More About France

I received a few emails with comments ranging from "check Hansson's bank account" to "there was no way Ireland was going to win" to "everyone knows there is a FIFA conspiracy to get the biggest teams into the World Cup."

Let's all take a deep breath and count back from ten.

In the previous post I brought up the Italian soccer scandal from 2006. That reference was not an incriminating of the officials in the France-Ireland game (on another note, I realize they are officially the Republic of Ireland but it's a lot to continually type). The Italy scandal did have referees who fixed games but there is no evidence as of yet proving the officials rigged the game in favor of France.

Conspiracy theories are abound after Henry's handball helped push France into the World Cup. I was sent an article by Martin Rogers of Yahoo!Sports and I though I would include a segment of the piece, including some quotes from Irish defender Richard Dunn:

Incidents such as this are part of the reason why FIFA is so often accused of favoritism toward bigger nations, who draw larger audiences and create extra revenue if they appear in major tournaments.

Time and time again, crucial calls in critical matches have gone the way of the higher-profile team. Irish defender Richard Dunne hinted at foul play.

“It was ridiculous really and unfortunately it’s what we thought was going to happen,” Dunne said. “The World Cup is run by people who want to decide who gets there. Big teams get big decisions. The referee says he was 100 percent certain that Henry didn’t handball it but Henry said to me that he did.

“It’s not a difficult one to see. The linesman was in line with it. We deserved to win. We could have got a couple of goals but theirs knocked the stuffing out of us.”

Everybody on the Irish national team has a reason to be angry this morning. It is a dream of many soccer players to be in the World Cup and to play for your country. Since the tournament is every four years, it makes a knockout that much more painful. For an older soccer player, it could represent the last real chance he had of competing in a World Cup. Being engulfed in the emotion of it all makes comments like "the linesman was in line with it" pliable. Missed calls do happen in sports, whether you're 10 yards away or in line with the play. Sometimes being too close can negatively affect the final judgment since you cannot see the entire play/person.

It is very difficult however to jump to the conclusion of a fixed match without any evidence. I think Martin Rogers does FIFA a disservice by giving this theory attention. England missed the 1994 World Cup despite being a very popular draw and having the Barclays Premiership, arguably the most prestigious soccer league in the world. Fuck, three African teams made it that year (Nigeria, Morocco and Cameroon) while England and France were at home. France didn't make it in 1990 as well and Mexico was disqualified that year. Mexico hosted the 1986 World Cup and made it to the Quarterfinals. In 1994, Mexico advanced past the group stage where the lost in the Round of 16 to Bulgaria of all fucking nations. Bulgaria then turned around and made it all the way to the third place match. The third place match in 2002 was Turkey versus Korea Republic, neither are considered high profile teams and Korea had to beat Spain to make it to the Semi-finals.

Argentina is a hugely popular and successful soccer nation. Everyone who knows soccer has heard the legends or seen the abilities of coke head and current shell of himself, Diego Maradona. They've produced some of the worlds best players (Batistuta, Messi, Riquelme, Crespo, Zanetti, Kempes blah blah we can go on and on). Argentina is certainly a more popular soccer nation, arguably a better team and has more individual talent and world wide appeal than Croatia and Turkey and Sweden and Bulgaria and Korea and yet all of them have advanced further than Argentina over the last four World Cups. And despite being considered one of the favorites in virtually all of those years, Argentina hasn't had a real successful World Cup, by their standards, since it appeared in the 1990 Championship Game.

I mean fucking hell in a jar, Greece...GREECE won the Goddamn 2004 UEFA European Football Championship. A tournament that many consider more difficult to win than the World Cup (every World Cup there are some shitty teams that only made it because there is no outstanding soccer nation in their area or because they are hosting. I'm looking at you in 2010 Korea DPR, New Zealand and South Africa).

These are only a few examples. Obviously we can look at every World Cup or national tournament and every match that Germany or Italy or Brasil competed in and find games where one or two questionable calls went their way and the more popular team/bigger nation advanced. Money has always been the bottom line and if you are going to cry about bigger nations being in tournaments you need to follow that thought through. If revenue dictates how a team does, or "helps" a team, then none of the above examples would have happened. There have been major soccer powers who failed to make past World Cups. There have been major soccer powers who were beaten by less popular opponents in major tournaments.

I wish that whenever there was a blown call in sports the reaction would be more tepid. I'm thinking "wow that sucks" instead of "this is proof the establishment hates my team/nation and there is a huge conspiracy to prevent them from winning because of [insert conspiracy theory]."

If there is proof the refs were bought off or FIFA helped France win in any way, I will happily admit I was 100% wrong but I truly believe there was no favoritism or conspiracy. To accuse or even insinuate that FIFA was unjust in this situation and is wronger than wrong.