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2021-22-23-24 News Thread

Will wonders never cease? FIFA did the right thing. 🤯

Still awaiting Chelsea making a stronger statement that "expressing concern about the situation in Ukraine". Situation? 🤬🤬🤬 Chelsea!
 
Ed H in Pasadena said:
Will wonders never cease? FIFA did the right thing. 🤯

Still awaiting Chelsea making a stronger statement that "expressing concern about the situation in Ukraine". Situation? 🤬🤬🤬 Chelsea!
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I mean ... their owner (who is definitely NOT a Putin-sphere crony ... wink, wink) did basically divest himself from club affairs and turn management decisions over to their Trust. These people are English, so a robustly worded, finger wagging Tweet is about all you'll get beyond that.

And I saw at least one report indicating that UEFA and at least one other confederation basically gave FIFA no choice but to capitulate. Once UEFA came in line for stronger punishment, it was pretty much a done deal, I'd think.
 
jeffbear said:
I mean ... their owner (who is definitely NOT a Putin-sphere crony ... wink, wink) did basically divest himself from club affairs and turn management decisions over to their Trust. These people are English, so a robustly worded, finger wagging Tweet is about all you'll get beyond that.

And I saw at least one report indicating that UEFA and at least one other confederation basically gave FIFA no choice but to capitulate. Once UEFA came in line for stronger punishment, it was pretty much a done deal, I'd think.
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Former Arsenal minority shareholder and current Everton-linked oligarch Alisher Usmanov had his assets frozen. His company, USM Holdings, sponsors Everton’s training ground and has right of first refusal for naming rights to their new stadium. Everton owner Farhad Moshri is chairman of USM Holdings.

www.bbc.com

Alisher Usmanov: Everton-linked Russian billionaire has assets frozen by EU

Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who has commercial ties to Everton, has his assets frozen by the European Union.
www.bbc.com
 
Look ... they don't call it Londongrad for nothing. It's gonna be a long painful process to dig all the Kleptocrat creepers out of the English economy. Presuming of course that they're serious enough about the sanctions to keep this up for any length of time.
 
Cindy Parlow Cone won a new 4 year term as US Soccer President. She received 53% of the weighted vote over former President Carlos Cordeiro. Hopefully that’s the last we hear from him.
 
andyt said:
Cindy Parlow Cone won a new 4 year term as US Soccer President. She received 53% of the weighted vote over former President Carlos Cordeiro. Hopefully that’s the last we hear from him.
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Almost all of his support came from the Youth camp, which has a ridiculously disproportionate level of voter representation. Pretty much none of the other constituencies wanted anything to do with him. Which is good, because he's a clown.
 
Who knows for sure, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that due to the fact that he was working for St Petersburg before the conflict he is probably living there and is both not in a position to leave the country currently as that's not really possible and thus not in position to say anything about the current conflict due to personal safety.
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
Who knows for sure, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that due to the fact that he was working for St Petersburg before the conflict he is probably living there and is both not in a position to leave the country currently as that's not really possible and thus not in position to say anything about the current conflict due to personal safety.
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Markus Gisdol left Lokomotive. Daniel Farke and his entire coaching staff left Krasnador 48 days after signing a contract without managing a single match for them. In fact, Zenit had a Ukrainian defender who left them last week. What in the world would keep Tymoshchuk from doing the same?
 
Ed H in Pasadena said:
Markus Gisdol left Lokomotive. Daniel Farke and his entire coaching staff left Krasnador 48 days after signing a contract without managing a single match for them. In fact, Zenit had a Ukrainian defender who left them last week. What in the world would keep Tymoshchuk from doing the same?
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I mean, he could in fact be pro-Putin. Ovechkin certainly has been over the years, and he's certainly not alone. I get that he's Ukrainian, but it's not always that cut and dried. This business of demanding political positions from people in athletics is a tetchy business.
 
Japan officially qualified today for Qatar by defeating Australia 2-0 on goals in the 89th and 94th minutes, scored by Brighton's Kaoru Mitoma, who is currently on loan to Union SG in the Belgian top flight. The Aussies cannot finish second now, (that's Saudi Arabia) so they are going to be playing in the fourth round match on June 7th. The winner of the match between them and the third place team in the other group (UAE, Lebanon or Iraq) will be the AFC's representative in the inter-confederation playoff against the fifth place team in CONMEBOL.
And South Korea went top of its group with an easy 2-0 win over Iran. Spurs' Son Heung-min scored the first. Both of those teams have already qualified.
 
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Watched part of the Iraq/UAE match (before falling asleep. Hey! It was a long night. ;) ) Iraq won that match to remain alive in the AFC third round. Currently fourth in the standings, they play the last placed side Syria while UAE (currently 3rd) faces So. Korea. Technically, 5th placed Lebanon has a chance, but they must beat Iran AND make up a four goal difference with UAE while hoping Iraq losses.
Syria surprisingly trounced Lebanon 3-0, virtually killing Lebanon's chances to advance.
 
Ed H in Pasadena said:
The latest FIFA rankings once again befuddle me to no end. How did Senegal drop to #20? They won AFCON! And Canada dropped five spots? How? 🤬
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Yup. And yet, the rankings are still somehow WAY better than they were going into the World Cup four years ago.
 
VinatieriDefinesClutch said:
I know they've been down for a little bit, but Germany at 12 just feels weird.
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That's one where I feel like the new ranking metric is pretty accurate. Given how qualifying went for them, you could throw a hat over Germany, Portugal, the Netherlands and Denmark and the rankings reflect that. It's the other regions outside of UEFA where the rankings get really weird, really quickly. Canada is basically dead even with Scotland and that's a freaking joke. I love my Scots, but they're a 3-4 man team on a good day ... two of whom play the same specialist position.
 
Celtic 2-1 over Rangers at Ibrox to go 2-1 for the season against the Blues. Game winner from American Cameron Carter Vickers, who really should be in the US bench at this point given how well he's playing compared to the other depth options at CB. Amazing turnaround at Celtic, honestly. They were dead in the water 6 or 8 weeks into the season.
 
The NWSL released their new anti-harassment policy yesterday, which promptly resulted in Houston Dash suspending head coach and GM James Clarkson. The investigation by the league into his conduct coincided with the final draft of the updated policy. With any luck, this is the last abusive coach to be rooted out following a rough, rough year for the league. If they can start to move forward now, I think the boost they've gotten from vibrant new franchises in California will generate enough momentum for them to start building momentum again. The level of play in Challenge Cup has been surprisingly high given the off season turmoil ... and the regular season kicks off later this week.
 
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