Football - a truly ugly game!

The angst in the English press and media this morning over the failed attempt to host the football world cup in 2018 is truly something to behold. .

Football has become such a money besmirched horror story controlled by a discredited and corrupt FIFA. Panorama, The Sunday Times and Lord Triesmann have all been proved right, although the issue of their timing has infuriated many people.

Our press are intrusive, but I would far rather have an investigative and intrusive press revealing corruption and criminal practices, than live in a country where journalists are murdered for writing the truth! Or a country which bans alcohol and Christianity yet expects football supporters to attend the world cup there! I can see the headlines already when Dutch, German and United Kingdom supporters are flung into jail for drinking alcohol! Or supporters dying from severe sunburns.

Just, for one minute, consider Qatar. It has 38 cities in Qatar although most of the population live in Doha, the capital. The bid reflects this. There are stadiums to be upgraded in Al-Khor, Doha, Al Wakrah and Al Rayyan plus stadiums to be built in Lusail, Doha, Ash Shamal, Doha, Umm Salal, Doha and Doha. Lusail, where an 86,000-capacity stadium will be built, is 10 miles away, as is Umm Salal. Al Khor, Al Wakrah and Umm Salal all of which have small populations of approximately 31,000. The official population of Ash Shamal is given as 5,400, less than Westward Ho! in Devon!! This place is getting a stadium with a capacity of 45,330!!

Then consider that Australia with its superb sporting traditions and stadia received just one vote! It is quite ridiculous.

The whole process is riddled with corruption. And countries which bid for this discredited tournament agreed to bending their laws to assist this corruption. As the excellent Martin Samuels of the Daily Mail points out “All you need to know about the men who made this decision is that FIFA requested, as a condition if England had mounted a successful bid, exclusion from a range of UK laws including one governing Banks and Foreign Exchange Operations. FIFA had asked for 'the unrestricted import and export of all foreign currencies to and from the UK' and, worse, they got it.”

Now, after the ball has been kicked away, our team is calling foul. Having been party to this disgraceful bending of laws, which would still be in place for you and me!
They are saying that the whole voting process should be open to all member countries and in an open vote. There is absolutely no chance of achieving change now. It would be classed as sour grapes by Russia and Blatter.

I will make one suggestion which we could do to stand alone, and invite other countries to support us.

Why not make all the changes to the rule book of the English Football Association that many have been proposing for years but have been resisted by Fifa? It seems to me that Fifa have wished to leave their officials with opportunities to change match results, something they may have been able to freely do in the years before present technological innovations. Other sports, where money is not the god, but rather the joy of the game itself, have accepted such technological developments and have been undoubtedly improved as a result.

Why not, alongside these changes, speak to the USA, Australia and any other country who may be attracted to a cleaner and more open International body and consider a break away organisation. Sir Stanley Rouse was the Englishman who made Fifa a respected voice. Let us endeavour to make football clean again.

Of course England will be excluded for a while from international competition, but I am sure it would not be long before other countries' football associations would take up the revised rule book whereby the best teams had equal chances of victory? And agree to an open and honest method of choosing countries to host a world cup.

Let us, at long last, look at the people who buy our clubs. Ask Parliament to bring in legislation to ensure that carpetbaggers, foreign billionaires and criminals are no longer tolerated as owners of our football clubs which mean so much to our towns and cities throughout the land.

As it is today, Football stinks. I am amazed people pay the money they do to perpetuate such inequitable rottenness. Let us take this opportunity to start the change.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all supporters clubs got behind this suggestion creating a grass root demand for a massive change in football in England.

Strapworld