Tag: FIFA

Bert’s highlights from the first day of the 2018 World Cup

Looks like a knockoff Chinese board game you buy at Poundland for a slow kid.

The World Cup has supposedly begun and it turns out those shite songs were a good indication of what we’re in for. They had an opening ceremony that was worse than a school pageant involving one of my 18-kids and then FIFA let Russia execute a bunch of Saudis for Vladimir Putin’s enjoyment.

There were only a few memorable moments from this mess. Here they are:

Morrissey giving the whole world the finger

Fuck you too, Morrissey

Dressing like a Russian mob boss was a nice touch. One time I wore a leopard suit on a night out with Alex Ferguson. He said he didn’t want to be seen with me dressed like that, so he made me go home and eat an entire jar of horseradish. He didn’t make me eat the horseradish, I just did that because I’m always up for a challenge. Even when no one challenges me. Mark of a winner.

Infantino and Putin being like “Russia sent the most prozzies to FIFA eight years ago so they get to host the tournament and do whatever they want—oh well”

“Sorry, Saudi man. Vlad makes the rules here.”

When Russia scored the first of their eight million goals against the blades of grass Saudi Arabia calls a football team, Infantino and Putin both shrugged in unison at the Prince of Arabia. Two bald chancers who know that the prince knows they’re up to no good and simply don’t give a shit. FIFA and Russia. They go together like alcohol and more alcohol.

Putin and the Prince deciding to wank Infantino at the same time

Two hands are better than one. Even if they belong to a couple of arseholes.

The World Cup is decadent and depraved and to prove it, Putin and the prince decided to put aside their differences and literally wank Infantino in front of a whole stadium full of people. Look at the expression on old Johnny Fants. He’s absolutely loving it. He’s the rancid mayonnaise in a despot sandwich. One day when he’s in exile like that pruney fartbox Sepp Blatter, he’ll think back on this moment and cry…alone…in a Swiss chalet…while Blatter eats the last sausage roll.

And that was it. That was all the highlights of the first day of the fucking World Cup. Just a washed up singer giving a camera the bird and three tyrants stroking each other off both literally and figuratively. What a disgrace.

Qatar’s slave laborers complete first air-conditioned World Cup stadium

One down, seven to go

“Yep, this is 100% unethically made” (Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy)

Thanks to their shameful reliance on forced migrant labor, Qatar has completed one of the stadiums to be used at the 2022 World Cup. Unlike Qatar’s other stadiums, The Khalifa International Stadium already existed and was just expanded and upgraded to be the first open-air with a cooling system to prevent fans from literally melting in the Qatar heat.

From the AFP:

Approximately 500 jet nozzles will blast out cold air, keeping temperatures at around 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees Fahrenheit), for fans.

Chilled water is piped to the stadium from a cooling centre about one kilometre from the stadium, then once it arrives,cold air is pushed into the stadium.

The man responsible for the system, Qatar University’s Dr Saud Ghani, said he believed Khalifa represented a world-first.

“There isn’t on earth, one open air, air-conditioned stadium,” he said.

Dr Ghani said the system at Khalifa would use up to 40 per cent less energy than other cooling methods.

The new system will get its first test on Friday when the Khalifa stadium hosts the Emir Cup final. And all it took was horrific working conditions for thousands of laborers who aren’t allowed to go home.

Of course, upgrading one existing stadium is one thing, but building six more from scratch with less than five years to go is something else entirely. Then again, Qatar has already gotten FIFA to move the World Cup to a different season in order to accommodate its harsh climate, so maybe they can get them to move it to a different year entirely in order to accommodate their unpreparedness, too.

Listen to the Dirty Tackle podcast for more nonsense.

A 48-team World Cup is a win-win situation

Expanding the tournament is a risky move for FIFA, but for everyone else it can’t go wrong

(FIFA/Facebook)

FIFA has officially decided to expand the World Cup to 48 teams starting in 2026. The tournament will have 16 groups of three teams, with two advancing from each group, and likely with group-stage matches decided by a shootout (if necessary) so no match can end in a draw. On the surface, all of this either sounds horrible or brilliant, depending on your perspective.

If your country regularly qualifies for the tournament as it stands, you probably see this as a cash grab that could ruin the world’s most revered sporting event. If your country qualifies infrequently or never, you probably see this as a greater chance to finally get in on the fun of the World Cup. But if you look at this decision more objectively, you’ll see that it’s a win-win situation for everyone except, perhaps, FIFA themselves.

Let’s start by taking an optimistic view. A 48-team World Cup could very well be more of a good thing. Just look at Euro 2016—some of the most memorable aspects of that tournament were the presence of smaller nations that qualified. Regardless of the quality of the teams on the pitch, the fans of Iceland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Ireland invigorated the atmosphere. Hungary and their 40-year-old, sweatpants wearing goalkeeper delighted everyone. Sure there were some crap matches, but top teams regularly produce crap matches in tournament settings, too. Overall, the good outweighed the bad.

Yes, 48 teams sounds like a lot, but if you told someone the World Cup would expand to its current 32 teams back in 1930 when it had just 16, they would probably have all the same complaints we’re hearing now. The game is still growing and there are still nations improving by leaps and bounds beyond the usual World Cup qualifiers. It’s not inconceivable that in another nine to 13 years and beyond, there could possibly be 48 nations worthy of playing in a World Cup.

Now, that’s the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is that this will tangibly harm the competition. If things go wrong at Russia 2018, and they go wrong at Qatar 2022, an expanded World Cup in 2026 with diminished quality and entertainment value could be the last straw and sour the masses on the tournament once and for all, driving down both attendance and home viewership. But this would also be a good thing (for everyone but FIFA)—arguably even better than if a 48-team World Cup proves to be more enjoyable than a 32-team World Cup.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-soccer-fifa-worldcup-nally-idUKKBN14V29V

It’s been firmly established at this point that FIFA is bad. They wield an incomprehensible amount of corrupted power and influence over nations, governments and people, and that power is largely derived from this one, hugely popular tournament. For as much as we complain about FIFA and say that we want to see the world’s game freed from its nefarious grip, we still gleefully submit to it by handing over money, attention, and whatever else they want every time they dangle a World Cup in front of us like a set of shiny keys in front of an infant. As long as we do this, we give them the ability to do as they please.

But if the World Cup becomes just as awful as FIFA itself and people turn away from it, the gravy train will run dry and there will finally be a chance at actual reform within the sport’s governing body. And if FIFA is too stubborn to change, there will be an opening for a new tournament to be created outside of its purview for nations seeking to restore quality to international competition and meet the public demand.

So there you have it. A 48-team World Cup will either mean more Icelands and sweatpants or the death of FIFA as we know it. A win-win situation if ever there was one. Now keep your focus on the more pressing matters of Russia’s roving gangs of government sponsored hooligans and Qatar’s inhumanely treated migrant workers.


https://upscri.be/16bb19

FIFA shocked to learn that Carli Lloyd isn’t the only women’s player in the world

A startling revelation from The Best FIFA Football Awards


FIFA executives and voters were surprised to learn that U.S. captain Carli Lloyd was not the only women’s footballer playing the game over the last 12 months. Lloyd won FIFA’s women’s player of the year award for the second consecutive year despite only reaching the quarterfinals of the 2016 Olympic tournament and losing the U.S.’s female player of the year award for 2016 to Tobin Heath.

“We were pretty sure Carli Lloyd was still playing since she won this award last year,” FIFA president Gianni Infantino said after The Best FIFA Football Awards in Zurich. “But we couldn’t think of any other women to nominate, so we went with Marta, who we guessed was retired, and ‘Melanie Behringer’—which was a name we thought we had just made up on the spot. So imagine our surprise when we arrived here tonight and learned that Marta is still playing, Behringer actually exists, and they told us that thousands of other women are currently playing the game at a professional level. It was quite a shock, to say the least. But we already engraved Carli Lloyd’s name on the trophy, so what were we going to do?”

Melanie Behringer was the favorite to the win awards among people who actually watch women’s football, as she was the top scorer at the Olympics, where she won gold with Germany, and won the women’s Bundesliga with Bayern Munich. But for FIFA’s award, which is decided by votes from national team captains and coaches, fans and media, Behringer finished third.

Even Lloyd herself was surprised to hear her name called, saying “I honestly wasn’t expecting this” upon reaching the podium. She then went on to thank U.S. federation president Sunil Gulati, who was in attendance, even though he is currently resisting the fight for equal pay led by Lloyd and her teammates. This was presumably done sarcastically.

When asked if this experience will prompt FIFA to pay more attention to the women’s game, Infantino replied, “I don’t know about that, but I would like to congratulate Carli Lloyd on already being named The Best FIFA Women’s Player for 2017, 2018, and 2019! What an achievement.”


https://upscri.be/16bb19

FIFA’s new trophy for The Best is the worst

A trophy as soulless as FIFA itself

(FIFA)

When it was announced that FIFA and France Football would no longer be partnering on the Ballon d’Or, the game’s governing body was faced with the challenge of coming up with a new award to rival the iconic golden ball. And this is what they came up with. An austere old-timey ball sitting atop an aluminum beer glass with the words “THE BEST” engraved on it. This is the trophy equivalent to a “#1 DAD” mug.

http://www.fifa.com/the-best-fifa-football-awards/news/y=2017/m=1/news=the-anatomy-of-a-trophy-2862311.html?intcmp=fifacom_hp_module_news_top

The ball is modeled after the one used in the first World Cup and that’s the closest thing to an interesting factoid there is to say about this youth league participation trophy.

If Cristiano Ronaldo follows up his latest Ballon d’Or win by adding this robot hammer to his museum, it’s probably going in the restroom.


https://upscri.be/16bb19

Qatar says they’re giving stadium workers “cooled helmets” so everything is OK now

The coolest gift for the poorly treated migrant laborer on your holiday list!


From the country that didn’t bring you the solar-powered cooling clouds they promised comes the “innovative” solar-powered cooling helmet for workers constructing the 2022 World Cup stadiums. So all those human rights activists might as well pack it in.

From Qatar’s informally named Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy:

An innovative cooled helmet designed and developed by leading researchers in Qatar has the potential to significantly reduce the skin temperature of construction workers by up to 10 degrees centigrade. This will allow for safer and more comfortable working conditions in the summer months, according to researchers working on the new system at Qatar University.

The solar-powered helmet has been rigorously tested, patented worldwide and put through the production stage by a group of Doha-based scientists in cooperation with the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC) and Aspire Zone Foundation (Aspire). More units have now been ordered with the objective to incorporate them for the coming summer period across SC projects.

Now that’s all fine and good, but how does this thing work? Dr. Saud Abdul-Aziz Abdul-Ghani, Professor at the College of Engineering at Qatar University, explains:

“The material we use inside the helmet is Phase Changing Material (PCM) contained in a pouch, and this increases the total load of the helmet only by 300 grams. This provides cooling in hot conditions for up to four hours straight.”

So what are they supposed to do for the other 10 hours they have to work each day?

“People when working in the sun will get cool air coming down at the front of their faces. When they go for a break, they throw it into a refrigerator and pick up a cold pack and put it into their helmets,” concluded Dr. Saud.

“What’s a break?” —Qatar stadium worker

“We did research on the best areas to lower body temperature, and it was the head and face. The additional cost is just twenty dollars in comparison to a normal passive helmet, but the results are felt immediately in terms of less lost time on site due to heat-related complaints.”

So when the workers aren’t paid, at least they can sell the helmets for a bit of cash. I guess that’s something.

Now that they have these helmets figured out, they should move the tournament back to summer from November-December and have the players wear them. Maybe modify them into a Petr Cech style scrum cap.

Of course, that won’t happen—and I have my doubts that these helmets for the stadium workers will, either. Again, Qatar University was also who put together the idea of the artificial cloud that would hover over stadiums. This was a serious proposal that collapsed quicker than, well, an artificial cloud once Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup.

And if they actually do get these helmets out to workers, it’s probably just a matter of time before they start exploding like Samsung phones.


https://upscri.be/16bb19