It’s one of my favourite clips so far from the Women’s World Cup. Swiss striker Ramona Bachmann gets the ball at the halfway line, evades one, two, three, four, five defenders, then the goalie, sets herself for an angular shot at goal… and then falls over. Not one of those I’m-in-the-penalty-box-so-let’s-milk-it-for-all-its-worth dives but a legitimate…
Tag: FIFA
Women’s soccer far from a level playing field
After a week of arrests and resignations at the highest level of the game, FIFA has some actual football to focus on. The FIFA Women’s World Cup kicked off in Canada over the weekend, not a moment too soon for soccer’s embattled ‘governing’ — if you’ll pardon the looseness of the language — body. There…
Friday Funnies: Blatter ‘working hard’ on reforms
Today, in the most ironic timing ever, the film United Passions is being released in the United States. Almost entirely funded by FIFA to the tune of more than $30 million (!!!), it dramatises the early days of soccer’s governing body and the introduction of the World Cup. Without the corruption. So it’s a short film….
The demise of comic genius Sepp Blatter
In the end, it all happened very quickly. One minute he was there and then he was gone. A bit like this. The man who just a few days ago declared euphorically to be the ‘President of everybody’ suddenly wasn’t feeling the love anymore. “I do not feel that I have a mandate from the…
The killing fields of the Qatar World Cup
The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held in a graveyard. Already an estimated 1,200 workers have died building Qatar’s World Cup stadiums and associated infrastructure. This number is expected to rise to 4,000 over the next seven years. Basically a worker a day. The International Trade Union Confederation compiled these numbers based on statistics…
Friday Funnies: “This is good,” says FIFA
To the untrained eye, FIFA has had a very bad week. Nine officials past and present arrested. Allegations of bribery, corruption, money laundering and all-round dodginess spanning decades. A persistent stench about the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bids. But according to FIFA’s Communications Director Walter de Gregorio, everything is awesome. “This for FIFA is…
The Christmas Truce of 1914
You’re as close to hell on earth as you can get, stuck in a frozen muddy trench a few hundred metres across from a bunch of blokes trying to kill you. It’s five months into a conflict so devastating they’ll call it the Great War and — at least for the next twenty years —…
A word, Ms Coulter
I’ve held off writing about Ann Coulter’s attack on soccer in the hope that ignoring her would make her go away. Then she had a second crack at it. In Ms Coulter’s world, soccer is a liberal conspiracy that promotes individual underachievement and doesn’t have anywhere near enough bloodletting. It’s groundbreaking because, while FIFA has…
kazblah 