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Friday, March 27, 2009
Sporting News Today: Big East beasts motor on in NCAA Tournament
Thursday, March 26, 2009
World Cup 2006 Blog
World Cup 2006 Blog |  |
| Battle of the Acronyms: UEFA & FIFA Stand Up To WADA Posted: 25 Mar 2009 12:55 PM PDT
Since WADA implemented its ‘whereabouts’ campaign - it “requires athletes in all sports to give drug-testers three months’ notice of their whereabouts for one hour each day of the year” - the walls have been shaking with fury. It’s a pretty unapologetic intrusion into the lives of athletes and has been decried as such from all corners - some, many in Belgium, have even begun legal proceedings against the WADA’s conspiracy to take over the world. UEFA & FIFA have agreed and will not comply, but the cost may come in the form of Olympic football.
How would you like to be on vacation and have to give your ‘whereabouts’ three months in advance? Nice, huh? And it’s not as though football is a massive violator in this area, either. From 2004-08 an annual average of 25,000 players were pee tested. An average of 10 were found guilty of unpure training methods. Or 0.04%. This ain’t the Tour de France. The problem comes, of course, in tournaments where WADA wields its overwhelming power, such as the Olympics. If a sport doesn’t comply with the standards WADA has set forth via the IOC, it’s bye bye Olympic participation.
But would this necessarily be such a bad thing? It’s already been discussed before and Olympic football really doesn’t make a great deal of sense in the grand scheme. FIFA already has a U-20 World Cup, which is essentially what they’re proposing the Olympics become. Or, if they’d like, FIFA could just create a U-23 World Cup (plus lifelines), which is precisely what the Olympics are now. One which doesn’t take place during the beginning of European domestic seasons. And really, wouldn’t putting to bed one of the largest issues permeating club v country do wonders for football relationships and maybe even extend some lives? From a certain perspective, one could actually think of this as something of a “two birds, one stone” situation. Then again, Sepp Blatter is involved, which means there’s only one possible outcome: disaster.        |
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Sporting News Today predicts tonight's NCAA Tournament winners
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
World Cup 2006 Blog
World Cup 2006 Blog | |
| Zidane’s Son To Make His International Debut…For Spain. Posted: 24 Mar 2009 03:00 PM PDT Yes, you read that headline correctly. Now try and soak it in. Try and soak in the fact that France’s greatest ever footballing export will see his son pull on the rival international colors of the hottest car in the showroom at the moment. Enzo Zidane was born in France, when papa was merely a fresh debutant for Les Bleus and still a ways off from being thought of as the (second?) greatest footballer of his generation. When dad moved to Torino and then off to Madrid, Enzo tagged along, as you’d expect. The family still lives in Madrid - eight years now - and Petit Zizou, the real one, is playing for Real’s youth team, and thus Enzo has decided that he would rather play for Spain, the country which produced his maternal grandparents. There are precedents, of course, but none with a papa of Zinedine’s stature. The closest one can come is actually another Spaniard, Bojan, whose Serbian father played in Spain and whose mother is Spanish. Only difference there is that Bojan was actually born inside the walls, whereas Enzo was born in France. Enzo might turn out to be nothing more than the next Jordi Cruijff - which isn’t all that bad, mind you, but papa he is not - or the next Diego Maradona bastard, but this must still sting a great deal for France as the true heir to the throne as “Next Zizou” and the son of its greatest ever player chooses what is currently the greener grass.   |
| World Cup 2010 = Beijing 2008? Posted: 24 Mar 2009 10:21 AM PDT
Until it all went wrong that is. Without getting too much into the politics of it, seems China put pressure on South Africa to deny a visa to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, because (according to spokesman Thabo Masebe) it “would not be in South Africa's best interests.” In response, three of the scheduled guests - Nobel Peace prize laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and F.W. de Klerk, plus executive director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Geir Lundestad - decided it wouldn’t be in their best interests to attend a sham conference.
The South African - and Chinese - argument is that wherever the Dalai Lama goes, the issue of Tibetan freedom gets attention. And they didn’t want the peace conference being overshadowed by that. But the cancellation has already gotten way more attention than the actual conference would have. So that didn’t work out too well for them. No good can ever come of denying a visa to a Nobel Peace Prize winner (the Dalai Lama won in 1989). And I’ll tell you this: I wanted to use an image of the Dalai Lama looking angry to go with this post. But apparently no such photo exists. The one you see above is the closest I could get. Despite all the sh*t he has to put up with, the guy is always always smiling. Which is pretty impressive. I’m still optimistic about World Cup 2010, and I’m still predicting some outstanding football next summer (we’ll have a better idea in about three months time, when South Africa hosts the 2009 Confederations Cup). But I’m not so confident about South Africa’s political maneuvering. The one thing I remember from the Beijing Olympics 2008 was that it didn’t make China - or the Olympics - look too good. More than a couple of shady things happened, epitomized by the Milli Vanilli trick they pulled with that little singing girl. Let’s hope South Africa learns fast and doesn’t tarnish the reputation of the World Cup with any similar shenanigans.   |
With World Cup 2010 getting closer every day, South Africa could do with a bit of good PR. So the global peace conference scheduled to be in Johannesburg this week - to promote soccer and World Cup 2010 as instruments of harmony - probably seemed like a good idea.| You are subscribed to email updates from World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010 To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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Sporting News Today: Labor, player issues persist into NFL offseason
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
World Cup 2006 Blog
World Cup 2006 Blog | |
| Sepp Blatter’s Magical Money Making Machine Posted: 23 Mar 2009 03:40 PM PDT
FIFA announced their 2008 figures on Friday, and… ker-ching! Revenues are up and profits are good. Sepp Blatter and friends took in $957 million in 2008 (compared to $882m in 2007) and spent just $773m (compared to $883m in 2007) for a total profit of $184m.
(Does that mean they dropped foreign currency in a hedge, and then came back a year later to find it was still there, and worth more than when they left it?) In a way, it’s good news that FIFA is doing well. Because if the governing body goes under, that would spell trouble for the beautiful game. But seeing FIFA - which is supposed to be a governing/administrative body and not a for-profit business - make out so well in 2008 while everyone else struggled is pretty remarkable. It basically underlines the idea/fact that FIFA is now a corporate monolith that makes a fortune selling TV licensing, merchandise and sponsorship. The estimated revenue for World Cup 2010 is apparently $3.2 billion. Imagine how many AIG retention bonuses you could pay with that?   |
If you’ve been reading the real world non-football news (and I don’t recommend it right now) then you’ll know there’s a whole world of economic bleakness out there. But in FIFA-land? All is sunshine, lollipops and | You are subscribed to email updates from World Cup Soccer - South Africa 2010 To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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Sporting News Today: Which Sweet 16 players have NBA scouts drooling?
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Monday, March 23, 2009
Sporting News Today: Who is tops among the NCAA's Sweet 16?
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