The World Cup started off in grand fashion. The very first match was rigged so the host team could notch a victory.
Croatia coach Niko Kovac said his players “better give it up now and go home” after Brazil were awarded what looked to be a soft, and crucial, penalty in their 3-1 win in the World Cup opening game.
With the match tied at 1-1 in the second half, Japanese official Yuichi Nishimura awarded Brazil a contentious spot-kick when striker Fred went down after a light touch from Croatia centre-back Dejan Lovren.
Kovac called the penalty “ridiculous” and said Nishimura was not at the level to be a referee on the sport’s biggest stage.
“If that was a penalty, we should be playing basketball,” Kovac said. “Those kinds of fouls are penalised there.
The liberal weenies in the American sporting press who keep telling us soccer is important never bother to mention that soccer is the most corrupt sport on earth. Here’s a piece on the rampant cheating and game fixing from PBS.
Soccer has been tainted in the past by evidence of match fixing. But European law enforcement officials outlined a complex scandal yesterday that was enormous in scope and could be deeply damaging to the game’s reputation.
The European Union’s police agency, Europol, said an 18-month investigation turned up 680 matches suspected of being fixed across the globe. The games were played between 2008 and 2011. The scandal may have even involved qualifying matches for the sport’s biggest tournaments, the World Cup and the European Championships.
The probe cited links to criminal networks, including a Singapore-based crime syndicate. Europol wouldn’t name any of the suspected matches or individuals, but said it involved more than 400 people in 15 countries.
That’s in Europe where respect for the law is still kind of important. Imagine what South America is like. But, that’s the nature of sports. Sports with a high level of difficulty attract a different sort of player and a different sort of fan. Soccer is just a bunch of little guys chasing a ball around. The only way to keep it interesting is gambling and heavy drinking. Maybe a little hooliganism too.
You missed a hilarious recent example of soccer corruption, namely the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.
I’m glad Amazing clarified the bit about the jumpers. For a moment I had a vision of little girls shivering in their underwear while beefy lads used their dresses for soccer goals. Perfidious Albion, indeed!
You seem to forget the corrupt fascist nature of pretty much all sport in America.
Formula 1? Boxing?
The best thing about soccer is that it’s rules provide no time for advertising. The worst thing is that advertising would be an improvement.
Point out anywhere in my comment where I am wrong or stupid. I never said cricket is the most corrupt sport, but it may well be. To argue that cricket hasn’t had more than its fair share of trouble with corruption would be disingenuous or in your case, ignorant. As for the nomenclature, shut up for goodness sake. Only 10% of the English speaking world call it football. The other 90% call it soccer. Italians don’t call it football either, go have a whinge at them. All you Poms have is your snark. Nothing good to say about yourselves, just… Read more »
It may come as a surprise to you but corruption exists where there is money. Any sport is prone to it and where gambling is involved there is even more corruption. Was the World Cup opening match ‘rigged’? Maybe it was but we are at least free to speculate. I don’t even mind you not liking ‘soccer.’ It is in fact really called football because, er, a person kicks the ball. You know, the thing that is done so rarely in what you Yanks laughably call Football. You want stupidity? Well, it is calling armoured rugby ‘football’ when it is… Read more »
Cricket has to be up there with the most corrupt sports. Easy to rig, black market bookmaking is rife throughout Asia and the player’s families are a bullet away if players don’t cooperate.
Google corruption in cricket and prepare to be amazed.
Good point.