Introducing the FIFA All Stars

Well, much to my surprise, my last few posts ('The Ugly Truth about The Beautiful Game' and 'The Meaning of LiFIFA 1, 2 & 3)' have turned out to be my most successful posts in terms of the number of page visits and the number of comments. (Thanks to everyone who's shown an interest and commented - you're all fabulous!)
So, in a cheap and tawdry effort to continue this increased traffic on my blog, I've decided to go for another football related post, one which I am sure will appeal not only to the money-grabbers at FIFA but also, perhaps, to a couple of billion football fans whose teams didn't make it to the spectacle in Brazil.

The FIFA All Stars.
It's a simple enough idea.
23 players chosen from all those countries that didn't qualify (no more than 2 players per country though) and managed by a special 'guest' manager (I'm thinking Fergie or The Special One).
Just think about it - that's potentially 23 more countries (and their fanbase) with a vested interest in the World Cup, which, in turn, means 23 more countries for TV rights, advertising, replica shirt sales, etc, etc. You'd have a player from China there, that's for sure!

But looking beyond the money and thinking just about the football (which I guess counts the guys from FIFA out), just consider if they'd had the FIFA All Stars in the past, then we'd have been able to see the likes of George Best, George Weah and Ryan Giggs strutting their stuff on the biggest footballing stage in the world - how genuinely cool would that have been.

So who thinks this is a fantastic idea?
Do you think Sepp and his buddies will cut me in for 10%?
And if you do, who should be in the FIFA All Stars squad for this World Cup?

A little bit of sanity in a world gone mad?

It was somewhat refreshing to watch a little bit of sanity prevail in Parliament last night (usually a place where sanity fears to tread) with the vote by MPs against the British taking military action in Syria.
Of course, what has happened in Syria with the use of chemical weapons is diabolical and, yes, I do believe those responsible must be held to account for this atrocity. But if the use of these weapons is a transgression of international law (which we are told it is), then it is the role of the international community, as a whole, to take action, and not individual states. The means of exercising such action is through the UN Security Council.
Of course, everyone knows that if a resolution authorising the use of military force against the Syrian government is sought at the UN,  the Russians and the Chinese are likely to either veto or vote against it, which is their prerogative (though why they want to be seen to be supporting a regime that is happy to indiscriminately gas thousands of its own people is beyond me). And yes, the failure to get a resolution would probably mean that chemical weapons would be used again.
But what going through the UN would mean is that when history looks back at what has happened in Syria and sees all those dead bodies in the streets, the finger of complicity will be pointed at those members of the Security Council who decided not to support action to prevent the further use of these horrific, outlawed weapons, and not at those countries that did what they could, within the structure of international law, to put a stop to it.
What our politicians should now be doing, rather than rattling their sabres at the Syrian regime, is convincing the Russians and the Chinese that, however much they may want to keep Assad in power, the use of chemical weapons in this vicious civil war is something that they simply cannot countenance, and that they should use their influence to prevent it happening again.
Then, at some point in the future when the violence in Syria is over, work can begin to bring to justice those who ordered the use of these heinous weapons and who have the blood of so many on their hands.

Riots - Who's are the best?

I'm not sure if any of you were aware, but there is now in place an unspoken international agreement that any country which hosts a major global sporting event must, in the preceding year, also host the World Riot Championships.
The 2013 World Riot Championships are currently taking place in Brazil in preparation for the 2014 World Cup, and, in a strange twist, that same country will be hosting the WRC again in 2015 in prelude to the 2016 Olympics.
Of course, many people following this blog in the UK will remember the London riots of 2011, which was the first occasion for a number of years that the WRC had been able to achieve the prominence which its 'world championship' status supposedly warrants; after all, the WRC in South Africa in 2009 went largely unnoticed and unreported (many people claim that this was because it was difficult to differentiate the WRC from the perennial urban discontent in that country), whilst the WRC in China 2007 really failed to get off the ground because the Chinese authorities were worried that such an event may resurrect memories of Tienanmen Square and young men in white shirts standing in front of tanks.
There is also, I understand, already preliminary discussions taking place in Doha regarding the 2017 WRC, where a request has been made that the riots take place in the cooler winter, rather than the raging heat of summer. No agreement on this has been reached.
It should also be noted that the WRC have filed an injunction against the rival Riot World Championship, claiming that its current championship in Turkey is illegal, a view (bizarrely) shared by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Finally, both the WRC and the RWC have welcomed the demise of the rival World Rioting Association, which had previously organised its riots to coincide with G8 summits; a spokesman for the WRC claimed that the WRA had 'failed to recognise the rioting ability of developing nations, and had paid the price for its elitism'.