The World Cup

[poliphilo]

The BBC was talking last night about our "failure" to win the rights to stage the World Cup and the need for an inquest to "determine what went wrong"- very much as if we were entitled to it and had had it snatched from under our noses. I think it's fairly obvious that what went wrong is that our bribes weren't big enough. 

Anyway, we'll be staging the next Olympics. How many international sporting events do we think we deserve? 

Comments

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Who needs the World Cup when we've got the World Bog Snorkelling Championships in Wales every August Bank Holiday. That should be plenty good enough, in that there's far more of the Corinthian spirit there than in all the World Cups put together, and it manages perfectly well thank you without the help of Beckham, Cameron or Wilhelm Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's not as if we'll be forbidden to watch the World Cup if it's staged abroad.

I don't enjoy football. From what I've seen of it World Cup football is even duller than club football- because everyone plays defensively.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Yep, agree. Not *everyone* likes football, and I resent the fact it gets blanket coverage in this country.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If it wasn't football it would be something else. At the deepest level football isn't about sport, it's about the pleasure and comfort of belonging to a tribe.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

True. I do like Rugby, I admit.

The thing is, its not the football I dislike. Its the corruption in the game, and the disgusting behaviour of some of the players and hangers on.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

My game is cricket.

Football used to be a decent working-class game played by decent working-class blokes. It's hard now to find anyone connected to it- players, managers, owners- who isn't deeply unpleasant.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the WAGs- the fact being a footballer's wife (ie sitting on your arse spending his money) is seen as a legitimate career choice makes me want to cry.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They all look the same too.....

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Yep. Insta-plastic and then some...

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

orange

[mamadar.livejournal.com]

The only thing worse than European football is American football. When I was a child, football players were average guys who actually had *other jobs* in the off season, though they probably didn't have to work very hard as real estate salesmen or whatever. Now most of them are brutal thugs.

I keep trying to remind myself that sports, like theatre, has religious origins--the ancient Greeks celebrated funerals with athletics competitions. I still hate most professional sports, though, and support amateurs who just want to exercise and have some fun.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Someone once said that "professional sport" is a contradiction in terms.

The more money that is pumped into a game, the nastier it gets.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

There's the little matter of the BBC exposé on FIFA corruption... you know, the one they aired before the vote.

But yes, your bribes are too small. If you want the World Cup, let Prince Andrew lead the way.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, the expose probably didn't help.

There are people who are calling the BBC treasonable. Idiots!

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

They should definitely be hanged.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

I am surprised people are surprised. We all know fifa is quite putrid with corruption and Putin's mafia have the money to spend!

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

Australia's 2022 bidding team is right now very embarrassed about its dismal failure (we got 1 vote in the first round)

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/balls/we-shouldnt-be-embarrassed-by-cup-defeat-but-others-should/20101203-18iiw.html

After the Sydney Olympics we have had no idea how to project ourselves internationally, and I think that largely motivated our bid, which people were very (very unrealistically) optimistic about.

Hosting these huge world sporting events is kind of nationally addictive. In all the breathless hope and jealousy people fail to take in just how ineffective, uneconomical a way of projecting soft power they are.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You did a good job in Sydney. The opening and closing ceremonies were fun- much pleasanter than the Chinese ones- which I found chilling in their subordination of the individual to the mass.

Also you have such glorious scenery.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I myself am thrilled to death that the World Cup will NOT be here and only wish they would deal with it and stop wasting my time whilst watching the news. It's NOT news any more, people.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I feel much the same. Fifa is corrupt, Britain is not the world's most popular country right now; deal with it.