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Bloke didn’t make it into work this morning
last seen watching the World Cup drawCharles Darwin to conquer the World
The spectacle of Trump and the Peace Prize; it’s like giving a toddler a shiny toy. Kinda sums up FIFA
The draw itself wasn’t that bad. Even the sequence where some schoolchildren explained how it all worked to Rio Ferdinand was OK.
It was a good move to get a star from each of the four big North American sports to do the draw. Wayne Gretzky was quite amusing during his section.
Unfortunately there was too much stuff that was unnecessary and dragged it out. What did Lauryn Hill bring to it, for example?
President Trump inevitably had to make part of it about him but at least he kept his speech fairly short. I was worried he might go on and on after winning an award..
I don’t mean to sound like a Daily Telegraph columnist but when the World Cup was held in the Middle East, visitors were told to make sure they respect local values and customs. That’s a two way street, feel free to boycott the tournament if that’s a problem.
This only serves to highlight the muddled thinking amongst modern day liberals.
On the one hand, they want to actively promote LGBT rights. On the other hand, they want to promote multiculturalism – but seem surprised when some of those cultures don’t share their enthusiasm for gay and trans people. Do they honestly believe the imam in their local mosque is preaching the gospel of LGBT to his congregation?
As someone summed it up in “The Spectator” today:
“You can’t think of everything and Fifa overlooked the possibility of two Islamic countries playing in one of America’s most liberal cities on a date of great significance to the gay community. It has now been placed in an impossible position. It can either reject the Egyptian demand and be accused of not respecting the ‘beliefs and identities’ of all competing nations or cancel the Pride match and risk enraging the progressive elements of Seattle and beyond.”
Commentators who have been denounced for highlighting the inherent contradictions of multiculturalism are entitled to say “I told you so.”
You can’t think of everything and Fifa overlooked the possibility of two Islamic countries playing in one of America’s most liberal cities on a date of great significance to the gay community.
It doesn’t sound like this was a FIFA initiative. They don’t appear to have responded to requests for comment. As I understand it, the plans were made by the local organisers and they were in place long before anyone had a clue who would be playing the match.
I think there will be something of a Streisand effect here. FIFA can probably have a say about what happens and what is displayed inside the stadium but there’s not a thing they can do about the wider city and I get the impression that it’s a place that will go into overdrive on the matter now. Had the match been Germany v Norway, I doubt we’d have heard a thing about it.
“Had the match been Germany v Norway, I doubt we’d have heard a thing about it.”
For sure. The issue is two Islamic countries (one particularly fundamentalist and hardline) being in the city on the same day as the Pride event. Although their officials seemed to endure The Village People singing “YMCA” at the end of the draw ceremony. Maybe they walked out?
I was going to suggest the simplest solution would appear to be moving the match to a different venue – but then I suspect the usual activists would organise another event in the new city, just to make a point.
As one commenter on the “Daily Sceptic” site put it yesterday: “Radical, intolerant Islam meets radical, intolerant liberalism.
Much more interesting than a football match between Iran and Egypt. I’ve got my pop-corn ready.”The simplest solution is to play the match as planned and if anyone feels so strongly about the Pride event that they don’t wish to turn up then that’s their decision. Far worse things could, in theory at least, have happened to homosexual fans if they attended matches in Qatar and 2034 hosts Saudi Arabia are more hardline. Either everybody makes allowances for the different sensitivities of visitors or nobody does, seems the only fair way to me.
I suspect that in reality this will all blow over and go off without a hitch.
“I suspect that in reality this will all blow over and go off without a hitch.”
More than likely.
Over 3 grand for the cheapest ticket in the final. The 3 England group games will set you back over £500 for the cheapest tickets. Fans should boycott this shitshow and make this the worst WC in history.
The same thing happened at the Ryder Cup back in September. Ticket prices were extortionate. As were the prices for merchandise, food and drink etc. I believe a pint (or whatever unit of measurement is used in America) of even more watered down than usual Budweiser cost something like $20!
I expect that a lot of the actual fans of teams who do attend (there will no doubt be a lot of corporate tickets used by people there for the day out) will be ones who are living there already. Add travel, hotels etc, much of which will also be inflated, and it’s a hell of a lot of money to spend on a football match.
Despite all the doom and gloom, we remain one of the wealthiest countries worldwide and even we baulk at the cost of it all.
Another unsatisfactory aspect to this World Cup (as if another one was needed) is plenty of games will be kicking off after midnight our time, some as late as 5am.
England’s start times look OK but I think Scotland has at least one match starting at 2am.
Money talks of course but it shows up the folly of having most of the tournament played in a country with four time zones, where the weather can be unbearably hot and which is between five and eight hours behind the part of the world where most of the main teams are located.
CAS had a look at some of the early matches on UK times, I see Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Uzbekistan are among them. The one 5am I think is mad, is the Austria V Jordan match, so would be terrible timing for those folks.
Mind you, 2002 I think England had some silly times in Japan. But then again, Ive been lucky or unlucky to be overseas during the Brazil WC and in USA when it was Germany. One defiantly looses interest due to being able to see live matches or trying to find a place to watch a game with a beer.As for prices, I doubt there will be many sell outs, probably force the fans to sit opposite the main cameras in the stadia to make it look full. I believe La Liga employed this tactic 10 or 15 years ago for sponsorship reasons.
If President Trump is still threatening to seize Greenland, it will be a difficult situation if Denmark qualifies..
Another nation which is due to participate is Iran. Given that its regime is currently murdering thousands of its own people, I assume FIFA will be taking steps to ban it from the competition?
Given how vocal they usually are about the Middle East, I haven’t heard the usual suspects on the British Left having anything to say about the situation either.
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