Sepp Blatter Thread

[STEUPS!!]

That pts system would destroy the art of counter attacking football and never ever give David a chance against Goliath!!

ah love it!!

How so?  "David" have an entire 120 minutes plus to leggo dem slingshot. 

Counter attacking football is great.  What?  Yuh doh take shots at goal and get corners etc in counter attacking football? 

As an alternative to penalty kicks, a points system would ONLY come into effect in the event teams are deadlocked at the end of extra time

In essence, what you really confirming is that there are teams that go solely into such matches NOT looking to score....but hoping to just get to penalties where they feel maybe they could have a chance.

But it really doh matter.  PK's will be here for the forseeable future.  All I suggested was an alternative. 

 ^^^^^ I know this bunnin yuh, and it probably makes you sick whenever you see it, but u need to get over it. You, Blatter and everyone else need to get over yourselves. If every team played the same style of football, it would become boring wouldnt it. Toatin feelings is not a good look for you palos 

[davidephraim]

An alternative could be a points system.


If after extra time scores are tied, the winner is determined by the team that was the most attacking team.

That is determined by a points system.

Say...2 points for shots on goal that are on target

1 point for shots on goal off target

1 point for a corner

1/2 point deducted for each foul

This has the following benefits for the final stages of tournament play:

You no longer have the lottery of penalty kicks
The result of the game is determined by passages of play that typically take place in any game
You reward positive football.  Teams that play counter attack football are still rewarded.
Teams that play not to lose, negative football hoping to steal a win in the end have a disincentive to do so
Matches still end within a particular time frame
Encourages a cleaner game (with the deduction of points for fouls)

It has the following drawbacks:

You lose the sheer drama of penalty kicks.  No one can turn away from the screen when penalty kicks are taken
Potential for an "underdog" result is lessened because they can't simply park the bus and hope to steal a result.
Administration of this system may be complex and confusing especially for fans to keep a tally of points.  However, the advent of massive digital scoreboards at most major stadia would help to alleviate this problem.
Implementation worldwide could be challenging

So it was you who said that on ESPN forum! 

[Mango Chow!]

so this "points" system only rewards so-called "attacking" football and nothing else.  What about when my 'keeper make a spectacular save on a shot on target or when (s)he save a penalty, yuh go "deduct" points from the attacking team fuh dat or yuh go include a point system fuh that fuh de defending team? Petr Cech made a point-blank (no pun intended) foot save on robben in the first half then the penalty in Extra Time he doh get rewarded fuh dat?.....Drogba took a long range, speculative shot against Barca from about half line that may or may not have been on target and Valdes used it for camera time in making a diving "save".  How would the points be distributed on that?  Valdes couldn't risk it being off target but he didn't have to dive to save it.  If a shot is taken and it off target (1 point) initially and it swerve back to be on target (2 points), yuh get 3 points fuh dat?  What if it bend, swerve and dip more than once like dem Roberto Carlos and metronaldo specials, hummuch points fuh one ah dem?    Steuwps!!

[fari]

talkng bout penalties anybody else taking in de worst penalty shootout ever on fsc right now?

[fari]

actually it started off horribly...caught fire in the latter stages and then in sudden death, the keeper for sheffield united missed the last kick...pure drama...blatter want to do away with penalties...he mad or wha?

[Coop's]

so this "points" system only rewards so-called "attacking" football and nothing else.  What about when my 'keeper make a spectacular save on a shot on target or when (s)he save a penalty, yuh go "deduct" points from the attacking team fuh dat or yuh go include a point system fuh that fuh de defending team? Petr Cech made a point-blank (no pun intended) foot save on robben in the first half then the penalty in Extra Time he doh get rewarded fuh dat?.....Drogba took a long range, speculative shot against Barca from about half line that may or may not have been on target and Valdes used it for camera time in making a diving "save".  How would the points be distributed on that?  Valdes couldn't risk it being off target but he didn't have to dive to save it.  If a shot is taken and it off target (1 point) initially and it swerve back to be on target (2 points), yuh get 3 points fuh dat?  What if it bend, swerve and dip more than once like dem Roberto Carlos and metronaldo specials, hummuch points fuh one ah dem?    Steuwps!!

          Chow look don't kill me here,you have real time on your hands Breds.

[Mango Chow!]

so this "points" system only rewards so-called "attacking" football and nothing else.  What about when my 'keeper make a spectacular save on a shot on target or when (s)he save a penalty, yuh go "deduct" points from the attacking team fuh dat or yuh go include a point system fuh that fuh de defending team? Petr Cech made a point-blank (no pun intended) foot save on robben in the first half then the penalty in Extra Time he doh get rewarded fuh dat?.....Drogba took a long range, speculative shot against Barca from about half line that may or may not have been on target and Valdes used it for camera time in making a diving "save".  How would the points be distributed on that?  Valdes couldn't risk it being off target but he didn't have to dive to save it.  If a shot is taken and it off target (1 point) initially and it swerve back to be on target (2 points), yuh get 3 points fuh dat?  What if it bend, swerve and dip more than once like dem Roberto Carlos and metronaldo specials, hummuch points fuh one ah dem?    Steuwps!!

          Chow look don't kill me here,you have real time on your hands Breds.

 Coop's boy, is LIX Palos (and blatter) want!

actually it started off horribly...caught fire in the latter stages and then in sudden death, the keeper for sheffield united missed the last kick...pure drama...blatter want to do away with penalties...he mad or wha?

Speaking of drama, the PK shootout between Chelsea and Bayern was so emblematic....Look at the emotional scale them Bayern players, but Manuel Neuer in particular, must have experienced....as a 'keeper....he watched his team score what must have SURELY been the game winner in the 83rd and probably thought to himself that Cech could have done better, only to concede a goal that he HAD to have felt a little disappointed in letting in himself.....he saved the first penalty and scored Bayern's third....the cameras even zoomed in on Schweinsteiger gesturing triumphantly at the center circle when Neuer scored, this HAD to be their day....only to to watch it all slip away at the hands pf Drogba.  PURE drama!!

[asylumseeker]

Any support for the sudden death goal?

[Mango Chow!]

Any support for the sudden death goal?

Not me, I am not for it at all.

[asylumseeker]

Any support for the sudden death goal?

Not me, I am not for it at all.

Despite coming from the run of play (in contrast to PKs), the sudden death goal delivers sheer anticlimax (sometimes to both sets of fans, especially where one team has been clearly outballing the other yet loses).

There is certainly "something" to having a defined period of play in which any number could play, rather than brax!!! a goal score and iz all over. I like last minute heroics and prowess, and really want to have the challenges and demands of the game imposed right through till the whistle blows on time, rather than on a goal.

When Laurent Blanc beat Jose Luis Chilavert, the result was the result I wanted, yet still I felt that it would have been "just" to see what sort of response (other than a tear-filled, congratulatory handshake) Paraguay had for France.

I agree.

[injunchile]

Please Leave well alone. Penalty kicks are considered entertainment value to fans and neutral/ Cant go better than that. The nearest thing is the sudden death.

[Mango Chow!]

Any support for the sudden death goal?

Not me, I am not for it at all.

Despite coming from the run of play (in contrast to PKs), the sudden death goal delivers sheer anticlimax (sometimes to both sets of fans, especially where one team has been clearly outballing the other yet loses).

There is certainly "something" to having a defined period of play in which any number could play, rather than brax!!! a goal score and iz all over. I like last minute heroics and prowess, and really want to have the challenges and demands of the game imposed right through till the whistle blows on time, rather than on a goal.

When Laurent Blanc beat Jose Luis Chilavert, the result was the result I wanted, yet still I felt that it would have been "just" to see what sort of response (other than a tear-filled, congratulatory handshake) Paraguay had for France.

I agree.

 aaaaahhhhh boy. 'seeker.  yuh pull the same game outta the hat I was thinkin' 'bout!!  France went on to win a couple more memorable games that came at the hands of sudden death boy.  The one against Italy I was ok with but the one against Portugal was rel wicked.

[Zeppo]

Bring back the golden goal.

It should be used during the two 15-minute periods of extra time: if a team scores during that time then game over, they win. If no one scores then so be it, and it goes to PKs.

But after 90 minutes of regular time one goal should settle the entire thing. It rewards attacking football and reduces the possibilities of going to a shootout.

[Jah Gol]

Activate 3 more subs after 90 mins and play a sudden death third period of extra time.

[Mango Chow!]

Bring back the golden goal.

It should be used during the two 15-minute periods of extra time: if a team scores during that time then game over, they win. If no one scores then so be it, and it goes to PKs.

But after 90 minutes of regular time one goal should settle the entire thing. It rewards attacking football and reduces the possibilities of going to a shootout.

 If FIFA saw any practicality in further the use of the "Golden Goal" neither would they have done away with it nor would blatter be (stupidly) looking for any alternatives now.  There has never been any suggested alternative to PK's (nor will there ever be...in the forseeable future) that has made any sense and all this talk of "attacking football" is  as if "football" is all and only about "attacking".  Regular time, Extra time and PK's all follw a symmetrical structure: both teams have equal time and equal opportunity to win a match using (numerically) equal resources, possibly the reason why the *NFL* changed the structure of it's own Extra Time play.  Anything else, takes away from that structure, including the Golden Goal that feeds the notion that "champions" or "winners" score first. 

[SWF Reporter]

Omertà: Sepp Blatter’s FIFA Organised Crime Family (Part I)
By Andrew Jennings

Wired868 has been authorised to serialise this investigative book

“Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios”
John Prine, Sam Stone, 1971
As this book is completed, we wait to see if the FBI will indict leading members of Blatter’s FIFA Family. The investigations by an FBI Organised Crime Squad, based in Federal Plaza, New York, began in 2010 and I have met in London with Special Agents and officials from the Department of Justice.
In March 2013, Reuters reported that Jack Warner’s son Daryan is a co-operating witness, presumably handing over Daddy’s offshore bank accounts. There is also said to be interesting video evidence from security cameras at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas.
It is likely that Chuck Blazer is also co-operating. The FBI and the IRS became aware in late summer 2011 that Blazer was running his tax avoidance schemes through banks in the Caribbean — but nearly three years later he has not yet been indicted.
Will The Belly go to jail? Will Warner and Blatter and more of FIFA’s leadership be in adjoining cells?
 

Foreword by Romario
Most reporters do not have the courage of Andrew Jennings. He has the ability and willingness to put what is true in the pages, the radio, the Internet and television.

Andrew is one of the guys within journalism for which I have 100% respect. For all he has done in the fight against FIFA, in publishing his articles and books.

Glad to know that my work here in Congress has been very positive for which he has provided me with material. I thank you and ask you to keep sending things to me.

Here I am not an Andrew Jennings, but I’m Romario!
I have guts like him and a lot of courage.

Romario de Souza Faria
Former player and congressman
 
Prologue:
(In Palermo—Learning about the Mafia)

Palermo, February 1987: We are in an orange grove outside the city, filming a small industrial building. It is deserted now but until recently was a juice pressing plant. According to claims filed with a subsidy department of the European Union, it was the busiest orange juice pressing plant in the world.

The Mob used it to submit massive fraudulent demands for subsidy on orange juice that had never existed. They bribed and intimidated officials to rubber-stamp their claims – and stole millions of dollars. The scam ended, the mobsters escaped. But this is Sicily and they are everywhere, watching.

A big black saloon car with black tinted windows pulls up alongside me and my film crew. A bulky man emerges and walks towards me. Gesturing over his shoulder at an invisible but obviously important person behind the tinted windows he announces, sharply, ‘E says you no film ‘ere.’

I pretend not to understand, it gives my cameraman time to grab a few more exterior shots of the disused building. As the guy’s eyes began to bulge with anger I grab his hand, shake it firmly, say ‘arrivederci,’ and shout to the crew, ‘Time to go!’
Read more: http://wired868.com/2014/06/03/omerta-sepp-blatters-fifa-organised-crime-family-part-i/

[Flex]

Blatter says ‘untouchable’ Infantino should face FIFA Ethics probe
Insideworldfootball.com.

August 14 – Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has launched another attack on his successor Gianni Infantino, claiming the present incumbent “thinks he is untouchable” and should have an ethics inquiry opened against him immediately.

Infantino is facing a criminal probe in Switzerland by a special prosecutor over those infamous multiple meetings with departing Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber.

“Mr Infantino is in a situation where he thinks he is untouchable,” Blatter told AFP.

Blatter has long held a grudge against the man who ousted him and says that just as he had to face an ethics investigation, so should Infantino.

FIFA’s Ethics Committee, says the ageing Blatter, whose own six-year ban expires next year, “should immediately open an investigation and disclose it as they did against me”.

Blatter also cast doubt, as many observers have, over the independence of the ethics committee which underwent an overhaul when Infantino took over.  Blatter said the current make-up  “is not independent” because “Infantino has locked the control bodies and this is very worrying”.

[Flex]

Blatter says keeping Platini out of FIFA was always Infantino’s big plot
Insideworldfootball.com.

August 28 – Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, speaking ahead of his Swiss judicial hearing next week says that the whole case was cooked up to prevent former UEFA president Michel Platini taking the FIFA presidency. Blatter is facing charges of “suspicion of unfair management and breach of trust” regarding a CHF2 million payment to Platini.

Speaking to the Europe1 radio station, Blatter said that the truth behind this case was that it was never about him or the allegations, but was a conspiracy to keep Platini out.

“The number 1 target of the plot was Michel Platini, not me,” he said. “The one who could be dangerous for the current president (Gianni Infantino), who was at UEFA, was not me, because I had made my mandate available.”

Although not saying it, Blatter appears to be suggesting the plot was instigated at the secret and undocumented meetings that Infantino had with disgraced Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber. The first of those meetings was in 2015, before Infantino was elected FIFA president in 2016. That meeting was always believed to be about whether Infantino was under investigation after his name came up in the Panama Papers US tax evasion scandal, regarding a TV rights deal in South America with Hugo and Mariano Jinkis who had been indicted by the US Department of Justice as part of the FIFAGate scandal.

Blatter’s implication is that the meeting was used to put in play a plan that would nail Platini’s football administration coffin shut with the CHF2 million case.

Blatter and Platini were suspended in the winter of 2015 for 90 days after the Swiss prosecutors opened an investigation into the CHF 2 million payment. Blatter was suspended for six years and Michel Platini for four years by FIFA Ethics. Removing Platini from what would have been a shoo-in to the FIFA presidency opened the door for Infantino, Platini’s general secretary at UEFA who also said he was only a placeholder for Platini but in reality showed no intention of stepping aside – either then or now that Platini has served his ban.

Blatter says that is not worried about the outcome of the court hearing. “I am not afraid of anything, the court is not there yet. For the moment we are doing hearings. I should do something very hard to go to jail. Now is not the time to be thinking about going to jail, for the moment I am thinking of enjoying life a little and taking care of football a bit more,” he told Europe 1.

While the relationship between Platini and Blatter had become fractious, Blatter said that: “Today I would hug him, despite the coronavirus restrictions…I would say bravo Michel … now we are in court for the investigations, now we are together. In 2007 we were even more together as I gave you a small step (up) for the presidency of UEFA.”

[Flex]

FIFA files criminal complaint against Blatter over museum
6:39 AM ET
Associated Press

FIFA has filed a criminal complaint against former president Sepp Blatter over the finances of its loss-making football museum in Zurich.

FIFA said on Tuesday it suspected "criminal mismanagement by FIFA's former management and companies appointed by them" to work on the museum -- long seen as a pet project of Blatter's -- in a renovated and rented city centre building.

The FIFA World Football Museum opened in 2016 after $140 million of FIFA's money was spent refurbishing the 1970s office building to also include 34 rental apartments.

It was intended to open around May 2015, when Blatter won a fifth presidential election, but was delayed until after he left office under pressure from American and Swiss investigations of international football officials.

Blatter committed FIFA to a rental contract with the building's owner, insurance firm Swiss Life, that requires paying $360m through 2045 at above market rates, football's world body said.

FIFA said its criminal complaint was delivered by hand to state prosecutors in Zurich.

"That audit revealed a wide range of suspicious circumstances and management failures, some of which may be criminal in nature and which therefore need to be properly investigated by the relevant authorities," FIFA deputy secretary general for administration Alasdair Bell said in a statement.

The Zurich prosecution office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"The allegations are baseless and are vehemently denied," Blatter's lawyer Lorenz Erni said in a statement.

Blatter risks investigation at local level while already a suspect in two criminal proceedings opened by federal prosecutors into how he spent FIFA's money as president.

Those investigations involve FIFA paying $2m to former UEFA president Michel Platini in 2011 and $1m to the Trinidad and Tobago football body -- effectively to disgraced former FIFA vice president Jack Warner -- weeks before the Caribbean islands' general election in 2010.

"Given the massive costs associated with this museum, as well as the general way of working of the previous FIFA management, a forensic audit was conducted in order to find out what really happened here," Bell said.

The museum has made a loss each year including $50m in 2016 that included one-off costs, FIFA said at the time in its financial report.

The most recent FIFA accounts for 2019 show almost $3.5m revenue from the FIFA World Football Museum and $6.3m costs for "investment and expenses." There was a record 161,700 visitors at the Zurich building last year.

In the 2018 accounts, museum revenue was almost $4m against $12m in spending.

The FIFA museum was identified closely with Blatter from the time it was announced in April 2012.

His executive committee had already approved $203m for what was being called "Project Libero," and forecast to attract 300,000 visitors each year.

"It is high time that world football had a meeting place for its millions of fans," Blatter said then of a museum originally to be built underground next to FIFA's headquarters on a wooded hillside above the city.

One year later, the museum plan changed to a FIFA-funded renovation of a modernist building owned by Swiss Life.

FIFA said in a 2013 news release it signed a 40-year rental of "Haus zur Enge." The museum would "occupy the second basement level through to the first floor" with office space and apartments on the upper levels.

"The FIFA museum project is a stroke of luck for Zurich and is a perfect fit for Swiss Life's investment policy," the insurance firm's chairman Rolf Dorig said in the FIFA statement.

When the museum formally opened on Feb. 28, 2016 it was a first public duty for the new FIFA president Gianni Infantino who had been elected two days earlier.

Blatter did not attend the ceremony and had begun serving a ban from footall by FIFA's ethics committee after Swiss authorities revealed the Platini payment in September, 2015. The ban expires in October 2021 when Blatter will be 85.

FIFA said on Tuesday its files on the museum project will be sent to ethics investigators.

RELATED NEWS

Blatter, Platini now suspected of fraud in 5-year FIFA case

GENEVA (AP) — Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini are facing a more serious charge of fraud after Swiss federal prosecutors this week intensified a five-year investigation into the pair’s past dealings at FIFA.

The open criminal proceedings had been focused on suspected mismanagement and misappropriation, plus an act of forgery by Platini, linked to FIFA paying the French soccer great $2 million with Blatter’s approval in 2011.

Now the investigation has been widened to include suspected fraud.

It follows the former FIFA and UEFA presidents plus witnesses being questioned in recent weeks in Bern.

“(This month), the federal prosecutors’ office informed the parties that, based on the current investigation it is reassessing part of the proceedings,” the Swiss attorney general’s office said on Friday, citing the payment to Platini.

“Since then both Joseph Blatter and Michel Platini are being investigated on suspicion of fraud,” the federal office said in a statement to The Associated Press.

In the Swiss criminal code, fraud seeking personal gain can result in “a custodial sentence not exceeding five years or to a monetary penalty.”

Charges have yet to be filed in a case opened in 2015 against Blatter, now 84, that was extended six months ago to include Platini. Platini was the UEFA president and a FIFA vice president in January 2011 when he asked to be paid by soccer’s world body for work done a decade earlier.

The former France captain and coach submitted invoices for uncontracted additional salary as a presidential adviser in Blatter’s first term, from 1998-2002.

Platini was paid by FIFA with Blatter’s approval in February 2011.

Both men deny wrongdoing. They have consistently cited a verbal agreement for the money since details of the deal were revealed in September 2015.

Then, Swiss authorities questioned them in a surprise visit to FIFA headquarters in Zurich where its executive committee was meeting.

Both men were provisionally suspended from soccer, then banned, by FIFA’s ethics committee. The Court of Arbitration refused to overturn their sanctions on appeal. Blatter’s six-year ban from soccer runs until next October.

Blatter is also a suspect in a Swiss criminal investigation into a $1 million FIFA loan in 2010 to the Trinidad and Tobago soccer body controlled by now-disgraced former FIFA vice president Jack Warner.

The case ended Platini’s campaign to succeed Blatter as FIFA president in an election held in February 2016. With Platini suspended, UEFA put forward its general secretary Gianni Infantino, who won the vote.

Platini, who served a four-year ban, has long said he declared the money on his Swiss tax return. In 2018 he was cleared of suspicion in a letter from the Swiss federal prosecution office.

The investigation was revived when a different prosecutor, Thomas Hildbrand, took charge of some soccer cases. A previous lead prosecutor in FIFA-related work, he left amid turmoil in the department.

Hildbrand’s name was on the latest letters sent to lawyers on Tuesday, and seen by The AP.