fifa
 

I do slightly wonder whether UK/USA are pontificating here from a high moral ground that may not Be deserved , when did USA ever do anything anyway .

It is a little bit like old v new world . I heard someone in authority mention , how can Africa have a say in anything " hardly anybody plays the game" , I thought WHAT ! Its more popular than anywhere in the world !

And guess what , Africa doesn't need the west anymore for anything.

Corruption in any sport , and I hope the culprits get time , but from a sporting standpoint we're not talking lance Armstrong here. ( which I was also wrong about)

As for starting our own world cup,........lol

Better the US bring the corrupt b**stards to justice than nobody do it at all, I say. As for their credentials to have a say in the matter, they've qualified for the last five successive world cups, which is plenty enough.

The problem with the whole FIFA / Blatter thing is that we see it from a very Euro centric POV

Historically The Europe/South America axis had all the power / money

But increasingly football was a true world game - with fanatical support / participation in Arica and Asia (Africa especially)

blatter's genius was to play to that wider constituancy - and he has done a good job at widening the scope of FIFA to include Africa/Asia

Whether we in Europe like it or not he is popular there

Blatter has basically thrown money at Africa and Asia, and bought their support.

Blatter/Ecclestone- both are corrupt wankers,

yes in a nutshell

but maybe also a failure of the Old Guard (UEFA etc) to realise this,

just wiki the list of host countries for the World Cup before Blatter was appointed, in 1998 (it was exclusively Europe and the Americas)

we left Blatter an open goal

That may be so, but F1 is a far better and healthier sport now than it was before Bernie. The same cannot be said of Blatter and the sport of the terminally stupid!

Depends how you measure 'better'.

And he hand-balled it in, Maradona style.

yes, and interesting F1 is also caught up in the Old world versus New world

Bernie instance on taking F1 global has upset some people - I saw an article that highlighted Damon Hill's concern about the Grand Prix season forgoing the old classic tracks like Monza, Spa etc for new tracks in Dubai / Macau

It's not even old world versus new world though is it, it's purely going where the money is, versus a saturated market at home. There is no motor sport heritage in these places, they are just used to paying to get what they want, be that skyscrapers, world cups, f1 races. There is little desire for most to want to race there, but it pays the bills and makes the dictators look nice.

Quite how that equates to 'better' I'm not sure.

Well the 'brand' is much bigger. The appeal is much more global. The sport as an industry is worth a heck of a lot more money. Above all though he and Mosley along with veteran campaigners like Jackie Stewart have made the sport immeasurably safer while raising its profile to hitherto uncharted levels.

Yes people complain about the racing form time to time, but that has always been the case. I laughed at a comment on here the other day when someone said they wished it was like it was in the late 90s/early 2000s..... a time when people did nothing but complain about the racing and wished it was like the 80s... and so on!

As for races taking place in parts of the world with no motorsport heritage I agree that sometimes it does not work, but for others it does. I personally hate the Singapore race, but its immensely popular and always sold out!

Better he says :lol1::lol1::lol1:

I'm not convinced Ecclestone's absence would have changed the evolution of F1 safety to be honest, but I'm open to being educated on that.

As for the rest, all true but at what cost? We can barely get 10 teams on the grid, and how many of them have healthy finances? The bias towards manufacturers over customers is making the whole sport less about racing and more about being a vanity project, for teams and for corrupt nations, and pricing out the actual proper racing teams. This is not where we were pre-Bernie.

yes a good point, with Football the "money" is all in Europe - but presumably difficult to divert it into the pockets of FIFA exectutives

If you're genuinely interested read some books like The Piranha Club and you will glean that Ecclestone's commercial acumen was such that he knew the sport could not move forward with drivers dying on the track week in week out. Mosley and Stewart (among others) drove the safety campaign forward from the frontline, but it was Ecclestone who instigated the reason for the changes.

Your second paragraph is not really down to Ecclestone alone. It's the usual tale of money. For Mercedes read Chelsea in the Premier League, for Ferrari read Manchester United... etc. The same way there are only 4 truly top clubs in English football there are only 4 truly top teams in F1 (and that could soon become 3).

When footballers were paid a normal wage and it was two bob to get through the turnstiles was football better or worse.... it's not a question with a definitive answer is it? It depends on your perspective.

For me with football the jury is out, with F1 just the fact that we haven't had a driver killed in a race since 1994 is enough for me to label it better!

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/201...ese-grand-prix

Sadly he's not doing so well, yeah, technically he's alive, but ........

What's your point?

Are you going to try and argue that F1 is not safer than it was in the 50s, 60s and 70s? Actually knowing you you probably will :Whatever_

Nope, of course its safer, but do you really think it that was down to the poison dwarf

In part, definitely! It's not thinking it, it's fact!

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...ion-probe-live

We're coming to get ya!

Never mind see above :)

Well, now we're getting somewhere
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/32998735

Old Jack's sweating big time , even if its 86 degrees and 100% humidity

(probably)

With over 460 views on this thread, it surpasses the number of people who went to see the Fifa movie. :lol1:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-33050289