Here ill get us back on track. An article in the NYTimes about the Cayman Islands and Fifa and how Blatter uses corruption to stay in power. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/sports/soccer/fifa-soccer-sepp-blatter-cayman-islands.html?_r=0
Kazakhstan's is easily the best by an absolute mile. It's ridiculous, outrageously silly, and more arrogant than a French billionaire.
Interesting article, reading this difficult to pin anything on Blatter, he has engineered a system within FIFA which allows him to effectively buy votes, by supporting small nations who has the same voting rights as the big footballing countries in Europe and South America. In addition the way FIFA just sends money to these nations to build footballing facilities, just give these nations representative licence to syphon off part of the money into their own pockets.
The 1 vote per nation doesn't work. For Europe and Latin America (plus the U.S and Australia) to vote against you and still win - that's a joke.
Don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but Spain and France both voted for Blatter. Not like either nation has anything big to do with Qatar of course... *cough* Barcelona *cough* PSG *cough*
If you are talking about the worst National Anthems have a listen to Australia's and it's "girt by sea" line.
This is funny. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/31/jack-warner-the-onion-video_n_7480172.html Jack Warner, the former FIFA executive who was arrested on corruption charges last week, inadvertently cited a fake news article as true in a video addressing the allegations. In the video posted to Facebook on Sunday,Warner holds up a printout of an article from The Onion announcing that the 2015 World Cup will be held in the United States -- beginning May 27. As soccer fans know, the World Cup takes place every four years, the next games to be held in 2018 in Russia. “I look to see that FIFA has frantically announced [that in] 2015, this year ... the World Cup [will] begin May 27," he said. "If FIFA is so bad, why is it that [the] USA wants to keep the FIFA World Cup? Why is it that they have begun games on May 27?" From the Onion spoof: “We are thrilled to reveal that, for the first time in 21 years, the World Cup will finally return to America, with matches set to kick off today at 5 p.m. local time in Los Angeles,” said FIFA president Sepp Blatter, smiling broadly before unveiling the tournament’s official logo, a hand-drawn stick figure kicking a soccer ball with “USA 2015!” hastily scribbled in black marker above its head. The video isn't available on Facebook anymore, but Deadspin captured it on its site. The soccer world has been in disarray since the Justice Department announced last week that it was indicting several top FIFA executives, including Warner, on corruption charges including racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering. The DOJ is alleging that the FIFA officials took bribes from marketing and media groups over rights to air and promote games.
Boater needs to be worried by Warner's remark that if he did receive 10 million who do they think paid him it. Not admitting it but letting it be known he isn't going down on his own and prepared to name names for a deal.
I don't think he is all there. After he got bail for medical treatment he was filmed drunk at a dance party. Now he thinks that the US is hosting the world cup this year? He is old, dude probably has dementia or something. I know the Onion is an American thing but their articles are complete nonsense and you would have to be crazy to think any of it is possible. Here is their main article for today. http://www.theonion.com/ Scientists Make Unclear Breakthrough After Giving Robot Cancer please log in to view this image Researchers say the robot’s motor functions have been almost fully compromised by its cancer, which they speculate is probably fairly meaningful in some scientific sense. NEWSMay 29, 2015 VOL 51 ISSUE 21 Health · Science ·Technology STANFORD, CA—Theorizing that their work most likely represents a groundbreaking scientific achievement of some kind, researchers at Stanford University announced Thursday that they have made an unclear breakthrough by giving a robot cancer. The team of oncologists and mechanical engineers told reporters that after years of research and repeated trials, they had finally succeeded in causing an aggressive form of advanced cancer to spread throughout a laboratory robot’s mechanized arm and central processing unit, noting that this landmark accomplishment probably has beneficial implications for the scientific community or society at large “or something like that.” “Right now, what we can absolutely say for sure is that this robot has Stage IV cancer and only has two to three months left until it succumbs to the disease.” “Diagnostic testing has confirmed that our robot has developed a high concentration of malignancies throughout its entire structural framework, which, for all we know, could turn out to be incredibly important to science,” said lead researcher Amos Cruise, noting that the degenerative disease is corroding the machine’s circuitry at a rapid rate, a development that he stated might potentially lead to further advancements in cancer research or robotics or maybe electrical engineering. “Never before has cancer been detected in a non-biological entity, which seems like a pretty big achievement to me. I mean, it took three years of experimentation just to get cancer to take hold inside a robot, and anything that requires that much effort probably ends up being pretty useful, I imagine.” “Right now, what we can absolutely say for sure is that this robot has Stage IV cancer and only has two to three months left until it succumbs to the disease,” Cruise added. “That alone has got to be some sort of leap forward in our understanding of terminal illnesses. Right?” According to Cruise, after introducing cancerous neoplasms into the robot’s microprocessors, the disease eventually metastasized from its motherboard to its sensor modules and chassis, an unprecedented expansion that researchers said had never been observed before and therefore would have to be categorized as a success in some sense. Just six weeks later, the Stanford team reported that the disease had completely disabled the robot’s optical and pneumatic systems in a progression that several of the project’s top epidemiologists haltingly called a watershed moment in “whatever scientific discipline covers this sort of thing.” Additionally, sources confirmed that the rapidly proliferating disease had degraded the integrity of the unit’s electrical wiring by 70 percent, with Cruise asserting that, while such a development didn’t immediately suggest any practical applications for cancer treatment, it certainly seemed like something worth noting. He added that initial tests have revealed that the robot’s cancer is inoperable, which he stressed was probably a pretty meaningful detail as well. “We’ve begun administering an aggressive course of chemotherapy drugs and are putting the robot through daily radiotherapy sessions to see how it responds to the treatment, because we figured, you know, that seemed like a pretty logical thing to do at this point,” said Cruise, noting that while the robot’s condition continues to decline, monitoring its reaction to concentrated doses of toxic radiation “might be one of those things that pays off somewhere down the line.” “Meanwhile, we’re also applying for additional funding in order to someday replicate our findings in other robots by giving them cancer, and maybe some other diseases too. That’s the type of thing we usually do during projects like this, so I guess we’ll try that and see how it goes. Can’t hurt.” “Maybe if we can build a robot that already has cancer, it could…” he added, before trailing off. When reached for further comment, Stanford’s research team confirmed that, in what just has to be a crucial finding for artificial intelligence or possibly a related field, they have determined that the robot is fully aware it has cancer and is in constant pain.
Plattini trying to be whiter than white, but he voted for both Qatar and Russia, and it has been reported in a variety of news outlets that he received a Picasso painting from Russia in return for voting for them. I've just finished reading David Walsh's 7 deadly sins book on Lance Armstrong's TDF wins and the doping culture in cycling in the 2000's and so many people within the teams and the governing body were complicit in covering up doping, and this situation just rings as so similar, i'd be surprised if the corruption and bribery in Fifa wasn't so deep rooted as to have touched the majority of the federations now claiming the moral high ground that even a change of president and power balance would only lead to different nations having the power. The whole thing stinks something rotten and sadly I can't see anything changing for years and years
We'll wake up one morning to the news that Blatter has been arrested and charged. Until that day I'm afraid nothing will change.
I actually think IMO this won't happen, Blatter is probably not taking kick back, he can just pay himself a very large salary, and he is shrewd enough guy not to get involved. His drug is power. What he has cleverly done, is just give money to these lesser countries money to build football facilities to buy votes. But like AID from government to poorer countries, money just gets syphoned off into the pockets of the senior officials. He just turns a blind eye to it, because he know that is what happens, but it just gets him votes. What is wrong is that the Cayman Islands get one vote the same as the UK, Germany etc, and until that changes he will hang on to power.
