The World Cup is fixed.
But in the outrage from the illegal handball seen 'round the world (but not by the referees) Wednesday by France's superstar Thierry Henry, which earned the French team a plane ride to South Africa over Ireland for next summer's global soccer scrum, the small fact about the manner in which world soccer's governing body has arranged its grand quadrennial championship has been overlooked.
That is understandable given the implications of the missed call for as blatant a touching of the ball with a hand -- the ultimate no-no in futbol -- that has been witnessed in a major soccer match in sometime. Thierry, who all of us on this side of the pond know from his Gillette commercials with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer, not only touched the ball once with his hand, but twice.
He appeared to guide the ball to his foot. He then passed the ball to teammate Williams Gallas, who booted the winning goal. It was overtime. The game was done and the luck of the Irish was exposed as several on Ireland's side looked to scream at the ref, "Handball!"
As Europe's continental pastime, soccer is even more Neanderthal than our one-time national pastime, baseball. Indeed, it has continued to scoff at the notion of employing video technology to right outrageous wrongs like Thierry's, or even minor ones.
When Italy's national television network developed a replay system as the host broadcasting company for the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy, FIFA, the game's global governing body, summarily dismissed it.What is so wrong about getting it right?
"If a camera sees a situation differently, or sees a foul the referee did not see, the game has to go on," said Hermann Neuberger, then-chairman of FIFA's organizing committee, in the New York Times. "We cannot heat up the atmosphere against the referee and destroy the match."
Ironically, soccer has done exactly that by allowing the world to see an error of grave sporting consequence that the game won't allow to be corrected. The France-Ireland referee is being pilloried everywhere and the games is being called a sham.
But the dirty little secret in the Thierry thievery is that the World Cup is sort of like the BCS. It's a cartel run by the traditional powers of Europe, powers that favor each other and frown on wannabes.
FIFA won't even replay the game, as it has done before, because replay isn't allowed for – no matter how counter-intuitive this sounds – an error a referee failed to spot. When soccer allowed Uzbekistan and Bahrain to re-do a World Cup qualifying match in 2006 it was because a referee misapplied rules on a score he witnessed.
But the dirty little secret in the Thierry thievery is that the World Cup is sort of like the BCS. It's a cartel run by the traditional powers of Europe, powers that favor each other and frown on wannabes.
France is one of the traditional powers, or "old Europe," as deposed Bush defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld infamously said. So is Germany. So is England. So is Spain.
Not Ireland, once one of Europe's poorest countries and oppressed.
The governing body that can't change its rules on the fly to video review Thierry's goal, and disallow it, did change its World Cup draw rules on the fly to the benefit of European pedigree and the disadvantage of European peonage. At the end of September, FIFA announced there would not be an "open draw" between the eight nations that made it through to November to what it calls two-legged knockout ties, which is what France just topped Ireland in. That meant there was no chance top-rated teams like Germany and France would meet with a chance of eliminating one or the other. Instead, they were seeded.
It wasn't the first time FIFA acted so imperialistically. It did so in 2005 when it seeded the highest-ranked teams and left Spain to play Slovakia, which was the weakest of six teams in a playoff.
Ireland was one of the weakest teams in this playoff for the World Cup, a tournament it made last in 2002 and only twice in history before that.
Ireland wasn't like France. It hadn't won the World Cup before. It wasn't stacked with international superstars like Thierry with roots in an old French colony. It wasn't some pretty thing that would attract eyes and travelers to Johannesburg, where FIFA remains concerned its centerpiece event could be marred by disinterest on its maiden voyage to the African continent.
The Boys in Green, which is what Ireland's team is nicknamed, knew as much.
"I think it's pretty disgusting, to be honest," Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given told ESPN.com early last month of FIFA's decision to seed. "Before a ball is kicked, these things should be made clear. Now they change it because some of the big nations are struggling."He was referring then to Germany and Portugal as well France, all of which were in danger of being left behind while the rest of the world played soccer in South Africa. Only Germany wound up securing an automatic qualification while France and Portugal were left to a playoff. But the thought to FIFA of Portugal and France knocking out one or the other was like Florida, Alabama and Texas going at each other only to leave a title game featuring some less-revered team like TCU. So FIFA changed the rules.
"It's beyond belief, if you ask me," Given continued. "It's pretty disgusting because we are a smaller nation, and for them to move the goalposts a few weeks before the end of the campaign is pretty poor. The smaller nations should maybe put up more of a fight because it is not fair."
What it meant was that Ireland was left to put up its fight on the pitch against France, where for most of Wednesday it outplayed Les Bleus before getting tripped up by what should have been a goal waved off.
Irish eyes are crying for Ireland. Much of the rest of the world's eyes are bloodshot with anger that France was awarded a World Cup berth on such an obvious mistake.
But this was what FIFA wanted all along. It doesn't like underdogs with no-names anymore than the folks who run the BCS do.
Comments (Page 1 of 2)
I don't see what is wrong with getting the call right. It is only common sense to me. Use whatever tools are available within reason.
http://clinirect.com
I agree that there is nothing wrong about correcting a right but Blackistone obviously doesn't remember the 2002 WC. Conspiracy theories. Had they corrected those wrongs it would dispell his theory.
WHO--WHAT --WHO CARES
Fifa has always been like that. Didn't they pick the poorest referees in 2002 to get South Korea past Spain and to the semis? Don't we all remember the 2(!) disallowed goals that were completely valid by Spain waved off by the corrupt or poor ref? And UEFA head is French. enough said.
and no replay it seems.
good piece. fifa is ridiculous--they need to take a look at improving the officiating in some way. note, however, that the goal was scored on a header, not 'booted in'.
Much ado about nothing.
fifa is like the WWF. It looks good, but its fixed.
As long as there are sporting contests, there will always be the possibility of "blatant and obvious" officating errors. Video review has only come about because of the millions of dollars at stake, not necessarily to preserve the integrity of the game or to "get the call right".
It was a missed call. (And haven't we seen our share of them in the professional and major college ranks in the US?) But, the match cannot be replayed because this was an error in judgement, not a misapplication of a rule. More than likely, this referee is not going to see any more high-level matches and could possibly lose his FIFA badge.
Yes, soccer has had its problems of match fixing, but was this really the case? Does any official worthy of the profession want to make wrong calls?
How ironic that humans are calling for the removal of human error.
As France being the favorites against Ireland, I wonder how much money betting agencies would lose (and perhaps FIFA' s arms are long into these Euros)if a rematch was ordered?
It is unfair to allow a game result to stand based upon the means used to achieve it. Alas, FIFA shows their hypocrisy by redefining what's fair to meet its (really 'their') own needs.
There is a simple and obvious solution to poor officiating of soccer games. We have 2 refs on a basket ball court and it is only 1/4 or less than a soccer pitch. No soccer ref is in good enough condition to cover the entire field for 1.5 hour and to be close enough to see and make every call corectly. We need 2 refrees, to cover each half of the field, and they swap sides after half time.
I'm getting all Thierry-eyed at Blackistone invoking the "oppressed" of Ireland. It's a demogogic ploy called "racism by analogy," it's Blackistones stock in trade, and there's a chapter on it in Richard Thompson Ford's book, "The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse."
Not surprisingly, Kevin has managed to twist the facts completely around about what Rumseld said. Rumseld called Germany and France by the pejorative term "Old Europe," specifically because they refused to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The government of England under Prime Minister SUPPORTED the war, despite mass protests, and sent. Spain, too, initially supported the Iraq War, so they;'re not what he meant by Old Europe, at least until the Madrid terrorist bombing, after which their election became a referendum on the war.
Ireland is constitutionally neutral, but the Irish Prime Minister allowed the US military to use its airports enroute to Iraq.
And baseball is not "neanderthal" because it's slow to adopt the instant replay. The word you're looking for is luddite or neo-luddite: "One who opposes technical or technological change."
You're an idiot.
I meant Prime Minister Tony Blair, despite mass protests, sent troops to Iraq.
Bad day at BlackRock.
This is no different than what goes on in the NFL now days. There is NO WAY the Giants were better than the Pats tow years ago. No WAY. That Super Bowl was all part of the Pats punishment for getting caught in that practice filming deal. A Plea Bargain that carried right on over to Brady having to fake his injury for so long last year. arranged so as to not have suspend their coach.
I know you like to call your sport football, even though it's not played with feet. But maybe there are other forums to go complain about losing your whatever to 0 record that Giant took from you. Patriots are cheaters. But the French are even more. France is a beautiful country. But can't say the same about the attitude of its people.
"FIFA" - How can you take seriously a sport with a governing body with the name of an old lady's poodle?
I love the NFL but be fair people. Soccer is the biggest sport on the planet. Not NFL, not baseball, not boxing. None of that. Get over yourself people. There is a world behind America. You can talk down on soccer fans but the truth remains. Soccer is bigger than anything we have in the states.
Boring! Watching soccer., AKA futbol, is about as interesting as watching grass grow. They intentionally create controversy so that people who watch this boring sport have something to talk about! Soccer needs more so-called "African-Americans" with their shiny gold teeth, tattoos, and attitudes to make this interesting!
good article