Scum-watch: Has there ever been a more pathetic newspaper?
HAS there ever been a sleazier sporting organisation than FIFA?
If there has, then the Sun couldn't have possibly been as conflicted about them as it has FIFA. This happening upon the iniquities of world football's laughably corrupt governing body suddenly came to the paper the day after England's bid for 2018 World Cup was rejected, the rattle being thrown out of the pram in a fit of petulance not even the stroppiest of teenagers would sink to. FIFA BUNGS RUSSIA THE WORLD CUP it screamed, deciding that it had to have been backhanders and not our dire campaign which resulted in the pitiful 2 votes we picked up.
It was oh so different only a couple of days earlier. First the paper attacked the BBC for daring to broadcast a Panorama special on FIFA's easily bribed insiders, misrepresenting the documentary as not containing any new allegations of wrongdoing when the opposite was the case, the editorial being doubly hypocritical for referring to an investigation by its sister paper, the Sunday Times, which went over highly similar ground as a "legitimate inquiry". The following day it led with a truly pathetic "open letter", all but begging FIFA to ignore the BBC's traitorous outbursts and instead back England's bid. "Your brilliant tournament" it grovelled, tongue wedged firmly up Sepp Blatter's backside, Britain's supposedly most trenchant anti-establishment, irreverent and outspoken scandal sheet reduced to genuflecting before the sleaziest sporting organisation ever to have existed.
As is traditional, the editorial finishes with a flourish:
Who needs FIFA anyway?
Our Premier League is the world's greatest football competition.
So long as FIFA is in charge, the World Cup will not be worth winning.
The Sun will doubtless then put no pressure whatsoever on the England team come 2014, nor will it hype up our chances for months beforehand. Who knows, now that the daily paper of record has said it's not worth winning, we might just triumph.
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HAS there ever been a sleazier sporting organisation than FIFA?If the World Cup can only be hosted through bribery and corruption, England are well out of it.
Ex-FA chairman Lord Triesman reveals the favours he says FIFA executive members demanded for backing England's 2018 bid.
One wanted a knighthood. Another, vice president Jack Warner, allegedly sought £2.5million for a schools project - with the cash channelled through his own pockets.
A third asked for lucrative TV rights, while a fourth demanded: What have you got for me?
MPs investigating why England's bid failed also have evidence another two chiefs took bungs for backing Qatar's successful 2022 bid.
Two more FIFA bosses have already been banned, meaning a third of FIFA's top team is implicated. Yet FIFA president Sepp Blatter sees no need to quit.
As sport secretary Jeremy Hunt says, these allegations if proved should prompt a criminal investigation.
Who needs FIFA anyway?
Our Premier League is the world's greatest football competition.
So long as FIFA is in charge, the World Cup will not be worth winning.
Labels: BBC hypocrisy, England, FIFA, football, media analysis, Scum-watch, Sun-watch
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Rory |
Thursday, May 12, 2011 7:30:00 pm
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