The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

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Macca00
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by Macca00 »

Messi-Neymar-Suarez is an utterly ridiculous front three. My man-crush on that idiotic, ugly Uruguan has not abated even though he's left for Barca.

Well done to Juve for getting to the CL Final. Will be interesting to see Suarez reunited with his favourite snack (Chiellini) and favourite person of color (Evra).

Barca favourites but I wouldn't underestimate Juve. They will be well rested after playing in a joke of league and their midfield 3 of Pogba, Vidal and Pirlo are amazing. I will be hoping Mascherano eats them for lunch.

Real will surely fire Ancelotti because that club is a madhouse. I really rate Ancelotti but I know FSG wouldn't bother approaching him for the LFC manager's position because it's been 20 years since he's managed a team that wasn't uber-rich.

Will also be interesting to see where Bale goes since in Madrid everything is his fault. Realistically under FFP (stop laughing) I think only United could pony up the 70+ million to get him unless Real are willing to take a bath on the transfer fee.



In crap team news;

Gerrard's last home game for LFC this weekend. From 2004 to 2009 he was, in my biased opinion, one of the best midfielders in the world. Not the best ever LFC player (that's Kenny, silly!) and not quite my favourite (I still want to be John Barnes when I grow up) but a legend nonetheless.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by Jimmydeicide »

Excellent choices there Macca i agree Dalglish, then maybe Rushy for me and Keegan, I just loved watching Toshak and Keegan brilliant to watch.

Kinda Sad the way Gerrards last season has played out , he should of got way more time than Rogers gave him.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by XXXIV »

Jimmydeicide wrote:
Kinda Sad the way Gerrards last season has played out , he should of got way more time than Rogers gave him.
Yes.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by fsquid »

Boca fans throwing some type of gas at River players after halftime. That's classy.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by 10spro »

fsquid wrote:Boca fans throwing some type of gas at River players after halftime. That's classy.
A damn shame. Hooligans doing what they do. Yes, they are playing for La Copa Liberatdores but totally inexcusable. And why it took so long for the ref to suspend the game is beyond me.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by XXXIV »

One hell of a performance by Liverpool today in the first half.

Thats as ugly as ugly can ever get. 5 freaking goals for Stoke? Are you kidding?

I should have stayed in bed.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by greggsand »

I'm an EPL noob. I've been trying to figure this out via Google, but was getting nowhere. Q: so I get how there are 3 teams getting booted. Who will be the new 3 teams in the EPL next year and how is that decided?? Thanks!

Update: Figured it out!
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by dougb »

and the FIFA perp walk commences. The stench of the pig sty level corruption is unbearable but at least there's some prospect now of rolling up the bad actors and cleaning things up to at least a tolerable level. Sep should be worried as I expect there's a pretty strong prospect to roll some of those arrested on others.

And good to see that clown Jack Warner heading the list - hopefully he'll be spending a long, long time as a guest of the United States Prison Service.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/liv ... arges-live

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by F308GTB »

So what real chance does Prince Ali bin al-Hussein have at winning Friday? Unfortunate that Blatter wasn't charged, and it would seem he's rubber stamped another term despite the raids. Too bad the others dropped out of the running last week.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by RobVarak »

F308GTB wrote:Too bad the others dropped out of the running last week.
I don't think it was a coincidence. Sepp will still win.

I'm pleased as anyone about the arrests, but I fear extradition is going to be dragged out by legal challenges for a very long time. I'm talking a frustratingly, appallingly long time. Hope I'm wrong, and I know as much about international extradition as I do about butterfly physiology, so I might be.

The only bad news is that the FSG transfer committee wasn't swept up in this net.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by 10spro »

Concacaf and Conmebol have been targeted for bribes for years and under a lot of scrutiny in the ongoing press conference.

The word 'Greed' has been mentioned often. Money laundering, tax evasions, corruption, jail them all for life.

Nothing on Sep yet as the elections will go on this week, but pretty sure he's looking over his shoulders now. Currently 7 FIFA officials have been arrested on US corruption probe, 14 others have been indicted.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by RobVarak »

Sepp could've been sitting pretty if he hadn't taken the big payday on Qatar. If he'd given that WC to the US, none of the corporate sponsors who have been pressured because of the Qatari slavery publicity would have been inclined to assist the DoJ as it appears some have. None of the CONCACAF or USSF insiders would have interested in providing evidence as it appears some have.

Ultimately it will be the actions of the corporations, as the real revenue generators for FIFA, that will force a change. Once their brands start to be damaged by association with the organization, they will have no choice but to strong-arm FIFA into a more transparent and reasonable organizational culture. Coke doesn't care about slavery or corruption as long as it can reasonably claim ignorance or distance from those things. Once they are seen as benefiting from them, their board has to take notice.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by wco81 »

Looks like Jack Blazer, who was head of US Soccer and forced to resign because he was corrupt, flipped and ratted out the others:
Last year it emerged that Blazer, who was forced to resign after being accused of financial irregularities, had been helping the FBI with its long-running inquiry. The DoJ statement said Blazer had already pleaded guilty to charges, as had José Hawilla, the owner and founder of the Traffic Group, a multinational sports marketing agency with its headquarters in Brazil.

Blazer wore a wiretap at the London 2012 Olympics and, although seriously ill, has been continuing to help the FBI with its investigation.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... s-arrested

The thing is, I still don't understand what legal standing there is for prosecuting a private organization. Apparently the US has wide latitude and may be using laws that it's used in the past to go after terrorists.

The FIFA guys were reckless and blatant about bribes but the WC and FIFA are private entities. Were they soliciting bribes from govt. entities? When govts prosecute organized crime, they don't do it on the basis that criminal organizations are corrupt or not transparent enough. They go after them for committing murders, wire fraud, tax evasion.

If FIFA for instance decided to award WCs to the highest bidder, they should be within their rights. And if they decide to take proceeds from WC and award "bonuses" to the voting officials, again, would that be prosecutable?

Will they also go after F1 and the Olympics as well? Or go after Google, Apple, Microsoft if they should cut deals with Hollywood studios and see if some of the executives received big bonuses or stock options because of those deals? These are public companies so they have to answer to shareholders but most of the time, management is going to be able to do anything it wants. Would the difference be that the executives didn't specifically ask for bonuses as a condition for making the deals?

Lynch cited the use of US facilities, such as banks and hotels, as the reason US was pursuing FIFA. But that's a pretty low bar. There are all kinds of bribes going on in the US, with govt. contractors and dealings between corporations. These arrests are getting a lot of publicity and maybe that's part of the motivation.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by Naples39 »

It's still very ambiguous how this will play out, and who has the authority to really do much to FIFA itself. These charges are for things like wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

It's also worth noting that everyone brought in by the FBI today were based on this side of the Atlantic; CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. Swiss authorities are apparently moving on their own as well, presumably against European players.

If nothing else, this is huge wake-me-up to FIFA, who has always swept everything under the rug with toothless and sanitized internal investigations. I personally would love to see all the execs thoroughly embarassed.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by wco81 »

Another comparable situation might be the NFL, which isn't exactly transparent either in how it doles out penalties, some of which might be considered extra-judicial prosecution/persecution.

The way they award Superbowls, isn't exactly known.

But it's a private organization and they're allowed to do whatever they want. It's not inconceivable that the people who make decisions on who gets the SB gets some kind of considerations from the bidders.

However, a million or two million is nothing to NFL owners or Goddell, since they make way more.

US govt. isn't likely to prosecute the NFL because for one, nobody is complaining about how the SBs are awarded or accusing it of being corrupt.

The other thing is the NFL and owners have a lot of ties to politicians so they're a protected class.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by 10spro »

wco81 wrote:Another comparable situation might be the NFL, which isn't exactly transparent either in how it doles out penalties, some of which might be considered extra-judicial prosecution/persecution.

The way they award Superbowls, isn't exactly known.

But it's a private organization and they're allowed to do whatever they want. It's not inconceivable that the people who make decisions on who gets the SB gets some kind of considerations from the bidders.

However, a million or two million is nothing to NFL owners or Goddell, since they make way more.

US govt. isn't likely to prosecute the NFL because for one, nobody is complaining about how the SBs are awarded or accusing it of being corrupt.

The other thing is the NFL and owners have a lot of ties to politicians so they're a protected class.
Pretty sure the NFL is following this closely, the Olyimpics' committee, boxing, the Russian WC, as no one should feel immune to corruptions after the current Fifa investigation. While the Swiss are doing their own probe, being a neutral country generally speaking in politics and other organizations, they will NOT hesitate to extradite the culpable parties in their current probe to the US counterpart. The fact that the long Teflon door has been cracked now, the question is how fast will the rest of the dominoes fall.

This is just the beginning, but very good news for the world of sports. Apparently some US bank institutions are involved too, just fascinating stuff to be unveiled in days...
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by 10spro »

But I'll say this. Sepp Blatter is too clever and will probably win on Friday. As long as he's in charge the reforms at FIFA will be hard to come by. No matter how many key pieces they arrest, as long as he continues to control the guest list, nothing about FIFA’s modus operandi requires adjustment. So the next 48 hours are crucial, let all the facts come open on both probes.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by pk500 »

10spro wrote:But I'll say this. Sepp Blatter is too clever and will probably win on Friday. As long as he's in charge the reforms at FIFA will be hard to come by. No matter how many key pieces they arrest, as long as he continues to control the guest list, nothing about FIFA’s modus operandi requires adjustment. So the next 48 hours are crucial, let all the facts come open on both probes.
No question. Blatter and F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone are the two most Teflon-coated dons in worldwide sport. Both are incredibly corrupt, bribe-ridden slime balls who continue to skate more powerfully than Eric Heiden in 1980 at Lake Placid.

Image

Ecclestone used a legal loophole to buy his way out of serious corruption charges last year in Germany of which he almost certainly would have been convicted. The price tag: $100 million. Chump change for our Bernie.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/a ... 1-position
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by 10spro »

Photo cover for FIFA 16 should be:



Image
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by RobVarak »

The FIFA guys were reckless and blatant about bribes but the WC and FIFA are private entities. Were they soliciting bribes from govt. entities? When govts prosecute organized crime, they don't do it on the basis that criminal organizations are corrupt or not transparent enough. They go after them for committing murders, wire fraud, tax evasion.
There are a couple of legitimate governmental interests at stake despite FIFA's status as a private entity.

First and foremost, US citizens, corporations, governmental entities and non-profits all do business with USSF, CONCACAF and ultimately FIFA. The FIFA leadership is allegedly engaging in a conspiracy to misrepresent how they do business. So when money which is paid (or even in some cases donated) to FIFA for things like grass roots development ultimately ends up in Sepp's premium pornhub account, that's a serious crime.

On top of that, you have the gigantic tax implications created when a network of millionaire plutocrats is moving money off the books. Between unpaid taxes, fines and property subject to forfeiture, there's literally a lot of money on the table (or under it) for the US and EU.

Finally you have RICO, which because of its built-in penalties, evidentiary requirements and general massiveness makes engaging in a criminal conspiracy fertile grounds for prosecution, no matter how de minimus the ultimate crime might be. If some kids in Guatemala didn't get his $1 soccer ball that's one thing, but if there was an international conspiracy to make that dollar disappear then it's a prosecutor's dream.

The NFL is also shockingly small potatoes compared to both the scale of this FIFA stuff (i.e., the number of people at the trough) and the amount of money in play. Some prosecutor could get a bee in his bonnet and want to take off after the NFL for corruption, but it's clearly not in the league with the boys in Switzerland. The NCAA on the other hand... :)
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by dougb »

RobVarak wrote:Sepp could've been sitting pretty if he hadn't taken the big payday on Qatar. If he'd given that WC to the US, none of the corporate sponsors who have been pressured because of the Qatari slavery publicity would have been inclined to assist the DoJ as it appears some have. None of the CONCACAF or USSF insiders would have interested in providing evidence as it appears some have.

Ultimately it will be the actions of the corporations, as the real revenue generators for FIFA, that will force a change. Once their brands start to be damaged by association with the organization, they will have no choice but to strong-arm FIFA into a more transparent and reasonable organizational culture. Coke doesn't care about slavery or corruption as long as it can reasonably claim ignorance or distance from those things. Once they are seen as benefiting from them, their board has to take notice.
Developments in Australia - looks like they're referring an alleged bribe for criminal investigation. ironic since the Australians were one of the parties that alleged they'd been the victims of wrong-doing when their bid wasn't successful.

Rob I agree that the sponsors are likely to have the most impact in this on Fifa's behaviour but I expect as well we'll see a number of these additional bribery investigations in several other countries. At this point I really doubt that FIFA can be reformed and the structure itself may well need to be torn down completely and rebuilt. In the end it's likely that there are very few, if any, national federations that will have completely clean hands.

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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by RobVarak »

dougb wrote: Rob I agree that the sponsors are likely to have the most impact in this on Fifa's behaviour but I expect as well we'll see a number of these additional bribery investigations in several other countries. At this point I really doubt that FIFA can be reformed and the structure itself may well need to be torn down completely and rebuilt. In the end it's likely that there are very few, if any, national federations that will have completely clean hands.
Doug
The UK papers are calling for the same thing, and have been for some time. That would be a herculean undertaking, particularly since FIFA owns the intellectual property rights to things like the WC and has contractual TV rights deals in place for a decade or more going forward. They wouldn't part with these cheaply...if at all. It would probably be best, but I think it's much more likely that we seen the emergence of reform candidates from within the confederations and then ultimately in FIFA itself.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by pk500 »

Rob nailed it: Sponsor defection is the only agent of change in FIFA. These cases will take years to adjudicate due to appeals, etc.

I doubt global corporations will abandon FIFA and the World Cup. Firms like Coca-Cola and MasterCard have known of FIFA's shady business practices for decades and haven't been deterred. They also do business with the other global athletic purveyors of slime, the IOC.

The publicity of these cases will fade into the morass of the legal system, and business as usual will continue between FIFA and its commercial partners. The World Cup is far too big of a global sports marketing platform for companies to boycott due to ethics.

Let's face it: Was anyone outraged by yesterday's indictments? Was anyone surprised? Exactly, and that's why there always will be a line of big companies waiting at the door in Zurich to do business with the filthmeisters at FIFA.
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Re: The Beautiful Game thread, season 2014/15

Post by wco81 »

Blatter said he welcomed the investigations to clean up the sport. He better hope the ones arrested don't flip on him, though he may have been more careful than some of the others.

One idea that 5 Live was talking about was UEFA getting together with the big South American and US and boycotting FIFA, including possibly the WC and doing their own competitions and forming their own federation.

But it may be that other nations, even within UEFA, don't have the same hard-on for Blatter as England and the US.

Blatter is going to get re-elected because of Asian and African delegates. He split FIFA revenues equally and gave them each a vote so these small, third-world nations have the same voting power as the football giant nations.

There's probably way too money in the WC and the qualifiers for major football nations to make the break. They'll hope they can get rid of Blatter eventually, while still participating in the huge revenues.
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