate on one code of football. Therefore should we even hope to win the FIFA World Cup one day? We're the equivalent of the Kenyans at the Cricket World Cup.

In other news, the Yankees are on top of the AL East having swept the Astros. I'm pleased with that.

I Still Hate Soccer But...

Socceroos Are World's 16th Best Team

It's hard to believe that the Socceroos would suddenly leap 13 spots in the FIFA world rankings, but they've done that on the back of their World Cup qualifying campaign. Yes, they're now ranked No.16. Even if it is just for this month, this is a tremendous outcome. I'm sure it's raised a few eyebrows in Europe and South America.

You can just see the eyeballs popping out of the Uruguayans and Portuguese fans as they open the sports sections. like, "What? Australia are ahead of our guys?"

Watch out for falling Uruguayans.

I love it when the rest of the world underestimate how insane we are about our sport. I hate soccer intensely and I still follow it. That just shows you how nutso we are here.  Anyway... here's the ranking down to 20, and then some other nations of interest.

1. Brazil (+4)
2. Spain (-1)
3. Netherlands (-1)
4. Italy (0)
5. Germany (-2)
6. Russia (+3)
7. England (-1)
8. Argentina (-1)
9. France (+1)
10. Croatia (-2)
11. Greece (+6)
12. USA (+2)
13. Switzerland (+3)
14. Serbia (+6)
15. Denmark (+9)
16. Australia (+13)
17. Portugal (-6)
18. Cote d'Ivoire (+20)
19. Ukraine (0)
20. Uruguay (-3)
Selected
28. Turkey (-16)
30. Gabon (+18)
33. Mexico (-7)
37. Ireland (-3)
38. Egypt (+2)
40. Japan (-9)
48. South Korea (-2)
100. New Zealand (-18)

I don't know if it kills Japan to drop 9 places to 40, or South Korea to drop 2 and still be 8 behind of Japan. :)

God only knows how they come up with these rankings. It must be a combination of how they scored and gave up goals versus a weighted comparison of competition faced. Still, placing 16th in this context is a huge breakthrough for soccer in Australia. It means that these players can finally make their home country understand just what it is that they do that is so damned important for Australia. We can cue the band-wagon fans to jump aboard about now.

100 for NZ seems like a nice round number, and thanklessly, they've dropped 18 places even though they came top in Oceania. How a nation can win their zone and still drop 18 spots must drive the Kiwis mad - if only they valued it as highly as they value Rugby.That being said, the Oceania portion of the World Cup qualifications is like the boonie-town tour for football.

Remember those horror days for Australia? Well, now they're the top team in Asia. Weird.

The Socceroos are now ranked ahead of a host of nations with rich football histories, notably one place ahead of European powerhouses Portugal, who boast arguably the world's best player Cristiano Ronaldo.

They have also overtaken European big guns Czech Republic and Turkey, South American giants Paraguay and Uruguay, plus every team in Africa.

"We are delighted at this news," Football Federation Australia chief executive Ben Buckley said.

"Rankings are not the be all and end all of football but they are certainly an indicator of our progress.

"The more competitive games we play, the greater the opportunity to improve our position in the world rankings and the more match hardened the team becomes.

"This is a great reward for the Socceroos' form in the qualifying rounds for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

"Once again, we congratulate coach Pim Verbeek and the players for their efforts."

Australia's cause was helped by a string of impressive results in June in the final stages of their successful qualification campaign.

A scoreless draw with Qatar in Doha, which sealed their spot for South Africa 2010, was followed by wins against Bahrain and Japan in Australia.

Socceroos players spoke last month about their disappointment at the lack of credit they had been given for their emphatic qualification, but they will take solace in Wednesday's official FIFA recognition.

I dunno if that's so great. Australia as a baseball nation is actually ranked higher than No.16... :) Jokes aside, maybe it's the case that soccer has finally arrived in Australia when the Socceroos are considered in the company of Denmark and Portugal.

Be that as it may... I still hate soccer, but this is a very good day for Australian Soccer.