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The FOOTBALL Thread (2008-2009)


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Lampard reminds me of a friend back home who also did that thing with his tongue whe he was concentrating. The main difference now is that my friend back home earns 25000 in 365 days rather than in just over 1 day.

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from fifa.com, nov 06

 

Quote:
FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter today received the title of honorary member of Real Madrid and a gold and diamond club badge from Real Madrid president Ramón Calderón at a ceremony held at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium in Madrid.

 

Lampard should just bugger off if you ask me. He needs to 'get real' as you said bobby.

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Seems there are a lot of slaves in football these days.

 

Quote:
In an utterance as remarkable as any he has issued this summer, Cristiano Ronaldo declared last night that he agreed with the Fifa president Sepp Blatter's assertion that Manchester United should stop treating him like a "modern-day slave" and release him to Real Madrid.

 

"I agree with the statements of the president, he is right," Ronaldo said and, pressed on where he would spend next season, he reiterated the point. "You know what I said, what I want and what I would like. Let's see. I agree completely with the president of Fifa. Now I have to wait and see, but I do not know where I will begin the season."

 

Coming from a 23-year-old who is paid £120,000 a week by a club considering allowing him to complete his recuperation from ankle surgery in the Algarve and delay his return to Manchester, Ronaldo's assertion will prompt as much indignation in football as Blatter did when he said yesterday that players, tied to longer contracts since the Bosman ruling, were enslaved and should be given greater freedom to move on.

 

If this is true, I am very disappointed and offended and I hope he never has the honour to play in a United shirt again.

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Latest:

 

Fifa have ruled that Chelsea are the winners of the the Premier League and Champions League after Man United was found guilty of enslaving their players.

 

This Fifa shit is truly disturbing.

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lol

 

More Blatter wisdom

 

1. Why have two halves when you can have four quarters? Blatter’s plan to make the beautiful game more popular in the United States sinks like Derby County.

 

2. Blatter claims that women players should wear tighter shorts to make the game more sexy.

 

3. The president is not finished with women’s football yet as he dives in with both feet to announce that “homosexuality is more popular†in the female game.

 

4. The game is becoming boring. We need more goals. Solution? Make the goals bigger – 25cm higher and 50cm wider should do the trick.

 

5. “I think there is too much football on TVâ€. Blatter bites the hand that feeds.

 

6. Blatter threatens to ban Spain from major tournaments six months before Luis Aragones’s team triumph at Euro 2008. Why? The Spanish government wants sporting associations to become more democratic.

 

7. Why have one Graham Poll when you can have two? Sepp wants two referees for us to abuse and ridicule.

 

8. Blatter alienates the whole of Italy by accusing Marcello Lippi’s team of cheating during the World Cup finals in Germany in 2006.

 

9. One billion cricket-mad Indians scratch their heads after Blatter urges them to put down their bats and take up the beautiful game. “If your brother asks for a fish, don't give him the same; instead, teach him how to catch it,†Sepp announces on an official visit to India. You what?

 

10. Try searching for “Blatter†and “mad†on google. You’ll get more than 100,000 results.

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The mad thing which seems really strange is

 

a) Real Madrid have not yet made an offer

B) Ronaldo has not put in a transfer request

 

Truly ridiculous.

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Ronaldo a slave? Well he is to his...

 

* £150,000 silver Bentley. With its red leather interior and remote control soft-top. But he will occasionally drag himself away to his newer, black Porsche. Or else the BMW he bought as a Manchester runaround for his sisters, who kept scraping his Jeep. There are other vehicles, of course. "Last year I bought a car on my birthday for myself. If I have that opportunity I should take it," he said.

 

* £4m mansion in Alderley Edge, Cheshire. It is equipped with its own built-in cinema, including reclining scarlet red seats, the only possible refuge from fans who recognise him in public ones in Manchester. "My belly is full and its warm," he tells a Portuguese television crew as he settles back for a film in a revealing snap-shot of life as a "modern-day slave". Watch it and weep: (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=b1uNXFvPFxE &feature=related)

 

*Diamond stud earrings. Which he has recently been filmed wearing while driving the Bentley around south Manchester at speed singing along to the romantic music he says is obligatory.

 

*Bathroom mirror. "I don't know what I was thinking when I had my hair in braids," he told a recent interviewer while examining an image of himself. "It's shameful but I have to change looks from time to time."

 

*Bank manager who does not keep him in the picture. "To tell you the truth I don't know [how much money I have] but it's better that way," Ronaldo said recently, sitting beneath a chandelier at his "CR7" veneered dining table in his lavish Cheshire home. "Money is not what motivates me."

 

*Sensitive side. "There's a lot of bad people in the world who try to put me down and say vulgar things," he said, some months before coming clean on his plight as a slave.

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We must bleed Real Madrid dry. Put a whopping price and say take or leave.

 

More on Blatter, the man is insane.

 

>

 

Just as we thought the Ronaldo transfer saga was getting unbelievably boring and he might actually end up staying at Man United, along came the President of FIFA a.k.a honorary member of Real Madrid (maybe even FIFA were not too comfortable with that because they decided to delete that particular news webpage from their site) and decided to stir things up. And how he has succeeded! For those who do not know what I am talking about, here's a summary of the last few days: Mr. Blatter decides to advocate Ronaldo's move to Madrid by astonishingly claiming there is too much "slavery" in football in the current times.

 

He goes on to say, "Absolutely, absolutely. Definitely as a footballer and the FIFA president, I'm very in sympathy with the player Ronaldo. I think in football there's too much modern slavery in transferring players or buying players here and there, and putting them somewhere." Blatter has been blasted and ripped apart by everyone connected with football the world over. To make it worse, Ronaldo 'agrees 100%' with Blatter that players are being treated like slaves.

 

Let's take a look at the "slavery" in modern football.

 

Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons — known as slaves — are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to work. Slaves are deprived of the right to refuse to work, or to receive compensation (such as wages) in return for their labor.

 

Keeping this in regard, I certainly don't remember Ronaldo being deprived of any personal freedom in the last 5 years and since he has never 'refused' to play football he certainly hasn't been deprived of the right to refuse work either. And coming on to the most hilarious part of Ronaldo's slavery: no wages?? A player who earns a reported £120k a week in salary, lives in a £4million mansion, has ordered an £835,000 Bugatti Veyron and is close to agreeing a new £23million Nike sponsorship deal(considering he stays with United)!! Is this by any stretch of imagination the life of a slave? I surely don't mind being a "slave" if these are the rewards of slavery!

 

Blatter and Ronaldo with their incredibly stupid statements have provoked outrage in the footballing world. Here is what a couple of people feel:

 

· Birmingham City chief executive Karren Brady was incensed by his comments. She said: "Slaves? That's not a word I'd use. I think I'd use mercenaries."

 

· Wigan chairman Dave Whelan immediately called for the FIFA chief to step down. Whelan said: "The man is a complete idiot. You've got to ask whether Blatter is fit for purpose after what he's said. The answer over the years is that he clearly isn't. To even indicate that players are treated like modern-day slaves is outrageous. How stupid can that man be?"

 

· Birmingham chairman David Gold said: "I can't think of anyone who has stayed in such a similar position of power for so long, who has come out with such drivel. It's arrogant nonsense and complete and utter rubbish. If he was comparing lower league players with slaves — those who are not earning big money — maybe you could see where he was coming from. But to use the word in the same breath as Ronaldo, on £120,000 a week, is looking at one side of the coin."

 

· Milan Mandaric had this to say: "Footballers these days being modern-day slaves? Well, don't you just feel so sorry for these poor little rich souls; earning massive money for doing something they love."

 

· Even Uefa Communications Director William Gaillard said: "It would be useful to remind people that slaves in all of the slavery systems never earned a wage. And it is true that salaries are spiraling out of control."

 

So it is quite clear that Blatter has opened a can of worms and Ronaldo has made his relationship with the fans even more irreparable after senselessly agreeing with Blatter a "100 % ".

 

Loyalty is probably lost on Mr. Ronaldo and he will probably end up getting his dream move to Madrid and that will be that BUT this saga has really left a bad taste in the mouth.

 

Moving on to Blatter, his position as President is getting even more precarious. He even seems to be quite a confused person. His talk of "slavery" has clearly contradicted what he himself said a few months ago. He had said that players not complying with their contract would destroy football as we know it and after the ruling in favor of the Webster Case he lamented: "Because of this unfortunate decision, the principle of contractual stability, as agreed in 2001 with the European Commission as part of the new transfer regulations and which restored order to the transfer system, has been deemed less important than the short-term interests of the player involved.".

 

So if Blatter was so worried about the breach of contracts just around 5 months back, what has made him suddenly decide it is perfectly all right for a player to leave within one year of a five year contract?? He has made a number of bizarre and irrational suggestions over the years( the 6+5 Rule which is again not in favor with the major clubs) and people are really beginning to get annoyed with him as can be seen by the comments of various people. How long before Blatter is ousted as President? Will he be reelected for another term of Presidency? Well he certainly will have to win over a lot of people for that!

 

The investigative journalist Andrew Jennings has uncovered a lot of dirt about Blatter in his book Foul which has exposed Blatter for the corrupt person he is. Bribery, vote-rigging and a lot more, you name it and FIFA (and Blatter) has done it! It's going to be very hard for Blatter to get enough votes the next time elections come up I'm afraid…

 

Some of Blatter's Ideas and Beliefs:

 

1. Instead of two halves in football, we should have four quarters!

 

2. Maybe football is becoming boring- let's make the goals bigger!

 

3. His now infamous 6+5 rule which unfortunately for him, is not going to be agreed upon by anyone…except FIFA.

 

4. His insistence that Italy cheated their way to World Cup glory in 2006. Smart way to get votes from the Italian FA!

 

5. His total bias against England and English based clubs due to their success. He and Platini surely never had a problem when Italy and Spain were dominating European Club footall!

 

As one German journalist once rightly said, “Sepp Blatter has fifty ideas before breakfast every morning, and fifty-one of them are badâ€. True indeed!!!

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James Lawton, Independent

 

Quote:
There is not much point in lecturing Cristiano Ronaldo on the meaning of slavery or loyalty or reasons why he might be grateful for being young and beautiful and receiving a huge weekly wage from a great football club who invested in his talent and sang his glories when he was still just a bright little show pony. Highly gifted no doubt, but still a stepover trickster who wasn't yet fit, if he ever would be, to rinse out George Best's empty vodka glass.

 

The futility of advice, strictures and blandishments was clear enough at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow a few weeks ago. He had the post-match demeanour of someone so high on himself you wondered whether he might need a few whiffs of oxygen.

 

Someone had the temerity to ask about the missed penalty which might have left a gaping hole in Manchester United's season and his own undoubtedly brilliant contribution to it. He snarled: "Why do you ask me about that? Why don't we talk about the fantastic goal?" Why didn't we do better than that? Why didn't we touch our forelocks and genuflect and shield our eyes against his brilliance?

 

Could he make any promises for the future? "I don't make promises to anyone, not even my mum." It figured and it also told you where the Real Madrid story, and United's humiliation, was heading.

 

It was going to a place now apparently approved of by the top man in football, the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, where contracts do not matter, nor good manners, nor even basic human decency. A place occupied by grab-all players who are now encouraged to believe, from the highest authority, that it is perfectly all right to march through the world with only one consideration, how you feel about how it is today for you, without any reference to the past or future, any vague notion that the best of what you can do will always be a result of working with and respecting other people. This is because football, as we saw in the recent European Championship – and we are still shaking our heads in wonderment – is meant to be a team game.

 

It is meant to be inhabited by young players like Cesc Fabregas, whose stunning contribution to Spain's triumph came despite the fact that, unlike Ronaldo, he hadn't been feted at every turn. Indeed, he spent quite a bit of his time on the bench, waiting to make his impact, which was never less than brilliantly dynamic and often quite exquisite, and finally returned to it shortly before the climax of a superb campaign.

 

Maybe Fabregas will display his own self-indulgences somewhere along the road, and we should brace ourselves for this because at the moment the contamination of greed and self-importance seems to be eating into every corner of football. For the moment we can only hope that he continues to turn his back on the impending departure of Arsenal players like Emmanuel Adebayor and Alexander Hleb and the haggling of Frank Lampard, who kisses the shirt whenever he scores and was not so long ago telling us that he could envisage an old age of shuffling down to Stamford Bridge and supporting, with other old geezers, his "team".

 

We have to be practical, of course. We cannot reinstate the values of another age. We cannot cite the experience of a Wilf Mannion, one of the most gifted players ever bred in England, who once returned from Hampden Park, where he had won the grudging admiration of roughly 120,000 Scots, sitting on his cardboard case in a crowded corridor of a third-class carriage. We cannot talk about men like Sir Tom Finney and the late Johnny Haynes, who after long years of brilliant service for their clubs, Preston North End and Fulham, were told, quite curtly, to forget about overtures from Italy that would have changed their lives. No, that water gurgled and sighed under the bridge quite some time ago.

 

But maybe we can hope that the slavemaster Sir Alex Ferguson will make good his promise to stand, rock-like, in his defiance of Ronaldo's contemptuous desire for defection to Real Madrid, a club which until the recent renaissance of title wins had become a parody of what one of the world's most famous clubs should be.

 

When you think of it, perhaps it is true that if Real Madrid do prevail, if United decide to cut their losses and take the largest profit in the history of transfer dealing, their marriage with Ronaldo will indeed be one made in today's version of football heaven. They have certain things in common, after all. Real use up coaches, even when they win the European Cup and the Spanish title, as did the new manager of Spain, Vicente del Bosque, as though they are discarding dirty napkins. Now they want Ronaldo, and he wants them, so why would anyone stand in their way?

 

Why would anyone endorse slavery? Only because, maybe, that don't quite realise how long the values of football have been residing in a rubbish bin.

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In the end, its not really up to Ferguson. It'll hinge on the American guys who own the club. Even if Ferguson did quit the club as he has threatened, I doubt a club like Man U would struggle to find a replacement, and the American investors will be very happy with their multi million deal from Real Madrid. I'd love to see Ferguson win out though and see the Portugese nancy boy sit in the stand until his contract is up a few years from now, however modern football just doesn't work like that.

 

On a side note, I didn't really think Fabregas was that good in Euro 2008. I felt that they should've left Torres on the field and brought Fabregas on for a midfielder instead

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