What a Complete Joke

I'll start with the obvious: American's don't care about soccer. That's not a surprise to anyone. Its on at weird times for us, and its a little slower than our other sports which doesn't help in the eyes of Americans with short attention spans. But nonetheless, plenty of us do start paying attention every 4 years because the USA national team generally does pretty well at the World Cup. A lot of Americans also recognize the superb athleticism and do appreciate the talent, some of these guys are without question some of the top athletes in the world. There's also a deep level of strategy that once you understand a little of it, is pretty cool and entertaining. I also respect soccer because as my wife pointed out, its the least elitist big time sport in the world. It requires zero equipment to learn how to play, and skills can be developed without even a pair of shoes. Obviously thats a big reason its the world's sport, and deservedly so. Its simple rules, accessibility, and underlying deep strategy and talent base make it a great game, there's no question about that. So please don't confuse this blog to be about soccer, its not, its about FIFA, the governing body of the World Cup and the other top international leagues.

This year especially there are plenty of reasons for Americans to be excited about soccer, Landon Donovon is in his prime, Tim Howard is a phenomenal keeper, and the games are on at reasonable hours on normal channels , so we don't have to get up at 4am to watch our guys play, because lets face it, that just wasn't going to happen. Our tournamnet even started strong with an upset tie against England.

So it was all great until this absolutely ridiculous call that disallowed Maurice Edu's game winning goal today. No commentator saw anything, but it was hard to miss the 2 Americans being bear hugged while Edu was busy winning the game. So naturally, when it was disallowed, I naturally, along with every other American watching, wanted to know what the call was and who it was called on, no one mentions either, and I remain confused. After the game, I find out that these refs don't actually have to specify what the call is or even who its on. Are you kidding me?!?! I'm still blown away by that. I was informed by our friend goretexg in the forum that Sepp Blatter, FIFA's corrupt head, is adamantly opposed to any form of instant replay. But that's not event the main absurdity here, but we'll get to that in a minute.

I did a little googling of "FIFA corruption" and there hundreds of articles detailing various investigations into FIFA regarding payoffs, kickbacks, bribes, and sleazy ticket hocking. These investigations finger people all the way to the top, including Sepp Blatter, FIFA's head. For our non-US friends, I'm sure this is common knowledge for you guys and you're probably very surprised I'm just now outraged about all this. But again, Americans check in on the sport every 4 years for the World Cup, and for the most we don't pay attention because corruption in FIFA, or any soccer news for that matter, never ever hits our sports headlines. So anyway, yeah there's a ton of corruption, most of it appears to be pretty brazen and blatant on the organizational level.

So now this all makes sense. If FIFA has a culture of corruption, then why would they WANT the refs to have to record against who or what the foul is? Because this little rule as it is opens up the entire sport to incredible poisoning, making it so much easier for an official to hide his intent of turning the game one way or the other. A billion people are expected to watch the world cup. I'm sure that comes with incredible action and unparalleled incentive to buy the results of games. Russian and Chinese mobsters that are have hundreds of millions dollars could easily make that happen. And its probably the easiest sport to manipulate with such an archaic rule set. This rule is so outrageous to the spirit of fair competition, that I can't imagine that FIFA doesn't WANT to invite in the corruption, poisoning, and controversy. Because its just too easy and to obvious to fix. "Refs now have to disclose what infraction they are calling, and what player is being penalized." Done.

Next, theres FIFA's adamant refusal to utilize any sort of instant replay. If FIFA had any interest at all in making sure the outcome of these games was fair, then why NOT put in instant replay? Instant replay has made Tennis, American Football, and the NHL much better and fairer. The challenge system works great in Tennis and football, and the NHL has a board of people in the Toronto headquarters standing by to review video for EVERY single game played. Close calls get elevated to the headquarters, they decide after looking at all the angles, and thats the decision. And thats just the little ol' NHL, which is eclipsed in North American in revenue and popularity by baseball, basketball, and football.

But right now we're talking about the World Cup, the biggest sporting event in the history of the world, how could you possibly resist rules that ensure fairer outcomes, if you don't have a monetary interest in to the contrary? It's such an asinine stance that again, its just impossible to imagine another reason why they aren't for it except for their culture of corruption and graft, and that someone or everyone is on the take to keep it from happening. After all, it would certainly make it harder to fix games if an independent board of review were reviewing close calls outside the authority of the on field refs.

Even I remember the controversy over the refs in the 2002 world cup where the Italians got jammed. How many upset wins or upset ties have there been in this year's tournament alone? After seeing that goal get disallowed, and how FIFA has handled it so far ("no comment" from anyone), how can I even watch another game under the assumption that the outcome is not predetermined? The more I read and learn about FIFA, the more disgusted I am. I can't help but see my suspicions exemplified every time there's a big upset or a hugely controversial call.

Honestly, I feel cheated not only for the American team, but for myself for having started to care and pay attention in the first place. Its obviously a huge waste of time considering not even the most basic measures are taken to protect the integrity of the game by its governing body. I also feel badly for the fans elsewhere, this tournament means so much to so many people (most of them are outside the US), that its simply a tragedy that its being run by these assholes who clearly have no concern to even an interest in keeping the sport pure.

So you know what FIFA? American's shouldn't care about soccer, because obviously you don't. Wait, thats not quite fair. You don't care about the GAME of soccer or the World Cup and what it means to so many people, but you obviously love the money attached to it. The game, the fans, and the World Cup tournament are simply ways to funnel in some easy, under the table, tax free revenue. Because if you actually cared about the game one iota, these ridiculous rules would not be in place, period.