It wasn't soley Ghana who where involved in a dispute, Nigeria also had their own pay dispute issues (players cancelling training) and the Cameroonian team refused to board a flight to Brazil after a dispute with their national federation about World Cup bonuses. African nations operate in a different way in regards to bonuses and payments and we have seen this in regards to national teams (and players) for many years now.
I suppose the bonus/fees are more to do with the players share of the prize money the national FA's get for qualifying for and then competing in the World Cup. Although not all players here are very well paid like most are (e.g. Rooney, Casillas, Suarez, etc..... the ones already back home), it would be better if prize money was given to the respective FA's for development of the game in those countries or to those with bugger all facilities. I'm sure places like Iran and Honduras need the facilities/money more than most. But the cynic in me would think the money would "disappear" into officials bank accounts.
I can understand the African nations more, given the likelihood of corruption in their FAs and utter nobodies skimming money they neither deserve or are due. Correspondingly a lot of those players earn vastly more than their compatriots ever could, and so it looks like raw greed at times.
Lets be honest, we can't blame the African teams as there will be a Geoffrey dealing with their accounts, monies and payment of bonuses. They have no choice to resort to threats about not playing.
Oh bollocks. Hating Greece is one of the consistent pleasures of international tournaments. Why must the world take away my little pleasures?
And Glenn sporting shades despite the fact that he's facing away from the sun and he's not a member of Echo and the Bunnymen. Still living the Diamond Lights dream I guess.
I've come to think that the penalty area is counter-productive. refs are so scared of getting the call wrong that they ignore three-quarters of the fouls in the area. Why not change the rule so that denying a clear goal scoring opportunity is a penalty and anything else is just a direct free kick as usual?
VDV made the squad, but picked up an injury in training prior to the tournament. There's also three summer transfer windows worth of players we've been linked to in the Dutch squad: Blind, de Vrij, Wijnaldum, Martins Indi, Clasie and Krul.
did he do it on any day in any type of weather at WHL? honestly do not remember him doing anything of note during his time with us
Think Arry was right about him in training etc. Last Spurs game I saw Gio in, he looked quite lardy compared to how he is right now.
Dive by Robben? But perhaps it was a 'careless tackle' anyway. I've still not seen any sensible explanation about what that phrase in the Laws means.
Robben had a couple of chances in the game where he declined the Robben dive. He saved it for the right moment.
Absolutely no need for a question mark, he was looking for one all game and the ref bottled at just the right time. Van Gaal is going to fit in very well at Old Trafford based on that...
I think it's quite funny that they somehow keep qualifying for major tournaments and then just turn up to spoil the party. Like they had no interest in scoring let alone winning their first 2 games and even in the final game they looked content to go out at 1-1 but then Samaras kicks himself and gets a penalty so they go through in the most comical way possible. They're consistently up there in the final stages of tournaments so it can't be all down to luck but no one can pinpoint quite what they were doing right.
