Alhaji Righteous De Ambitious: Jun 15, 2011

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

World Cup 2010 Blog: “Somehow Hating FIFA More” plus 1 more

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 05:30 AM PDT

idiot The overwhelming issue with FIFA is they suck. Tis the official diagnostic abstract, and undoubtedly accepted by scholars and leading men alike – Henry Kissinger too – across the globe. In fact, FIFA sucking any more would seem akin to Xavi misplacing a pass – just impossible.

And yet, somehow they’ve found a means through which we can all hate them a little bit more:

Increasing international friendly dates.

Now, it’s important to note I like international football of importance a great deal more than club football at any level, if partly due to the rare nature of its occurrence. Not simply major tournaments, but important qualifiers too and occasionally the big friendly.

But friendlies, by nature, are ridiculous. They are partially beneficial to the countries and were we to assume this is about improving the quality of the int’l game, it’d be understandable, but it’s not. It surely is, as with all FIFA does, all about the Benjamins/Swiss francs.

Yet they’re a huge time suck and player fatigue is seemingly issue enough without introducing further marathons per month.

So FIFA. One poor decision after another.

Fifa faces fresh conflict with Europe’s leading clubs over plans to introduce five more international friendly dates into the already crowded football calendar.

The world governing body is understood to have held internal discussions on the insertion of five extra friendly matches into seasons when World Cups and European Championships do not take place. It would raise the total number of international dates from 12 to 17.

There’s every chance club v country could become World War III.

It’s just too bad Maradona isn’t still an international coach – he might be able to hit a 1000 different players with a cap within a calendar year.

Men Are From Mars, Like Women’s Football More

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 05:13 AM PDT

The Simple Truth Shocking revelations unearthed from the bowels of the German interwebs:

Men like football more than women. (!)

Well, that’s sort of a foregone conclusion which requires a definitive scientific study as much as the lower reaches of calcio or Lance Armstrong’s B sample. But it’s true – men like both men’s football and women’s football more, as they’re much more excited for the Women’s World Cup than the women.

Is this big news? Probably not. Is it news? Perhaps.

Is it beneficial to German marketing companies? Absolutely.

Sixty-three percent of men surveyed are looking forward to the event from June 26 to July 17 compared to 43 percent of women, according to the poll conducted by German weekly Die Zeit.

Sixty percent of men thought women’s football was attractive, compared to just 45 percent of women.

Around half of both sexes thought the event would be as successful as the men’s World Cup in Germany in 2006, the poll showed.

Well, it clearly can’t be successful, as Italy’s not even invited (slight bias), so that’s just wrong. However…

I wonder why they find it more attractive.

Odd choice of words, that.