Showing posts with label FIFA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FIFA. Show all posts

Thursday, October 6, 2011

NEWS WATCH - Blazer Donzo With CONCACAF

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"I'm retiring to spend more time with my iPod."
Chuck Blazer, CONCACAF's General Secretary, will step down at the end of the year he announced today. Blazer, a frequent homeless person impersonator, will still remain a member of FIFA's Executive Committee.

“My passion for soccer is undiminished and it is time for me to explore new challenges within this wonderful sport,” Blazer said in a statement. “Running a governing body has been an incredibly fulfilling job, but there are so many other areas of the sport where as a senior executive, I will make a great impact.”
Blazer, 66, a gregarious, larger-than-life figure, has been in charge of CONCACAF for 21 years. During his tenure, he grew the confederation’s revenue from $140,000 to $40 million through various initiatives, including the increasingly popular Gold Cup and CONCACAF Champions League.
Blazer has also been a member of the FIFA Executive Committee since 1997. He will retain that position.
“Chuck’s contributions to the sport over the last 30 years are unparalleled,” US Soccer president Sunil Gulati said. “All of us in CONCACAF owe him a great debt of gratitude for his sustained efforts in helping to take the sport to where it is today. There is no doubt that he will continue to make an impact in whatever role he chooses.”
Blazer’s tenure was not without controversy. He played an integral role in the drama surrounding the bidding for the 2022 World Cup, which many thought would be awarded to the US. Instead, it was awarded to Qatar.
During the FIFA presidential election earlier this year, Blazer was again involved in a controversial episode when he initiated an investigation into ethics violations, including bribery allegations, involving CONCACAF vice president Jack Warner several Caribbean federations and FIFA presidential candidate Mohammed bin Hammam of Qatar. As a result of the investigations, bin Hammam was eventually banned for life from all football-related activities and Warner, of Trinidad, resigned from football administration duties.
“In looking back at my years at CONCACAF, I have great satisfaction in having achieved all my objectives, including unprecedented revenues, new initiatives in competitions and modern technology in administration,” Blazer said.

Also, Blazer will still continue his duties as the bringer of joy to boys and girls around the world each December 25th.


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Monday, September 12, 2011

Shotgunning: Today's Top Stories, Slammed

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All the news that's fit to drink.

And because you'd rather have a beer than be reading all the time... we've taken the day's top news and given it the Reader's Digest-treatment so you can get to that post-work pint quicker.

* Grant Wahl says FIFA needs to get it's own "Red Zone Channel" like the NFL. The American Throwball league has a show that pops in and out of games around the country on game days featuring all the big plays, stops, and scores. Wahl proposes the soccer governing body do the same.
"There no reason this channel shouldn't happen. Call it whatever you'd like -- World Cup Goal Zone, World Cup Real-Time, FIFA Matchday Live -- but there are plenty of incentives for fans, as well as FIFA and its member nations. The fans get a fun, addictive, all-in-one service that currently doesn't exist (and would be of far higher quality than pirate online livestreams). Meanwhile, FIFA and its confederations would receive income that could be shared with their member nations." 
* Jason Davis at Match Fit USA calls for calm over Jurgen Klinnsmann's slow-growth revolution of the USMNT and cautions the inclusion of "Latin flavor" just for the sake of it.
"Jurgen Klinsmann wants to impose a new style on the USMNT. He'll go about his task by looking for players capable of executing his plan. If he wants to win, he can't afford to worry about hitching the new style directly to his other aim - integrating more of America's Latino flavor into the team. He can do both, but he should be careful that he doesn't send the message that the style can only come with Latin flavor. American soccer is already rife with stereotype and generalization. If Klinsmann falls victim to them or even appears to, it will only reinforce beliefs that will hold back the sport here in the years and decades to come. That will only make Claudio Reyna's job harder, handicapping a program already facing an uphill road to success. 
Let's go for that attractive style Klinsmann wants to play, and let's do so with all the abandon for which the American people - be they Latino, black, white, or other - are known. But let's keep in mind that style, as Edward Gibbons once said, is the image of character. American soccer's character should be inclusion, inclusion, inclusion; inclusion to the degree that the word no longer applies because there simply is no bias, and therefore, no need to label the role of any particular group of people as "included" as if some other group is being excluded. 
Let our style truly reflect our character, be the product of it. If not the one we have, the one to which we aspire."
* Charlie Davies bagged a hat-trick, Teal Bunbury got a brace, Real Salt Lake ended Seattle's streak, the Revolution beat FC Dallas, Toronto FC win for the first time on the road, and the Union continue to sputter... that and more in this week's MLS highlights.

* Major League Soccer also released the results of Facebook-fan voting on the 24 best players under the age of 24 in our domestic league and FC Dallas' Brek Shea took top honors. Juan Agudelo, Freddy Adu, Teal Bunbury, and Steve Zakunai round out the top five. A panel of nine "experts" will start revealing their choices for the best young players in MLS starting on Thursday.

* American soccer fans with a love of Euro-mornings already knew this, but the rest of the country is finally waking up (pun intended) to the idea of "breakfast beers", including the Wall Street Journal which recommends a few to try out.
"Athletes and moms, you might say, deserve a tall cold one for breakfast—but mere mortals? Few sneer at a weekend-morning mimosa or Bloody Mary, yet it's unlikely that cheap bubbly or a handful of celery stalks add much to a plate of eggs. In other words: boring. Beer, nourishment aside, is a livelier companion. In fact, paired with morning foods such as oatmeal or granola, unexpected flavors emerge like green tea and chocolate milk."
* In Dallas? Get to the "Bobby Rhine Memorial Kickaround" to benefit the FC Dallas Foundation at Rhine's family. Hosted by Street Soccer Dallas, Freddy Fund, and Good Football.

* In Austin? Check out the fantastic soccer documentary, "Pelada" at Draft House on West Anderson at 7pm. Proceeds of the showing go to benefit the "Multicultural Refugee Coalition Soccer Team". FBM will be there.

* Lastly, the former "American Soccer Show" hosts Jason Davis and Jared DuBois are still podcasting in between leaving the old show and beginning their new show somewhere else (who knows?!?!). Listen to this week's episode here.


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Friday, June 24, 2011

Phun With Photoshop: Blatter is a Deutschbag

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Original Photo: FIFA President/Strongman Sepp Blatter announcing Germany as the host of the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup.

Don't get the reference? See here.




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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Sepp Blatter's FIFA Re-Election in the Proper Perspective

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Sepp Blatter was re-elected as FIFA's President today in one of the more lopsided elections in history.

Here's how Blatter's 91.63% total (186 votes out of 203 possible) compares to some of his dictatorial counterparts:

Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov 2007 Election 80%

Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev 2005 Election 91.15%

Syria's Bashar al-Assad 2007 Election 97.6%

Turkmenistan's Gurbanguly Berdihumahmedow 2007 election 82.63%

Belarussia's Alexander Lukashenko 2006 82%

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez 2005 Election 63%

Rwanda's Paul Kagame 2010 Election 92.9%

Egypt's Hosni Mubarak 2005 Election 88.6%

Zaire's Mobuto Sese Kuto 1984 Election: 99.16%

Saddam Hussein 1995 Election: 99.96%

Sorry for the downer of a post, but this is the sort of sh*t that really gets our goat. Soccer is such a beautiful game at its core, but people like Blatter, and more importantly the larger organization of FIFA are doing their damnedest to rub the shine off this sport.

How are people supposed to recruit newbies into our sport when this is what passes as acceptable?

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