By James Dostoyevsky
Sometimes, when you set out to debone a Branzino, it fools you and turns out to be a Fugu in disguise.
That’s a bit like a football administrator who turns out to be a narcissistic megalomaniac, completely mistaking himself for a global statesman, when he’s no more than a mediocre village idiot.
Sepp Blatter, the decorated former President of FIFA, who has more honorary degrees, noble titles and other high awards than almost anyone else who springs to mind, has published yet another ‘book’.
The 48th UEFA Congress in Paris on February 8 turned truly interesting after it was over.
By James Dostoyevsky
As if football didn’t have other problems – between a Turkish club president assaulting a referee on the pitch and VAR turning into the most hated new tech distorting football results – a novel and stupefying proclamation emanated from Vlad the Impaler’s homeland, Romania this week.
There is a pretty good response given to a US oligarch (they prefer to call them billionaires, over there) in the series “BILLIONS”, when he wanted to buy an NFL franchise. “When you are allowed into the circle of NFL Franchise Owners, it means you are royalty. You are not”. Short shrift and all, it was a wake-up call for the US tycoon who thought that money can buy it all.
Sometimes, it looks like he can’t do anything right, doesn’t it? He blabbers about football solving the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, he lectures about his being gay today, his being a migrant worker yesterday, and quite generally to be utterly misunderstood – every day.
Will anything change? Ever? Has FIFA cleaned its Augean Stables of US/Latino making? Corruption, bribery, kick-backs, nepotism, favoritism – have they all disappeared, are they gone with the wind? The wind of (US-controlled) change?
“Quo vadis FIFA?”, one might ask, eight years later.
With the Qatar 2022 World Cup gone, with Pelé having succumbed to colon cancer (“every country should now have a Pelé stadium”, GI Joe said), with Argentina having won the Cup, with (North) African football having put its foot down, with Asian football proving what Salman’s predecessor said was right when he claimed that the future was Asia…
July 13 – When Evangelos Marinakis took over Nottingham Forest five years ago, the fans were dancing sirtaki in the streets. Central England’s Midlands town, Nottingham, is stooped in history (and not only because of its role in the Robin Hood legend), just as is its biggest club, Nottingham Forest FC.
By James Dostoyevsky
While FIFA offered up some lukewarm criticism of its best friend at the Kremlin – without naming the blatantly obvious, namely the criminal attack of Ukraine – its own Gianni, The Leader – proud recipient of the Putensian Russian Order of Friendship in May 2019 – seems to have some issues with reality. And with understanding criminal conduct.
By James Dostoyevsky
When you leaf through the Regulations of FIFA, all sorts of useful titbits come to light. The global governing body of football claims this in its Code of Conduct: “FIFA bears a special responsibility to safeguard the integrity and reputation of football worldwide.” The FIFA Code of Conduct also claims that it ‘defines the most important core values for behaviour and conduct within FIFA as well as with external parties’.
Of the three personality disorders frequently observed in psychology and psychotherapy, there is one that appears to apply to certain types of people often found in leadership positions (such as Trump, Johnson, and you guessed it: Infantino). The ones I am referring to here, are “Cluster B Personality Disorders”.
So FIFA’s brilliance has created yet another money-making scheme – after the quietly supported Super League ended in a fiasco and the Saudi-sponsored complete makeover of FIFA a year or so ago didn’t find any takers either.
