The FIFA Bribe Scandal...
- Thread starter Sanji Himura
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- Hammerhead Garage
Blatter wants to keep 32 teams for 2018 World Cup, but he also wants to give a team from Oceania a better chance at qualifying - which means UEFA are likely to lose one of their 13 places. Platini considers that to be crossing the Rubicon, but looking back to the 2014 World Cup, can we honestly say that one less European team would have been a bad thing? For one, it would have spared Spain a lot of embarrassment ...
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- NJ/USA
- Blitzbay
- Blitzbay
Doesn't it water down the competition as well? When is the last time an Oceania team made the round of 16 (if they have before, then the round of 8)?
- 87,462
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
2006 - though Australia qualified through OFC qualification, they were actually an AFC team by the time the tournament started. And although Australia and New Zealand have both qualified for the finals before, there wasn't an OFC qualification round until the 1986 finals - they joined in with Asia or, once, Asia and Africa...
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- Hammerhead Garage
It's more consistent with his way of developing the game in Asia and Africa - by showing nations that they can compete on the world stage - than with revenge. Blatter has been talking about this for a while now.
And in order to get there, we had to go through the likes of Uruguay. The OFC is the smallest and least-developed confederation within FIFA, and their only real shot at qualification usually involves a play-off with some of the South American teams.
- 29,926
- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
It's odd how the play-offs for other confederations work. It throws up some random fixtures. I was a big fan of Trinidad & Tobago when they went to the 2006 World Cup because they had a contingent of Wrexham players in their squad. They qualified via the play-offs and they beat Bahrain of all teams. And Wrexham's Dennis Lawrence scored the winning goal.
It seems random having two teams far flung from each other. Surely there must be nations closer to each other in order to sort these places out?
It seems random having two teams far flung from each other. Surely there must be nations closer to each other in order to sort these places out?
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- Hammerhead Garage
The play-offs really hinge on who qualifies for them. If that means Paraguay will play Mongolia for the last spot, Paraguay play Mongolia.
It actually gets pretty political as to who joins which confederation - we really had to work to get moved from Oceania to Asia, and even now, some of the Middle Eastern federations want us moved back to Oceania because it was designed to make it easier for an Oceanic nation to qualify for the World Cup, but now that the job is done, our continued presence in the AFC is coming at the expense of some of the smaller and under-developed nations in the region.
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- NJ/USA
- Blitzbay
- Blitzbay
Too bad for the Middle Eastern nations. No sympathy from me for the AFC
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- Ireland
- The__Luke
Can you honestly say New Zealand would have done anyway decently?
Hell, Tahiti were considered the OFC's best representative for the Confed Cup and conceded on average 8 goals a game, whereas great players like Ibrahimovic and Bale missed out on the World Cup mainly because weaker nations take from UEFA placing.
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- Glasgow
- GTP_Mars
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- England
- NINE_HUNDRED
Blatter to resign apparently... 
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- Glasgow
- GTP_Mars
You mean I sat through that election broadcast for nothing?!
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- Ireland
- The__Luke
Today is still a good day guys.👍You mean I sat through that election broadcast for nothing?!
GTP_Ingram
Premium
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- NowtDaft
I think I'll just wait and see who the replacement is before I get too thrilled by this news. Sepp has probably printed out a load of ballot papers with only his daughter's name on them already.
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- United Kingdom
So that wasn't such a long wait, only four days. Wonder what else these investigations might unravel.
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- Tecumseh, MI
- I_Fail_At_FPS
I never thought I'd see the day that people would actually be happy happy that the FBI decided to get into international affairs. Today, with Blatter resigning, is apparently that day.
- 6,260
- Tecumseh, MI
- I_Fail_At_FPS
That wouldn't shock me in the slightest if they announce that publicly. Splatter must have known that he was done for, so he decided to not go down with the shame of being the FIFA president who got busted for corruption while serving as FIFA president.
*Splatter. It's a perfect name to call Sepp because his (and FIFA's) reputation got splattered due to this scandal.
