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UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

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Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#261

Post by Bridged7756 »

triceratops wrote: post #21
haunter wrote: post #9

I think the mandatory ad break introduced by FIFA at the World Cup was also too much for most football people, not just fans. Changed too much, broke the dynamics, basically the sport became a game of 4 quarters instead of 2 halves. These two things combined together are just over the top and unacceptable (UEFA already said they won't use these mandatory ad breaks anywhere) This is the closest where I can see a futur…

Of all the things wrong with the World Cup, the most inconsequential ones - hydration breaks and the final half-time show - have attracted the most griping.

Disrupting the pace of the game twice as many times, oftenly during critical moments is inconsequential to you? You don't sound like quite a sports person.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#262

Post by skywhopper »

orangedog wrote: post #20
brunoborges wrote: post #2

Infantino clearly wants to see FIFA making billions so he and many others can pocket millions legally. But the only way for this to happen in a non-corrupt way, given that FIFA is non-profit and therefore requires a lot of questionable operations, is to turn FIFA into a business like NFL / MLS. The problem with that is that it then it is no longer a sport, rather a... business. UEFA letter is spot on.

What's new? I thought it has been known as a big-money thing for some time now.

FIFA has announced they plan to officially sell off everything to private investors, dropping all pretense of being a steward of a common good.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#264

Post by worik »

madradavid wrote: post #208
brunoborges wrote: post #2

Infantino clearly wants to see FIFA making billions so he and many others can pocket millions legally. But the only way for this to happen in a non-corrupt way, given that FIFA is non-profit and therefore requires a lot of questionable operations, is to turn FIFA into a business like NFL / MLS. The problem with that is that it then it is no longer a sport, rather a... business. UEFA letter is spot on.

CONCACAF join UEFA and reject FIFA's World Cup sell-off plan. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49488584/uefa-boycott... . By the end of this Gianni Infantino will only be left with the Africans .I am African and these Federations will do anything to keep him around because of the unprecedented amounts of corruption...

> unprecedented amounts of corruption...

Yes I hear about that a lot. Yuk

But I also hear that FIFA puts a lot of resources into developing the game in African countries.

I am asking: Is that true in your experience?

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#265

Post by skywhopper »

glitchc wrote: post #211
overfeed wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize the commercial-block-sized "hydration breaks" were that profitable. For a second, I thought the Americanization[1] of fùtbol would be done gradually and no one would complain as we'd be slowly boiled. I'm glad the corrupt bastards got greedy/impatient and took a big swing. 1. Sports primarily as a business, catering to owners first, sponsors second, broadcasters third, and then lastly, fans. IMO non-…

Per-ticket prices were a big factor too. By turning it into an open bidding process, every ticket sold at close to its market value, and many above that.

And they took a 15% commission on both sides of every aftermarket transaction. I’ve never seen such an overtly avaricious “marketplace”.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#266

Post by watwut »

dmarcos wrote: post #181
antonyt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I would guess: "hydration breaks" to inject commercials, half-time shows that felt alien to much of the core audience, and various rule-bending shenanigans (Ronaldo, Balogun).

Hydration breaks a tad weird. Half time shows were pretty subtle, didn’t change the length of the break except for the final. There’s no soccer competition without someone complaining about refereeing. Def always things to improve but I had fun, all people around me seemed to have fun. I flew in an out and always was either public transportation or uefa provided shuttles… It was really well run. Not something you can…

> There’s no soccer competition without someone complaining about refereeing.

Yeah, but most of them go without president calling Infantino to change the referee verdict. All the while the president says "I dont even know the game".

> It was really well run. Not something you can call a “shit show”

I can. Oh and not allowing referee in due to his race and mistreating teams due to politics.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#267

Post by [deleted] »

xhevahir wrote: post #18
triceratops wrote: post #8

This is so highly unusual even sports-allergic HN wants to discuss it. It's like a religious schism in some sense.

It's about brazen corruption in one of the world's most famous institutions. Taking an interest in it isn't as irrational as all that.

[deleted]

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#268

Post by mattm »

triceratops wrote: post #179
tedggh wrote: post #142

Why is this out of the gate bad? Note that this is not taking FIFA to private equity, but creating an investors owned subsidiary to run events and commercial operations where the non profit arm will still own 80% of it. With the right protections it could help FIFA make more money and reinvest in the sport, particularly women’s football. FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA. Soccer is…

> FIFA currently makes 40% of what the NHL makes, not the NFL, not NBA. FIFA holds one significant money-making tournament for a month every 4 years (all due respect to the Women's World Cup in terms of prestige, but its revenue is a small fraction of the Men's World Cup). The NHL runs 6 months a year annually.

Closer to 10 months actually - Oct (Sept if you include the pre-season) through June.

But just to add on for comparison, the NHL has 1312 regular season games. Plus 4 rounds of best-of-7 playoff series with 16 teams making the playoffs. Let's say an average of 5.75 games per round, that's 86 playoff games bringing us to ~1400 games per year.

Over 4 years, that's 5600 games. The FIFA World Cup had 104 games this year. It's actually pretty impressive that the WC can even make 40% while hosting < 2% of the games that the NHL has. Or put another way, 1 WC game is equivalent to 54 NHL games - 2/3 of one team's full regular season.

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#269

Post by gspr »

tedggh wrote: post #183
jotajota24 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it bad to sell 20% of the biggest tournament in the world to a private company lead by people involved with the most corrupt administration in the history of the US? The model has been working fine for decades, why does it matter that it makes less than american sports?

The most beloved, most watched sport in the world making less than the American/Canadian hockey league is a commercial failure. Non profits are generally inefficient at running businesses. With the right guardrails a private arm that knows how to run a business could help FIFA make a ton of money. And yes a lot of rich guys will become even richer too, so what?

Good thing it's a sport and not a commercial operation then!

Re: UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

#270

Post by runarberg »

conradfr wrote: post #218
madradavid wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CONCACAF join UEFA and reject FIFA's World Cup sell-off plan. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49488584/uefa-boycott... . By the end of this Gianni Infantino will only be left with the Africans .I am African and these Federations will do anything to keep him around because of the unprecedented amounts of corruption...

While the football business is horrible it's nice that this may fail like the Super League. Now if only that could put a dent in Infantino reelection...

I am not sure a replacement for Infantino is enough. It seems like FIFA has a culture of corruption and Infantino is merely the latest manifestation of said culture. Some serious reform and restructuring seem needed.
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