Eideard

Move over Chile, Brazil has the world’s largest Lego tower.

Standing at 31.19 meters the tower in the city of Sao Paulo breaks the previous record set in Santiago, Chile, in 2008 by 25 centimeters, according to Lego’s Brazilian website.

Lego sent designers from Denmark to build the tower, which was completed Saturday in a shopping center parking lot after four days of construction.

Brazilian soccer great Cafu attached the last piece of the colorful tower.

According to Lego, the first such structure was built in London in 1988 and stood just a little over 15 meters (49.21 feet) tall.

OK, we know it’s a publicity stunt for the upcoming World Cup and the Olympics. But, it ain’t a bad way to waste some time.

Beckenbauer and Sepp Blather

The man who led Germany to a World Cup win both as a player and a coach admits he has lost faith in FIFA due to the way the voting process for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments was handled.

Franz Beckenbauer, a member of FIFA’s executive committee, criticized football’s governing body after the amount of votes each bidder received was made public.

Beckenbauer was one of the 22 FIFA members who voted in the process and claims he was assured that the details would remain private.

Yet soon after it was announced that Russia had won the right to host the 2018 competition, and Qatar had secured the 2022 version, media were reporting that two of the favorites, England and Australia, attracted just two votes and one vote respectively.

It led to an angry reaction from representatives of the England and Australia bid teams and Beckenbauer acknowledges his faith in FIFA has been shaken as a result.

“I am disappointed with the way FIFA dealt with the result. The seven losing countries were treated disgracefully, particularly England and Australia, Beckenbauer told German newspaper Bild…

“All of us ExCo members were told ahead of the ballot that neither we nor the public would ever know the exact number of votes for each country. After each round of voting we were told only which country had been ruled out.
“Then, a few hours later, I was hearing from journalists what the exact voting had been. It’s certainly affected my confidence in FIFA.”

There are thousands of ordinary fans who lost faith in FIFA years ago – as anything other than a club for self-seeking, greedy business-turds who happen to have some cachet inside the world of sport. Their opinions, decisions, reek of gold and gravy. They deserve about as much respect and deference as the average con artist on work-release from prison.

Shh. Don’t tell Thierry Henry!
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

New France coach Laurent Blanc Friday has punished the country’s farcical World Cup squad by dropping each of the 23 players for a friendly against Norway next month.

Blanc’s decision to take action was approved by the French Football Federation’s federal council after a meeting with Raymond Domenech’s successor in Paris.

France suffered a miserable World Cup campaign in South Africa, marked by striker Nicolas Anelka’s expulsion after his foul-mouthed tirade at Domenech, infighting, and the players’ refusal to train.

‘Les Bleus’ returned home in ignominy after failing to win any of their first round games, with Domenech refusing to shake South Africa coach Carlos Alberto Parriera’s hand following the final defeat to the hosts…

France football has endured a woeful year, with Thierry Henry’s controversial handball which put France into the World Cup at the expense of Ireland in the play-offs, their pitiful display in the competition itself, and then the scandal involving international stars Franck Ribery and Karim Benzema who this week put under investigation on charges of having sex with an under-age prostitute.

Phew! How to start a new job, eh?

Andrés Iniesta breaks everyones’ heart in Holland

A match like many of the World Cup Finals I’ve watched in the past forty years.

Mostly played out in the midfield. Individual attacks, sometimes in pairs or threes; but, never jeopardizing the need for defense. Some of those efforts almost succeeded, should have succeeded. But, that was up to the players on the pitch.

No brilliant field general or Titan of sport. Just twenty-two skilled, talented, disciplined and well-trained athletes giving their all.

I didn’t expect more than that. It was well worth watching.

Netherlands 0 – 1 Spain

Yes, South Africa was a big winner on the day, as well.

The influx of thousands of soccer fans would increase demand on South African sex workers; at least that was the belief of a leading expert prior to the start of the 2010 World Cup.

But it seems fans of the beautiful game that traveled to the Rainbow Nation have created a flop in sex-worker business — leaving prostitutes out-of-pocket and out of work — in favor of more high-brow pursuits.

“The World Cup has been devastating. We thought it was going to be a cash cow but it’s chased a lot of the business away. It’s been the worst month in my company’s history,” the owner and founder of one of Johannesburg’s most exclusive escort companies told CNN.

“No one is interested in sex at the moment. I think we’ve had three customers who traveled here for the World Cup which has seen my group’s business drop by 80 percent. I enjoyed watching the games, but I can’t wait for everyone to just go home now!” the madam, who works under the alias of “Tori,” added…

The tournament in 2010, if anything, has seen the modern-day soccer fan attracted to art galleries and museums over brothels.

“People went to the bars and stadiums to watch the games and afterwards they went home. They didn’t bother themselves with coming to us,” Zobwa, who works as a prostitute told CNN.

“Before the tournament we were getting good money but [over the month] it has not been busy at all. We thought it was going to be much better but it has been boring. I’ve actually left Johannesburg now because there has been so little trade.

RTFA for the details. Amazing to me. Is the sport attracting a better educated, more perceptive crowd?

Dare I hope?

England’s Howard Webb will be the referee for the World Cup final. The 38-year-old from Rotherham has been chosen for the final by Fifa’s referees committee.

Webb and his assistants Darren Cann and Michael Mullarkey will officiate in the final on Sunday between Spain and Holland at Johannesburg’s Soccer City.

He will become the first Englishman to referee the final since Jack Taylor in 1974…

Our family of football fans hoped Howard would be in line – since he didn’t set foot on the pitch for any of the winding up matches preceding the Final.

Webb’s team have not put a foot wrong in the tournament so far. Cann correctly ruled out a Fabio Quagliarella equaliser for Italy against Slovakia while Mullarkey was praised for his decision to allow Luís Fabiano’s goal for Brazil against Chile.

Howard Webb is a favorite of many who follow the English Premier League season. Not only does he work hard at being fair, he doesn’t especially tolerate diving and other pantywaist stunts.

Glad he left the constabulary and went full-time into being a referee.

EPL Champions 2009/2010 – how many Brits in the photo?

England’s dismal failure at the World Cup can be blamed on the Premier League’s inability to promote home-grown talent, according to the president of Spain’s La Liga.

José Luis Astiazarán has questioned the number of young foreign players at Premier League clubs and said the principal reason Spain have reached Sunday’s final against Holland is that “77.1%” of footballers in their domestic league are Spanish-qualified, a direct result of home-grown players being given the opportunity in their clubs’ first teams. In the Premier League fewer than 40% of players are English…

Astiazarán said. “Our strategy is to work very hard with young home-grown players and to try to have a mix between them and experienced players.

“Why is it not a high number of foreign players in La Liga? Because we invest more and more in young Spanish players than in young foreign players. England has many times taken young players from outside who are 14, 16 years old. These kind of players are not English. This is one of the most important differences between Spain and England. We invest in young Spanish players. In Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United there are a lot of young Spanish, French and Italian players – maybe this is why at the moment you are not creating young English players…

Spain are also the reigning European champions and Astiazarán does not deny that imported, established foreign stars have aided the development of domestic footballers. “OK, there are very good foreign players who help improve the Spanish players’ level because we have players coming from the major leagues who have played in the Champions League and big competitions in Europe and this is important,” he said.

I agree. But, anyone who knows me – already knows this.

Maybe they don’t need fans anymore, either.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

A replica World Cup trophy seized by anti-drugs police in Colombia is made out of cocaine, lab tests have confirmed.

The 36cm statue was found in a delivery crate at Bogota airport.

The crate was in an airmail warehouse waiting to be sent to an address in Spain, airport anti-drug chief Jose Piedrahita said.

In another development, a submarine built by drug-traffickers was found in Ecuador before its maiden voyage.

The World Cup replica was made up of 11kg of the drug, mixed with acetone or gasoline to make it mouldable.

The gold-painted statue was found on a routine sweep of the airport on Friday, authorities said.

Are they certain it wasn’t headed to Argentina?

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Somali fighters from the Hizbul Islam group have killed two people and arrested dozens for violating a ban on watching World Cup football matches on television.

Eyewitnesses said masked men from the group raided houses on Sunday and Monday in the Afgoi district, 30 km south of the capital Mogadishu, to make sure their ban stands.

“Hizbul Islam killed two people and arrested 35 others, all World Cup fans,” Ali Yasin Gedi, vice-chairman of the Elman rights group, told Reuters on Tuesday.

“Islamists unexpectedly entered houses in Afgoi district and then fired (at) some people who tried to jump over the wall to escape” he said.

Hizbul Islam and another group al-Shabaab, which are widely seen as al-Qaeda’s proxy in the region, control large swathes of the country and much of the capital.

The groups enforce their own strict interpretation of Islam, routinely banning sport, music and dancing…

Three years of fighting in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation has left 21,000 people dead and forced 1.5 million from their homes. Only small pockets of the capital remain in the hands of a Western-backed government and African Union peacekeepers.

My only suggestions for sorting out gangsters like this – and their pathetic masquerade as religious leaders – comes down to firearms and explosives.

They only achieve recognition as representing Islam among two kinds of idiots: Equally depraved thugs seeking political power – and the teabaggers and other right-wing nutballs who are willing to believe in any ideology that gives them a chance to hate furriners.