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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

#571

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 and UEFA almost always vote together, but they are far outnumbered by every other region and FIFA only needs a majority vote for a rule to pass. You're excluding about half of the planet by only mentioning Africa.

Since AFC have now joined them[0][1], FIFA no longer have the votes for this to pass.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/ce345l6kg6ro - "Uefa - the body that governs European football - has 55 votes. Concacaf, which oversees football in North, Central America and the Caribbean, has 35 and Asia has 46." which only leaves 75 votes from the 211 and he'd need 106.

[1] I've no idea why the BBC doesn't properly capitalise UEFA or CONCACAF. I assume it's either some weird style guide or the subeditors are having another day off.

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

#572

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 and UEFA almost always vote together, but they are far outnumbered by every other region and FIFA only needs a majority vote for a rule to pass. You're excluding about half of the planet by only mentioning Africa.

CONCACAF and UEFA together is 96 out of 211 votes. They've since being joined by the Asian Football Confederation for a large majority against. And no reason to suspect the bung Infantino offers for voting in his direction is anywhere near enough to sway CONMEBOL.

The African confederation is actually marginally smaller than the European one. It also has no shortage of internal disagreements, brings in very little revenue, and the bigger nations are ultimately going to look at where the money is and see that it isn't trying to plough ahead without Europe, Asia or the United States.

CONCACAF was actually one of Infantino's best hopes, a mixture of the US, a few nations that hugely benefited from Infantino's other world cup reforms and a few that have no realistic prospect of World Cup football but would love $40m in return for voting a particular way...

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

#573
> The moment external investors acquire ownership interests in FIFA competitions, football changes forever. Commercial return becomes a permanent obligation. Investor expectations become a daily pressure.

If only we recognized the evil of this in more areas of society. Those obligations and pressures have already corrupted so much of our world. It would be nice if we could expunge them from more than just a game.

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

#574

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 and UEFA almost always vote together, but they are far outnumbered by every other region and FIFA only needs a majority vote for a rule to pass. You're excluding about half of the planet by only mentioning Africa.

Yeah but good luck having World Cup without any european country...

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

#575

“Football’s future cannot be dictated by the expectations of those whose first duty is to maximise financial return.” Very well said…replace the word football with internet/technology/web/research/university or so many others and you might understand why this single powerful phrase is so important.

Profit motive destroys yet another aspect of life on Earth

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

#576
post #255

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.

In the Dictator's Handbook the authors argued that FIFA and IOC function similar to autocratic dictatorships because there is a small group of people who are essential to power. Therefore it is rational to buy them rather than do the right thing by the fans (who have very little power). As cold as the reasoning is, the explanation stuck with me. Their suggestion is to open up the power structure, e.g. to all past pla…

> Therefore it is rational to buy them rather than do the right thing by the fans (who have very little power)

The problem withthis is that FIFA/IOC _rely_ on the athletes, players and countries, but none of those make any money so they _can't_ be bought. The prestige and honor is the reason to compete in the world cup/olympics, and money won't change/fix that. See LIV golf for what happens when you try it.

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

#577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Football is historically a working class sport" Not as much as the popular culture makes out. Association football (as opposed to folk football) was codified in English private schools such as Uppingham, and at Cambridge University. Working class people played very different forms of football at the time, including carrying the ball etc. Association football was the more genteel form of the game. It used to be the m…

While true, it’s not a refutation at all. Look at the attendance makeup of every English club in the last 100 years, listen to the stories of the people who grew up supporting their local team, the young boys that grew up playing and became local or national heroes. That tells you where the soul of football lives.

I've been hearing this "football is working class" thing all my life. Honestly, depending on where you are in the UK, you will see working class people participating in rugby league (Northern England), rugby union (South Wales, West Country, Scottish Borders), hurling, Gaelic football (both NI), shinty (the Highlands), cricket (Yorkshire and one or two other places), basketball, boxing and all the rest. Apart from rugby league, none of these games is playing the "prolier than thou" card.

Several of those games are cheaper to go and watch. In fact, it's cheaper to go to the opera or ballet than the football as someone pointed out to me, even though those have a different image. Season tickets to major clubs are extortionate. (Yes, that includes the SPL.) It isn't as working class as it makes out, other than the fact anyone can play it in the park. (But the same is true of other sports.)

Soccer has conflated its history with the medieval games of folk football (which looked more like rugby) and has basically covered up its posh origins. The "football" our ancestors played seven hundred years ago has almost no resemblance to soccer.

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

#579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not Africa only. When a corruption scandal comes up (bribing, lobbying), I’m often surprised at how cheap it was to buy the official. It’s often in the 10–50k eur region.

The average person is remarkably bad with money. It should not surprise us that politicians are no exception.

I assume the politicians are kept in a very carefully managed microcosm so that they actually think they're making the best choices for their nation, because all other options have been hidden from them or misrepresented.

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

#580
post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Qatar World Cup tournament was obviously such a thing. The place had the money to build all the stadiums, but has never qualified legitimately and is a tiny country. Thousands of people died building those stadiums in Qatar. Plus there is advertising all over the players' clothing, the pitch, the pitchside hoardings etc. There is high rent advertising in every break. Even more so since theze silly hydration break…

I mean, of course you're right about all of that. (The Qatar world cup was more for 'sportswashing' than extracting profit, although FIFA itself still made plenty of money. And, the hydration breaks will hopefully be a thing of a the past, because it was so obvious what they were really for. But I'm not betting on that.) It just sucks that everything good and sacred in the world (soccer and everything else) is being…

Football has had a major profiteering issue since at least the 1970s. The clubs always had to support themselves, but since then you have advertising everywhere, footballers in moronic adverts themselves, broadcasting rights, players being paid (and being worth) obscene amounts of money...

In recent years, there has been a clear movement away from the physical fanbase towards merchandise and broadcasting. It often feels like clubs are embarrassed by the people who turn up at games (sometimes with good reason to be fair since some of the fan behaviour and chants are indefensible).

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