Two oil rich nations, odd that innit?

We need to start from the top, revamp our own FA and the way it makes (or doesn't make) decisions and how appointments are made. FIFA are most certainly corrupt and biased and I'd rather we cleaned our act up first. It's probably fair to say that the whole world of football is corrupt but I don't want a part of that. It's just not cricket.

And it's like 40+ degrees C during the day.
Air conditioned stadiums... not sure how they'll go. But what about everywhere else?

Funny that you would mention cricket considering the amount of corruption that has been involved in it :p

I don't get why FIFA and the FA are for-profit organisations, it breeds these kind of political or business-esque decisions rather than what is simply best for football. England, Spain or Portugal could have hosted a world cup next week, as they say. Russia and Qatar will need a shit load of development. Fuck, Russia can't even produce enough grain.
But by FIFA choosing two clearly underdeveloped countries (in terms of football), they are essentially just expanding there businesses to 'pastures' (used loosely) new; by calling on Qatar to develop the means to host a World Cup, they then have more stadiums and footballing communities to generate FIFA money. No man in his right mind would think Qatar is hospitable enough for the realities of hosting a world cup:

"Last year in Qatar at least 11 foreign nationals were convicted of blasphemy, three of whom received maximum seven-year prison sentences for using words considered insulting to Islam and at least 18 people, mostly foreign nationals, were sentenced to flogging of between 40 and 100 lashes for offences related to illicit sexual relations or alcohol consumption"

How the fuck did they get the world cup...

Blatter (what the fuck have the Swiss ever done in football?!) and the rest of them know that England's only chance of winning the World Cup again is when it's on our turf :p

HOLLOWAY FOR FIFA PRESIDENT.

yeah that's a good point wrt the laws in qatar. tens of thousands of beer swilling football supporters in a dry country for starters, there's going to be hell on. and no way on earth would i ever risk going to russia, a mafia driven country where you would not be safe. i've heard many bad stories from contractors who've been working over there and it's put me off ever going.

i can understand giving it to the odd country now and again for reasons of developing the sport but now that just seems like a lame excuse for raking in more money.

add that to my utter dislike of our own FA and i'm quickly going off football completely.

netball. that's where it's at.

and +1 in the ian holloway nomination! :thumb:

Ian Holloway is the greatest football manager of all time, behind Sir Bobby of course ;)

World cup bid was ridiculuos, Russia have only one stadium that meats the requirements atm, and only know that Quatar is in the middle east (call me ignorant) and nothing else about it.

BBC, The Times, and them fucking stupid Birmingham fans didnt help either.

EDIT: guitarbaz - You should make Airsoft your number 1 sport. You get to run around all day with a roided up bb gun shooting foo's!

tbh i really don't think that the riot between villa and brum fans made any difference whatsoever. as much as i would like to think that the FIFA delegates actually looked that deeply in making their decisions I fear it was made on completly non-footballing reasons. it was a total and utter farce based on briberly, bias and bullying.

would have loved to see it go to australia too, that would have been a fantastic venue.

Agreed, it clearly wasn't based on footballing decisions. It's politics and I'm sick of it.

Ice Hockey is, and always has been, the greatest sport on Earth. And I'm English!
1. One of the most demanding sports, imo. Speed, skill, strength, everything. And there's 82 games a season for a start! And that's before you've made the play-offs.
2. No pussies diving around.
3. If you're passed the blue line before the puck crosses it, you're offside. Simple. They have delayed offside but it is rarely applicable and even so, it'll never work in football whereas it actually works in hockey:
"A situation where an attacking player (or players) has preceded the puck across the attacking blue line, but the defending team is in a position to bring the puck back out of its defending zone without any delay or contact with an attacking player, or, the attacking players are in the process of clearing the attacking zone."
4. Replay technology! One huge place in Toronto where all the NHL games are streamed, if there's a goal-line decision or something similar that the ref can't call, he just skates over to the box, calls Toronto, they say yay or nay, he skates to the middle of the rink and calls it; takes around 20 seconds tops.
5. The officials are incredible, the only mistakes they ever seem to make are penalty calls. Yeah, these affect the game, but they're comparable to giving a throw-in the wrong way. No dodgy offsides ruining games or fucked-up goal line mishaps.

yeah now ice hockey is a proper man's game, along with rugbies of both codes. i've always been a union fan as i played it for many years til it started hurting too much! i do like watching league as well tho.

footie needs a good fucking over imho. video refs are a must and elected FA bigwigs for starters, no more "job's for the boys".

One of the most enraging/laughable things I've heard in football over the last 12 months was Blatter saying video technology would be "too expensive" to implement into the sport.

Erm.

How much money is in football?
You could dock 1% of every players wage in the English football leagues and I'm pretty sure that would cover the cost of technology. Twat.

Completely unsurprising that all the football fans don't even know where Qatar is.

[QUOTE=Squirrel;18297402]Completely unsurprising that all the football fans don't even know where Qatar is.[/QUOTE]


all?

Being a football fan has been scientifically proven to actually be a form of retardation.

How does being a casual observer of my local team affect my mental health?


Also, sup lod?

[QUOTE=Squirrel;18297420]Being a football fan has been scientifically proven to actually be a form of retardation.[/QUOTE]


Ah yes, I do believe that particular scientific study was actually carried out in s*nderland. However, the results were confused by the fact that most of the population are afflicted to a certain degree anyway.

afternoon SBT.

[QUOTE=Sad But True;18297422]
Also, sup lod?[/QUOTE]

Sup, fuckface?

Sorry, just enjoying the novelty still.

lol @ football fans being retards.
I personally think it's the most beautiful sport on the face of Earth, but that's just me.
We're in finals here in Mexico, the last game will be on Sunday, you should get spic channels and watch it.

As a genuine question, can you explain how/why you use the word beautiful, or at least what prompts you to think of football on such a high level?

[QUOTE]How does being a casual observer of my local team affect my mental health?[/QUOTE]

It doesn't. Those with mental retardation i.e. no ability to use logic/reasoning/complex thought processes, affiliate most readily with football. The fact that you got the point the wrong way round highlights the correctness of my statement.

Now, me and motogrifo are going to discuss this, you are welcome to watch.

[QUOTE=Squirrel;18297402]Completely unsurprising that all the football fans don't even know where Qatar is.[/QUOTE]

Didnt take geography at school. Never really had an interest in it. Most of my time as a kid at school was spent on the sciences and english literature.
Im pretty crap with most countries in the middle/far east.


Although i do know that Switzerland is next door to Iran. :smash:

[QUOTE=benfan;18297478]Although i do know that Switzerland is next door to Iran. :smash:[/QUOTE]

:lol:

[QUOTE=benfan;18297478]

Although i do know that Switzerland is next door to Iran. :smash:[/QUOTE]

Switzerland and Qatar are part of the Bahamas dumbass ;)

Afternoon all. I'm seriously missing the internet at my new house. I have to procrastinate with things like books and, gods forbid,[I] studying[/I].

I always thought Qatar was just off the M25 near Guildford.

Shit, I thought it was the name of Cat Steven's/Yusuf Islam's guitar :p

qatar has a giant clam id like to see!

bit weird they got it but it will be fine, its 12 years away for that and 8 for russia, check out some of the stadiums qatar are drafting up some of them look awsome

id like to visit russia also

anyways fifa has been corrupt and gay for years we all know this

The only difference the world cup being in England would make would be that we'd lose on home turf.

Football is a terrible, terrible thing.

Anywho... better than hearing OMG STUDENT PROTESTERS all over the 'lod. I was going into uni and saw a bit of the protests. Can't say I'm arsed - of course it's sorta crap that students are getting charged more and all that but one thing I will definitely not do is discredit myself by being involved in a big shouting disorganised shamble.

Besides, I actually had work to do that day, apparently unlike the protesters... maybe they should be charged more for doing noddy courses :P

getting charged more here too

there was 1 protest and that was that handy andy as expected went nowhere

I think we should give them what they want; keep the fees the same but cut hte amount of places. They can't have it both ways.

Agreed! It should be harder to get into uni, i.e. they should raise the bar.
That way you'd acceptance would be based on your intelligence, not the contents of your wallet.