FIFA: An Organization Out of Control

Courtesy of FIFA

With the recent presidential vote victory of incumbent Sepp Blatter amongst indictments and arrests of several high-ranking officials within the organization FIFA proved itself to be the worst sporting organization in the world.  Many people would compare FIFA to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and though bribery and unfair practices have been part and parcel with the IOC for years, nothing to the magnitude of what has happened recently within the ranks of FIFA.

Today brought a new bombshell: Sepp Blatter (just four days after "fighting" his way to a presidential victory) has announced he is stepping down as president; walking away from what would have been his fifth term as the world's Football organizational leader.

This is great and terrible news.

Sepp Blatter

I'll start with the great.  This is a huge win, mostly due to the FBI oddly enough (considering this countries striking indifference to the sport but our government agencies due love to investigate stuff) because it means that a man who has been at the center of significant controversy including but not limited to the three most recent World Cup announcements (Brazil, Russa, Qatar) will no longer be in control or part of these decisions going forward.

FIFA as an organization is meant to help regulate and oversee the game of Football throughout the world; to inspire and grow the sport for the betterment of the sport.  If any of you are MLS fans, you have FIFA to thank for that.  During the bid process for the 1994 World Cup (the last to be held in the US; a country with the third largest population in the world) a requirement was put in that the US had to create a sustainable Soccer league; and in the 20+ years that followed there have certainly been some ups and downs but recent years have shown expansion and growth in the sport.  Sure we get great players way past their prime (Beckam, Kaka) but some of our own homegrown players are choosing to play here rather than abroad to help foster the sport here.

Courtesy of Major League Soccer

Now the terrible; at this time there is no plans to eliminate and replace all members of the governing body's congress (made up of representatives from the included nations).  These are the same people whom just four days ago elected a man who; within the next few years if he doesn't completely disappear off the face of the earth, will be in US Government custody being brought up on any number of major criminal charges.  These people, who felt that a man whom was so obviously corrupt was their best option as a leader will be selecting the next president.

Anyone else immediately seeing a HUGE problem with this?

Now I realize that not everyone within FIFA is corrupt and it may seem unfair to summarily eliminate every member but it seems like the right decision.  At least eliminate everyone who voted for Blatter in the last election.  That would be a start.

In the end FIFA is one of those things that CAN cause trouble, and does, but outside the World Cup events they are mostly seen and not heard.  Each region has it's own governing body and major leagues oversee their own rules.  Europe - clearly the most powerful region of football organizations, is mostly controlled by EUFA (those people who run that Champions League everyone loves to watch - June 6th final...ahem) where the US is part of CONCACAF (don't even ask, it's insane).

My hope is that this new age without Blatter running things will create an opportunity for those FIFA agents in charge to right the ship and display a greater level of transparency in regards to selection processes and how funds are managed.  Perhaps the new people in charge will even manage to limit the insane amount of power FIFA tends to exert over World Cup host nations...though I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

I realize this is not what this blog is usually about, but as a HUGE Football fan this was something I was compelled to write about.  I promise to return to my normal nerd talk in the near future.

For now; go watch some Football (soccer to my Yank readers) and enjoy the beauty of the game.

Tb

Friday's are for music and dancing!

Good Morning my faithful readers! Also a happy morning to you whom are new to the game. I hope you enjoy your first experience. I had intended to start off with a bang today but…it was more like a whimper. I had to go into work, on my day off, for two hours and deal with some stuff. Now I know what you’re thinking…boohoo two hours, shuddup! But it takes me away from the precious time I try and spend dedicated to my writing every week. Fridays are like…mecca. Yes, I realize how blasphemous that is and no I don’t really care.

But I feel like I can make a strong comeback and it all starts here. So since no one commented on my previous blog about Baseball I feel confident that all of you are in 100% agreement and that baseball should have a shorter schedule and thus should implement my scheme in order to do so. But also to that end, I will probably not post anything specific about sports again for a little while, instead I feel compelled to talk about music and writing again…much more in line with the interests of my readership I believe.

So on the music front I have to tell you that a) the new Jimmy Eat World is pretty damn fabtastic, seriously. If you have EVER liked ANY Jimmy Eat World songs/albums there’s something for you here. They have really grown up and gotten to a point where they can utilize all of their talents and make a complete album. That’s not at all to imply that their earlier works weren’t really good, but this one brings everything together. I highly recommend checking it out. On another note b) Bad Religion put out a new album which was…a typical BR album. So if you enjoy their work and just want more of it, take a listen, but if you were hoping for something new and exciting to get jazzed about, I’d say stay away and instead dive back into their classics or just pull up All Ages and enjoy all their best early works. I’ve been getting back into some music I haven’t spent much time listening to in the last year as of late, specifically Face to Face and The Format…truly diverse musical styles to be sure but both equally awesome. Combined they manage to bookend my current obsession of The Lillingtons and Stephen Egerton quite well. If you don’t know any of these bands, feel free to comment and I’d be happy to make album/song recommendations for you.

Now, on to writing. I finished the first draft of the new script I’m working on by the deadline I had set for myself. I had and my lady friend review it to make notes and see if there were any weaknesses or gaping holes in the plot. Luckily for me there were neither. They both had several good notes about pacing and some of the plot points I touched on. But overall for a first draft it was a pretty solid script. I mostly attribute that to knowing the characters involved pretty well and the fact that I seem to have hit my stride as a writer and I can pull together a story from idea inception to written outline and script with a strength and conviction I hadn’t had previously. This could have come from the confidence of having my first published work come out or it could come from the fact that I have been honing my craft for the better part of two years (the time I have been really seriously trying to write comics) and all my innate skills are coming together…yes I realize how that sounds, no I don’t care. Hah.

On a more personal note my birthday is coming up…gifts are unnecessary, your readership is present enough…and the plan is to spend my birthday Friday December 3^rd the following day in downtown Chicago with my girl. She’s booked a suite at some schmancy hotel and we’re going to be hitting up museums and having a wonderful dinner together. I’m super excited and honestly can’t wait. There is another trip we are planning but until that’s finalized I’ll just leave it at…it’ll be a long plane ride.

Band of Horses – No One’s Gonna Love You just came on my iTunes…man I love this song. His voice is amazing. Often times it is the singer’s voice more than the music or the lyrics that can turn me on to a band and with Band of Horses it’s a really great combination of all three, much like At the Drive In/Mars Volta (basically the same band).

Well, that’ll about do it for me. I hope you all have a great day!