Fifa

[Stavros]

I like this quote so much I put it in the greatest quotes of all time thread:

'I am deputy chairman of the finance committee of FIFA. I oversee a budget of US$2 billion and I have never seen one iota of corruption.’Jack Warner, Trinidad Express 12 December 2004


Source is also worth seeing:
http://transparencyinsport.org/

[SammiValentine]

Give him a job at goldman sachs

[Stavros]

I think Mr Warner would consider GS to be too small, and incapable of meeting his demands -his annual bonus would have to be twice the GNP of Trinidad for him to be interested.

[robertlouis]

In terms of his approach to the sport and his one club career Ryan Giggs may well be the last of an illustrious line.

I said that three weeks ago.

Ever feel like a complete dickhead?

[Stavros]

Ever feel like a complete dickhead?

Why? Are you buying in to the conceit that marriage is an ideal social condition that must either be happy and pure, or be left alone? If marriage is such an ideal condition, why do many fail? And, as it has happened throughout history, why is a failed marriage to become the moral test of someone most people don't know? What do most people know about the truth of Ryan Giggs's marriage? My guess is next to nothing, and it isn't anyone's business but his. Yes, he made a mistake by taking out an injunction against the press because that only encouraged them to take him on. But then we live in times when Wayne Rooney's 'issues' with his receding hairline is aparently newsworthy...

[robertlouis]

Ever feel like a complete dickhead?

Why? Are you buying in to the conceit that marriage is an ideal social condition that must either be happy and pure, or be left alone? If marriage is such an ideal condition, why do many fail? And, as it has happened throughout history, why is a failed marriage to become the moral test of someone most people don't know? What do most people know about the truth of Ryan Giggs's marriage? My guess is next to nothing, and it isn't anyone's business but his. Yes, he made a mistake by taking out an injunction against the press because that only encouraged them to take him on. But then we live in times when Wayne Rooney's 'issues' with his receding hairline is aparently newsworthy...

Your penultimate sentence is my issue, Stavros. Otherwise I agree with pretty much all you have to say about marriage.

What I found upsetting - and I don't subscribe to the "footballers should be role models" school either - is that someone I though to be a genuine exception to the usual noise about the Premiership has turned out in one crucial area to be a hypocrite.

It doesn't detract in any way from his one-club loyalty or the fact that he is probably the best player in the history of the English premiership, but it doesn't stop me from feeling a little let down. Heroes with feet of clay and all that.

[Stavros]

probably the best player in the history of the English premiership

Ok, just remember that for some fanatics the mere fact that Giggs plays for Manchester United rules him out of any contest -I used to know a Liverpool fanatic whose loathing of MU was borderline insanity...

How do you judge the 'best player'? Football is a team sport -team by team is hard enough, just in MU you have to choose Giggs over Cantona or Schmeichel; if it was Liverpool, you would have to choose between players like Rush and Dalglish and Barnes and Beardsley; what about Gascoigne and Linkeker? I think its a futile exercise: the only exception I ever make is to claim that Pele is the greatest footballer of all time, so far...

[robertlouis]

probably the best player in the history of the English premiership

Ok, just remember that for some fanatics the mere fact that Giggs plays for Manchester United rules him out of any contest -I used to know a Liverpool fanatic whose loathing of MU was borderline insanity...

How do you judge the 'best player'? Football is a team sport -team by team is hard enough, just in MU you have to choose Giggs over Cantona or Schmeichel; if it was Liverpool, you would have to choose between players like Rush and Dalglish and Barnes and Beardsley; what about Gascoigne and Linkeker? I think its a futile exercise: the only exception I ever make is to claim that Pele is the greatest footballer of all time, so far...

Based on the sole criterion of consistent excellence over an astonishingly long period of time, it would be Giggs, with Scholes an honourable second.

In terms of sheer ability, blimey, now that IS a tough one!