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***Official*** Road to World Cup 2014

Uppercut

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Yeah I'd start a revolution if the World Cup ended up on Sky. That's the moment when you know capitalism has gone too far.
 

grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah, I don't want it on Sky Either, but it does mean Lawro, Townsend, Southgate, Chiles et al, will be part of our World Cup experience for the foreseeable future.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Yeah it'd be pretty shameful. It's hard to see how their stance on this fits in with their goal of developing football world wide, seems totally contrary to that objective to me. In fact, it shows a total lack of understanding of why people watch the World Cup in the first place.

I could kind of get on board with this if the revenue generated from this move was to be allocated to developing football in impoverished nations and so on, but the fact that Fifa's annual profits are already around the $650m mark, I doubt very much that this is/was their intention.
 
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Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah, I don't want it on Sky Either, but it does mean Lawro, Townsend, Southgate, Chiles et al, will be part of our World Cup experience for the foreseeable future.
It is a heavy price to pay but we all have to make sacrafices.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Having Clarence Seedorf and Klinsman around kind of makes up for it. In fact, they are about the only mitigating factor, other than the football itself. Hopefully they will be back. Can't stand Lineker and Shearer either.

Hopefully Mick McCarthy will return too. At least he's amusingly bad.
 

Uppercut

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Yeah it'd be pretty shameful. It's hard to see how their stance on this fits in with their goal of developing football world wide, seems totally contrary to that objective to me. In fact, it shows a total lack of understanding of why people watch the World Cup in the first place.

I could kind of get on board with this if the revenue generated from this move was to be allocated to developing football in impoverished nations and so on, but the fact that Fifa's annual profits are already around the $650m mark, I doubt very much that this is/was their intention.
I just find it really distasteful that they can claim to "own" the World Cup and charge people to watch it. It's a global cultural event, it would be like charging people royalties for celebrating Mardi Gras. Fair enough they're the ones who run it, but if they didn't someone else undoubtedly would, and quite possibly do a better job of it.
 

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
I just find it really distasteful that they can claim to "own" the World Cup and charge people to watch it. It's a global cultural event, it would be like charging people royalties for celebrating Mardi Gras. Fair enough they're the ones who run it, but if they didn't someone else undoubtedly would, and quite possibly do a better job of it.
Yeah, I largely agree. It's not just that though, but their reasons for wanting to get past this free to air blockade just seemed totally disingenuous to me.

FIFA’s objection to the original ruling was based on the following:

· FIFA’s established policies, as detailed above, already act as a powerful safeguard for access to matches of national importance.

· The media landscape and the way that consumers access coverage of sports change constantly and require less restrictive regulation.

· The concept of enforcing free-to-air coverage of all 64 matches at the FIFA World Cup™ distorts the media market, negatively impacting FIFA’s ability to reach football fans with new services. This can particularly affect younger fans who consume media in a variety of ways beyond “traditional” TV.

· Crucially, such market distortion could also impact on FIFA’s ability to generate funds from the FIFA World Cup™ which it redistributes through the entire pyramid of football worldwide - investing in the global development of the game, supporting FIFA’s 209 Member Associations, staging its diverse and vital range of tournaments and supporting humanitarian projects.
The fact that they seem to think the priority is ensuring that people get to watch matches of "national importance" just demonstrates how horribly out of touch they are with people who actually watch football. England's games are often the ones I look forward to the least, for example. The whole experience, to me, at least, is the excitement generated from knowing that you can look forward to turning the TV on in the evening and enjoy watching teams/players who you perhaps previously had limited/no knowledge of, and enjoying the buzz and atmosphere of the tournament. How on earth you can get a feel for the tournament and a sense of following certain teams/players when you're only given matches of "national importance" is beyond me. It's a terrible policy.

No idea what the second one point is even driving at, since they seem to be in favour of more regulation over what viewers can watch.

There similarly seems to be no evidence provided whatsoever as to how free-to-air-tv may actually prevent people from being able to watch matches.

And again, the final point is totally unconvincing. Generating funds is clearly not an issue, given the amount of profit they've been raking in over the last few years.
 
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Furball

Evil Scotsman
Good to see that the Premier League is opposing the move to host the 2022 World Cup in the winter. Hopefully the other top European leagues follow suit.
 

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Good to see that the Premier League is opposing the move to host the 2022 World Cup in the winter. Hopefully the other top European leagues follow suit.
Why are you opposed to it? I'd prefer if it were in summer but I can't think of any reason why it should be other than that that's when I'm used to it being.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
The disruption to 3 seasons is one thing plus the underhanded way in which it was awarded. Pretty sure that if they'd mentioned that the tournament wouldn't be held in the traditional summer months then the boards wouldn't have voted for it.
 

Uppercut

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What kind of "disruption" do you mean, though? They'll all need to take a one-off mid season break for the World Cup but it's the same for every team. What bad things are actually going to happen as a result? It's a genuine question. I'd like to come up with an excuse to keep the WC in the summer but I can't think of any.

I reckon they still would have voted for Qatar. One more reason why holding the tournament there is a **** idea surely wouldn't have made much difference.
 

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