Friday, October 13, 2006
There is a God
Having finally abandoned the England football team when the ball bounced over Paul Robinson's foot and into the goal - see below - I am delighted to read that the valiant Belgian club Charleroi is doing its best to destroy international football. Go, Charleroi. Meanwhile, Robinson himself has responded robustly to the press coverage of his, er, misfortune. 'I can't see what I did that badly wrong,' he says. Hmmm, now let me see. Ah yes, I remember. You omitted to kick the damn thing, you big girl's haircut. (Thanks to Cecil, see comments.)
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
I'm an American so this is all new to me but based on what I have read this is what I understand... If you want to be a member of FIFA, you have to agree to allow your players to play in international competition. While they are playing in international competition, you must still pay them. If your player is injured during this competition, you are financially responsible to the player. Am I right so far?
ReplyDeleteSo the cost of being a member of FIFA is the financial obligations to your player during the international competition. Presumably there are some advantages to being a member of FIFA or teams would simply drop out of it and prohibit their players from participating.
So if my understanding is correct, the Belgians want the advantages of FIFA membership without the risks. Why is this a law suit at all?
We don't have anything quite like this in the US to compare it to but we could use the example of the baseball All Star game. If a player is injured during this game, his team is still responsible for paying off his contract even if he never plays another game.
Tom, thanks for raising this. Let me explain. Football is a unique industry in that, both on the playing and managerial sides, the most stupid people rise to the top of the hierarchies. At the top of the English Football Assocation, for example,there are senior executives who are obliged to take refresher courses in walking and some start to drool and gibber unless they are slapped repeatedly around the face. The stupidity of the players requires no further comment from me. When not playing, they spend their time standing around in clothes and having haircuts. There is a famous joke about Beckham which, being American, you may not have heard. He is having his haircut and the girl asks him to remove the earpieces of his iPod. He does so and falls down dead. Horrifed, the hairdresser puts in the earpieces to hear what is on his iPod, the lack of which could have such disastrous consequences. She hears a voice - 'Breathe in, David... Breathe out, David.'
ReplyDelete?You omitted to pick the damn thing up, you big girl's haircut.? I believe Gary Neville passed the ball back to Paul Robinson, prohibiting him from picking it up. Had he picked it up, an indirect free-kick to Croatia would have been awarded on the edge of the six-yard box.
ReplyDeleteGood grief, Cecil, thank you. Never did get my head round that rule. It doesn't change the principle of the thing - he missed - but I shall now change the post.
ReplyDelete