Consider this:
In the summer of 2009 South Africa staged the Confederations Cup as a sort of dry run for the main event of the World Cup this year. FIFA was inundated with complaints from viewers and TV companies around the world who had viewed the coverage and switched off because they couldn't bear the sound of the plastic trumpets being blasted in the stadia. One of the world's top midfielders, Spain's Xabi Alonso, called for them to be banned. He rightly claimed that the players couldn't hear each other and that they destroyed any semblence of an atmosphere. FIFA roundly ignored him and all other calls to ban them:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog ... p-vuvuzela
The result? Millions of people worldwide switching off, up in arms about their beloved tournament being destroyed by the infernal, infuriating hum of a bunch of fucking morons in South Africa. The ebb and flow of crowd involvement, the "oohs" and "aahs", the roars of encouragement, of hope, of despair and outrage have been completely absent from this tournament. Apart from England's games, I switched off after a couple of matches and I've watched silent two minutes highlights on the net instead. I can't believe I've just written that sentence. About The World Cup. An event I normally pine for the moment it ends...
The World Cup has been whored to death. FIFA creams in money from television companies, corporate affiliates, recognised sponsors, ticket sales ... so we get to see rows of empty seats at precious World Cup matches because major companies haven't taken up their full ticket allocations; we hear about corporate affiliates flogging their tickets at exorbitant prices, and poor South Africans have been unable to afford tickets (even though FIFA was forced to reduce the price of some tickets from $139 to $20 in February 2010 just to try and fill the stadia - 85% of tickets cost an average of $139). Isn't it great to know that millions of poor South African kids, full of dreams and excitement about football, who live for nothing else but the joy of the game, are priced out of the greatest show of their lives while someone like Leonardo Di Caprio can saunter in and somehow get a ticket for the showpiece Germany v Argentina game and then say the following:
Or what about the thousands of fans who missed the Semi Final between Spain and Germany, the biggest match of their lives, because their planes couldn't get clearance to disembark at Durban Airport because private jets ferrying about cunts like Di Caprio and Paris Hilton (what the fuck is that cretin doing with a world cup semi final ticket in a million years?) had blocked the landing slots. It's all wrong. The World Cup should be an event open to the poorest of the poor, as it is a sport played by the poorest of the poor."The truth of the matter is I went to the World Cup for my godson to show him around.
"But I've only been a football fan for two weeks now. The LA Lakers won the basketball, and that's the team that I really support back home!"
As for their over the top heavy-handedness regarding the funny ambush marketing by Bavaria beer (the cock of Budweiser and the other corporate big guys is deep in FIFA's ass), the preening of the likes of Sepp Blatter, and the instant dimissal of any discussion regarding goal line technology after the embarrassing travesty of Frank Lapmpard's disallowed goal, the less said the better.
And this...disgusting...
FIFA World Cup™
That corporate little "TM". Assholes. It's the World Cup and it belongs to the people of the world, not them. They're as bad as that other stinking shower of shit, the IOC.
FIFA should just fuck off. It would only take about twenty of the world's top nations to stop recognising it as football's governing body for the rest to follow suit and form a non-profit breakaway organisation - imagine World Cups held in exotic countries with little infrastructure but the sheer joy and goodwill of the locals on hand - playing a football tournament just for fun, just to see who can be world champions, without McDonalds, Coke and all the other pricks hovering in the background. But, of course that's never going to happen because every suit in every fucking FA around the world just loves the luxury of the FIFA junket.
I want the World Cup back.
