BLEACHERS BREW EST. MAY 2006

Someone asked me how my blog and newspaper column came to be titled "Bleachers Brew". It's like this, it's an amalgam of sorts of two things: The bleachers area in the stadium/arena where I used to sit when I would watch baseball, football, and basketball games and Miles Davis' great jazz album Bitches Brew. That's how it got culled together. I originally planned on calling it "The View from the Big Chair" that is a nod to Tears For Fear's second album, Songs from the Big Chair. So there.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Why we need drug testing and an aptitude test in the World Cup


"We're not deaf,'' FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said last Saturday at a news conference in South Africa. "FIFA is not unreceptive about what has been said about the ball.''

Yes, they are receptive to issues about the ball but not to officiating.

"There are rules for size and weight. ... But the ball has to be perfect,'' he added.

The ball has to be perfect? What about the game and the always controversial officiating? There’s no need to be perfect there?

FIFA will censor World Cup match action being shown on giant screens inside the stadium after replays of Argentina's disputed first goal against Mexico fueled arguments on the pitch.

FIFA spokesman Nicolas Maingot said Monday that replaying the incident was "a clear mistake.''

"This will be corrected and we will have a closer look into that,'' Maingot told a news conference Monday. "We will work on this and be a bit more, I would say, tight on this for the games to be played.''

Damn right it was a mistake to put these FIFA officials in charge. Now there’s a censorship of incompetence going on.

"I am very, very satisfied," Jose-Maria Garcia-Aranda, the head of FIFA's referees, said of the quality of officiating in the World Cup matches.

Yes, he is satisfied. They have an agenda after all. And I wonder if they are watching the same matches as we are.

When football's lawmakers ditched the idea of goal-line technology once and for all just over three months ago, FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke said he hoped the decision would not come back to haunt the organisation at the World Cup.

"Questions will always come, we just hope they will not come in the World Cup," said Valcke at the time.

After the 2006 World Cup brawl between Germany and Argentina (where the Germans won via penalty kicks), German midfielder Torsten Frings was caught on video fighting with the Argentines. They used instant replay to determine who should be suspended for a match? What about the incompetent referees? What about the botched goals and calls?

To say that it is part of the game’s mystique is even more moronic.

The only question left for the braindead FIFA officials starting with Sepp Blatter is, “Are you on drugs?”


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