FIFA Discuss

[andythefish]

I think it's a shame there aren't enough governing bodies against blatter/fifa to break away from fifa and start a new global governing body, as it stands no one from fifa will be budged because they're all corrupt and as thick as thieves! !

[CroydonCaptainJack]

FIFA and many top organisations are full of corrupt and greedy people, no doubt about it. Whether that extends to match fixing at the opening game of the world cup, that I'm not so sure about. The ref isn't exactly new, he reffed games at the 2010 WC too. Think it was just a poor performance.

I really hope that is the case. I was really looking forward to this tournament but that looked suspicious to me. He couldn't wait to give that penalty.

[dsqpr]

That penalty was an absolute joke. If that is a penalty then there should be an average of ten penalties per match.

FIFA manipulation of results is subtle. I doubt whether the referee walks a way with a nice bonus after the "right" team wins, but going into the match the referee definitely knows who the "right" team is and he knows that any controversial call that results in a result for the "wrong" team will see him sent home, whereas a controversial call in favour of the "right" team will be fine. Referees want the prestige of refereeing the big matches and they know that FIFA choose the referees (A HUGE CONFLICT OF INTEREST). Thus the refs have a vested interest in ensuring the "right" team wins, as we saw yesterday. If Croatia had been given that penalty then that ref would already be on a plane heading home.

[gator]

I think it was a horrible decision, the ref clearly caved in to the home crowd and didn't have the bottle to not call the penalty after minimal contact! To suggest it is match fixing reeks of hysteria, I have been exposed to so much of this stuff with our Canadian National Team trying to qualify out of the CONCACAF region, I could write a book on this so an incident like yesterday's doesn't really faze me!