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UEFA and its national associations will not participate in FIFA competitions

uefa.com

421–430 of 702 posts

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

#421
post #341

First off, fire Infantino on the spot, just the same way they fired Blatter for corruption. This last world cup was the worse I've ever seen since 1978, almost 50 years, and I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. We all know billions are moved under the table, but money can never break rules and traditions, specially if they don't benefit fans and players above all Did anybody ask the players about the hydration b…

While I agree with your view on hydration breaks, I have to disagree that 48 teams was a bad thing. It led to wonderful stories like Cape Verde (and their goalie) who were competitive against Argentina. They wouldn’t even have qualified under the old system. We saw Congo almost beat England (again, a non-qualifier in the old days). Conversely, scoring goals is exciting and Germany’s 7-1 over Curaçao let us see some a…

Cape Verde would have qualified for the World Cup even if there were 32 teams. Cape Verde topped its group, beating usual world cup teams like Cameroon.

The narrative that Cape Verde is a beneficiary of the 48-team setup is completely and utterly false.

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

#422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hard to think of a modern institution as corrupt as fifa IOC is about the only organisation that comes close to it I think.

Interestingly, both FIFA and IOC are headquartered in Switzerland, a country that is ranked by Transparency International as one least corrupt countries in the world… Draw you own conclusions.

Until recently Swiss banks were pretty famously a great place to do the kind of banking needed for global scale corruption. They still sort of are as long as none of the parties have told the bank that they are American.

Switzerland might not be corrupt, but they are fine with enabling it.

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

#423

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).

The fact that you had 'hydration breaks' in enclosed, fully air-conditioned stadiums is very telling.

I was in one of those enclosed stadiums. It was not air conditioned. It was hot as hell, above 30c the entire game.

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

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one really gives a shit what Americans who don't follow football think, though.

The original post mentioned people that weren't fans, though. Who are we talking about that are "football people" but not fans. I'm not trying to be dense, I just don't know which audience this is.

Look, most people around the world are not full time fans and only tune to the national final in their country or the world cup. But in any country where soccer is popular, the basic rules are something everyone knows from kindergarten.

It's the same way that Americans know what pitchers, catchers, and batters are in baseball even if they've never picked up a bat or a glove and only go to baseball games to eat hot dogs and get drunk on overpriced beer. Soccer has two halves like baseball has nine innings,a nd the vast majority of people do not want to mess with that.

A secondary reason that they don't want to mess with it is the perception that these hydration breaks are not organic (because it's always been acceptable for players to grab a drink fo water and there are ample opportunities to do so during a regular game), but that the breaks were imposed on the game to facilitate ad breaks in American TV broadcasts. Much of the world is tired of doing things differently just because the Americans want it.

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

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The World Cup final is supposed to be a war and the half time show turned it into a clown fest.

I can't agree with that. Host countries share their culture through the World Cup. South Africa had vuvuzelas, Qatar put a bisht on the winning captain's shoulders, and the USA had a half-time show. Now if only it had been a good half-time show...

The difference is that they broke the fundamental rules such that 15-min half time breaks to stick a half time show in.

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

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to work well in America. Does it? Who does it work out well for? Franchises continuously extort tax-payer funds for stadia,some team switches host cities every few years, and the for-profit corporations are legal cartels that decides who gets to own a team. The number of ad-breaks is horrendous to anyone who's watched sports elsewhere.

How exactly do they extort tax-payer funds?

"Use tax money to build us a new stadium, or we will relocate to Vegas. Do you want to be known by the voters as the governor who gave up our beloved sportsball team? No? Then better pay up."

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

#427
post #248

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...

CONCACAF statement: https://www.concacaf.com/competitions/concacaf/news/statemen...

I actually think the CONCACAF statement shows that they could be on board… they’re just mad they weren’t consulted. Give them the cut they want and they might change their tune.

By comparison UEFA sounds a lot stronger.

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

#428
post #341

First off, fire Infantino on the spot, just the same way they fired Blatter for corruption. This last world cup was the worse I've ever seen since 1978, almost 50 years, and I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. We all know billions are moved under the table, but money can never break rules and traditions, specially if they don't benefit fans and players above all Did anybody ask the players about the hydration b…

While I agree with your view on hydration breaks, I have to disagree that 48 teams was a bad thing. It led to wonderful stories like Cape Verde (and their goalie) who were competitive against Argentina. They wouldn’t even have qualified under the old system. We saw Congo almost beat England (again, a non-qualifier in the old days). Conversely, scoring goals is exciting and Germany’s 7-1 over Curaçao let us see some a…

More teams means only big nations can be the host venue.

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that you had 'hydration breaks' in enclosed, fully air-conditioned stadiums is very telling.

I was in one of those enclosed stadiums. It was not air conditioned. It was hot as hell, above 30c the entire game.

It was 14C in the Azteca though.

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

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like for live music tickets prices it's hard to collectively do the right thing and boycott. There's just too many people. But there's always a breaking point... hopefully.

There is no right and wrong here. Watching a bunch of guys kick a ball around is a completely optional activity. The stadium can accommodate x people, and x+n people want to watch the game. Therefore, someone has to be left out. That can be decided multiple ways, but there is no philosophical reason that money being the deciding factor is wrong. We use that mechanism for almost everything else in the world. It's the…

You see it in England all the time where organized fan groups do push back and protest ending up with the owners walking back the suggested ticket increases.
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