My 10 year old grandson Andrew loves to play soccer. He’ll never play in a World Cup, but he’s part of a growing army of young Canadians who are playing more soccer than hockey in this land. Would you believe it’s more than two to one in favour of The Beautiful Game?
That makes it all the more disgusting and tragic to witness what’s has been going on within that vile criminal organization called FIFA. There’s absolutely nothing ‘beautiful’ about the 1200 migrant workers who have apparently been killed in Qatar, working on facilities for the World Cup that will be played there seven years from now. The big event is going there mainly because untold millions of dollars have been paid to FIFA executives who were hiding behind white sheets the other day when they were arrested in Switzerland.
The Americans are also involved, and the Obama Administration describes it as ‘The World Cup of Fraud’ . The man at the top is Sepp Blatter, a 79 year old Swiss national who was first elected as FIFA president 17 years ago.
Blatter has rejected demands that he resign in the face of the scandal. He says he intends to help restore trust in world soccer after the “shame and humiliation”. Seems to me he should be ashamed and humiliated to ever show his face again at a major international soccer event, but don’t hold your breath.
The sponsor dollars that are involved make the Super Bowl look small. What kind of a message does this possibly send to young soccer players like Andrew? In June they will be watching the best women of soccer, playing in several cities including Winnipeg.
Will Mr. Blatter and his cronies ever spend time behind bars? Highly unlikely, but a small army of lawyers are bound to get very rich, if they aren’t already.
I’m Roger Currie
