Here is part of an article about the politics of Soccer/Football. He feels that African and Asian nations are over reppresented at the expense of better nations. And Israel should be in but was not grouped with its logical geographical neighbours. I disagree with this man a lot but he does have a point about Israel. But I disagree with keeping developing football nations from participating. Comments anybody?? HE did NOT mention T&T in his criticism.
Michael Coren, National Post Published: Tuesday, June 13, 2006
And so it begins. A hiatus of soccer enthusiasm so that Canadians can return to their cultivated indifference by the middle of July. It's impossible to deny that soccer is the one truly international sport and that the World Cup -- not, please, "FIFA World Cup," which is like referring to the "NHL Stanley Cup" -- does try to be fair and representative.
Yet fashionable politics penetrated soccer some time ago,
which is why African and Asian countries are, frankly, over-represented in Germany. In a direct match between several European and Latin American teams that didn't qualify for the finals and several African and Asian ones that did, the former would win most of the time.
It's one thing to encourage the development of the game in specific regions but quite another to have, for example, Denmark and Uruguay staying at home while Togo and Angola are in Germany.
Another country not present is Israel, which almost won a qualifying group that included, among others, France, Ireland and Switzerland. The latter are in the tournament even though Israel, which finished tied for second, had the same number of points. Israel should in fact be playing in their geographical region, against Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. And if they did so, they would advance at every opportunity......
Read the rest at
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=621bb659-2b31-4c28-b806-bf922a36b0a8
