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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

#681
post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you eulogize UEFA too much (ok, too late, you already did), answer me this. Where did Infantino come from? Answer: UEFA And for that matter, which continent did his predecessor Sepp Blatter start his football admin career in? Hint: he's not from Asia or Africa Probably the most widely admired admin in big-time football right now is al-Khalifa, the head of PSG. A Qatari. You know - those guys who organized by c…

> Where did Infantino come from? Answer: UEFA That’s such a weak argument. So every European person or organisation guilty by association? Are the Swiss doubly guilty? > Europe had managed to keep the lions share of footballs global revenues to itself, while keeping Africa as basically a "football nursery" where teenagers get almost trafiked across Europe before 90% are discarded. UEFA is not running any African comp…

You speak of strawmen, yet completely miss what I said, and make up stuff I never said (ironic, huh). I'll make it simple for you.

The pathetic state of football governance is, largely, down to corrupt EUROPEAN admins (UEFA or not). The only main non-Euro contributor I can recall in my lifetime was Havelange.

And the previous imbalance in spreading revenues commensurate with the talent (and its the talent, much if it African, which makes the product so appealing, hence the revenues) is largely (not entirely) down to Europe insisting on keeping hold of the bulk of it.

This situation is being rectified, but MY POINT WAS that the existence of this unfair situation created a playing field which allowed corrupt & unscrupulous mobsters (Blatter, Infantino, etc) to get THEIR personal agenda through on the back of pretending to combat the above.

Literally no-one thinks Infantino is good for the "game". But there are those FA's (even some in Europe) who think he might be better for THEIR countries. And thats not easily waved away by saying "oh, they're just personally corrupt Africans, etc". There was an underlying unfairness in the system IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And THE ENTIRE POINT of my original post was pointing out where the origin of this ORIGINAL SYSTEMIC UNFAIRNESS came from.

None of this was an attempt at whitewashing corruption & mismanagement in African or Asian FA's. The background point, which went WAY above your head, is that in the worst case - they're about as bad as their European counterparts.

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

#682
post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, it is pretty bullshit if you ask me. So it used to be that there were pre-tournament games, to qualify. A lot of countries... they wouldn't qualify. They'd play an ample amount of pre-tournament games though. Now, you seen more countries qualify, and you see countries who used to not qualify, dropping ASAP (in the deathmatch 16th matches, right after poule). So what did we get out of that? A few matches during…

>>* We want to see fair-play, with a meaningful VAR which can be called by the captain or coach of each team twice (getting back their call if agreed on). I am not sure what your problem with Argentina is, but with a meaningful VAR, Cucurella would have been sent off and Enzo Fernandez would have stayed on the pitch. I am sick of the anti-Argentina racist campaign. Just follow the amount of yellow and red cards they…

Sore-ass losers picking fights after the game because they couldn't score in 120 minutes?

Crybabies. Ban Argentina from FIFA for years after that debacle.

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

#683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The WC show just seems too foreign for the core non-Northern American market. Again, this is my point. WC hosts get to show something of themselves to the world. Half-time or pre-game shows are a part of American sports culture .

So somehow cultural diversity is welcomed now

I genuinely don't know who or what you're talking about.

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

#684
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why bother? If it’s not a popular sport there already, the viewership wouldn’t be worth the cost

I don’t know about China, but India has a lot of fans and had pretty good viewership. Whether a national team qualifies isn’t that strongly correlated to whether the sport is popular. Most of south and Central America are as fanatical as Brazil or Argentina, but they were not in the tournament.

Xi Jinping is a massive football fan and tried incentivizing China's own league early on in his first term. He was quite successful in that too - just that Chinese people preferred watching the European leagues rather than their homegrown ones.

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

#685
post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thank go there is still a bastion of democracy/fairness left in Uefa To be a bit cynical on this, I'm going to say that UEFA is worried the international scene will infringe on the European league scene. They've found something to be outraged about, but the reality is more about the threat to their own bottom line than it is about the international game.

This is probably at least partially true. And they know that if they get together with South America, they can easily replace FIFA with another governing structure.

I'm a bit surprised to be downvoted on this, except maybe that it's seen as an attack on Europe.

There have been other attempts at a league superior to the individual national leagues -- like a permanent champions league. Establishment of anything more regular at the international level would be one more way this could be accomplished.

Each European league (and leagues from other confederations) has a vested interest in keeping the World Cup not just "free" but rare as well.

The time to be on the high horse against FIFA isn't 2026, it was against he labor conditions in Qatar, or the corruption to award the 2018 and 2022 hosts, or any number of other things.

However correct they are, they only complain when it's against their own self interest.

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

#686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally none of the things you said refute my statement > depending on where you are in the UK, I specifically referred to English clubs. The fact that other home nations prefer different sports has no bearing on English culture. The fact that multiple sports are considered working class has no bearing on the fact that football is one of those sports. > Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of fo…

I don't live in England or follow any English football clubs. > What Mediaeval England did was never part of my argument. Maybe not yours. But what is association football today is actually the gentrified code, which was only taken up by the working class later on. Most Working class football was rougher and more like rugby, gridiron and Gaelic, not soccer. But if you read most soccer histories, you'd think it was a…

> I don't live in England

I can tell.

> Maybe not yours.

So why do you continue to talk about it? I know the history and it’s not relevant to my argument.

> It's used this working class status thing to put down other sports.

I’m not doing that, so it’s irrelevant to this discussion.

> there were plenty of "gentleman amateur"

This is the only part that’s relevant. It’s not a rebuttal because a small number of clubs doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority were being supported as part of a working class community.

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

#687
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because they already have a cash cow in the Champions League. European teams on both the club and national team level dominate world football, they're not about to let a fox into the chicken coop. UEFA is just as corrupt as FIFA.

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

#688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't live in England or follow any English football clubs. > What Mediaeval England did was never part of my argument. Maybe not yours. But what is association football today is actually the gentrified code, which was only taken up by the working class later on. Most Working class football was rougher and more like rugby, gridiron and Gaelic, not soccer. But if you read most soccer histories, you'd think it was a…

> I don't live in England I can tell. > Maybe not yours. So why do you continue to talk about it? I know the history and it’s not relevant to my argument. > It's used this working class status thing to put down other sports. I’m not doing that, so it’s irrelevant to this discussion. > there were plenty of "gentleman amateur" This is the only part that’s relevant. It’s not a rebuttal because a small number of clubs do…

This claim that football has always been the "people's game" is in the end sanctimonious romantic nonsense. It's been run for profit all my lifetime, and is barely unaffordable for many people. SPL clubs are not cheap for season tickets either. A Hearts season ticket was at one point dearer than a Man U one. Which is ridiculous. I suppose the Jambos were desperate for the money.

If we're talking about games out in the park, then football is "part of a working class community" that way. But most major clubs consist of eleven millionaires (plus reserves) controlled by a billionaire. Nowadays the players and the owners have little connection to whichever town they are based in. Nowadays, many of the fans of English clubs, and even the Old Firm, have never lived in (or near) the cities the clubs based in. They may have never even lived in the UK or the same continent. Man U is the most obvious example, but there are plenty of such fans of other such major teams.

Even if we go back a hundred years, the major clubs were owned by factory owners and other such types. Profit was a motive even then but not to the modern day levels where the jerseys change every other month to milk the fan base.

If you want working class football, then it's well outside the premier leagues and even first divisions. But unfortunately that's the stuff most people are interested in watching.

Anyway, I've probably written way too much on this subject. Other sports are available. Some of them are a lot more entertaining too.

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

#689
post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The half time show did, however violate the letter of the rulebook. There is a maximum duration for half time breaks, which was exceeded easily.

The rulebook says the duration of half-time must be specified in competition rules and can be altered if the referee allows it. "Players are entitled to an interval at half-time, not exceeding 15 minutes; a short drinks break (which should not exceed one minute) is permitted at the interval of half-time in extra time. Competition rules must state the duration of the half-time interval and it may be altered only with…

What would be the purpose of the clause "not exceeding 15 minutes" then? The rule is clear: the competition can choose an inverval duration between 0-15 minutes, the referee can alter it inside that range (I've only ever seen it extended beyond that span for unplanned force majeure reasons like a storm).

In any case it's clear that the WC referee had no role in the scheduling of those half-time antics.

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

#690

It's ok - who cares about Europe anyway, they will be irrelevant imminently. How about they create a new national league in the US, say called the National Football League and sell that to commercial interests then whoever wins that they can declare the best team in the world and therefore it is the world cup.

> a new national league in the US, say called the National Football League

How thoroughly un-American. A proper US national league would have "world" in its name.

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