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Mid-Day Ticker: England bid chief speaks out, Santos wins first leg and more

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By AVI CREDITOR

The adverse reactions to Thursday's decisions by FIFA haven't lost any steam a day later, with the chief of England's 2018 bid strongly speaking out against the world's governing body of soccer.

Andy Anson expressed his opinions of FIFA's decision-making process, calling for reform in the aftermath of England's first-round elimination in Thursday's vote during a press conference on Friday.

"I would say right now don't bother (bidding) unless you know the process is going to change," Anson said. "When there are only 22 guys that gives them too much influence."

He continued: "When you have the best technical bid, fantastic inspection visits, the best economic report, and, from what people told us, the best presentation, it's quite hard to stomach that all that seemed to count for absolutely nothing."

Here are a few more stories to carry you over to the weekend:

SANTOS TAKES FIRST LEG OF MEXICAN FINAL

An own goal in the 86th minute by Duilio Davino snapped a 2-2 tie and handed Santos a 3-2 victory over Monterrey and the upper-hand after the first leg of the Mexican league championship Thursday night.

Santos twice took one-goal leads only to have the visitors battle back to level the score. Jorge Estrada and Darwin Quintero tallied goals for Santos, while Humberto Suazo and Neri Cardozo scored for Monterrey, which hosts the return leg on Sunday.

WEATHER AFFECTING WEEKEND GAMES IN UK

The Manchester United-Blackpool fixture slated for Saturday has been postponed on account of the pitch at Bloomfield Road being frozen.

So far, that's the only Premier League game in England that has been forced to be rescheduled, though six matches on the Scottish Premier League slate – including Rangers match against Hearts of Midlothian – have been postponed as well. It marks the second time in as many weeks that Rangers has had a league match rescheduled.

Many matches in the lower divisions of England and Scotland have also been pushed off.

HOUSTON SECURES DOWNTOWN STADIUM DEAL

The Houston Dynamo had their plan for a downtown stadium unanimously approved on Thursday, getting the green light from the Harris County-Harris Sports Authority to go forward with the project, which is expected to take 16 months to complete.

The stadium is scheduled to open ahead of the 2012 Major League Soccer season, and it will cost the Dynamo $76 million to build. The city of Houston and Harris County will reportedly own the stadium, and the Dynamo have agreed to lease the site for $65,000 a year, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Texas Southern University will also play its football games at the new venue, which will reportedly not cost taxpayers any money to have built.

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What do you think of Anson's comments? Do you see Monterrey coming back to win the Mexican league final? Disappointed that many of the weekend's games in the UK are being cancelled? Excited for the new stadium to open in Houston?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Yeah I believe that was the case fischy and there’s nothing controversial about that. They’re both members of the British Commonwealth and Australia had a great bid. We shouldn’t be upset.

    Reply
  2. Yeah, I was trying to figure out how to phrase that one. My comment had to do about a combination of factors:

    If the Qatar bid win was due to a corrupted process then there is nothing the USSF could have done. Or maybe not!

    If everyone on earth suspects FIFA to be a corrupt organization, then it is pretty naive for USSF to think that it can roll out a couple of celebrities to plea its cause and everyone will just give us their vote. What USSF should have done is work the same channels that the Qatar organization did and played their own game. And to say that we cannot play dirty games is also naive because of already attempted it for the Salt Lake City bid for the winter Olympics.

    If the selection was not the result of corruption, then we need to question why the US can fair so poorly after presenting probable the most sound of all bids. Maybe some people do not like us for whatever reason. Maybe the USSF is not playing the politics game the way other are (see my reply to fischy above).

    In the end, I am not making a statement that this was a corrupted process or not. I don’t believe we have heard the end of it and more will come out, but I reserve my judgment until further proof.

    Cheers

    Reply
  3. Well being one of the people on here that is currently in Qatar, I would say that it is progressive – and improving. I have no idea what “terrorists” you think are being safehaved, and what major city isn’t difficult to get around in? Having been here almost a year now I have no problems. I expect that the Qataris will iron out any transportation issues better than what I experienced in Germany and South Africa

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  4. Hey fischy,

    Sorry I was not clear in my comment. What I meant to say is that celebrities clearly do not guarantee success in these endeavors. No need to look further than the failed Chicago bid for the Olympics.

    What we all know is that FIFA is a game of politics and dealings (possibly shady) that is played at the confederations levels and individual countries federations levels. The Qatar committee spent countless hours and money working those players that they needed to secure the bid. For that game you do not need celebrities, you need soccer people who know other soccer people who can influence other soccer people. It is about obtaining as much power as possible through these dealings in order to affect an outcome and clearly the USSF failed miserably.

    As sound and credible their presentation might have been, it is naive to think that alone would sway voters in their favor.

    Cheers

    Reply
  5. TSU only plays 4 or 5 home games a year and neither team will play home games at the stadium on the same weekend. The Dynamo have claimed in the past of having a way to make sure the lines won’t be noticeable when they play.

    Reply
  6. Guess you didn’t see the semifinals of the Mexican league playoffs where both Pumas and Monterrey had football lines on their fields.

    Reply
  7. Dear AEG scum,

    You dough head. Before you lambast Ives, you should know that the 20 million in tax payer money is not to build the stadium, but is to create the infrastructure (streets, sewers, and lights) in a run down area that will support the stadium and future revenue building businesses.

    The other thing is that the Dynamo are not technically the owners, but are the owners inthat they collect all funds from games. They only pay a measly $65000 a year for “the use” of the stadium.

    They had to do this in order to get the rights to holding future concert events there.

    Reply
  8. and obviously you don’t understand how language works. “Reportedly” is a qualifier indicating that the case may be otherwise, but that is the information currently available. Second, Avi wrote this report, not Ives.

    Reply
  9. Truth. But in the soccer world, FIFA is such a behemoth that the process to enacting real reform is a long, hard, road to say the least.

    One has to imagine that the corruption stretches from the top down to the bottom levels. Too many people have much to lose if they rock the boat. There is also the case of those uncorrupted but still hostile to US and English interests.

    Self-interest needs to be sacrificed if FIFA is ever going to become a decent org.

    Reply
  10. I think FIFA should just go out into the ocean; find a new decision making octopus to make their decisions for them….wait; maybe they already have?

    Reply
  11. Great to see FIFA practicing what they preach with the “FIFA Fair Play” and “Say No to Racism” campaigns, by allowing one of the most racist (Russia) and undemocratic/homophonic (Qatar) countries to host the World Cup. Awesome.

    Reply
  12. “As per the other assertions that this was the result of a corrupted process”

    Your point is a bit unclear but if you are arguing that this wasn’t a blatantly corrupt process, you are not just naive but willfully ignoring the fact that corruption did exist (see English investigation and on-camera capture of bribery), at least in some stage of the process.

    Your implication seems to be that the adverse result in the bid for the US was likely a result of the US bid team’s incompetence/international standing. It is hard to tell because you don’t come out and say one way or the other whether you attribute the result to corruption or not.

    If you agree that corruption had a hand in the process then it is hard to fault the US’ bid or the US’ current international standing.

    Reply
  13. The fact that this won’t happen is precisely why FIFA can do whatever it wants to. In 8 years, this will be mostly forgotten, and those who choose to stay home will have their places taken happily by others. Demand for the WC will always be too high to allow for accountability.

    Reply
  14. I think Anson is wrong that 22 members is too few. I think it’s too many. It’s harder to scrutinize the affairs of 5-7 people than 22. And if the Panorama report had exposed 3 of 5 as taking bribes rather than 3 of 22, I think it would be harder for Blatter to ignore. The people who contribute nothing but line their pockets need to go.

    Reply
  15. Best way to show FIFA our unhappiness is simple: don’t go. Mostly to Qatar, but not going to Russia would work as well. If tickets aren’t sold in Qatar, FIFA will have to learn a lesson from that. If instead everyone watched it from home, we would see an increase in TV viewership, and maybe FIFA would get the message.

    Reply
  16. Dear Ives, aka AEG mouthpiece, I thought you were a reporter, not a propagandist for hire. The Houston stadium will not “reportedly not cost taxpayers any money to have built”. Houston taxpayers paid for half the land and are contributing $20 million dollars to build the stadium.

    Reply
  17. Pretty easy: in the first round US got three votes, all presumably from CONCACAF. Everybody else voted for Asian countries (plus Aussie, AFC anyway – general consensus is that England voted for Aussie). After Korea and Japan were gone, US picked up a few, but in the first vote, they were behind at least one AFC team in the minds of everyone besides CONCACAF.

    I didn’t think the US was exactly saying that the WC would fortify MLS. I thought US was pointing out that there’s actually a league here, unlike Qatar. And they pointed out that MLS is fairly international (58 countries represented). Still, it apparently didn’t come off well, but I don’t think it would have mattered if it had.

    Reply
  18. You need to change the channel from FAUX News every once in a while, if you want to see the real world. Bill Clinton, perhaps one of the two most famous and beloved political figures in the world, was there for the pitch. Our best player was there. President Obama had a taped message. The two biggest execs involved in US soccer were there. It’s hard to imagine a stronger set of personalities. Sure, I’d like to have seen an ex-Pres or current Pres who was identified as a bifg fan and to have celebrities more knowledgeable and more articulate about the game than Morgan Freeman Still, if you think the USA lost because of the presentation, then you weren’t paying attention to all the reports that made Qatar the favorite even before that.

    Reply
  19. “South American and Euro representatives voted for Asian countries over US.”

    How do you know this? I believe it was public knowledge before the vote that CONMEBOL reps would vote for Qatar, but how do you know Euro reps did?

    I’ve already posted my own thoughts on this — I actually wrote Ives a letter that I hoped he’d post as a guest editorial, critical of the USA bid’s messaging. Basically, they were asking FIFA to give the USA the Cup to fortify MLS and vault the league into the top 4 or 5 in the world. I can’t imagine that would play well anywhere.

    Reply

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